John Greenleaf Whittier - The New Exodus

BY fire and cloud, across the desert sand, <br />And through the parted waves, <br />From their long bondage, with an outstretched hand, <br />God led the Hebrew slaves! <br />Dead as the letter of the Pentateuch, <br />As Egypt's statues cold, <br />In the adytum of the sacred book <br />Now stands that marvel old. <br />'Lo, God is great!' the simple Moslem says. <br />We seek the ancient date, <br />Turn the dry scroll, and make that living phrase <br />A dead one: 'God was great!' <br />And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa's wells, <br />We dream of wonders past, <br />Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells, <br />Each drowsier than the last. <br />O fools and blind! Above the Pyramids <br />Stretches once more that hand, <br />And trancëd Egypt, from her stony lids, <br />Flings back her veil of sand. <br />And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes: <br />And, listening by his Nile, <br />O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaks <br />A sweet and human smile. <br />Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call <br />Of death for midnight graves, <br />But in the stillness of the noonday, fall <br />The fetters of the slaves. <br />No longer through the Red Sea, as of old, <br />The bondmen walk dry shod; <br />Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled, <br />Runs now that path of God!<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-new-exodus/