Pharaoh’s Army: Sacred Poetry

by Cosmic Poet Simon Pole

Trans Solar World Battery image by Joe Haput CC BY-SA

Pharaoh’s Army

We before us Hebrews drove,
In our chariots which rove,
Like locusts in swarming clouds
With their axles rumbling loud,
On the plains, across the shore
All places where Pharaoh swore,
Men of Moses, and their wives,
The children with fragile lives,
Their livestock both sheep and goat,
Folded tent and shepherd’s coat,
An exodus would not make,
For the slaves had bricks to bake,
And to the land should not pass,
So we were sent to harass.

From great Pharaoh comes my beer,
And the grain which breakfast cheers,
Loaves of bread throughout the day
Sheaved from where the barley sways,
Watered by the sacred Nile,
When it floods between the piles
Of our temples, stately courts
Where the faith our priests exhort
Of gods in many guises,
Numberless shapes and sizes,
Some from heaven, some from hell,
Some which in the river dwell,
But these Pharaoh guarantees,
In his kingly majesty,
Will our bronze blades steady guide
As we plunge into the side
Of the Hebrew, on the run,
For a little soldier’s fun:
In a heap we’ll cut them down
Before we return to town,
In the evening, there to feast
With the ale of royal yeast
In our cups, and warming wines
That are pressed from Pharaoh’s vines,
And so we’ll pass into sleep,
We who will the borders keep
Of our empire safely shut,
And the Hebrew in his hut,
There to labour and bemoan
That he under Pharaoh’s throne
Will forever trodden be,
From the Nile unto the Sea.

Much it was to our surprise
To see burning in the skies
A pillar of righteous flame,
Of the God who is not named,
Which hovered between our camps,
From night onto morning damps,
And then to noon the next day,
Always keeping us away,
And our swords, which wished to bite
Into flesh of Israelites,
In their sheathes, while eager steeds
Their bridles bit with the need
To give chase and trample fast
That weak host unto the last.
A little fear felt we then,
Awe at sights beyond our ken,
For never had our stone gods,
Made with hands, propped up with rods,
Produced a sign of such strength,
Bathed in glory all its length,
Which stretched forth into the heights,
There to burn, both day and night.
For Egypt it bode not well,
But Pharaoh our quaking quelled
With strong words, and derision
For the Hebrew magicians,
Who in the sky clouds might make,
With fine pumice, sticks and stakes,
Mirages for the unschooled,
For the coward, and the fool,
But surely no sturdy lad,
Who the love of Pharaoh had,
Daily meals of beer and bread,
Nightly pillows for his head,
Could believe what is not true,
That these slaves some power drew
From a God who favoured them,
And would Pharaoh’s power stem
At the very moment when
By the Sea we had them penned.
Then to wait the morning bell,
All to sleep our forces fell.

Before dawn the orders came,
In the mist we rose and tamed
Our eager mounts, my close friend
Ahmenotep, he who sends
The whistling spear from his arm,
And has been a fist of harm
Unto the foe, many years,
Rarely ever showing fear,
Said to me this is the time,
With our army in its prime,
To win ourselves and our king,
The Pharaoh whose watering,
Like Osiris in godhood,
Makes us rich in grain and goods,
A glory forever writ
By able scribes and their kit
On papyrus, and in stone
On the obelisks enthroned
In our temples with the loot
Accorded us when we shoot
Biting arrows on the foe,
Captured trophies that will show
Egypt’s ascent, and the awe
Of our gods, Horus and Ra.

I see my friend’s eager face,
As on turning wheels we race
On dry land that was before
The wave-crested ocean floor.
Moved aside the pillar had,
Allowing our horses mad
With the fury of pursuit
To gallop along the chute
That in the sea Moses made
With his hand which waters bade
To recede, both left and right
In these last hours of the night.
Pharaoh foremost in his cart
Exhorted our fearsome hearts
To the moment seize at last,
Whatever spell had been cast
By this wizard on the sea:
Greater were our gods than he.
Though his cloud burnt in the sky,
Like a rabble would they die,
While Ahmenotep competes
To kill the most with his feats.

At first we felt nothing wrong,
And gave voice to rousing songs,
Those that were the property
Of our famous company,
We who had subjected hosts,
And rewarded Pharaoh most,
With the tracts of foreign land
That had fallen to our hands.
But suddenly we were stuck
In the thick and stinking muck:
Horses halted, wagons stalled,
While in the cloud, burning tall,
A mighty face felt we there,
Awful presence in the air,
Which surveyed our helplessness,
With a plan we could not guess.
Even Pharaoh was dismayed,
And our forward progress stayed.
We would return to our lines,
Awaiting there better signs.
Orderly Egypt retreats,
As the dawn our column greets.

All at once the water crashed,
The parted waves on us splashed,
Our horses in terror bucked,
Into whirlpools men were sucked.
Ahmenotep screamed outloud,
Just one more among the crowd
Of those who drowned, once so brave,
Who now pleaded to be saved.
Somehow Pharaoh made it out,
Heedless of his soldiers’ shouts:
In the Sea he let us lie,
Unconcerned that we would die,
We his soldiers, sworn to give
Our last breath so he might live.
But to us no loyalty
Showed the king—instead he flees.

With my final, fading sight,
As dark waters swamp the light,
I look afar and I spy
Moses walking, sandals dry,
And his tribe, in humble step,
From the raging rapids kept,
Behind him troop, giving thanks
To the God, which in those banks
Of active cloud, did all this,
While we languish, Osiris
And Amun-Ra, like the clay
Which claims our bones on this day,
Unmoving mud: so we sink,
To the briny water drink,
And reside forevermore
On the sunless ocean floor.

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From the Like a Lamb collection.