Till by two brethren (these two brethren call

Moses and Aaron) sent from God to claim

His people from enthralment, they return,

With glory and spoil, back to their promised land.

But first, the lawless tyrant, who denies

To know their God, or message to regard,

Must be compelled by signs and judgements dire;

To blood unshed the rivers must be turned;

Frogs, lice, and flies, must all his palace fill

With loathed intrusion, and fill all the land;

His cattle must of rot and murren die;

Botches and blains must all his flesh emboss,

And all his people; thunder mixed with hail,

Hail mixed with fire, must rend the Egyptians sky,

And wheel on the earth, devouring where it rolls;

What it devours not, herb, or fruit, or grain,

A darksome cloud of locusts swarming down

Must eat, and on the ground leave nothing green;

Darkness must overshadow all his bounds,

Palpable darkness, and blot out three days;

Last, with one midnight stroke, all the first-born

Of Egypt must lie dead. Thus with ten wounds

The river-dragon tamed at length submits

To let his sojourners depart, and oft

Humbles his stubborn heart; but still, as ice

More hardened after thaw; till, in his rage

Pursuing whom he late dismissed, the sea

Swallows him with his host; but them lets pass,

As on dry land, between two crystal walls;

Awed by the rod of Moses so to stand

Divided, till his rescued gain their shore:

Such wondrous power God to his saint will lend,

Though present in his Angel; who shall go

Before them in a cloud, and pillar of fire;

By day a cloud, by night a pillar of fire;

To guide them in their journey, and remove

Behind them, while the obdurate king pursues:

All night he will pursue; but his approach

Darkness defends between till morning watch;

Then through the fiery pillar, and the cloud,

God looking forth will trouble all his host,

And craze their chariot-wheels: when by command

Moses once more his potent rod extends

Over the sea; the sea his rod obeys;

On their embattled ranks the waves return,

And overwhelm their war: The race elect

Safe toward Canaan from the shore advance

Through the wild Desart, not the readiest way;

Lest, entering on the Canaanite alarmed,

War terrify them inexpert, and fear

Return them back to Egypt, choosing rather

Inglorious life with servitude; for life

To noble and ignoble is more sweet

Untrained in arms, where rashness leads not on.

This also shall they gain by their delay

In the wide wilderness; there they shall found

Their government, and their great senate choose

Through the twelve tribes, to rule by laws ordained:

God from the mount of Sinai, whose gray top

Shall tremble, he descending, will himself

In thunder, lightning, and loud trumpets’ sound,

Ordain them laws; part, such as appertain

To civil justice; part, religious rites

Of sacrifice; informing them, by types

And shadows, of that destined Seed to bruise