Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/89

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MOSES

Old Hebrew

I am crazed with whips.... I hear a Messiah.

Young Hebrew

The venerable man will question this.

Abinoah

[Overhearing.] Ill beat you more, and he'll question
The scratchiness of your whining; or, may be,
Thence may be born deep argument
With reasons from philosophy,
That this blow, taking longer, yet was but one,
Or perhaps two; or that you felt this one—
Arguing from the difference in your whine—
Exactly, or not, like the other.

Minstrel

You labour hard to give pain.

Abinoah

[Still beating.] My pain is... not... to labour so.

Minstrel

What is this greybeard worth to you now,
All his dried-up blood crumbled to dust?

71

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