1:03:01
God of our fathers,
1:03:03
who has appointed an end
to the bondage of Israel,
1:03:07
blessed am I among
all mothers in the land,
1:03:13
for my eyes have beheld
Thy deliverer.
1:03:24
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox
1:03:27
that treadeth out the corn,
1:03:29
making straw
for the bricks of Egypt,
1:03:33
nor spare the arms
1:03:34
that endlessly winnow
the grain in the wind
1:03:38
to separate the wheat
from the chaff,
1:03:41
wheat borne stolidly
1:03:43
on the backs
of countless slaves
1:03:45
from the heavy-laden
Nile boats
1:03:48
to the teeming shore.
1:03:51
Endlessly they plod
1:03:52
beneath
the sheaves of wheat
1:03:54
and endlessly
return for more.
1:03:56
A golden harvest
to the threshers,
1:04:00
the grain saved
to feed the masters,
1:04:03
bitterness
to feed the slaves.
1:04:07
And to feed
the brick pits,
1:04:09
straw carried on
the bowed backs of women.
1:04:13
Down into
the never-ending valley
1:04:15
of toil and agony,
1:04:17
stretching mile after mile,
1:04:20
an inferno
of mud-soaked bodies,
1:04:22
where the treaders' feet
churn clay and straw
1:04:26
into the mixture
for the Pharaoh's bricks,
1:04:30
and everywhere the lash
of watchful taskmasters,
1:04:33
ready to sting
the backs of the weary.
1:04:38
Blades chopping straw...
1:04:44
mattocks chopping clay,
1:04:45
a ceaseless cycle
of unending drudgery.
1:04:50
From the mixing feet
of treaders
1:04:52
to the pouring hands
of brick molders
1:04:55
moves the constant
stream of mud,
1:04:58
the lowly seed of tall cities.