2. When it was that we were slaves
The Pharaohs worked us to our graves
When Moshe asked for our release
The burden instead he bade: ‘Increase!’
So Moshe said ‘I won’t be vague
Let us out or get a plague.’
There formed a cloudy rouge miasma
The waterway to bright red plasma
Those who worked in potamology,
Were soon referred to haematology.
3. So Moshe asked, ‘Please free us Yids.’
The answer was, ‘Build pyramids!’
Moshe warned, ‘No time for jokes
You’re going to hear a lot of croaks.
You won’t think it too remote
When one of them sticks in your throat!’
That silly neighbour of the Libyans
Was overwhelmed- amphibians.
4. But after this he would not relent
The Israelites did not get sent.
‘For this next one you are no match.
So let us go or you will scratch,
And scratch and scratch and itch and hurt
Via little creatures from the dirt.
Horrid wiggly anoplura
Are you, big king, a pain endurer?’
Pharaoh rebuffed the Jewish plaguer
And then was chewed by mallophaga.
They swarmed upon them all with zest
For hair and armpits to infest.
5. Above Pharaoh’s screams they had to shout,
‘Just let the enslaved Jews get out!’
But that man had a solid chin
He wouldn’t let the message in.
Because he would not let them free
His land became a menagerie.
A trip to the zoo you may highly rate
Without temptation to reciprocate.
The wildest ones, you may presume
Will look for something to consume.
So heart and mind with fear enmesh
As they popped by for a bit of flesh.
At Pharaoh’s folk they clawed and chewed
With bestial fear they were imbued.
6. ‘Please let us go,’ we did instruct.
But that iron will would not be bucked.
And in return for our non-release
Domestic stocks would now decrease.
The livestock felled in tides torrential
Of maladies most pestilential.
And no amount of veterinarian fees
Could combat the onslaught of disease.
That stubborn king would not relent
Despite these matters pestilent.
He could not see it as divine
The wilting flocks, insane bovine.
7. Again Moshe‘s approach rebuffed!
Pharaoh, well, he huffed and puffed.
He growled and grunted, started to pout
He simply wouldn’t let us out
So this time as if his arm to twist
A poser for the dermatologist.
For all Egyptian skin inflicted
Then movement and their rest restricted
Painful spots upon their faces,
Chests and legs (and other places).
For though the ache could soon abate
He wouldn’t deign to liberate.
8. Now that divinely hardened heart
Had been quite solid since the start.
That heart would not become enlarged
And thus the Jews were not discharged.
Then from beneath the firmament
A new surprise was heaven-sent.
Some balls of icy conflagration
Rained solid down on Pharaoh’s nation
To smash each home and crop and field
To try and make that tyrant yield.
9. But for that king was no relenting.
He wouldn’t lean towards repenting.
To liberty’s cause he would not warm
So the Lord sent him a hefty swarm
To tackle agriculture’s sector
Famished brutes of class insecta.
They consumed all till none was left
And thus of food they were bereft.
10. The next round of talks soon broke down
(It happens in that part of town).
To let us go he was almost frightened
But he thought himself indeed enlightened.
Evading and denying he obfuscated
So access to light was confiscated.
For seeing now was far beyond tricky
The atmosphere, extremely sticky.
Not merely was vision out of the question
Even moving was beyond suggestion.
It must have been hard as one of those
Trapped in this state without repose.
11. For his final refusal to negotiate
The terms on which to liberate
A special warning to all ensued
A danger for the first issued.
At midnight there’d be a rendezvous
From which first borns would not get through
Some shocks indeed were to be had
We count this first born to the dad!
For if younger offspring and their ilk
Were first to the guy who delivered milk!
Then was discovered in the panic and haste
That a strong point of Egypt was not being chaste.
12. Thus Pharaoh most intractable
Lost his slaves against his will.
The end (for Egypt, but for us,
the beginning!)
