The priests of false Amun have come to kill.
They plan to poison bread and beer, and feed
To him these vittles vile. These old men still
In places close and dark profess a creed
That he of Sedge and Bee has long forbidden:
Worship of hippo gods, of gods who breed,
Of dripping gods of swamp, of sump, of midden.
These gods who slay, who quarrel, who destroy:
Osiris, Horus, Set, Amun the Hidden.
Such noisome gods! All false. The way to joy
Is through the Aten only. They begin
To flatter; give encomiums to cloy;
In prostration kiss floor with beardless chins.
“To Pharoah, King of crowns both Red and White,
This gilded chest we present.” There within:
Turquoises, opals pale and garnets bright,
Vials of sweet perfume, precious ointments -
But what is there so rich as Aten’s light?
He gives his thanks, declares himself content,
Commands them stand to take the air with him,
And leads the priests out from the royal tent
On walking stick and bandy, runtling limbs
To show the new city that he has made.
He shows the bound’ry stones about the rim;
The storehouses, the temples are surveyed;
The building sites with labourers replete
where legioned bricks of river-mud are laid.
He asks: “Do you not think it right and meet
That such effort is spent in Aten’s praise?”
A priest – the youngest one – begins to bleat:
“No, King! Not meet nor right!” With eyes ablaze
And raging voice, the brave one cries his screed:
“While you’ve at Akhet Aten spent your days
Egypt the beautiful has gone to seed.
Though Hittites harry our eastern allies
We send no martial aid to ease their need.
Is it our purpose, my lord, to abscise
Our foreign holdings, won at bloody cost?
It’s not my priestly place to dare chastise
A living God, but our fair land has lost
The favour of those others. Egypt now
Is barren, wasted, starven, chaos-tossed;
The thirsting, roasted earth resists the plough;
And plague casts blemishes on ev’ry face.
You must this Atenism disavow!”
The Pharoah looks on him with kindly grace.
“Set you now your worldling worries aside,
And look about this sacred, sun-touched place.
Our god the sun in heavens high resides
Untouched by suffering and worldly woe;
So too we should our little lives abide.”
They share with him a feast before they go
Of honeyed meats, sweet breads and luscious dates.
The priests are river-bound before he knows
That they have killed him, and that their own fate,
Alike with his, is death. He sickens fast,
And in his royal bed the King awaits
His Nefertiti. She arrives, aghast
And breathless, holds a damp rag to his brow
And whispers, “Husband, when your ka has passed
Beyond, for love of you I’ll keep this vow:
The Aten’s worship shall we here maintain;
For Egypt, fear not. Go to your rest now.”
His flesh ruined, his fever-stricken brain
Presents him visions bleak and abhorrent.
The ceiling turns to cloud, and pelting rain
Of bile and blood comes down in stinging torrents.
He sinks, it seems, into a roiling slough;
Is taken under by a gulping current.
Within that gruesome muck he chokes, but now
He thinks he is reyouthed in boyhood’s thews,
And from his mother’s barque, upon the prow,
He sees the river’s banks glisten with ooze.
His limbs are stroked by sunlight’s golden beams,
The vessel glides untroubled on its cruise.
Beyond the prow he looks, and there it seems
Within the glassy Nile, the Aten gleams.