BRIEF TENANT!
Already across the continents Man's
record of ruin lies very old.
In Egypt, thousands of years ago, a
crowded, starving people rose
against tyranny; a scribe noted:
"The face is pale . . . Robbery
is everywhere.
The Nile is in flood, but no man plows for himself because every
man says,
'We do
not know what may happen throughout the land.'
Many dead are buried in the river. The stream is a tomb . . .
Nobles are in lamentation, while poor men have joy . . . Every
town says, 'Let us banish many from us.'
Dirt is throughout the land. There are really none whose clothes
are white in these times . . .
The river is blood. If one drinks of it, one rejects it as human
and thirsts for water . . .
Laughter has disappeared . . . It is wailing that pervades the
land.
The children of nobles are dashed against the walls. The once-prayed-for
children
are now
laid out on the high ground . . ."
In Mesopotamia, three thousand years
ago, empires had been forgotten and
abandoned cities were falling into mounds.
Already
sands were drifting through the shells of civilizations.
NANCY
NEWHALL
