Lost Tribe

He said Ephraim, but go ask the crows:
Had anyone been sure about the past,
We'd have a clearer notion who was gassed,
Who vanished in a cloud of smoke, whose nose
Was longer than the average garden hose,
Whose riches could control a world so vast
That everybody in that priestly caste
Was more, and less, than people might suppose.

Would you have joined that tribe? Don't hesitate;
There are rewards, but sometimes there's a cost,
The huge scrapheaps on which our lives were tossed,
The bonfires of the mediaeval state
And purges, even now, at this late date.
We haven't been found out; we have been lost.