[Moses] swings along rather well,
Genial, slack verse that is easy to read,
The rhythms loose and ambulatory,
  The line lengths uneven,
  The language now formal, now colloquial,
  Echoes of the Bible mingling with knowing modern diagnosis,
  Hesitant about miracles, but coming down on their side in the end,
  Perfunctory in scholarship, but showing signs of reasonable background reading,
  Narrating, explaining, interpreting, sympathizing, even one might say
  Empathizing with his hero, whom he admires, admires,
  And more than admires—likes. For he's on Moses' side all right
  And keeps him human while demonstrating his greatness….
  Whether this ambulatory verse, chatty (almost) pre-film-script narrative
  Tells more of the story, or tells it better
  Than the Authorized Version of the Bible
  Is not perhaps a tactful question to raise.
  For Burgess is sorting out his picture of Moses
  For himself, a modern self, not making a holy record
  For a people, a chosen people, a people made one by this very Moses.
  It's not a search for the historical Moses
  But a rendering from selected biblical clues
  Of those aspects of the biblical story he thinks he can handle.
  The rest he omits, or skips over, or compresses
  Because he and his verse must move on, move on,
  Seeking always "What next?"
  The great hymn of triumph after the crossing of the sea
  He does not give or render, but puts in odd bits of hymns
  At times, to give the proper early religious flavour.
  Many readers I think will see something engaging
  In this loose and lucid verse history of Moses.
  And if I say that for myself, myself, I prefer the Bible,
  The account in the Bible from the first Egyptian enslavement
  To the death of Moses on Mount Pisgah
  (And for that matter the Bible in its original language,
  For I too have my linguistic obsessions)
  —If I say that, Burgess cannot be offended,
  Not offended, because after all he knows the splendours
  Of that language as well as any of us
  And leavens his own story with it at critical moments.
  Interesting, then; commendable, even; a bit of sport
  In the garden of modern poetry. But none the worse for that.

David Daiches, "Ambulant Prophet," in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd. (London) 1977; reproduced from The Times Literary Supplement by permission), No. 3906, January 21, 1977, p. 50.