The spring comes smiling down the vale,
The lilies and the roses bringing :
But Rachel never more shall hail
The flowers that in the world are springing.
The summer gives his radiant day,
And Jewish dames the dance are treading:
But Rachel on her couch of clay
Sleeps all unheeded and unheeding.
The autumn's ripening sunbeam shines,
And reapers to the field is calling :
But Rachel's voice no longer joins
The choral song at twilight's falling.
The winter sends his drenching shower,
And sweeps his howling blast around her :
But earthly storms possess no power
To break the slumber that hath bound her.
Thus round and round the seasons go,
But joy or grief no more betide her;
For Rachel's bosom could not know,
Though friends were housed in death beside her. Yet time shall come, as prophets say,
Whose dreams with glorious things are blended, When seasons on their changeful way
Shall wend not as they long have wended.
Yes, time shall come when flowers that bloom
Shall meet no storm their bloom to wither;
When friends, rejoicing from the tomb,
Have gone to heavenly climes together.
Burial of Moses.
By Nebo's lonely mountain,
On this side Jordan's wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab
There lies a lonely grave,
And no man knows that sepulchre,
And no man saw it e'er,
For the angels of God upturned the sod,
And laid the dead man there.
That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth:
But no man heard the trampling,
Or saw the train go forth-
Noiselessly as the daylight
Comes back when night is done,
And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek
Grows into the great sun.
Noiselessly as the spring-time
Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
Open their thousand leaves;
So, without sound of music,
Or voice of them that wept,
Silently down from the mountain's crown
The great procession swept.
Perchance the bald old eagle,
On grey Beth-Peor's height,
Out of his lonely eyrie,
Looked on the wondrous sight; Perchance the lion stalking
Still shuns that hallowed spot,
For beasts and bird have seen and heard
That which man knoweth not.
But when the warrior dieth,
His comrades in the war,
With arms reversed and muffled drum,
Follow his funeral car;
They show the banners taken,
They tell his battles won,
And after him lead his masterless steed,
While peals the minute gun.
Amid the noblest of the land
We lay the sage to rest,
And give the bard an honoured place,
With costly marble drest.
In the great minster transept
Where lights like glories fall,
And the organ rings, and the sweet choir sings Along the emblazoned walls.
This was the truest warrior
That ever buckled sword,
This the most gifted poet
That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced with his golden pen,
On the deathless page, truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.
And had he not high honour—
The hill-side for a pall,
To lie in state while angels wait
With stars for tapers tall,
And the dark rock-pines,
Over his bier to wave,
And God's own hand, in that lonely land,
To lay him in the grave?
In that strange grave without a name,
Whence his uncoffined clay
Shall break again, O wondrous thought!
Before the judgment day,
And stand with glory wrapt around
On the hills he never trod,
And speak of the strife that won our life,
With the Incarnate Son of God.
O lonely grave in Moab's land!
O dark Beth-Peor's hill!
Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.
God hath his mysteries of grace,
Ways that we cannot tell;
He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep
Of him He loved so well.
The Passage of the Red Sea.
Lo! these are they whom, lords of Afric's fates,
Old Thebes has poured through all her hundred gates—
Mother of armies! How the emerald glowed,
Where, flushed with power and vengeance, Pharaoh rode;
And, stoled in white, those blazing wheels before,
Osiris' ark his swarthy wizards bore :
And, still responsive to the trumpet's cry,
The priestly sistrum murmured Victory!'
Why swell these shouts, that rend the desert's gloom?
Whom come ye forth to combat? Warrior, whom?
These flocks and herds, this faint and weary train,
Red from the scourge, and weary from the chain?
Friend of the poor! the poor and friendless save—
Giver and Lord of freedom! help the slave.
North, south, and west, the sandy whirlwinds fly,
The circling pale of Egypt's chivalry:
On earth's last margin throng the weeping train;
Their cloudy guide moves on. And must we swim the main?
Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood,
Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood.
He comes! their leader comes! The Man of God
O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod,
And onward treads; the circling waves retreat,
In hoarse, deep murmurs, from his holy feet;
And the chased surges, idly roaring, show
The hard wet sand and coral hills below.
With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell,
Down, down they pass, a steep and slippery dell;
Round them arise, in pristine chaos hurl'd,
The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world;
And flowers that blush beneath the ocean's green!
And caves, the sea-calf's low-roof'd haunts, are seen.
Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread,
The seething waters storm above their head;
While, far behind retires the sinking day,
And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray.
Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light,
Or dark to them, or cheerless came the night;
Still in the van, along that dreadful road,
Blazed broad and fierce the brandished torch of God;
Its meteor-glare a tenfold lustre gave
On the long mirror of the rosy wave;
While its blest beams a sunlike heat supply,
Warm every cheek, and dance in every eye-
To them alone:-for Mizraim's wizard train
Invoke for light their monster-gods in vain ;
Clouds heaped on clouds their struggling sight confine,
And tenfold darkness broods along their line.
Yet on they go, by reckless vengeance led,
"Till, midway now, that strange and fiery Form,
Showed his dread visage, lightning through the storm;
With withering splendour blasted all their might, [flight.
And brake their chariot-wheels, and marred their coursers'
‘Fly, Mizraim, fly!' The rav'nous floods they see,
And, fiercer than the floods, the Deity!
'Fly, Mizraim, fly!' From Edom's coral strand,
Again the Prophet stretched his dreadful wand:
With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep,
And all is waves-a dark and lonely deep;
Yet o'er these lonely waves such murmurs past,
As mortal wailing swelled the nightly blast,
And strange and sad the whispering surges bore
The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.
O welcome came the morn, where Israel stood,
In trustless wonder, by the avenging flood !—Heber.
When Israel's host in Elah's valley lay,
O'erwhelmed with shame, and trembling with dismay, They saw how fierce Goliath proudly trod
Before their ranks, and braved the living God.
On Israel's ranks he cast a withering look,
And Elah's valley trembled as he spoke :
'Ye slaves of Saul, why thus in proud parade
Of martial threatening stand your ranks arrayed :
Though high your vaunts and unsubdued your pride,
A single arm the contest may decide.
Send forth the best and bravest of your hosts,
To prove in me what might Philistia boasts;
And if your champion fall beneath my hand,
Let Israel own Philistia's high command;
But if his better arm the triumph gain,
Her yielding sons shall wear the victor's chain.
You, and your God, who rules the cloudy sky,
Armies of Israel, I this day defy!'
Through Israel's curdling veins cold horror ran,
And each sunk warrior felt no longer man;
One heart alone its wonted fire retains-
One heart alone the giant's threats disdains :
David, the last of Jesse's numerous race,
Deep in his bosom feels the dire disgrace,
That e'er a godless Philistine, so proud,
His single prowess thus should vaunt aloud.
Before his prince magnanimous he stands,
And lifts the imploring eye and suppliant hands,
With modest grace, to let him prove the fight,
And die or conquer in his country's right.
Moved by his words, the king and chieftains yield,
His spirit laud, and arm him for the field;
In royal mail his youthful limbs they dressed,
The greaves, the corslet, shield, and threatening crest.
But ill those youthful limbs with arms accord,
And ill that hand can wield the imperial sword;
Whence wisdom cautions, these to lay aside,
And choose the arms whose power he oft had tried.
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