MIRIAM'S SONG

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MIRIAM'S SONG

Exodus xv. 20-21

Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed-His people are free!
Sing, for the pride of the tyrant is broken;

His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and brave,

How vain was their boast, for the Lord hath but spoken,

And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave. Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah has triumphed-His people are free!

Praise to the Conqueror! Praise to the Lord!
His word was our arrow, His breath was our sword.
Who shall return to tell Egypt the story

Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride? For the Lord hath looked out from His pillar of

glory,

And all her brave thousands are dashed in the

tide.

Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed-His people are free!

THOMAS MOORE

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MOSES ON MOUNT SINAI

Up a rough peak, that toward the stormy sky
From Sinai's sandy ridges rose aloft,
Osarsiph, priest of Hieropolis,

Now Moses named, ascended reverently
To meet and hear the bidding of the Lord.
But, though he knew that all his ancient lore
Traditionary from the birth of Time,
And all the power which waited on his hand,
Even from the day his just, instinctive wrath
Had smote th’Egyptian ravisher, and all
The wisdom of his calm and ordered mind
Were nothing in the presence of his God,
Yet was there left a certain seed of pride,

Vague consciousness of some self-centered strength,
That made him cry, "Why, Lord, com'st Thou to

me,

Only a voice, a motion of the air,

A thing invisible, impalpable,

Leaving a void, an unreality,

Within my heart? I would with every sense
Know Thou wert there-I would be all in Thee!

Let me at least behold Thee as Thou art;
Disperse this corporal darkness by Thy light;

Hallow my vision by Thy glorious form,
So that my sense be blest forevermore!"

Thus spoke the Prophet, and the Voice replied,

As in low thunders over distant seas,

MOSES ON MOUNT SINAI

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"Beneath the height to which thy feet have

striven,

A hollow trench divides the cliffs of sand,
Widened by rains and deepened every year.
Gaze straight across it, for there opposite
To where thou standest, I will place myself,
And then, if such remain thy fixed desire,
I will descend to side by side with thee."

So Moses gazed across the rocky vale;
And the air darkened, and a lordly bird
Poised in the midst of its long-journeying flight,
And touched his feet with limp and fluttering wings;
And all the air, around, above, below,

Was changed at once into a sound-such sound
That separate tones could not distinguished be.
And Moses fell upon his face, as dead.
Yet life and consciousness of life returned;
And, when he raised his head, he saw no more
The deep ravine and mountain opposite,
But one large level of distracted rocks,
With the wide desert quaking all around.

Then Moses fell upon his face again,

And prayed, "O pardon the presumptuous thought,
That I could look upon Thy face and live;
Wonder of wonders! that mine ear has heard
Thy voice unpalsied, and let such great grace
Excuse th'audacious blindness that o'erleaps
Nature's just bounds and Thy discerning will!"

LORD HOUGHTON (RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES)

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THE ARMY OF ISRAEL AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT SINAI

Their spears glittered bright in the beams of the

sun;

Their banners waved far, and their high helmets shone,

And their dark plumes were tossed on the breast of the breeze,

But the war-trumpet slumbered the slumber of

peace.

He came in His glory, He came in His might,

His chariot the cloud, and His sceptre the light;
The sound of His coming was heard from afar,
Like the roar of a nation when rushing to war.

'Twas the great God of Israel, riding on high, Whose footstool is earth, and whose throne is the

sky;

He stood in His glory unseen and alone,

And with letters of fire traced the tablets of stone.

The eagle may soar to the sun in his might,
And the eye of the warrior flash fierce to the fight,
But no one may look upon God, the Most High;

O Israel, turn back from His glory, or die!

The sun in its splendor, the fire in its might,

Which devours and withers and wastes from the

sight,

Is dim to the glory which beams from His eye;

Then, Israel, turn back-oh, return, or ye die!

LUCRETIA DAVIDSON

MOSES AND THE WORM

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MOSES AND THE WORM

The great Moses, man of God, came to his tent one day,

And called his wife, Safurja, and his children from

their play.

O sweetest orphaned children! O dearest widowed wife!

We meet, dear ones, no more on earth, for this day ends my life.

Jehovah sent His angel down, and told me to prepare_❞

Then swooned Safurja on the ground; the children in despair

Said, weeping, “Who will care for us, when you, dear father, go?"

And Moses wept and sobbed aloud to see his children's woe.

But then Jehovah spake from Heaven, " And dost thou fear to die?

And dost thou love this world so well that thus I hear thee cry?"

And Moses said: "I fear not death; I leave this world with joy;

Yet cannot but compassionate this orphan girl and boy."

"In whom, then, did thy mother trust, when in thy basket-boat,

An infant on the Nile's broad stream, all helpless thou didst float?