MOSES ON MOUNT NEBO

For the last time he gained the mountain's height:
The plains beneath him lay: we know he paused,
Now at the summit of his earthly path,
And gazed once more adown the dimming years:
Saw the sweet face that launched him on the flood
Of Nile: proud yet compassionate, the level brows
Of royal Egypt: Miriam, well beloved
By God and man, sister and prophetess:
Aaron, the mouthpiece of the Word of God,
Brother, yea more than brother, faithful friend:
And Zipporah, with eyes whence pain had passed.
Dear dreams! fair shadows of reality.
With the deep quiet of a tideless sea
He strove no more with God, yet looked again
O'er the fair prospect of the promised land
From Gilead unto Dan and Naphtali.
And as he gazed, he thought on Israel,
Those sons, like Gershom, of his wanderings,
Whom he must leave to God; for he had made
The last, the greatest sacrifice of all—
He must no longer share their suffering,
Strive with their strife, grieve with their grief, no more.
How long he dwelt in silence none may know:
Till through the silence did the voice of God,
First faint yet sweet, come clearer and more clear,
Then louder with the thunder of the sea,
When Moses turned and earth fell from his sight;
Lost in the majesty of good, he saw
The wonder of the Infinite, the peace,
Turned wholly unto God and walked with Him!