Rejoice, O Israel! God is on your side; He is your champion and your faithful guide; By day, a cloud is to your footsteps given, By night, a fiery column towers to heaven.
Then Israel's children marched by day and night, Till Sinai's mountain rose upon their sight; There righteous Heaven the flying army stayed, And Israel's sons the high command obeyed.
To Sinai's mount the trembling people came,'Twas wrapped in threatening clouds, in smoke and flame;
A silent awe pervaded all the van;
Not e'en a murmur through the army ran.
High Sinai shook! dread thunders rent the air! And horrid lightnings round its summit glare! 'Twas God's pavilion, and the blackening clouds, Dark hovering o'er, His dazzling glory shrouds.
To Heaven's dread court, th'intrepid leader came To receive its mandate in the people's name; Loud trumpets peal-the awful thunders roll, Transfixing terrors in each guilty soul.
But lo! he comes arrayed in shining light, And round his forehead plays a halo bright;
Heaven's high commands with trembling were re
Heaven's high commands were heard and were be
THE DESTRUCTION OF PHARAOH
Mourn, Mizraim, mourn! The weltering wave Wails loudly o'er Egyptia's brave
Where lowly laid they sleep;
The salt sea rusts the helmet's crest; The warrior takes his ocean rest Full far below the deep;
The deep, the deep, the dreary deep!
Wail, wail, Egyptia! mourn and weep! For many a mighty legion fell Before the God of Israel.
Wake, Israel, wake the harp. The roar Of ocean's wave on Mizraim's shore Rolls now o'er many a crest. Where, now, the iron chariot's sweep? Where Pharaoh's host? Beneath the deep His armies take their rest. Shout, Israel! Let the joyful cry Pour forth the tones of victory; High let it swell across the sea, For Jacob's weary sons are free.
JOHN RUSKIN [At the age of thirteen]
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
And all her brave thousands are dashed in the
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah has triumphed-His people are free!
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
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,—
"Beneath the height to which thy feet have
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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