Upon this fair scene Moses gazed; then, raising his face towards God, thanked Him that the wanderings of the children of Israel were now at an end.
Then he laid himself down and died. The Lord buried him, but no man knew how or where.
And when the children of Israel knew he would come no more to them, they wept too for him thirty days upon the plains of Moab.
THE 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 gray Beth-Peor's height,
Out of his lonely eyrie looked on the wondrous sight;
Perchance the lion stalking, still shuns that hallowed spot,
For, beast 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.
Amidst the noblest of the land we lay the sage to rest.
And give the bard an honored 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 wall.
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 hath he not high honor,—the hillside for a pall,
To lie in state while angels wait with stars for tapers tall,
And the dark rock-pines like tossing plumes, over his bier to wave,
And God's own hand, in that lonely land, to lay him in the grave?
—Alexander.
THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL CROSSING JORDAN.
THE STORY OF JOSHUA.
Then Joshua led the Israelites forth; but when they came to the River Jordan, again their courage failed them.