In joy and in sorrow, thro' praise and thro' blame,
Thus still let me, living and dying the same,
In Thy service bloom and decay—
Like some lone altar whose votive flame
In holiness wasteth away.
Tho' born in this desert, and doomed by my birth
To pain and affliction, to darkness and dearth,
On Thee let my spirit rely—
Like some rude dial, that, fixt on earth,
Still looks for its light from the sky.
WEEP, CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.
(AIR.—STEVENSON.)
Weep, weep for him, the Man of God—[1]
In yonder vale he sunk to rest;
But none of earth can point the sod[2]
That flowers above his sacred breast.
Weep, children of Israel, weep!
His doctrine fell like Heaven's rain.[3]
His words refreshed like Heaven's dew—
Oh, ne'er shall Israel see again
A Chief, to GOD and her so true.
Weep, children of Israel, weep!
Remember ye his parting gaze,
His farewell song by Jordan's tide,
When, full of glory and of days,
He saw the promised land—and died.[4]
Weep, children of Israel, weep!
Yet died he not as men who sink,
Before our eyes, to soulless clay;
But, changed to spirit, like a wink
Of summer lightning, past away.[5]
Weep, children of Israel, weep!
[1] "And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab."— Deut. xxxiv, 8.
[2] "And, he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab…but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day."—Ibid. ver. 6.