The Last Corpses in the Desert
" Moses dies and Joshua leads " .
Up, wanderers in the wild and come away!
Long is the journey yet and long the fray.
Enough of roving now in desert places —
There lies a great, wide road before your faces.
But forty years of wandering have sped,
And yet we leave six hundred thousand dead.
Deplore them not! unwept let those remain
Who fell as slaves, let us tread o'er the slain.
Dishonoured let them lie, across the pack
They bore from out of Egypt on their back.
Sweet be their dreams of garlic and of leek,
Of flesh-pots wide, of fatty steam and reek.
Around the last dead slave, maybe to-night,
The desert wind with desert beast shall fight,
And joyously to-morrow's dawning shine
Upon the firstlings of a mighty line,
Upon a generation who shall brook
The sun's full splendour with an upward look.
Rise wanderers in the wilderness come out!
With step assured, yet neither cry nor shout,
And lest the sands with all their sleepers start,
Let each man's footfall sound but in his heart.
Let each man in his heart hear God's voice say:
" A new land's border shalt thou cross to-day!
" No more the guails from heav'n no more light bread —
The bread of toil, fruit of the hands, instead.
" No more wild tents pitched under heaven's dome —
Another kind shall ye set up for home.
" Beneath His sky the wilderness outside,
God has another world that reaches wide,
" Beyond the howling desert with its sand
There waits beneath His stars the Promised Land. "
On Nebo's mount, against the setting sun,
Like war's great angel, stands the son of Nun,
Thus fiercely beautiful — like shaft from bow
To rouse the marshal of his host below
His voice goes forth with strength, his word like fire,
And e'en the awful waste, the desert dire,
A thousandfold re-echoes it and cries:
" Go up, inherit! Israel, arise! "
A lion's restless young ones in their pride,
Thus Israel's multitude on every side
An awestruck silence kept, while loud and dread
The voice resounded o'er the people's head.
The trumpet signals for the start are blown,
From Nebo's summit Joshua comes down.
Why march not Israel forward now, but still
Remain with faces turned toward the hill?
What moves them in this desert to regret?
Why look they on the vales of Moab yet?
What mean the tears that flow from every eye?
On Nebo's mount whose form would they descry?
'Twas there that Moses died! with one accord
Fall prostrate on the sand the mighty horde,
Before his spirit bow ere they depart,
Their great, dead shepherd of the faithful heart.
Up, wanderers in the wild and come away!
Long is the journey yet and long the fray.
Enough of roving now in desert places —
There lies a great, wide road before your faces.
But forty years of wandering have sped,
And yet we leave six hundred thousand dead.
Deplore them not! unwept let those remain
Who fell as slaves, let us tread o'er the slain.
Dishonoured let them lie, across the pack
They bore from out of Egypt on their back.
Sweet be their dreams of garlic and of leek,
Of flesh-pots wide, of fatty steam and reek.
Around the last dead slave, maybe to-night,
The desert wind with desert beast shall fight,
And joyously to-morrow's dawning shine
Upon the firstlings of a mighty line,
Upon a generation who shall brook
The sun's full splendour with an upward look.
Rise wanderers in the wilderness come out!
With step assured, yet neither cry nor shout,
And lest the sands with all their sleepers start,
Let each man's footfall sound but in his heart.
Let each man in his heart hear God's voice say:
" A new land's border shalt thou cross to-day!
" No more the guails from heav'n no more light bread —
The bread of toil, fruit of the hands, instead.
" No more wild tents pitched under heaven's dome —
Another kind shall ye set up for home.
" Beneath His sky the wilderness outside,
God has another world that reaches wide,
" Beyond the howling desert with its sand
There waits beneath His stars the Promised Land. "
On Nebo's mount, against the setting sun,
Like war's great angel, stands the son of Nun,
Thus fiercely beautiful — like shaft from bow
To rouse the marshal of his host below
His voice goes forth with strength, his word like fire,
And e'en the awful waste, the desert dire,
A thousandfold re-echoes it and cries:
" Go up, inherit! Israel, arise! "
A lion's restless young ones in their pride,
Thus Israel's multitude on every side
An awestruck silence kept, while loud and dread
The voice resounded o'er the people's head.
The trumpet signals for the start are blown,
From Nebo's summit Joshua comes down.
Why march not Israel forward now, but still
Remain with faces turned toward the hill?
What moves them in this desert to regret?
Why look they on the vales of Moab yet?
What mean the tears that flow from every eye?
On Nebo's mount whose form would they descry?
'Twas there that Moses died! with one accord
Fall prostrate on the sand the mighty horde,
Before his spirit bow ere they depart,
Their great, dead shepherd of the faithful heart.
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