Classic Poem

While Moses on the Mountain lay,
Night after night, and day by day,
Till forty suns were gone,
Unconscious, in the Presence bright,
Of lustrous day and starry night,
As though his soul had flitted quite
From earth, and Eden won;

The pageant of a kingdom vast,
And things unutterable, pass'd
Before the Prophet's eye;
Dread shadows of th' Eternal Throne,
The fount of Life, and Altar-stone,
Pavement, and they that tread thereon,
And those who worship nigh.

But lest he should his own forget,
Who in the vale were struggling yet,
A sadder vision came,
Announcing all that guilty deed
Of idol rite, that in their need
He for his flock might intercede,
And stay Heaven's rising flame.