| |
| DEAD Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps, | |
| Her stones of emptiness remain; | |
| Around her sculptured mystery sweeps | |
| The lonely waste of Edom’s plain. | |
| |
| From the doomed dwellers in the cleft | 5 |
| The bow of vengeance turns not back; | |
| Of all her myriads none are left | |
| Along the Wady Mousa’s track. | |
| |
| Clear in the hot Arabian day | |
| Her arches spring, her statues climb; | 10 |
| Unchanged, the graven wonders pay | |
| No tribute to the spoiler, Time! | |
| |
| Unchanged the awful lithograph | |
| Of power and glory undertrod,— | |
| Of nations scattered like the chaff | 15 |
| Blown from the threshing-floor of God. | |
| |
| Yet shall the thoughtful stranger turn | |
| From Petra’s gates, with deeper awe, | |
| To mark afar the burial urn | |
| Of Aaron on the cliffs of Hor; | 20 |
| |
| And where upon its ancient guard | |
| Thy Rock, El Ghor, is standing yet,— | |
| Looks from its turrets desertward, | |
| And keeps the watch that God has set. | |
| |
| The same as when in thunders loud | 25 |
| It heard the voice of God to man,— | |
| As when it saw in fire and cloud | |
| The angels walk in Israel’s van! | |
| |
| Or when from Ezion-Geber’s way | |
| It saw the long procession file, | 30 |
| And heard the Hebrew timbrels play | |
| The music of the lordly Nile; | |
| |
| Or saw the tabernacle pause, | |
| Cloud-bound, by Kadesh Barnea’s wells, | |
| While Moses graved the sacred laws, | 35 |
| And Aaron swung his golden bells. | |
| |
| Rock of the desert, prophet-sung! | |
| How grew its shadowing pile at length, | |
| A symbol, in the Hebrew tongue, | |
| Of God’s eternal love and strength. | 40 |
| |
| On lip of bard and scroll of seer, | |
| From age to age went down the name, | |
| Until the Shiloh’s promised year, | |
| And Christ, the Rock of Ages, came! | |
| |
| The path of life we walk to-day | 45 |
| Is strange as that the Hebrews trod; | |
| We need the shadowing rock, as they,— | |
| We need, like them, the guides of God. | |
| |
| God send his angels, Cloud and Fire, | |
| To lead us o’er the desert sand! | 50 |
| God give our hearts their long desire, | |
| His shadow in a weary land! | |
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