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| I WILL sing high-hearted Moses | |
| By the Nile’s sweet-watered stream, | |
| In the land of strange taskmasters, | |
| Brooding o’er the patriot theme. | |
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| Brooding o’er the bright green valleys | 5 |
| Of his dear-loved Hebrew home, | |
| Whence the eager pinch of Famine | |
| Forced the Patriarch to roam. | |
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| Brooding o’er his people’s burdens, | |
| Lifting vengeful arm to smite, | 10 |
| When he saw the harsh Egyptian | |
| Stint the Hebrew of his right. | |
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| Brooding far in lonely places, | |
| Where on holy ground unshod, | |
| He beheld the bush that burned | 15 |
| With consuming flame from God. | |
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| Saw, and heard, and owned the mission | |
| With his outstretched prophet-rod, | |
| To stir plagues upon the Pharoah, | |
| Scorner of the most high God. | 20 |
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| God, who brought His folk triumphant | |
| From the strange taskmaster free, | |
| And merged the Memphians, horse and rider, | |
| In the deep throat of the sea. | |
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| Then uprose the song of triumph, | 25 |
| Harp and timbrel, song and dance, | |
| And with firm set will the hero | |
| Led the perilous advance. | |
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| And he led them through the desert | |
| As a shepherd leads his flock, | 30 |
| Breaking spears with cursed Amalek, | |
| Striking water from the rock. | |
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| And he led them to Mount Sinai’s | |
| High-embattled rock; and there, | |
| ’Mid thick clouds of smoke and thunder, | 35 |
| Like trumpet clave the air. | |
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| To the topmost peak he mounted, | |
| And with reverent awe unshod, | |
| As a man with men discourseth, | |
| So he there communed with God. | 40 |
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| Not in wild ecstatic plunges, | |
| Not in visions of the night, | |
| Not in flashes of quick fancy, | |
| Darkness sown with gleams of light. | |
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| But in calm untroubled survey, | 45 |
| As a builder knows his plan, | |
| Face to face he knew Jehovah | |
| And His wondrous ways with man. | |
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| Ways of gentleness and mercy, | |
| Ways of vengeance strong to smite, | 50 |
| Ways of large unchartered giving, | |
| Ever tending to the right. | |
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| In the presence of the Glory | |
| What no mortal sees he saw, | |
| And from hand that no man touches | 55 |
| Brings the tables of the Law. | |
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| Law that bound them with observance | |
| Lest untutored wit might stray, | |
| Each man where his private fancy | |
| Led him in a wanton way. | 60 |
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| Law that from the life redeemed them | |
| Of loose Arabs wandering wild, | |
| And to fruitful acres brought them | |
| Where ancestral virtue toiled. | |
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| Law that dowered the chosen people | 65 |
| With a creed divinely true, | |
| Which the subtle Greek and lordly Roman | |
| Stooped to borrow from the Jew. | |
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