C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Cecil Frances Alexander (1818–1895)
The Burial of Moses
B
On this side Jordan’s wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab,
There lies a lonely grave.
And no man knows that sepulchre,
And no man saw it e’er;
For the angels of God upturned the sod,
And laid the dead man there.
That ever passed on earth;
But no man heard the trampling,
Or saw the train go forth:
Noiselessly as the daylight
Comes back when the night is done,
And the crimson streak on ocean’s cheek,
Grows into the great sun;—
Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
Open their thousand leaves;—
So without sound of music
Or voice of them that wept,
Silently down from the mountain’s crown
The great procession swept.
On gray Beth-Peor’s height,
Out of his lonely eyrie
Looked on the wondrous sight;
Perchance the lion stalking
Still shuns that hallowed spot:
For beast and bird have seen and heard
That which man knoweth not.
His comrades in the war,
With arms reversed and muffled drum,
Follow his funeral car;
They show the banners taken,
They tell his battles won,
And after him lead his masterless steed,
While peals the minute-gun.
We lay the sage to rest,
And give the bard an honored place,
With costly marble drest;
In the great minster transept,
Where lights like glories fall,
And the organ rings and the sweet choir sings
Along the emblazoned wall.
That ever buckled sword;
This the most gifted poet
That ever breathed a word;
And never earth’s philosopher
Traced with his golden pen
On the deathless page, truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.
The hillside for a pall;
To lie in state while angels wait,
With stars for tapers tall,
And the dark rock-pines like tossing plumes
Over his bier to wave;
And God’s own hand, in that lonely land,
To lay him in the grave;
Whence his uncoffined clay
Shall break again—oh, wondrous thought!—
Before the Judgment Day;
And stand with glory wrapped around
On the hills he never trod,
And speak of the strife that won our life
With th’ Incarnate Son of God.
O dark Beth-Peor’s hill!
Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.
God hath his mysteries of grace,—
Ways that we cannot tell;
He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep
Of him he loved so well.