The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book. Ontario. Department of Education

      Hooper

THE BURIAL OF MOSES

       Table of Contents

      (Read Deuteronomy, XXXII. 48–50)

      By Nebo's lonely mountain,

       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 was the grandest funeral

       That ever passed on earth;

       But no man heard the trampling,

       Or saw the train go forth:

       Noiselessly as the daylight

       Comes when the night is done,

       And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek

       Grows into the great sun;

      Noiselessly as the spring-time

       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.

      Perchance the bald old eagle,

       On gray Beth-peor's height,

       Out of his lonely eyry

       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.

      But, when the warrior dieth,

       His comrades in the war,

       With arms reversed and muffled drums,

       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.

      Amid the noblest of the land

       We lay the sage to rest,

       And give the bard an honoured place,

       With costly marble dressed,

       In the great minster transept

       Where lights like glories fall,

       And the sweet choir sings, and the organ rings

       Along the emblazoned wall.

      This was the bravest warrior

       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.

      And had he not high honour—

       The hillside for his 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;—

      In that strange grave, without a name,

       Whence his uncoffined clay

       Shall break again—O 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 the incarnate Son of God.

      O lonely grave in Moab's land!

       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.