University of Virginia Library

IX.

I tell not now the glorious night
That saw Jeshurun's victor-flight:
How on each side the sea stood high
A rampart, azure as the sky:
Above,—the light waves rippling hoary,—
Beneath,—that wall's crystalline glory.
Six hundred thousand chosen men
Entered, at eve, that horrid glen:
The cloudy pillar went before,
The Lord's sure guide from shore to shore:
While frenzied now, but unsubdued,
All Egypt, man and horse, pursued.
Nor tell I how, as on they wind,
At midnight came the cloud behind,
And cast unutterable woe
Of terror on the advancing foe:
And poured a radiance calm and bright
O'er Israel, as on festal night.
The monarch's heart with terror reels,
Shrink back in awe the brave:
The Lord struck off their chariot wheels
That heavily they drave:
Then, echoed by the stone-like sea,
Rose the wild outcry,—‘Let us flee!’
Too late! too late! O man of God,
Stretch out once more the mystic rod!
In vain they bend their backward way,
In vain retreat endeavour;
Them Israel may behold to-day,
But not again for ever.