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77

MOSES' WISH.

Moses with longing heart the Lord besought
That he might cross and see that goodly land,
And cedared Lebanon's snow-capt summits grand,
And the rich vales with milk and honey fraught.
One passionate word turned all his prayers to nought:
Enough for him, by sin shut out, to stand
On Pisgah's topmost peak, by Jordan's strand,
Whence eyes undimm'd the far-off landscape caught.
Through anger fell the man most famed for meekness,
And the great Lawgiver himself was taught,
By losing Canaan, the Law's utter weakness;
That we might lean on Christ the “meek and lowly,”
And through His merits, not our works, be brought
To walk heaven's plains, and taste its pleasures holy.