University of Virginia Library

The summer-day declined o'er Edom's vales,
As on, through rugged paths of lone Mount Hor,
Three men went travelling slow.
One, whose white beard
O'erswept his reverend breast, moved painful on,
And ever, as the ascent steeper grew,
More wearily did lean on those who lent
Their kindly aid.
I see the mitred brow
Of the High Priest of Israel, and anon,
As the slant sun sends forth some brighter beam
Through the sparse boughs and cones of terebinth,
His dazzling breastplate like a rainbow gleams.

He muses o'er the distant Past, and calls
The buried years. Each, like unwilling ghost,
Comes up with its dark scroll and glides away.
Again the moan of Egypt meets his ear,
As when her first-born died; the sounding surge
Of the divided sea, enforced to leave
Its ancient channels; the affrighted cry
Of Israel at red Sinai's awful base;
Their murmurings and their mockings and their strife;
The sin at Meribah; the desert-graves
Fed with a rebel race,—all rise anew,
And, like the imagery of troubled dreams,
Enwrap the spirit.
With what earnest eye
And mournful, from the topmost cliff he gazed.
There, stretching round its base, like sprinkled snow
Were Israel's tents, where lay in brief repose
The desert-wearied tribes.
Through distant haze
Gleam'd Edom's roofs, with shadowy palm-trees blent;
While farther still, like a black Stygian pool,
The lone Dead Sea its sullen waters roll'd.

He turn'd, and lo! Mount Seir with frowning brow
Confronted him. All solemn and severe
Was its uncover'd forehead. Did it rise
Like witness stern, to stir with vengeful hand
The sleeping memories of forgotten things,
That probe the conscience?
Once again he bent
To mark the tents of Jacob. Fair they seem'd,
Amid lign-aloes and the cedars tall
That God had planted;—fairer than to him,
That recreant prophet, who was yet to spy
The chosen people, resting on their way,
And by fierce Balak's side, from Peor's top
Take up his parable, changing the curse
Into a blessing.
But to Aaron's eye,
The haunts his feet must ne'er revisit more
Put on new beauty. For the parting hour
Unveils the love that like a stranger hides
In the heart's depths.
Was that his own sweet home,
Its curtains floating, as the southern breeze
Woo'd its white folds?
He pass'd his arm around
His brother's shoulder, leaning heavily,
And lower o'er his bosom droop'd his head,
In that long, farewell look, which by no sound
Reveal'd its import to the mortal ear.

Anon his features wear a brightening tinge,
And o'er his high anointed brow breaks forth
A gleam of joy. Caught he a glorious view
Of that eternal Canaan, fair with light,
And water'd by the river of his God,
Where was his heritage?
Or stole a strain
From Miriam's timbrel, o'er the flood of death
Urging him onward, through the last faint steps
Of toil-worn life?
And now they reach the spot
Where he had come to die. Strange heaviness
Settled around his spirit. Then he knew
That death's dark angel stretch'd a sable wing
'Tween him and earth. The altar, and the ark,
The unutter'd mysteries seen within the vail,
Those deep-set traces of his inmost soul,
Grew dim and vanish'd.
So, with trembling hand,
He hasted to unclasp the priestly robe
And cast it o'er his son, and on his head
The mitre place; while, with a feeble voice,
He bless'd, and bade him keep his garments pure
From blood of souls. But then, as Moses raised
The mystic breastplate, and that dying eye
Caught the last radiance of those precious stones,
By whose oracular and fearful light
Jehovah had so oft his will reveal'd
Unto the chosen tribes, whom Aaron loved,
In all their wanderings—but whose promised land
He might not look upon—he sadly laid
His head upon the mountain's turfy breast,
And with one prayer, half wrapp'd in stifled groans,
Gave up the ghost.
Steadfast beside the dead,
With folded arms and face uplift to heaven
The prophet Moses stood, as if by faith
Following the sainted soul. No sigh of grief
Nor sign of earthly passion mark'd the man
Who once on Sinai's top had talked with God.
—But the young priest knelt down, with quivering lip,
And press'd his forehead on the pulseless breast,
And, mid the gifts of sacerdotal power
And dignity intrusted to his hand,
Remembering but the father that he loved,
Long with his filial tears bedew'd the clay.