University of Virginia Library

KIBROTH-HATTAAVAH

MOSES
Hot sun, dry sand, yet dew
Morning and night descends;
Praise God who giveth you
His own Angels for friends,
Who thus your table dress
In wildest wilderness.

ISRAELITE
O heavy toil to gather,
O tasteless, sapless bread,
Than such faint life far rather
In the Red Sea we were dead.
With manna day by day
Our soul is dried away.

MOSES
Souls mine, brought forth with pain,
Nursed, carried at my breast,
Weep not, nor murmur again,
For surely at last comes rest—
At last, after this toil
A land of wine and oil.

ISRAELITE
Not so, father, not so,
That land comes never nigher;
We move but to and fro
Following a cloud and fire
Blown by the winds in heaven,
Aimless, as sands are driven.

MOSES
Nay, but can ye forget
How from the further coast
Ye passed, nor your feet were wet,
But Pharaoh and his host
Were whelmed by the wall of sea
And you, children, were free?

ISRAELITE
Freedom is this? then liever
Slavery in Egypt's vales,
Where flows the sevenfold river
Whose fish shine with bright scales,
Where grow fruits without number,
Green melons, green cucumber.

MOSES
See from the darkened dawn
What clouds the Spirit brings;
Hark, near and nearer drawn
The whirr of infinite wings!
Praise God, fall at His feet,
Who hath given you flesh to eat.

ISRAELITE