Page:A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields.djvu/85

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the crests of tents the day-god threw His rays oblique; blazed, dazzling to the view, The tracts of gold that on the air he leaves When in the sands he sets on cloudless eves, Purple and yellow clothed the desert plain. High rose the sterile Nebo: climbed with pain Moses, the man of God, its rugged side— No soul more meek, less subject unto pride. One moment had he stopped to cast a look Upon the vast horizon, Nature's book. Pisgah at first he saw with ﬁg-trees crowned, Then, o'er the mountains as they stood around Gilead, Ephraim, Manasseh,—lands Fertile to his right, unvexed with sands, Then to the south Judah far stretching wild Its deserts, at whose edge the bright sea smiled. Then further on, with olives graced, a vale, Naphtali's portion,—pale, already pale With twilight's shadows, then in flowers and calm, Jericho slumbering, city of the palm. Then Phogor's meadows lengthened out with woods Of mastic-trees, to Segor's solitudes. He saw all Canaan, all the promised land He knew he should not enter: stretched his hand