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| THE SUN was sinking on the mountain-zone | |
| That guards thy vales of beauty, Palestine! | |
| And lovely from the desert rose the moon, | |
| Yet lingering on the horizon’s purple line, | |
| Like a pure spirit o’er its earthly shrine. | 5 |
| Up Padan-aram’s height abrupt and bare | |
| A pilgrim toiled, and oft on day’s decline | |
| Looked pale, then paused for eve’s delicious air: | |
| The summit gained, he knelt, and breathed his evening prayer. | |
| |
| He spread his cloak and slumbered,—darkness fell | 10 |
| Upon the twilight hills; a sudden sound | |
| Of silver trumpets o’er him seemed to swell; | |
| Clouds heavy with the tempest gathered round, | |
| Yet was the whirlwind in its caverns bound, | |
| Still deeper rolled the darkness from on high, | 15 |
| Gigantic volume upon volume wound, | |
| Above, a pillar shooting to the sky, | |
| Below, a mighty sea, that spread incessantly. | |
| |
| Voices are heard,—a choir of golden strings, | |
| Low winds, whose breath is loaded with the rose; | 20 |
| Then chariot-wheels,—the nearer rush of wings;— | |
| Pale lightning round the dark pavilion glows, | |
| It thunders,—the resplendent gates unclose; | |
| Far as the eye can glance, on height o’er height, | |
| Rise fiery waving wings, and star-crowned brows, | 25 |
| Millions on millions, brighter and more bright, | |
| Till all is lost in one supreme, unmingled light. | |
| |
| But two beside the sleeping pilgrim stand, | |
| Like cherub-kings, with lifted, mighty plume, | |
| Fixed, sun-bright eyes, and looks of high command: | 30 |
| They tell the Patriarch of his glorious doom; | |
| Father of countless myriads that shall come, | |
| Sweeping the land like billows of the sea, | |
| Bright as the stars of heaven from twilight’s gloom, | |
| Till He is given whom angels long to see, | 35 |
| And Israel’s splendid line is crowned with Deity. | |
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