BY fire and cloud, across the desert sand,
And through the parted waves,
From their long bondage, with an outstretched hand,
God led the Hebrew slaves!
Dead as the letter of the Pentateuch,
As Egypt’s statues cold,
In the adytum of the sacred book
Now stands that marvel old.
“Lo, God is great!” the simple Moslem says.
We seek the ancient date,
Turn the dry scroll, and make that living phrase
A dead one: “God was great!”
And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa’s wells,
We dream of wonders past,
Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells,
Each drowsier than the last.
O fools and blind! Above the Pyramids
Stretches once more that hand,
And tranc
(John Greenleaf Whittier)
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