ELIM.
Reading edition
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BY VIRGINIA.
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And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm-trees, and they encamped there by the waters.
Exodus xv. 27.
Noon on the burning desert!
Unutterable noon!
On the wandering band, from Goshen’s land,
Shod in the wondrous shoon!
Blasting the man of might,
Blighting the infant flower,
And quenching the light to the mother’s sight
As it droops in the fearful hour!
Look out o’er the blinding heaven!
Look out o’er the searèd ground!
Is naught in view save the torturing blue
And the maddening sand around?
Behold a speck afar!
It seemeth a cloud like a hand,
And it beck’neth us on through the raging sun
Away to the Promised Land!
Is it the Angel of Death,
Sent forth as a mocking guide?
Is it the trace of the warrior race
As they scour the trackless wide?
No! by the Cloudy Pillar!
No! by our Fiery Friend!
From the bush of flame the great I AM
Hath bidden us onward wend!
On to the Seventy Palm Trees!
On to the water’s brink!
Where the wayfaring rest on the green earth’s breast,
And the fainting pilgrims drink!
Drink! and forget their misery,
And remember their toil no more;
Rest! while the breeze sways the stately trees
Those dark, cool waters o’er!
Drink! parched and panting Israel!
In those draughts of mercy deep
There mingles no tide of the Marah wide
Where thy innermost soul shall steep!
Rest! worn and weary Israel!
In the dream of thy sleeping eyes
There dwelleth no thought of the ruin wrought
By coming centuries!
Oh, Elim! loveliest Elim!
Gem of the desert old!
Green be thy mighty shadows,
Pure be thy waters cold!
How often, ’mid life’s vast desert,
My heart within me swells,
As I sigh for thy Seventy Palm Trees,
And for thy Twelve Deep Wells!