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Telling of milk and honey flowing there,
But of strong giants that aroused their fear.
And in their unbelief they spread dismay
Among that people, ever so perverse,
Who, guiltily ignoring their great God,
Forgetting His past acts, His promises,
Cried, wept, and groaned, in impotent despair,
And would have found a man to lead them back
Unto the land of bondage; spite of those—
Caleb and Joshua—who praised the land,
And bade them trustfully remember Him
Who had for them wrought such deliverance,
And Who again would save. They would not hear,
And so afresh God's anger was induced;
And yet again did Moses intercede,
And the Lord pardoned them.

          But for this cause,
And for their necessary discipline,
They must be turned from Canaan, and left
To wander in the desert forty years;
Their promised gift must be so long delayed;
And none should enter but the two true spies
Who had believed and wholly followed God,
Who faithfully had dealt with Israel,
And sought to win them to their own strong faith:
That evil generation soon must die.

So in a pathless, solitary way,
Homeless, without a city, on and on
For forty years in sad monotony
Did Israel wander in the wilderness;
Hungering, thirsting, fainting and distressed:
But ever heard when unto God they cried.

Yet one dire incident of grave import,
One awful visitation of the Lord,
Disturbed the general tedium of those years.
There rose presumptuous, envious murmuring
At the exclusiveness of God's decree