Page:Poems Toke.djvu/15

7

   "Rise, Balak! king of Moab, rise!
   From where yon mountain meets the skies.
    Thy word thou know'st has brought me here,
   To curse for thee yon peaceful band,—
   Far-famed through many a distant land,—
    Whom thou dost hate, yet inly fear.

   "How can I curse whom God hath blest?
   How can I cause one cloud to rest
    On those whom He vouchsafes to love?
   How can I dare their tribes defy,
   Or bid their countless numbers fly,
    When e their strength and might will prove?

   "For from the rocks I view him now;
   His bannered lines and tents of snow
    From every tower and hill I see.
   Yon tribes, whose numbers none can tell,
   Alone upon the earth shall dwell,
    Nor numbered 'mid the nations be.

   "Oh, Jacob! who thy dust can count?
   Or who can tell the vast amount
    That swells thy more than earthly bliss?
   When hence my parting soul must fly,
   Oh! let me like the righteous die,
    And be my latter end like his!"

He pauses now. Slowly the heavenly ray
That lit his gleaming eye has passed away,
And lost in thought he stands, till o'er his ear
The monarch's tones of mingled wrath and fear
Come like the voice which breaks the mourner's sleep,
And calls him back from dreams of bliss—to weep.