Until the sound dinner bells talk their mercies
And the sunset drowns
all
his rage.
Give him your hands at his eyes
Bring him your breath and shine on his head,
He will ride the earth's cage in the dark
Until tenderness take him to bed.
MOSES ON PISGAH
In whose great hand is my hand laid?
My heart is overreached, my path
With a moving mist is overlaid.
I wander in this evil breath
That glides on stones and, stooping, sulks.
Is this sullen stumbling faith?
Joyless and ashen as one who stalks
His shadow I go, and do not know
If
I am but His staff Who walks.
God, You bring me on the hilI,
And here in many-faced mist
Am
I misled and wander still,
Even to my death. My heart like a fist
Is bound upon itself to beat
The swirling faces of the past
Till all their mouths shall speak my fate.
o
this I will, yet never feel
Your path singing in my feet.
Remember that once my face shone !
Now how shall Your rod strike a brook
Out of my heart's heavy stone!
Did I not the golden calf unmake?
Did I not Your word impart?
Harold Kaplan
