He came on down from the mountain like
An ancient prophet of old,
His hair was long, and fine and white
And his neck was chained with gold,
He carried a staff as he limped on in
To the farm, and asked for a bed,
I said, ‘We live in the farmhouse here,
But there’s hay in the cattle shed.’

He thanked me then and he stayed the night
I thought he’d be gone at dawn,
But the sun was high on the mountainside
When I saw him stand in the corn,
‘Your Lord provides and is bountiful,
You must have kept his commands,
My people wandered for forty years
In the drift of the desert sands.’

I asked him if I could know his name
For the strangers here were few,
He looked askance, but he shook my hand,
‘It’s Moses, here, to you.
I’m on my way to the Canaanites
Who possess my promised lands,
But I need to know where I have to go
I’m a stranger in your hands.’

I thought he must have been wandering,
Some defect of the mind,
I said, ‘You’re not on the continent
That you want so hard to find,
That mountain there isn’t Sinai,
We’re far too south to gauge,
This farm’s in Eastern Australia
By the Great Dividing Range.

He shook his head and his eyes went dead
And he turned towards the creek,
It was riding high with a swollen tide
For the best part of a week,
I thought, he’ll never get over that,
The current is far too strong,
But he beat his staff on the bank, three times,
How could I be so wrong?

The water parted, it ceased to flow,
But it raised in two tall towers,
Then he set off in the midst of it,
I sat in shock for hours,
The last I saw he was marching off
As the creek collapsed to flow,
I thought, ‘and the best of British luck,
You’ve a helluva way to go!’

David Lewis Paget