LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,026)
  • Text Authors (19,309)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,112)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936)

When Israel out of Egypt came
Language: English 
When Israel out of Egypt came
  Safe in the sea they trod;
By day in cloud, by night in flame,
  Went on before them God.
 
He brought them with a stretched out hand
  Dry-footed through the foam,
Past sword and famine, rock and sand,
  Lust and rebellion, home.
 
I never over Horeb heard
  The blast of advent blow;
No fire-faced prophet brought me word
  Which way behoved me go.
 
Ascended is the cloudy flame,
  The mount of thunder dumb;
The tokens that to Israel came,
  To me they have not come.
 
I see the country far away
  Where I shall never stand;
The heart goes where no footstep may
  Into the promised land.
 
The realm I look upon and die
  Another man will own;
He shall attain the heaven that I
  Perish and have not known.
 
But I will go where they are hid
  That never were begot,
To my inheritance amid
  The nation that is not.

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in More Poems, no. 2, first published 1936 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by John Ramsden Williamson (1929 - 2015), "When Israel out of Egypt came" [baritone and piano] [
     text not verified 
    ]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2008-12-13
Line count: 28
Word count: 157

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris