Research often yields things of interest tangentially related to the investigation at hand. I was looking for 19th-century photographs of the land east of the Jordan, searching the archives of the Library of Congress, which contain a wealth of public domain images of the people and places about which I am presently writing. I had tried various terms and combinations of terms with good success. The first page of results for my search of the word [Moab] contained a photograph of a piece of sheet music from a Christian hymn titled, “Lofty Hills of Moab.”
The hymn was written by Martin Lowrie Hofford. For more on Hofford see the entry on Hymnary.org.
Lyrics for Hills of Moab
From the lofty hills of Moab,
Where thy weary feet shall stand,
Thou shalt look across the Jordan,
And behold the promised land;
The land of milk and honey,
Fertile land of corn and wine,
The land of springs and fountains,
’Tis the land that shall be thine.
From the lofty hills of Moab,
Thou shalt view the prospect o’er,
’Tis the land the Lord shall give thee,
And ’tis thine forevermore;
And tho’ thy eyes be dazzled
With the splendor of the sight,
Thy heart shall turn with rapture,
To the scene of pure delight.
From the lofty hills of Moab,
It is sweet indeed to rise
To the higher land of promise,
To the Canaan of the skies;
The land of heavenly glory,
Land of beauty all divine,
The land of many mansions,
That forever shall be thine.