Is passing fair and beautiful, he breathes
Its freshness as it were a pestilence.

He gave to her the water and the bread,
But spoke no word, and trusted not himself
To look upon her face, but laid his hand.
In silent blessing on the fair-haired boy,
And left her to her lot of loneliness.

She went her way with a strong step and slow, Her pressed lip arched, and her clear eye undimmed, As if it were a diamond, and her form

Borne proudly up as if her heart breathed through.
Her child kept on in silence, though she pressed
His hand till it was pained; for he had read
The dark look of his mother, and the seed
Of a stern nation had been breathed upon.
The morning passed, and Asia's sun rode up
In the clear heaven, and every beam was heat.
The cattle of the hills were in the shade,
And the bright plumage of the Orient lay
On beating bosoms in her spicy trees.
It was an hour of rest! but Hagar found
No shelter in the wilderness, and on
She kept her weary way, until the boy
Hung down his head, and opened his parched lips
For water; but she could not give it him.
She laid him down beneath the sultry sky,-
For it was better than the close, hot breath
Of the thick pines,—and tried to comfort him;
But he was sore athirst, and his blue eyes

HAGAR IN THE WILDERNESS

Were dim and bloodshot, and he could not know Why God denied him water in the wild.

She sat a little longer, and he grew

Ghastly and faint, as if he would have died.

47

It was too much for her. She lifted him,
And bore him further on, and laid his head
Beneath the shadow of a desert shrub;
And, shrouding up her face, she went away
And sat to watch, where he could see her not,
Till he should die; and watching him, she
mourned:-

"God stay thee in thine agony, my boy!

I cannot see thee die; I cannot brook

Upon thy brow to look,

And see death settle on my cradle joy.

How have I drunk the light of thy blue eye!

And could I see thee die?

“I did not dream of this when thou wast straying,
Like an unbound gazelle amongst the flowers;
Or wiling the soft hours

By the rich gush of water-sources playing,
Then sinking weary to thy smiling sleep,

So beautiful and deep.

Oh, no! and when I watched by thee the while, And saw thy bright lip curling in thy dream,

And thought of the dark stream

In my own land of Egypt, the far Nile,-
How prayed I that my father's land might be
An heritage for thee!

66

And now the grave for its cold breast hath won thee!

And thy white, delicate limbs the earth will press;

And, oh, my last caress

Must feel thee cold; for a chill hand is on thee.

How can I leave my boy so pillowed there
Upon his clustering hair?"

She stood beside the well her God had given
To gush in that deep wilderness, and bathed
The forehead of her child until he laughed
In his reviving happiness, and lisped
His infant thought of gladness at the sight
Of the cool plashing of his mother's hand.

NATHANIEL P. WILLIS

14

THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM

Genesis xxii

Morn breaketh in the East. The purple clouds
Are putting on their gold and violet,

To look the meeter for the sun's bright coming.
Sleep is upon the waters and the wind;
And nature, from the wavy forest-leaf
To her majestic master, sleeps. As yet
There is no mist upon the deep, blue sky,
And the clear dew is on the blushing bosoms
Of crimson roses in a holy rest.

THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM

How hallowed is the hour of morning! meet-
Ay, beautifully meet-for the pure prayer.
The Patriarch standeth at his tented door,
With his white locks uncovered.

'Tis his wont

Το gaze upon that gorgeous Orient;
And at that hour the awful majesty
Of man who talketh often with his God
Is wont to come again, and clothe his brow

49

As at his fourscore strength. But now he seemeth To be forgetful of his vigorous frame,

And boweth to his staff as at the hour

Of noontide sultriness. And that bright sun-
He looketh at its pencill'd messengers,
Coming in golden raiment, as if all

Were but a graven scroll of fearfulness.
Ah, he is waiting till it herald in

The hour to sacrifice his much-loved son!

Light poureth on the world. And Sarah stands
Watching the steps of Abraham and her child
Along the dewy sides of the fair hills,
And praying that her sunny boy faint not.
Would she have watched their path so silently,
If she had known that he was going up,
E'en in his fair-haired beauty, to be slain
As a white lamb for sacrifice? They trod
Together onward, Patriarch and child-

The bright sun throwing back the old man's shade
In straight and fair proportions, as of one
Whose years were freshly numbered. He stood up,

Tall in his vigorous strength; and, like a tree
Rooted in Lebanon, his frame bent not.
His thin white hairs had yielded to the wind,
And left his brow uncover'd; and his face,
Impress'd with the stern majesty of grief
Nerved to a solemn duty, now stood forth
Like a rent rock, submissive, yet sublime.
But the young boy-he of the laughing eye
And ruby lip-the pride of life was on him.
He seemed to drink the morning. Sun and dew,
And the aroma of the spicy trees,

And all that giveth the delicious East
Its fitness for an Eden, stole like light
Into his spirit, ravishing his thoughts
With love and beauty. Everything he met,
Buoyant or beautiful, the lightest wing
Of bird or insect, or the palest dye

Of the fresh flowers, won him from his path;
And joyously broke forth his tiny shout,
As he flung back his silken hair, and sprung
Away to some green spot or clustering vine,
To pluck his infant trophies. Every tree
And fragrant shrub was a new hiding-place;
And he would crouch till the old man came by,
Then bound before him with his childish laugh,
Stealing a look behind him playfully,

To see if he had made his father smile.

The sun rode on in heaven. The dew stole up From the fresh daughters of the earth, and heat Came like a sleep upon the delicate leaves,

And bent them with the blossoms to their dreams.