Hagar In The Wilderness

 HAGAR IN THE WILDERNESS.

The morning broke. Light stole upon the clouds
With a strange beauty. Earth received again
Its garment of a thousand dyes ; and leaves,
And delicate blossoms, and the painted flowers,
And everything that bendeth to the dew
And stirreth with the daylight, lifted up
Its beauty to the breath of that sweet morn.

All things are dark to sorrow; and the light
And loveliness and fragrant air were sad
To the dejected Hagar. The moist earth
W as pouring odors from its spicy pores,
And the young birds were singing as if life
Were a new thing to them; but oh! it came
Upon her heart like discord, and she felt
How cruelly it tries a broken heart,
To see a mirth in anything it loves.
She stood at Abraham's tent. Her lips were pressed
Till the blood started; and the wandering veins
Of her transparent forehead were swelled out,
As if her pride would burst them. Her dark eye
Was as clear and tearless, and the light of heaven,
Which made its language legible, shot back
From her long lashes, as it had been flame.
Her noble boy stood by her, with his hand
Clasped in her own, and his round, delicate feet,
Scarce trained to balance on the tented floor,
Sandaled for journeying. He had looked up
Into his mother's face until he caught
The spirit there, and his young heart was swelling
Beneath his dimpled bosom, and his form
Straightened up proudly in his tiny wrath,
As if his light proportions would have swelled,
Had they but matched his spirit, to the mail.

Why bends the patriarch as he cometh now
Upon his staff so wearily? His beard
Is low upon his breast, and his high brow,
So written with the converse of his Coil,
Beareth the swollen vein of agony.
His lip is quivering, and his wonted step
Of vigor is not there; and, though the morn
Is passing fair and beautiful, he breathes
Its freshness as it were a pestilence.
O, man may bear with suffering: his heart
Is a strong thing, and godlike, in the grasp
Of pain that wrings mortality; but tear
One chord affection clings to - part one tie
That binds him to a woman's delicate love -
And his great spirit yieldeth like a reed!

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.

Should Hagar weep? May slighted woman turn
And, as a vine the oak hath shaken off.
Bend lightly to her leaning trust again?
O no ! by all her loveliness, by all
That makes life poetry and beauty, no!
Make her a slave ; steal from her rosy cheek
By needless jealousies; let the last star
Leave her a watcher by your couch of pain;
Wrong her by petulance, suspicion, all
That makes her cup a bitterness, - yet give
One evidence of love, and earth has not
An emblem of devotedness like' here.
But oh! estrange her once - it boots not how -
By wrong or silence, - anything that tells
A change has come upon your tenderness, -
And there is not a feeling out of heaven
Her pride o'ermastercth not.

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 caught,
As I have said, her spirit, and the seed
Of a stern nation had been breathed upon.

The morning past, 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
W ere 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 lie would have died.
It was too much for her. She lifted him
And bore him farther 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, among 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.

"O 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
A heritage for thee! 

"And now the grave for its cold breast hath won thee,
And thy white, delicate limbs the earth will press;
And O, 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 lie laughed
In his reviving happiness, and lisped
His infant thought of gladness at the sight
Of the cool plashing of his mother's hand.

by Nathaniel P. Willis.