| |
| A WEARY waste of blank and barren land, | |
| A lonely, lonely sea of shifting sand, | |
| A golden furnace gleaming overhead, | |
| Scorching the blue sky into bloody red; | |
| And not a breath to cool, and not a breeze | 5 |
| To stir one feather of the drooping trees; | |
| Only the desert wind with hungry moan, | |
| Seeking for life to slay, and finding none; | |
| Only the hot Sirocco’s burning breath, | |
| Spangled with sulphur-flame, and winged with death; | 10 |
| No sound, no step, no voice, no echo heard, | |
| No cry of beast, no whirring wing of bird; | |
| The silver-crested snake hath crept away | |
| From the fell fury of that Eastern day; | |
| The famished vultures by the failing spring | 15 |
| Droop the foul beak and fold the ragged wing; | |
| And lordly lions, ere the chase be done, | |
| Leave the blank desert to the desert-sun. | |
| |
| Ah! not alone to him,—turn thee and see | |
| Beneath the shadow of yon balsam tree | 20 |
| A failing mother of a fainting son | |
| Resting to die deserted and alone. | |
| Turn thee and mark the mother’s gentle care | |
| Stripping the fillet from her silken hair, | |
| So it may fall to shade his feeble frame, | 25 |
| A glossy curtain from the noonday flame; | |
| See,—at her feet the shrivelled flagon cast, | |
| The last drop drained, the sweetest and the last. | |
| Drained at her darling’s lip to still his cries, | |
| A mother’s free and final sacrifice. | 30 |
| Look,—she hath taken it, and yet again | |
| Presses the flagon,—presses—but in vain. | |
| The scrip is emptied and the flagon dry, | |
| And nothing left them but the leave to die. | |
| |
| To die,—and one so young and one so true, | 35 |
| And both so beautiful and brave to view: | |
| She,—with her braided locks more black than night, | |
| And eye so darkly, deeply, wildly bright; | |
| He,—with his slender limbs and body bare, | |
| And small hands tangled in his mother’s hair, | 40 |
| And there to whiten on the desert-sands, | |
| A landmark for the laden desert bands! | |
| That thought is stamping anguish on her brow, | |
| That dread hath taught her what she utters now. | |
| |
| “Son of my soul! the happy days are done; | 45 |
| Thy little course and mine are nearly run; | |
| The white tents wave on Kirjath-Arba’s plain, | |
| No home for us,—no resting-place again: | |
| Before yon orb is sunken from the sky | |
| Together in the desert we must die.” * * * * * | 50 |
| Yet was she speaking; but the cry of joy | |
| Burst from the bosom of the dying boy. | |
| His eager finger pointed to the plain, | |
| His eye had light, his cheek its life again. | |
| “Look, mother! look! we will not die to-day; | 55 |
| Look where the water glistens! come away!” | |
| |
| She turned,—O, fairest sight, if sight it be, | |
| The sleeping silver of that inland sea. | |
| She gazed,—O gaze of hope and life and light! | |
| Those crystal waters glancing pure and bright; | 60 |
| From Seir’s red crags and Hazargaddah’s heath, | |
| Eastward to Eder and the Sea of Death. | |
| The dismal wilderness was past and gone, | |
| The waves were streaming where the sands had shone; | |
| Streaming o’er tree and crag, by bush and brake, | 65 |
| The silent splendor of a windless lake, | |
| In whose broad wave so radiantly blue | |
| Each feathered palm, each lonely plant that grew, | |
| Each mountain on the distant desert-side | |
| Shone double, shadowed in the sleeping tide. | 70 |
| Yet was it strange! no dream so passing strange, | |
| As the quick phantom of that fairy change; | |
| And stranger still, that ever as they came | |
| To lave the burning lip, and brow of flame, | |
| The waters fading far and farther still, | 75 |
| Cheated their chase and mocked their baffled will. | |
| Alas! no pleasant waters rippled there; | |
| The lying mirage lured them to despair. | |
| |
| She saw it fading, and there came a cry | |
| Out from her heart of wildest agony; | 80 |
| She knew it gone, and strove to stand and speak | |
| While the life withered in her whitened cheek. | |
| Then her lip quivered, and her lashes fell, | |
| And her tongue faltered in its faint farewell, | |
| “Man had no mercy,—God will show us none,— | 85 |
| Ishmael! I dare not see thee die, my son!” | |
| |
| Tenderly, lovingly, her load she laid | |
| Where no sun glistened in the grateful shade; | |
| Softly she pillowed on the sands his head, | |
| And spread her mantle for his dying bed; | 90 |
| No gems were there to deck the lowly bier, | |
| But the pure lustre of a mother’s tear; | |
| No fragrant spices for the sleep of death, | |
| But the soft fragrance of a mother’s breath; | |
| No tearful eye, no tributary tongue, | 95 |
| To tell his fate who died so fair and young; | |
| No better mourner for the boy than she | |
| Who weeps to see him what herself shall be: | |
| Than she who sits apart with sidelong eye | |
| Waiting till he hath died that she may die; | 100 |
| And buries all her forehead in her hair, | |
| Weeping the bitter tears of black despair. | |
| So is the desert-sand their death and grave, | |
| No hope of help, no pitying hand to save! | |
| None! was it then the icy lip of death | 105 |
| Or low winds laden with the roses’ breath | |
| That kissed her forehead? was it earthly sound, | |
| Floating like fairy voice above, around; | |
| Or splendid symphonies of seraph-kings | |
| Striking the music from unearthly strings, | 110 |
| Whose touch hath startled her? what inward strife | |
| Stirs the still apathy of parting life? | |
| What sense of power unseen, of presence hid, | |
| Lifts from her lightless eyes the unwilling lid? | |
| She rose,—she turned,—there in that lonely place | 115 |
| God’s glory flashed upon her lifted face. | |
| |
| And with the glory came an angel voice, | |
| “Hagar, what ailest? rouse thee, and rejoice! | |
| Look up, and live! God’s ever-opened ear | |
| Hath patient hearing for a mother’s prayer. | 120 |
| Arise, take up the boy,—his pleading cry | |
| Came up to God, and had its end on high; | |
| And God shall make him, in his own good time, | |
| A mighty people, in a pleasant clime.” | |
| Then was her sight unsealed, and lo! at hand | 125 |
| A spring was sparkling in the desert sand; | |
| Sparkling with crystal water to the brim, | |
| Fringed with the date, and rimmed with lilied rim. | |
| Swiftly she speeded to the fountain’s brink, | |
| And drew a draught, and gave her boy to drink, | 130 |
| And watched the little lips that lingered still, | |
| Nor tasted drop till he had drunk his fill. | |
| Then on bent knees, with tear and smile at strife, | |
| Mother and child, they quaffed the liquid life; | |
| And stayed to smile, and drank to smile again, | 135 |
| Till sweet and cheerful seemed the silent plain; | |
| And young leaves dancing on the desert trees | |
| To the low music of the passing breeze, | |
| And birds of passage with their homeward wings, | |
| And fireflies wheeling in their lighted rings, | 140 |
| And flowers unfolding where the glare was gone | |
| Spake but one tale,—Hope ever, and Hope on! * * * * * | |
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