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 God,
Beareth the swollen vein of agony.

His lip is quivering, and his wonted step
Of vigour is not there; and, though the morn
Is passing fair and beautiful, he breathes
Its freshness as it were a pestilence.

Oh! man may bear with suffering his heart
Is a strong thing, and godlike in the grasp
Of pain that wrings mortality; but tear
One cord 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 hers.

But, oh! estrange her once-it boots not how-
By wrong or silence, any thing that tells
A change has come upon your tenderness,-
And there is not a high thing out of heaven
Her pride o'ermastereth not.

She went her way with a strong step and slow; Her pressed lip arched, and her clear eye undimmed, As it had been 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,
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.
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 wearing rosy 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!

"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