Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/65

  promised seed is born,—no Ishmael now Will share a father's smiles with Sarah's child; And Hagar with her son must wander far Across the dreary solitary wild. Ere she departs one proud disdainful glance She throws on all around; yet in her eye The tear-drop gathers, as she sees her child Up to his father's face gaze wistfully. No angry, galling word to him she speaks, But bends her o'er the silent wond'ring boy, While the big tears that trickle down her cheeks Tell of a mother's inward agony.  undefined  the river's brink, Where tall the rushes grew, She gently laid him down, And, weeping, then withdrew To some secluded spot, Where she intent could view What there might him befall, What danger might accrue.

But long she did not wait, For she at length espied King Pharaoh's daughter come Down by the river's side To bathe, as custom was With that illustrious fair, And from pollution cleanse Her form so noble, there.

When to the place she came, The ark it caught her eye, She to her servants said, "See yonder what doth lie Afloat upon the wave, Where those tall rushes are?— Some dark, mysterious thing Lies hidden surely there.

My maidens, haste and see What this strange thing can mean." Her servants heard and went, And to the ark they came, 