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Hagar and Ishmael.
The 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.
Moses in the Bulrushes.
Beside 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,
