Shall there be music for them? any cry? Yes! Memnon, rousing when the dawn is near, Shall wake a strain so desolate and drear, It suits the wanderer's children riding by. A race not wholly cursed, not wholly blest, I thought the centuries were rolling back, And they might come ere the quick evening fell— Round them a space of yellow sand unroll'd Lies weltering in the evening's purple lightHis heritage and theirs—before the night Sweeps the red sunlight from that cloth of gold. Vain fancy; for no thought the poet weaves, Can add aught nobler,—nay would rather spoil The simple truth on God's immortal leaves, Which, undestroy'd, lives on divinely yet. Then are the lips of Hagar wreath'd in scorn, And Sarah's bitter heart cannot forget. Oh, the poor mother that was never wife! Yet her wild son some earthly blessing wins- And reconciliation, it may be, When to the silence of Machpelah's cave, To lay their father in his rocky bed. How should they not put all contention by! There let them linger for a little while Those brothers sunder'd long and far away,- So that old story—mingled joy and strife, Divine and human-through a mist of tears * Genesis xvi. 14. † Genesis xxv. 16. + "His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah." (Gen. xxv. 9.) * Its streams shall fail not, for in every clime Lifting up sudden eyes of hope, shall see And God be with them, coming as He came— The music of His universal Name. * Short glimpse of heaven, and brief respite from pain; For all the future, with its heavy cost Of progress unattain'd, and blessings lost, Of tears and triumphs, calls us back again. Thou shalt not set thy city on a hill, Like some grey king, upon his head a crown, Thou, too, art but a mortal! yet thy roof Is builded up of air, and lit with stars; There thou shalt dwell, in more than kingly power, Shalt bow and worship in that holy hour. "Elohim” (Gen. xxi. 17). See Bishop Wordsworth's note. Bards thou shalt have, importunate to sing Of gorgeous love, and how the fights were fought; Bright songs, with no deep undertone of thought— Rich jewels sparkling round a meaner thing. Ah! how unlike the melody he found, The shepherd, when his waves of music broke Thy minstrels shall pass out into the dark, The flowers of language change 'neath other skiesOn alien tongues their delicacy dies God only stamps a universal mark. No son of thine, a flush upon his brow, Lay we such triumph by, 'tis none of thine! From distant mountains, from the lone hill ledge, As on that impious day when, neck to neck * Alluding to the parallelism of Hebrew poetry. And still the picture darkens, till we see * Not thine, O Ishmael, the gain and loss, The gloom and gleam of type o'er Isaac's race, For thee no recompense the ages hold, Oh, "wild, not free," the slave-born's deepest brand!- If less the height of grace, then less the fall, If, for thy fault, the outcast Hagar trod Lone paths of grief, how is it not the worst, The drearest fate, and more than twice accurst To be the Hagar of the Church of God! Still Isaac wanders over land and sea, Stopping betimes with men a little while; There is unfathom'd sadness in his smile, As one who looks for what has been to be. *Gal. iv. 22, sqq. |