[Editor: This poem by Mary Eliza Fullerton was published in Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics (1908).]
Hagar. — I.
Was ever mortal woe more great than lay
In Hagar’s eyes as she beheld her son
Prone on the scorching sand, and succour none, —
No dot of green in all the staring grey.
The high noontide of the devouring day,
Whose hate had scourged them as they wandered on,
Lagged, as that future day at Gibeon
When Joshua’s arm commanded it to stay.
Alas! though at the prophet’s lifted hand
The sun will pause, he would not faster haste
For her — the mother praying on the sand
That one cool drop of dew in all the waste
Might find the lips that famish in her sight
For the sweet kiss of altruistic Night.
Source:
Mary E. Fullerton, Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1908, p. 18
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