[Editor: This poem by Mary Eliza Fullerton was published in Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics (1908).]
Hagar. — II.
When most she mourned, the angel and the well
Gave instant help and promise of reward,
The spurned handmaiden, blest and overawed,
Caught in her arms the fainting Ishmael
And gave the water, ere she paused to dwell
Upon the greater gift time would accord —
As spoken by the angel of the Lord —
Of him whose pulse-beats stronglier rose and fell.
The fierce Beer-Sheba lay no more around,
She felt no more the blistering sand-drifts drive;
No more was shimmering sky or burning ground:
Her son was saved, her Ishmael was alive —
Then while he slept again she mused awake
On all the promise that the angel spake.
Source:
Mary E. Fullerton, Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1908, p. 19
Editor’s notes:
blest = (archaic) blessed
ere = (archaic) before (from the Middle English “er”, itself from the Old English “aer”, meaning early or soon)
Lord = in a religious context, and capitalized, a reference to God or Jesus Christ
spake = (archaic) spoke
Leave a Reply