Classic Poem

Densely wrapp'd in shades,
Olive and terebinth, its vaulted door
Fleck'd with the untrain'd vine and matted grass,
Behold Machpelah's cave.
Hark! hear we not
A voice of weeping? Lo, yon aged man
Bendeth beside his dead. Wave after wave
Of memory rises, till his lonely heart
Sees all its treasures floating on the flood,
Like rootless weeds.
The earliest dawn of love
Is present with him, and a form of grace
Whose beauty held him ever in its thrall:
And then the morn of marriage, gorgeous robes,
And dulcet music, and the rites that bless
The Eastern bride. Full many a glowing scene,
Made happy by her tenderness, returns
To mock his solitude.
Again their home
Gleams through the oaks of Mamre. There he sat,
Rendering due rites of hospitality
To guests who bore the folded wing of heaven
Beneath their vestments. And her smile was there
Among the angels.
When her clustering curls
Wore Time's chill hoar-frost, with what glad surprise,
What holy triumph of exulting faith,
He saw, fresh blooming in her wither'd arms,
A fair young babe, the heir of all his wealth.
Forever blending with that speechless joy
Which thrill'd his soul when first a father's name
Fell on his ear, is that pale, placid brow
O'er which he weeps.
Yet had he seen it wear
Another semblance, tinged with hues of thought,
Perchance, unlovely, in that trial-hour
When to sad Hagar's mute, reproachful eye
He answer'd nought, but on her shoulder bound
The cruse of water and the loaf, and sent
Her and her son, unfriended wanderers forth
Into the wilderness.
Say, who can mourn
Over the smitten idol, by long years
Cemented with his being, yet perceive
No dark remembrance that he fain would blot,
Troubling the tear? If there were no kind deed
Omitted, no sweet healing word of love
Expected, yet unspoken; no sharp tone,
That jarr'd discordant on the quivering nerve,
For which the weeper fain would rend the tomb
To cry, “Forgive!” oh! let him kneel and praise
God amid all his grief.
We may not say
If aught of penitence was in the pang
That wrung his labouring breast, while o'er the dust
Of Sarah, at Machpelah's waiting tomb,
The proud and princely Abraham bow'd him down,
A mourning stranger, mid the sons of Heth.