Closer and thicker, as ye see the herds Throng-horn, and wool, and hoof-at watering-time,

When after fiery leagues, the wells are reached.

But Abraham, awaking, smelled the bread:

"Whence," spake he unto Sarai, "hast thou meal,

Wife of my bosom? for the smell of bread

Riseth, and lo! I see the cakes are baked."

"By God! Who is the only One," she said,

"Whence should it come save from thy friend who sent,

The lord of Egypt?" "Nay!" quoth Abraham,

And fell upon his face, low-worshipping. "But this hath come from the dear

mighty hands

Of Allah of the Lord of Egypt's lordsMy Friend,' and King, and Helper: now my folk

Shall live and die not.

God!"

Glory be to

EDWIN ARNOLD (1832-1904).

ABRAHAM.

I WILL sing a song of heroes
Crowned with manhood's diadem,
Men that lift us, when we love them,
Into nobler life with them.

I will sing a song of heroes

To their God-sent mission true, From the ruin of the old times

Grandly forth to shape the new;

Men that, like a strong-winged zephyr,
Come with freshness and with power,
Bracing fearful hearts to grapple
With the problem of the hour;

Men whose prophet-voice of warning
Stirs the dull, and spurs the slow,
Till the big heart of a people
Swells with hopeful overflow.

I will sing the son of Terah,
ABRAHAM in tented state,

With his sheep and goats and asses,
Bearing high behests from Fate;

Journeying from beyond Euphrates, Where cool Orfa's bubbling well Lured the Greek, and lured the Roman, By its verdurous fringe to dwell;

When he left the flaming idols,

Sun by day and Moon by night, To believe in something deeper

Than the shows that brush the sight,

And, as a traveller wisely trusteth
To a practised guide and true,
So he owned the Voice that called him
From the faithless Heathen crew.

And he travelled from Damascus Southward where the torrent tide Of the sons of Ammon mingles

With the Jordan's swelling pride,

To the pleasant land of Schechem,
To the flowered and fragrant ground
'Twixt Mount Ebal and Gerizim,
Where the bubbling wells abound.

To the stony slopes of Bethel,

And to Hebron's greening glade, Where the grapes with weighty fruitage Droop beneath the leafy shade.

And he pitched his tent in Mamre,
'Neath an oak-tree tall and broad,
And with pious care an altar

Built there to the one true God.

And the voice of God came near him, And the angels of the Lord 'Neath the broad and leafy oak-tree

Knew his hospitable board;

And they hailed him with rare blessing For all peoples richly stored,

I have not followed with my kissing lips. I would have bared my bosom like a shield

To any lance of pain that sought your breast.

And once, when you lay ill within your tent,

No taste of water, or of bread, or wine Passed through my lips; and all night long I lay

Upon the mat before your door to catch The sound of your dear voice, and scarcely dared

To breathe, lest she, my mistress. should come forth

And drive me angrily away; and when The stars looked down with eyes that only stared

And hurt me with their lack of sympathy,

Weeping, I threw my longing arms around

Benammi's neck. Your good horse understood

And gently rubbed his face against my head,

To comfort me. But if you had one kind,

One loving thought of me in all that time,

That long, heart-breaking time, you kept it shut

Close in your bosom as a tender bud And did not let it blossom into words. Your tenderness was all for Sara.

Through

The door, kept shut against my love,

there came

No message to poor Hagar, almost crazed