Discarded Hagar! who can trace thy fate, And sigh not o'er the wrongs pride, lust, and pow'r Can wreak on woman's all-defenceless head? Was not thy soul as free to love as hers Who call'd thee slave, and dared thy virgin zone Too common fate of trusting love Was thine for, ever thus, we see with man To win the trust, the honour, and the love Till the next comer shall divorce those bonds NOTE. Instances of man's deficient sense of his moral obligation to protect and succour the victims of illegal connections, are too observable, throughout history, and in the general conduct and feeling of society, to need a recourse to fiction to show their enormity and evils. Hagar's history is but one of the many sad facts that prove the truth of this position, though by no means the worst, unless it be considered a precedent for the selfish, and so far more dangerous; for, whatever may be the orthodox view of her dismissal as regards Abraham (whose peculiar faith may be supposed to exempt him from being judged by ordinary rules), it is only to a miracle, after all, that we are indebted for an interruption to the tragic consequences which naturally belonged to it. The frequency of infanticide in modern days, in similar circumstances, serves to throw Hagar's fortitude and maternal endurance into the highest relief; and that is the chief object that induced the treatment of the subject. OH, sweet brief dream of life's delusive morning, Would I had never known thy transient bliss !— Oh, day of life, that knows no second dawning, 'Tis desolation to awake like this, And walk the world alone! Alone, in all the bosom feareth-craveth; Alone in joy; in sorrow, still alone; Her notes of passion-still alone, alone !— II. So soon to 'waken from the spell that bound me !— So soon to learn it was illusion all! Can I forgive the hand that could dispel thee, Nor shrink to see thee into ruin fall From thy once fair estate ? Forgive? Ah! yes, forgive; but still remember When first it beck'd me to behold thy beam, To me the star of fate. 111. Sweet dream, farewell!—with thee my bliss has ended! I break, reluctant, from thy magic wile; All that I know of joy with thee was blended; E'en now I love thee, though thou didst beguile Too well, alas, too well!— Farewell!-Ah!-yet the mystic vision lingers. O'er the 'reft soul, whose all is lost in thee: As o'er the harp-strings, 'neath the pausing fingers, Some soft tone vibrates, as if loth to flee To Angerona's cell! IV. Bright dream!-Oh! why, with more than mortal gladness, That makes creation universal night— Why camest thou but to fade? A fairy world to me was thy dominion, Peopled with thoughts all fair, and pure, and true : Over its realms I soar'd on Fancy's pinion, Bathing my burning brow in heaven's dew, And earth Elysium made. V. The air was redolent with many flowers :- Till Morn's bright eye look'd down; The rose blush'd sweetly, Passion's story telling, |