Classic Poem

A Mother drives a mother from her home!
With tears the patriarch sees that dawning day;
With tears the child receives an outcast's doom;
With tears his mother leads him far away!

The desert welcomes those by men outcast;
The desert sees her want and hears her cry,
" Beneath this parched shade, rest, child, thy last!
Let not thy mother see her darling die! "

Tears are but dew-drops at gray morning-tide,
And God has beams of love to dry them all;
Deserts are wide, but his reign far more wide
Who from the rock can bid the fountain fall.

" Hagar, arise! and bid thy boy arise!
The orphan's God, the widow's helper, know!
Tears flow not vainly from a mother's eyes;
See at thy feet the living waters flow!
The desert echoes not in vain his cries;
God hears him in the agony of woe, —
God shall be with him wheresoe'er he go! "