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Does Sara love you as I did, my lord?
Does Sara clasp and kiss your feet, and bend Her haughty head in worship at your knee?
Ah! Abraham you were a god to me.
If you but touched my hand my foolish heart Ran down into the palm, and throbbed, and thrilled; Grew hot and cold, and trembled there; and when You spoke, though not to me, my heart ran out To listen through my eager ears and catch The music of your voice and prison it In memory's murmuring shell. I saw no fault Nor blemish in you, and your flesh to me Was dearer than my own. There is no vein That branches from your heart, whose azure course 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, thy 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
With	grief lest	you should die. Ah! you have	been
So cruel	and so cold to me, my	lord;
And now you send me forth with Ishmael.
Not on a journey through a pleasant land Upon a camel, as my mistress rides,
With kisses, and sweet words, and dates and wine, Bust cast me off, and sternly send me forth Into the wilderness with these poor gifts,
A jug of water, and - a loaf of bread -That sound was not a sob; I only lost my breath and caught it hard again. Go back!