THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM.

N. P. WILLIS.

Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee unto the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.-GENESIS xxii. 2.

MORN breaketh in the east. The purple clouds

Are putting on their gold and violet,

To look the meeter for the sun's bright coming.
Sleep is upon the waters and the wind;

And nature, from the very forest leaf
To her majestic master, sleeps. As yet,
There is no mist upon the deep blue sky,
And the clear dew is on the blushing bosoms

Of crimson roses in a holy rest.

How hallowed is the hour of morning! meet

Ay, beautifully meet for the pure prayer.

The patriarch standeth at his tented door,

With his white locks uncovered. 'Tis his wont

To gaze upon that gorgeous orient;

And at that hour the awful majesty

Of man who talketh often with his God,

Is wont to come again, and clothe his brow

As at his fourscore strength. But now, he seemeth To be forgetful of his vigorous frame,

And boweth to his staff, as at the hour

Of noontide sultriness. And that bright sun-
He looketh at his pencilled messengers
Coming in golden raiment, as if all
Were but a graven scroll of fearfulness.
Ah, he is waiting till it herald in

The hour to sacrifice his much-loved son!

Light poureth on the world. And Sarah stands
Watching the steps of Abraham and her child
Along the dewy sides of the far hills,

And praying that her sunny boy faint not.
Would she have watched their path so silently,
If she had known that he was going up,
Ev'n in his fair-haired beauty, to be slain
As a white lamb for sacrifice? They trod
Together onward, patriarch and child—

The bright sun throwing back the old man's shade
In straight and fair proportions, as of one
Whose years were freshly number'd. He stood up
Tall in his vigorous strength; and, like a tree
Rooted in Lebanon, his frame bent not.
His thin white hairs had yielded to the wind,
And left his brow uncovered; and his face,
Impress'd with the stern majesty of grief
Nerved to a solemn duty, now stood forth,
Like a rent rock, submissive, yet sublime.
But the young boy-he of the laughing eye