52
SONGS, LEGENDS, AND BALLADS.
But the rude Chaldean peasants
Uprose against the seer,
And drave him forth—else never came
This Talmud legend here.
With Sarah his wife, and his servants,
Whom he ruled with potent hand.
The Patriarch planted his vineyards
In the Canaanitish land;
With his wife—the sterile, but lovely,
The fame of whose beauty grew
Till there was no land in Asia
But tales of the treasure knew.
In his lore the sage lived—learning
High thought from the starlit skies;
But heedful, too, of the light at home,
And the danger of wistful eyes;
Till the famine fell on his corn-fields,
And sent him forth again,
To seek for a home in Egypt,—
The land of the amorous men.
