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Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough

by Arthur Hugh Clough

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Genesis XXIV

Who is this man
        that walketh in the field,
O Eleazar,
        steward to my lord?

And Eleazar
        answered her and said,
Daughter of Bethuel,
        it is other none
But my lord Isaac,
        son unto my lord,
Who, as his wont is,
        walketh in the field,
In the hour of evening,
        meditating there.

Therefore Rebekah
        hasted where she sat,
And from her camel
        ’lighting to the earth,
Sought for a veil
        and put it on her face,

But Isaac also,
        walking in the field,
Saw from afar
        a company that came,
Camels, and a seat
        as where a woman sat;
Wherefore he came
        and met them on the way.

Whom, when Rebekah
        saw, she came before,
Saying, Behold
        the handmaid of my lord,
Who, for my lord’s sake,
        travel from my land.

But he said, O
        thou blessed of our God,
Come, for the tent
        is eager for thy face.
Shall not thy husband
        be unto thee more than
Hundreds of kinsmen
        living in thy land?

And Eleazar answered,
        Thus and thus,
Even according
        as thy father bade,
Did we; and thus and
        thus it came to pass:
Lo! is not this
        Rebekah, Bethuel’s child?

And, as he ended,
        Isaac spoke and said,
Surely my heart
        went with you on the way,
When with the beasts
        ye came unto the place.

Truly, O child
        of Nahor, I was there,
When to thy mother
        and thy mother’s son
Thou madest answer,
        saying, I will go.
And Isaac brought her
        to his mother’s tent.

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