SAUL. I. Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak, Kiss my cheek, wish me well!" Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek. And he "Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent, Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife, II. "Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with his dew On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heat Were now raging to torture the desert!" III. Then I, as was meet, Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet, And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was looped; un I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped; Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and gone, That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my way on prayed, And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!" And no voice replied. At the first I saw nought but the blackness; but soon I descried A something more black than the blackness. the vast, the upright Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent-roof, showed Saul. IV. He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side; He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his pangs And waiting his change, the king-serpent all heavily hangs, Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come With the spring-time, so agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind and dumb. V. Then I tuned my harp,—took off the lilies we twine round its chords Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide- those sunbeams like swords! And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one, VI. Then the tune, for which quails on the cornland will each leave his mate To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate weight To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse! God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here. VII. Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts expand And grow one in the sense of this world's life. last song When the dead man is praised on his journey-"Bear, bear him along, With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm seeds not here To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier. Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!" glad chaunt Of the marriage, we vaunt And then, the first go the young maidens, next, she whom As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling. And then, the great march Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch Nought can break; who shall harm them, our friends? Then, the chorus intoned As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. But I stopped here: for here in the darkness Saul groaned. VIII. And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart; And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered and sparkles 'gan dart : From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once with a start, erect. And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked, As I sang: : IX. "Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit feels waste, Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine, And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious re ward? Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung The low song of the nearly-departed, and hear her faint tongue Then they sung through their tears in strong triumph, not much, but the rest. And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence grew Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the spirit strained true : And the friends of thy boyhood that boyhood of wonder and hope, Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye's scope, Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a people is thine; And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head com bine! On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage (like the throe That, a-work in the rock, helps its labor and lets the gold go) High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them, - all Brought to blaze on the head of one creature X. King Saul!" And lo, with that leap of my spirit, heart, hand, harp and voice, Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoice Saul's fame in the light it was made for as when, dare I say, The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains through its array, And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot stopped, "Saul!" cried I, and And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung propped By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck by his name. Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to the aim, And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he alone, While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone the sheet? A year's snow bound about for a breastplate, — leaves grasp of Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet, And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your mountain of old, With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold — scar Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest all hail, there they are! Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on his crest For their food in the ardors of summer. One long shudder thrilled All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled At the King's self left standing before me, released and aware. What was gone, what remained? All to traverse 'twixt hope and despair, Death was past, life not come: so he waited. Awhile his right hand Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant forthwith to re mand To their place what new objects should enter: 't was Saul as before. I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any more Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore, At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean— a sun's slow decline Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and entwine Base with base to knit strength more intensely so, arm folded arm O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided. XI. What spell or what charm, (For, awhile there was trouble within me,) what next should Í urge To sustain him where song had restored him? the verge His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields fields, Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by? |