Then I tuned my harp, took off the lilies we twine round its chords

Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noon

tide those sunbeams like swords!

Of the marriage, first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt 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

know, as, one after one,

So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done.

They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed

Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed;

And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star

Into eve and the blue far above us, SO blue and so far!

our friends? Then, the chorus intoned

As the Levites go up to the altar in glory

Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine, And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,

And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell

That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.

How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ

All the heart and the soul and the senses

forever in joy!

Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou didst guard

When he trusted thee forth with the

armies, for glorious reward? 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

Joining in while it could to the witness, "Let one more attest,

I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, and all was for best?" 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 grapebundles, 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 combine! On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage (like the throe

That, a-work in the rock, helps its labour

X

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 "Saul!" cried I, and stopped, 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 A year's snow bound about for a breast

plate, leaves grasp of the sheet? 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 bequeathing of ages untold

Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and 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 ardours 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 remand To their place what new objects should enter: 'twas 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 I urge

To sustain him where song had restored him? Song filled to the verge

Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty beyond, on what 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? He saith, "It is good;" still he drinks not he lets me praise life, Gives assent, yet would die for his own part.

XII

Then fancies grew rife Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep

mindest when these too, in turn, Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect: yet more was to learn, E'en the good that comes in with the palmfruit. Our dates shall we slight, When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and branch

Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall stanch Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine,

Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine!

And I lay in my hollow and mused on

the world that might lie

'Neath his ken, though I saw but the

strip 'twixt the hill and the sky: And I laughed - "Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks, Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks,

Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show

Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know!

Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains,

thee, thou still shalt enjoy

More indeed, than at first when inconscious, the life of a boy.

Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each deed thou hast done Dies, revives, goes to work in the world! until e'en as the sun Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though tempests efface, Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace

The results of his past summer-prime, so, each ray of thy will, Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill

Thy whole people, the countless, with ardour, till they too give forth

A like cheer to their sons, who in turn, fill the South and the North With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Carouse in the past!

But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last:

As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height,

So with man so his power and his beauty forever take flight. No! Again a long draught of my soul

wine! Look forth o'er the years! Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the seer's!

Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb - bid arise

A gray mountain of marble heaped foursquare, till, built to the skies,

Let it mark where the great First King slumbers: whose fame would ye know?

Carry on and complete an adventure, — my shield and my sword

In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy word was my word,

Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavour

And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as ever

On the new stretch of heaven above me -till, mighty to save,

Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance God's throne from

man's grave!

Let me tell out my tale to its ending my voice to my heart

Which can scare dare believe in what marvels last night I took part, As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep,

And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep!

For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron upheaves

the record shall go

And behold while I sang. but O Thou who didst grant me that day,

shoulder, and Kidron retrieves Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine.

he slowly resumed

His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumed His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes Of his turban, and see the huge sweat that his coutenance bathes, He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as of yore,

And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set before.

He is Saul, ye remember in glory, ere error had bent

The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though much spent

Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did choose,

thy help to essay,

crate, never quite lose.

So sank he along by the tent-prop till, stayed by the pile

Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile, one arm round the tent-prop, to raise His bent head, and the other hung slack till I touched on the praise

And sat out my singing,

I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there;

And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 'ware

That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees

Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak roots which please

To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know

If the best I could do had brought solace; he spoke not, but slow

Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till

-

I but open my eyes, and perfection, no more and no less,

In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God

In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.

And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew

(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too)

The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all-complete,

As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet.

Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known,

I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own.

There's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink,

I am fain to keep still in abeyance, (I laugh as I think)

Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst

E'en the Giver in one gift. - Behold, I could love if I durst!

But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake

God's own speed in the one way of love: I abstain for love's sake.

What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small,

Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appall?

In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all?