| |
| 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, | 5 |
| For thy countenance sent, | |
| Nor drunken nor eaten have we; | |
| Nor, until from his tent | |
| Thou return with the joyful assurance | |
| The king liveth yet, | 10 |
| Shall our lip with the honey be brightened, | |
| The water be wet. | |
| |
| “For out of the black mid-tent’s silence, | |
| A space of three days, | |
| No sound hath escaped to thy servants, | 15 |
| Of prayer nor of praise, | |
| To betoken that Saul and the Spirit | |
| Have ended their strife, | |
| And that faint in his triumph the monarch | |
| Sinks back upon life. | 20 |
| |
| “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 | |
| As thou break’st them to twine round thy harp-strings, | 25 |
| As if no wild heat | |
| Were raging to torture the desert!” | |
| Then I, as was meet, | |
| Knelt down to the God of my fathers, | |
| And rose on my feet, | 30 |
| And ran o’er the sand burnt to powder. | |
| The tent was unlooped; | |
| I pulled up the spear that obstructed, | |
| And under I stooped; | |
| Hands and knees o’er the slippery grass-patch— | 35 |
| All withered and gone,— | |
| That leads to the second enclosure, | |
| I groped my way on, | |
| Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open; | |
| Then once more I prayed, | 40 |
| And opened the foldskirts and entered, | |
| And was not afraid; | |
| And spoke, “Here is David, thy servant!” | |
| And no voice replied; | |
| And first I saw naught but the blackness,— | 45 |
| 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 | 50 |
| Grew a figure, gigantic, against it, | |
| And blackest of all;— | |
| Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent-roof, | |
| Showed Saul. | |
| He stood as erect as that tent-prop; | 55 |
| Both arms stretched out wide | |
| On the great cross-support in the centre | |
| That goes to each side: | |
| So he bent not a muscle, but hung there | |
| As, caught in his pangs | 60 |
| 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, | 65 |
| Drear and stark, blind and dumb. | |
| |
| 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! | 70 |
| And I first played the tune all our sheep 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, | 75 |
| For lo, they have fed | |
| Where the long grasses stifle the water | |
| Within the stream’s bed; | |
| How one after one seeks its lodging, | |
| As star follows star | 80 |
| Into eve and the blue far above us,— | |
| So blue and so far! | |
| Then the tune for which quails on the cornland | |
| Will leave each his mate | |
| To follow the player; then, what makes | 85 |
| The crickets elate | |
| Till for boldness they fight one another; | |
| And then, what has weight | |
| To set the quick jerboa a-musing | |
| Outside his sand house,— | 90 |
| There are none such as he for a wonder,— | |
| Half bird and half mouse!— | |
| God made all creatures, and gave them | |
| Our love and our fear, | |
| To show we and they are his children, | 95 |
| One family here. | |
| |
| Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, | |
| Their wine-song, when hand | |
| Grasps hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, | |
| And great hearts expand, | 100 |
| And grow one in the sense of this world’s life; | |
| And then, the low song | |
| When the dead man is praised on his journey,— | |
| “Bear, bear him along | |
| With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets; | 105 |
| Are balm-seeds not here | |
| To console us? The land is left none such | |
| As he on the bier— | |
| O, would we might keep thee, my brother!” | |
| And then the glad chant | 110 |
| 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 | |
| When man runs to man to assist him, | 115 |
| And buttress an arch | |
| Naught can break … who shall harm them, our friends? | |
| Then, the chorus intoned | |
| As the Levites go up to the altar | |
| In glory enthroned,— | 120 |
| But I stopped here,—for here, in the darkness, | |
| Saul groaned. | |
| |
| And I paused, held my breath in such silence! | |
| And listened apart; | |
| And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered,— | 125 |
| And sparkles ’gan dart | |
| From the jewels that woke in his turban,— | |
| At once with a start | |
| All its lordly male sapphires, and rubies | |
| Courageous at heart; | 130 |
| So the head,—but the body still moved not, | |
| Still hung there erect. | |
| And I bent once again to my playing, | |
| Pursued it unchecked, | |
| As I sang, “O, our manhood’s prime vigor! | 135 |
| No spirit feels waste, | |
| No muscle is stopped in its playing, | |
| No sinew unbraced;— | |
| And the wild joys of living! The leaping | |
| From rock up to rock,— | 140 |
| The rending their boughs from the palm-trees,— | |
| The cool silver shock | |
| Of a plunge in the pool’s living water,— | |
| The haunt of the bear, | |
| And the sultriness showing the lion | 145 |
| Is couched in his lair: | |
| And the meal,—the rich dates,—yellowed over | |
| With gold-dust divine, | |
| And the locust’s-flesh steeped in the pitcher, | |
| The full draught of wine, | 150 |
| And the sleep in the dried river channel | |
| Where tall rushes tell | |
| The water was wont to go warbling | |
| So softly and well,— | |
| How good is man’s life here, mere living! | 155 |
| How fit to employ | |
| 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 | 160 |
| When he trusted thee forth to the wolf-hunt | |
| For glorious reward? | |
| Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother | |
| Held up, as men sung | |
| The song of the nearly departed, | 165 |
| And heard her faint tongue | |
| Joining in while it could to the witness | |
| “Let one more attest, | |
| I have lived, seen God’s hand through that lifetime, | |
| And all was for best.” | 170 |
| 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 | 175 |
| The spirit so true: | |
| And the friends of thy boyhood—that boyhood | |
| With wonder and hope, | |
| Present promise, and wealth in the future,— | |
| The eye’s eagle scope,— | 180 |
| Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch, | |
| A people is thine! | |
| O, all gifts the world offers singly, | |
| On one head combine, | |
| On one head the joy and the pride, | 185 |
| Even rage like the throe | |
| That opes the rock, helps its glad labor, | |
| And lets the gold go,— | |
| And ambition that sees a sun lead it,— | |
| O, all of these,—all | 190 |
| Combine to unite in one creature— | |
| Saul! | |
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