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 80 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?" 85 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 hood of wonder and hope, that boy Present promise and wealth of the future And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung propped By the tent's cross-support in the center, was struck by his name. Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to the aim, 105 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 breastplate,- 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 bequeathings of ages untold · Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar 110 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 115 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; Then fancies grew rife 135 Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep Fed in silence - above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep; 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 or dained to be passed with my flocks, 140 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, Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree, -how its stem trembled first Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then safely outburst The fan-branches all round; and thou 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, 155 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! By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy More indeed, than at first when unconscious, 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, 165 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 ardor, till they too give forth A like cheer to their sons; who in turn, fill the South and the North 170 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 for ever take flight. 175 No! Again a long draft of my soul-wine! 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? Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go In great characters cut by the scribe, Such was Saul, so he did; With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid,— 180 For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend, In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend (See, in tablets 't is level before them) their praise, and record 185 With the gold of the graver, Saul's story,— the statesman's great word Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river's a-wave With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds rave: So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou art!' XIV And behold while I sang 190 but O To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, 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, And sat out my singing,- one arm round the tent-prop, to raise His bent head, and the other hung slacktill I touched on the praise 220 |