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 springtime, -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,
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!

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 Till for boldness they fight one another; and then, what has

weight

To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand houseThere 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.-And then, the

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!"-And then, the glad chant

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 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 All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart. 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,

IX.

Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit feels waste,
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced.
Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver
shock

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 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 are 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-King Saul!'

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 center, 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 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

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. A while 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 intwine 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, a while there was trouble within me), what next should I urge

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

His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields
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

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 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,

And the prudence that keeps what men strive for." And now these old trains

Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the string

Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus—

XIII.

"Yea, my King,"

I began―" thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by

brute :

In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears

fruit.

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 palm-fruit. 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!
By the spirit when age shall o'ercome 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,