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

With the radiance thy deed was the germ of.

past!

Carouse in the

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 four-square, 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,— For not half, they'il affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend,

In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend

(See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and record 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 prophetwinds 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!

And behold while I sang

me, that day,

XIV.

.. but O Thou who didst grant

And, before it, not seldom hast granted thy help to essay,

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 endeavor 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 scarce 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 dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and Kidron

retrieves

Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine.

XV.

I say then, my song While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and, ever more strong,

Made a proffer of good to console him--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 countenance 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,

To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite

lose.

So sank he along by the tent-prop, still, stayed by the pile Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there a while,

And sat out my singing-one arm round the tent-prop, to raise

His bent head, and the other hung slack-till I touched on the praise

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 he laid it with care Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: through my hair

The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with power

kind

All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower.
Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized

mine

And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was the sign?

I yearned--" Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss,
I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this;
I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence
As this moment,-had love but the warrant, love's heart to dis-
pense!"

XVI.

Then the truth came upon me.

outbroke

XVII.

No harp more-no song more!

"I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I spoke ; I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my brain

And pronounced on the rest of his handwork-returned him

again

His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I saw.

I report, as a man may of God's work--all's love, yet all's law. Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty

tasked

To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked.

Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.

Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care!

Do I task any faculty highest to image success?

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? Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift,

That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here the parts shift?

Here, the creature surpass the creator,-the end, what began ?
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man,
And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can ?
Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less
power,

To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvelous dower
Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul,
Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole?
And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest)
These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the
best?

Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height This perfection,--succeed, with life's dayspring, death's minute

of night?

Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul, the mistake,
Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,—and bid him awake
From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set
Clear and safe in new light and new life,-a new harmony yet
To be run and continued, and ended-who knows?-or endure!
The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to make

sure;

By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss,
And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in

this.

XVIII.

"I believe it! 'Tis thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive: In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe. All's one gift thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my

prayer,

As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air. From thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread

Sabaoth:

I will?-the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loth
To look that, even that in the face too?
Think but lightly of such impuissance?

despair?

Why is it I dare
What stops my

This; 'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!

See the King-I would help him, but cannot, the wishes fall through.

Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich,
To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would-knowing which,
I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now!
Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou-so wilt
thou!

So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown---
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down
One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath,
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death!
As thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved!
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand
the most weak.

'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek

In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ
stand!"

XIX.

I know not too well how I found my way home in the night.
There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right,
Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware :
I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there,
As a runner beset by the populace famished for news-
Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed

with her crews;

And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot Out in fire the strong paint of pent knowledge: but I fainted not,