Saul

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 hischeek.And he, "Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent,Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tentThou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet,Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet.For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days,Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, 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 uponlife.

"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with his dewOn thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blueJust broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heatWere now raging to torture the desert!"

Then I, as was meet,Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet,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 on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and gone,That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my way onTill I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more Iprayed,And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraidBut spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!" And no voice replied.At the first I saw naught but the blackness; but soon I descriedA something more black than the blackness--the vast, the uprightMain prop which sustains the pavilion; and slow into sightGrew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all.Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent-roof, showed Saul.

He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wideOn the great cross-support in the center, that goes to each side;He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in hispangsAnd waiting his change, the king-serpent all heavily hangs,Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance comeWith the springtime--so agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind anddumb.

Then I tuned my harp--took off the lilies we twine round its chordsLest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide--thosesunbeams 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 fedWhere the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed;And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows starInto eve and the blue far above us--so blue and so far!

--Then the tune for which quails on the cornland will each leave hismateTo fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elateTill for boldness they fight one another; and then, what has weightTo set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house--There 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.

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, whenhandGrasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and greathearts expandAnd grow one in the sense of this world's life.--And then, the lastsongWhen the dead man is praised on his journey--"Bear, bear him along,With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm seeds nothereTo console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier.Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!"--And then, the gladchauntOf the marriage--first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vauntAs the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.--And then, the great marchWherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an archNaught can break; who shall harm them, our friends?--Then, the chorusintonedAs the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned.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; and sparkles 'gan dartFrom the jewels that woke in his turban, at once with a start,All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous atheart.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:

"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 shockOf 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 dustdivine,And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draft of wine,And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tellThat the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employAll the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou didstguardWhen he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious reward?Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sungThe low song of the nearly-departed, and hear her faint tongueJoining in while it could to the witness, 'Let one moreattest,I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, and all was forbest'?Then they sung through their tears in strong triumph, not much, butthe rest.And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence grewSuch result as, from seething grape-bundles, the spirit strainedtrue;And the friends of thy boyhood--that boyhood of wonder andhope,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 thethroeThat, a-work in the rock, helps its labor and lets the goldgo)High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them--allBrought to blaze on the head of one creature--King Saul!"

And lo, with that leap of my spirit--heart, hand, harp, and voice,Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoiceSaul's fame in the light it was made for--as when, dare Isay,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 proppedBy the tent's cross-support in the center, was struck by his name.Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to theaim,And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he alone,While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust ofstoneA year's snow bound about for a breastplate--leaves grasp of thesheet?Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet,And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, yourmountain of old,With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold--Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scarOf his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest--all hail, there theyare!--Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nestOf the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on hiscrestFor their food in the ardors of summer. One long shudder thrilledAll the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilledAt the King's self left standing before me, released and aware.What was gone, what remained? All to traverse, 'twixt hope anddespair;Death was past, life not come: so he waited. Awhile hisright handHeld the brow, held the eyes left too vacant forthwith to remandTo their place what new objects should enter: 'twas Saul as before.I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any moreThan by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore,At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean--a sun's slow declineOver hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and entwineBase with base to knit strength more intensely: so, arm folded armO'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided.

What spell or what charm,(For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urgeTo sustain him where song had restored him?--Song filled tothe vergeHis cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yieldsOf mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty; beyond, on whatfields,Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eyeAnd bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by?He saith, "It is good"; still he drinks not; he lets mepraise life,Gives assent, yet would die for his own part.

Then fancies grew rifeWhich had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheepFed 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 hilland the sky;And I laughed--"Since my days are ordained to be passed with myflocks,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 showOf mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know!Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the couragethat gains,And the prudence that keeps what men strive for." And now these oldtrainsOf vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the stringOf my harp made response to my spirit, as thus--

"Yea, my King,"I began--"thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that springFrom the mere mortal life held in common by man and bybrute:In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bearsfruit.Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree--how its stem trembledfirstTill it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then safely outburstThe fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these too, in turnBroke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect; yet more wasto learn,E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall weslight,When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plightOf the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem andbranchShall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shallstanchEvery wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee suchwine.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 enjoyMore indeed, than at first when inconscious, the life of a boy.Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each deed thou hastdoneDies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e'en as thesunLooking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though tempestsefface,Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere traceThe results of his past summer-prime--so, each ray of thy will,Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrillThy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till they toogive forthA like cheer to their sons, who in turn, fill the South and theNorthWith 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 takeflight.No! Again a long draft 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 ariseA gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, built to theskies,Let it mark where the great First King slumbers; whose famewould ye know?Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall goIn 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'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault toamend,In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon theyshall spend(See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and recordWith the gold of the graver, Saul's story--the statesman's great wordSide by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river's a-waveWith smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds rave:So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their partIn thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou art!"

And behold while I sang ... but O Thou who didst grant me that day,And before it not seldom hast granted thy help to essay,Carry on and complete an adventure--my shield and my swordIn that act where my soul was thy servant, thy word was myword--Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavorAnd scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as everOn the new stretch of heaven above me--till, mighty to save,Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance--God's throne fromman's grave!Let me tell out my tale to its evening--my voice to my heartWhich 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 upheavesThe dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and KidronretrievesSlow the damage of yesterday's sunshine.

I say then--my songWhile I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and ever more strongMade a proffer of good to console him--he slowly resumedHis old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumedHis black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted theswathesOf 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 bentThe broad brow from the daily communion; and still, thoughmuch spentBe the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did chooseTo receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose.So sank he along by the tent-prop till, stayed by the pileOf his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile,And sat out my singing--one arm round the tent-prop, toraiseHis bent head, and the other hung slack--till I touched on the praiseI foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there;And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 'wareThat he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast kneesWhich were thrust out on each side around me, like oak-rootswhich pleaseTo encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to knowIf the best I could do had brought solace; he spoke not, but slowLifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with careSoft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow; through my hairThe large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head,with kind power--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--Andoh, 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 andthis;I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence,As this moment--had love but the warrant, love's heart to dispense!"

"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 mybrainAnd pronounced on the rest of his handwork--returned him againHis 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 taskedTo perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop wasasked.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 GodIn 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 worstE'en the Giver in one gift.--Behold, I could love if I durst!But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertakeGod'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 andsmall,Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredthappall?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 dowerOf the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul,Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering thewhole?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?Aye, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the heightThis perfection--succeed with life's day-spring, death's minute ofnight?Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake,Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now--and bid him awakeFrom the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself setClear and safe in new light and new life--a new harmony yetTo be run, and continued, and ended--who knows?--or endure!The man taught enough, by life's dream, of the rest to makesure;By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss,And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this.

"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 tomy prayerAs 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 loathTo look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dareThink but lightly of such impuissance? What stops mydespair?This;--'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Woulddo!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 downOne spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath,Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue withdeath!As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be provedThy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved!He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the mostweak.'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seekIn the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall beA Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this handShall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christstand!"

I know not too well how I found my way home in the night.There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and toright,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 hercrews;And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled andshotOut in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge; but I fainted not,For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressedAll the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest,Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest.Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth--Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth;In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills;In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills;In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidlingstillThough averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff andchillThat rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe:E'en the serpent that slid away silent--he felt the new law.The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers;The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers:And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent andlow,With their obstinate, all but hushed voices--"E'en so, it is so!"