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 centre, 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, 110 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 !

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. Awhile his right hand

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Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant forthwith to remand To their place what new objects should enter: 't was 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 entwine

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 awhile there was trouble within me,) what next should I urge

To sustain him where song had restored him?-Song filled to the verge 130 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:

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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

I began

thus

"thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring

From the mere mortal life held in common

by man and by brute:

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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, 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.

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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,

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

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A like cheer to their sons, who in turn, fill the South and the North

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 forever take flight.

No! Again a long draught of my soulwine! Look forth o'er the years! Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the seer's!

in our soul it bears fruit.

make his tomb - bid arise

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'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

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

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

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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

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The

In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou art!"

Saul, ye remember in glory, — ere error had bent

broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though much spent

Be the life and the bearing that front you,

To

So

the same, God did choose,

receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose.

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

22

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

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

power

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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 dispense !"

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

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E'en the Giver in one gift. - Behold, I

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,

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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 marvellous 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

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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 310

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!"

Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowl edge: but I fainted not,

For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed

All 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 sidling still Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe:

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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;