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 grapebundles, 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 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 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 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, With his rents, the successive bequeathing 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. Awhile his right hand 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 oceana 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

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,

Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must every where 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. 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!

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 ve 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'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 stateman'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!"

I say then, my song While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and ever more strong Made a proffer of good to console himhe 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 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 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 kind powerAll 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!"

XVI

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more-no song more! outbroke

XVII

"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 workall'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 shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.

it

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 1 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 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 day-spring, 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 endedwho 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! "T is thou, God, that givest, 't is 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? Why is it I dare

Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair?

This 't is 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. "T is 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 pain of pent knowledge: 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:

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: