Bells and Pomegranates, Second Series/Saul
For other versions of this work, see Saul (Browning).
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 his cheek:And he, "Since the King, oh my friend,"For thy countenance sent,"Nor drunken nor eaten have we;"Nor, until from his tent"Thou return with the joyful assurance"The king liveth yet,"Shall our lip with the honey be brightened,"—The water, be wet.
"For out of the black mid-tent's silence,"A space of three days," No sound hath escaped to thy servants,"Of prayer nor of praise,"To betoken that Saul and the Spirit" Have gone their dread ways.
"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved!"God's child, with his dew "On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies"Still living and blue"As thou brak'st them to twine round thy harp-strings,"As if no wild heat"Were 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 o'er the slippery grass-patch—All withered and gone—That leads to the second enclosure,I groped my way on,Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open;Then once more I prayed,And opened the foldskirts and entered,And was not afraid;And spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!"And no voice replied;And first I saw nought 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, gigantic, against it,And blackest of all;—Then a sunbeam, that burst thro' the tent-roof,Showed Saul. He stood as erect as that tent-prop;Both arms stretched out wideOn the great cross-support in the centreThat goes to each side:So he bent not a muscle but hung thereAs, caught in his pangsAnd waiting his change the king-serpentAll heavily hangs,Far away from his kind, in the Pine,Till deliverance comeWith the Spring-time,―so agonized Saul,Drear and black, blind and dumb.
Then I tuned my harp,—took off the liliesWe twine round its chordsLest 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-doorTill folding be done—They are white and untorn by the bushesFor lo, they have fedWhere the long grasses stifle the waterWithin the stream's bed;How 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 cornlandWill leave each his mate To follow the player; then, what makesThe crickets elateTill for boldness they fight one another:And then, what has weightTo set the quick jerboa a-musingOutside his sand house—There are none such as he for a wonder—Half bird and half mouse!—God made all the creatures and gave themOur love and our fear,To show, we and they are his children,One family here.
Then I played the help-tune of our Reapers,Their wine-song, when handGrasps 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 low songWhen the dead man is praised on his journey—"Bear, bear him along"With his few faults shut up like dead flowrets;"Are balm-seeds not here"To console us? The land has got none such"As he on the bier"Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!"And then, the glad chauntOf the marriage,—first go the young maidens—Next, she whom we vauntAs the beauty, the pride of our dwelling:And then, the great marchWhen man runs to man to assist him And buttress an archNought can break . . who shall harm them, our brothers?Then, the chorus intonedAs the Levites go up to the altarIn 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 startAll the lordly male-sapphires, and rubiesCourageous 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, "Oh, our manhood's prime vigour!"—No spirit feels waste,"No muscle is stopped in its playing"No sinew unbraced,"And the wild joys of living! The leaping"From rock up to rock"The rending their boughs from the palm-trees,—"The cool silver shock"Of a plunge in the 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's-flesh steeped in the pitcher—"The full draught of wine,"And the sleep in the dried river channel"Where tall rushes tell"The water was wont to go warbling"So softly and well,—"How good is man's life here, mere living!"How fit to employ"The heart and the soul and the senses"For ever in joy!"Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father"Whose sword thou didst guard"When he trusted thee forth to the wolf hunt"For glorious reward?"Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother"Held up, as men sung"The song of the nearly-departed,"And heard her faint tongue"Joining in while it could to the witness""Let one more attest,""I have lived, seen God's hand thro' that life-time,""And all was for best. . . ""Then they sung thro' 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 so true—"And the friends of thy boyhood—that boyhood "With wonder and hope,"And the promise and wealth in the future,—"The eye's eagle scope,—"Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch,"A people is thine!"Oh all, all the world offers singly,"On one head combine,"On one head the joy and the pride,"Even rage like the throe"That opes the rock, helps its glad labour,"And lets the gold go—"And ambition that sees a sun lead it"Oh, all of these—all"Combine to unite in one creature"—Saul!"
(End of Part the First.)