He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side; { 30} He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his pangs And waiting his change, the king serpent all heavily hangs, Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come With the spring-time,--so agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind and dumb.
Then I tuned my harp,--took off the lilies we twine round its chords Lest 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-door till folding be done. They are white, and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream’s bed; { 40} And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star Into eve and the blue far above us,--so blue and so far!
--Then the tune, for which quails on the cornland will each leave his mate To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate Till for boldness they fight one another: and then, what has weight To 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, when hand { 50} Grasps at 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 last song When the dead man is praised on his journey--“Bear, bear him along With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm seeds not here To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier. Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!”--And then, the glad chant Of the marriage,--first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.--And then, the great march Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch Naught can break; who shall harm them, our friends?--Then, the chorus intoned { 60} As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. But I stopped here: for here in the darkness Saul groaned.