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 on Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more I prayed, And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid, But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!" And no voice replied. At the first I saw nought but the blackness; but soon I descried A something more black than the blackness--the vast, the upright Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight Grew a figure against it, gigantic 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 wide On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side: 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; 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 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 chaunt 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 Nought can break; who shall harm them, our friends?--Then, the chorus intoned As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. But I stopped here--for here in the darkness, Saul groaned.