FullReads

XIV

And behold while I sang … but O Thou who didst grant me that day,
And before it not seldom had granted Thy help to essay.
Carry on and complete an adventure,–my shield and my sword
In that act where my soul was Thy servant, Thy word was my word,–
Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavour
And scaling the highest, man’s thought could, gazed hopeless as ever
On the new stretch of heaven above me–till, mighty to save,
Just one lift of Thy hand cleared that distance–God’s throne from man’s grave!
Let me tell out my tale to its ending–my voice to my heart
Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night I took part,
As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep,
And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep!
For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron, upheaves
The dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and Kidron retrieves
Slow the damage of yesterday’s sunshine.

XV
I say then,–my song
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–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, tho’ much spent
Be the life and 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 armour 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 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: thro’ my hair
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with kind power–
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!”

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,
Reported, as man may of God’s work–all’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 it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.
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 I 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 appal?
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 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
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 ended–who 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.