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

I

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 bequeathings of ages untold

Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar

Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest ·

hail, there they are!

all

Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the

nest

Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green

T

on its crest

One long

1

shudder thrilled

For their food in the ardours of summer!

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

Death was past, life not come

hope and despair —

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: 'twas 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

Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and

entwine

Base with base to knit strength more intense: so, arm

folded in arm

O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided.

11.

What spell or what charm,

(For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next

should I

urge

Song

To sustain him where song had restored him?

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

praise life,

Gives assent, yet would die for his own part.

12.

Then fancies grew rife

Which had come long ago on the pastures, 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

13.

"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 mindedst when

these too, in turn

Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect; yet

more was to learn,

Ev'n 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 staunch

Every wound of man's spirit in winter.

such wine.

I pour thee

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 everywhere 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 ardour, 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 eye-ball, the rose at her height,

So with man so his power and his beauty forever take flight.

No! again a long draught of my soul-wine! look forth o'er the years

Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the seer's!