The Finding of The Book and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Still as King David's bed
By that poetic head
Was pressed, much aching with its stately care,
O'er him his kinnor hung,
The silver nails among,
For the sweet sake of old companionship in prayer.

Doth not the soldier keep
A stiller hour of sleep
Because the good sword near him is so sharp,
Because he sees it gleam,
Come what there may in dream?
Why should not poet rest gentlier beneath his harp?

143

Yet, after all, for us,
Earth's poets sleeping thus,
Harps are but golden silences at best;
Bright may be star or moon,
But harps without a tune
Of all that makes their life lovely are dispossess'd.

But what if some wind's low
Touches should come and go
Over the chords, and, seeming but caprice,
Should yet repass and die
To live eternally,
The Æolian impulse fixed in some immortal piece?

When other winds were laid
In Kedron's olive glade,
A North-wind from some far-off country came,
Rippled through every string
Above the poet-king,
And made a gentle noise much like a little flame.

A noise along the chords,
Fitting itself to words,
Not proud and perfect, made for mortal praise,

144

Like the Hellenic line,
For ivy hued like wine,
And crocuses ablaze with all their golden rays,

But broken with sweet art
To suit a broken heart,
Fierce, passionate, pregnant—if superb
Only with lights that lie
On dim-peak'd prophecy,
Only with gleams that leap out of some pictured verb.

Once to the North-wind's stir,
The harp's interpreter,
A boy came forth unstain'd by loves or wars,
And sang 'neath the night-sky
A song that will not die
Till heaven has lost its moon and company of stars.

Once did it swell and form
Into a psalm of storm,
With ‘Gloria in Excelsis’ it began—
Through it seven thunders roll;
For ending of the whole
A ‘Pax in terris’ falls soft on the ear of man

145

Again the North-wind flowed,
And then some tiny ode
Came in divine completeness through the palms—
Perfect in little found,
A flawless diamond,
A rosebud verse of praise, a violet of the psalms.

Yet again after this,
Half his and half not his,
Came words of heav'n that yet most human were—
Lo! as he sighs and prays,
He fashions many a phrase
That lives in every age on every lip of prayer.

There went forth fragments then,
Fitting all lips of men,
As universal as our human sighs,
The language of each heart
That ever spoke apart
To God and to itself, waiting for sure replies.

146

Was that a cloud which rose
Over the king's repose,
A silver shower that patter'd in his ears?—
A shower, but not of rain,
A low-hung cloud of pain
That weeps itself away in penitential tears.

The North-wind's wondrous skill
Sounds more pathetic still,
As if a whole world that had lost its way,
With cut feet and wet cheek,
Should to the mute heav'n speak
Things that we all have felt, but none has dared to say.

Sometimes the music moved
As round a form it loved,
Now lit, now lost, upon high broken grounds,
Here circled with the thorn,
There with the rays of morn,
Here crested with the light, there crimson as with wounds.

Like all high song, it keeps
True concert with what weeps,

147

Yet loses not the joy beneath the woe,
As after suns have set,
The forest tangles get
A bar of golden light, and will not let it go.

At last the North-wind fails,
The dying music wails,
And the king looks towards the eastern hill;
Expectantly he waits
To see at morning's gates
The orient realms of rose and deeps of daffodil

Unfolding to his touch,
Because his song was such
That while dawn wakes earth's monarchs with its breath,
David awakes the dawn
High on the sacred lawn
With his mysterious tune, his dawn-flushed Ayyeleth.

A harp used to hang above David's bed. At midnight the north wind blew among the strings so that they sounded of themselves. David arose and busied himself with the Törah, until the pillar of the dawn ascended.—Talmud. B. Berachoth, 3 b.

Ps. xxix.

Ps. xxii. Title.