University of Virginia Library

I sit in the silence of evening; the shadows are falling apace,
And forms that have vanished flit round me. The years that are past I retrace:
The scroll of my life is unrolled; one moment of vision enough
To grasp all the joys and the sorrows, to travel the smooth and the rough.
First come the days of my childhood, fair home on the Gilead hills,
The cool balm-scent of the breeze, and the music of murmuring rills;
I joyed in the moist green meadows where Jordan lovingly flows,
Bright with the golden lilies, and flushed with the purple rose;
The kids of the goats bleated kindly, following me to the stream,
And the eyes of the tame gazelle made me glad with their womanly gleam.
When heroes and chiefs of my tribe marched by with their shield and their lance,
And forth from the gates of the city came maidens with song and with dance,
Who but I was foremost among them, rejoicing, timbrel in hand,
To welcome the men stout of heart who had fought for our fathers' land?
We mourned not then for the dead: not as the fools had they died,
But warring against the uncircumcised, taming the Philistines' pride:
The sword of Jehovah was theirs, the Lord of Sabaoth their guide.
And then when our bondage was over, we went forth at eve from the gate
(No fear of the noise of archers), round the wells to gather and wait,
Drawing water for mothers and children, from well deep, sparkling, and cool,
Instead of the few scant drops from the city's defilèd pool.
Ah, bright were the days, and pleasant, the golden spring of my year;
Now the flowers of the spring are all withered, my life is wasted and sere.
Full strange was the chance of my life; I passed from a fond mother's side
To be the beloved of a king, in all but name a king's bride.
Saul saw me, and loved me, and won me, the king, the anointed, the brave;
Gladly for him had I died, yea, gladly had lived as his slave.
Worthy of love he stood, in the stately pride of his height,
And towered above Israel's hosts, armed and arrayed for the fight;
That lofty form was the dwelling of soul full as lofty and great;
The soul of a king was there, strong in its love and its hate.
And mine, oh! mine was the love; the warrior, mighty to slay,
In his giant embrace would fold me, with my braided tresses would play;
And ev'n when the dark hour came, and the hand of the Lord on him fell,
And instead of the clear light of heaven, brought the clouds and the darkness of hell;
When moody and sullen he sat, and all were afraid to draw near,
When David fled from his presence, and Jonathan shrank from his spear,
When curses fell thickly around, and the madness all soothing defied,
I still might draw near without dread, might safely crouch at his side.
If I failed to equal his skill, the shepherd-boy with his song,
David, fair-faced, golden-haired, his soul as yet guiltless of wrong,
Trained by the prophet of Ramah the songs full and deep to intone,
Whose music floats, like the incense, upward through clouds to the Throne,
Music that he, my king, when it rose in its wave-like swell,
From the white-robed band of seers, with a strange, o'er-mastering spell,
Silent and rapt, would list to, till he bowed to its mighty sway,
And with kingly robes cast off, all night on the hard earth lay;
And instead of the curses of madness, instead of the silent despair,
Joined in the great Hallelujah that burst, like a storm, through the air,
“Is Saul too among the prophets?” men said, in their wonder and scorn,
As the deep waters welled from the soul, through the might of that music new-born.
This was not mine to do, but my woman's heart had the trick
To pour in its Gilead-balm when the iron had pierced to the quick;
My touch on that burning brow would soothe the frenzied despair;
My smile would bend into fondness that fixed and terrible glare:
No curses dark, no maddened rage, might my soul in its deep love, appal;
Though God and man might forsake him, he was yet mine own, my king Saul.

Children around us grew: Armoni, the brave and the bold,
With bright eyes like an antelope's, and locks of burnished gold;
Mephibosheth, oh, how unlike the crippled slave who lives,
And eats at David's table of the bread his master gives!
No cripple, my Mephibosheth, but supple, lithe of limb,
Before Jehovah fair and bright, none might compare to him.
When the day of his weaning came, hour of a fond mother's pride,
Kish came, and Abner, to greet us; they came from the hills far and wide,
The elders of Gilead brought gifts, the corn, and the oil, and the wine,
Cheese from the milk of the goats, and fruit of the fig-tree and vine;
With dancing and song in their joy, in music exulting and wild,
They sang the praise of my boy, the praise of my own princely child.

Now all is gone as a dream. The king (though I saw it not)
Fell fighting with Philistines in the battle fierce and hot.
On Gilboa's heights he fell: God's curses on them rest!
May no dew of heaven fall on them, be they barren and unblest!
He fell, his brave son with him; the uncircumcisèd crew
In that dark hour my noble Saul, the Lord's anointed, slew;
On Bethshan's wall they hung him, all stript and stained with blood,
The ghastly sport of scoffers, and the vulture's hideous food;
The king who had clothed us in purple, the pride of his people, hung there,
Shaming the sun in the heavens, poisoning the summer night-air.
Blest be the warriors of Gilead, the men of Jabesh the strong;
They had not forgotten the hero who saved them from outrage and wrong;
By night they came silent and swift; not plundering, eager to slay,
But holy and pure in their souls as the priests when they stand up and pray.
They stole to the gate of the city; the watchmen slept on their posts;
Speechless they crept on the walls, through the slumbering Philistines' hosts;
Goodly the spoil they brought back, the mouldering bones of the brave;
They gave them a chieftain's burial, they dug them a chieftain's grave;
Under that old oak of Jabesh they laid him, the lordly, the tall;
For seven days and nights they wept sore over their king, and my king, my Saul.

It was well. David heard it. It pleased him: he too would lament.
Over the beauty of Israel. In every Israelite's tent
That song of the Bow re-echoed, which told of the father and son,
Lovely and pleasant together, in life as in death ever one;
Which told of the wonderful love, tender, and fervent, and true,
The love of the pure and the stainless, love granted only to few.
“Passing the love of woman,” he called it. Well might he call;
He gauged not the depths of my heart, my love for my hero, my Saul;
He married for power or for wealth, paving his steps to the throne;
Men might admire him and love, but no woman's heart was his own;
Michal, Saul's daughter, she scorned him, and Bathsheba's homage, I ween,
Was not as a true maiden's love, but the trick of a would-be queen.

The days of my mourning were over. I wept for my dead for a while;
But a mother needs must rejoice in the light of her children's smile:
They grew in their youth, and their manhood, keeneyed, quick of foot and of hand,
And Abner spake loud in their praise, as the first of his goodly band.
Abner, the brave, he too loved me; I was fain to love him in return;
To whom in her desolate shame could the outcast concubine turn?
Yet not as Saul could I love him; the freshness of passion was gone,
Which sweeps the whole current of life to its loved one exultingly on;
I was fair in his sight; and he, I found him kindly and brave;
I was true as a wife to her husband, and wept true tears at his grave.
My sons too found him a father: he taught them the use of the bow,
Taught them to strike down the lion, to fight, hand to hand, with the foe.
They fought for the birthright of Saul in that long and lingering strife.
The sons of a king were they, in them flowed the kingly life:
They were true to their name and their fame, true to their oath and their word,
Till at last the struggle was over, and Israel owned David as lord.
“Now,” I thought, “they are mine till I die. The danger is over, is past;
My life will no longer be dreary, the sky is no longer o'ercast.”