170 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 eyeball, 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! 175 Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual: begin with the seer's! Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb: bid arise A gray mountain of marble heaped foursquare, till, built to the skies, Let it mark where the great First King slumbers, whose fame would ye know? Up above, see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go 180 In great characters cut by the scribe, For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend, In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend (See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and record 185 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, 210 - 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, error had bent ere The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though much spent This perfection, - succeed with life's day- So shall crown thee the topmost, in From the dream, the probation, the prelude, Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation to find himself set joins issue with death! As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved 305 'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek E'en the serpent that slid away silent, he felt the new law. In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O The same stared in the white humid faces Saul, it shall be upturned by the flowers, The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers: And the little brooks, witnessing, murmured, persistent and low, With their obstinate, all but hushed voices, "E'en so, it is so!" "DE GUSTIBUS-" Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, (If our loves remain), In an English lane, 335 What I love best in all the world By the many hundred years red-rusted, 15 20 26 30 |