  [The three selections which fill up the rest of this little volume are given as specimens of the distinctively Christian poems of our author. The first gives us Christ in the Old Testament; the second, Christ in the New; the third, Christianity in its essential truth and practical application. As only a portion of “Saul” can be given, a few words will be necessary to prepare the reader unacquainted with the whole for taking up the thread at the 14th stanza, from which, in the selection, the poem is continued uninterruptedly to the end.] Young David is telling over to himself (see “my voice to my heart,” in stanza 14) the story of his mission to Saul, when, as an inspired poet-musician, he charmed the evil spirit away from him. Stanza 16, consisting of one line, is the hinge of the entire poem; for David has just reached the point where, after several unsuccessful, or very partially successful, attempts—first, by playing one and another and another tune, which might awaken some chord in the apathetic spirit of the king, and then by singing, accompanied by the harp, first, of the joy of life, then of the splendid results of a royal life like Saul’s in the great future of the world—he at last, the truth coming upon him, strikes the high key where full relief is found. As he approaches this crisis in the tale, he cannot go on without an earnest invocation for help to tell what he had been so wonderfully led to sing:— XIV. And behold while I sang ... but O Thou who didst grant me, that day, And, before it, not seldom hast 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 help me, who then at the summit of human endeavour And scaling the highest, man’s thought could, gazed hopeless as ever 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 scarce dares believe in what marvels last night I took part, As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep! And fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep, For I wake in the grey dewy covert, while Hebron upheaves 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, though much spent To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose. So sank he along by the tent-prop, still, 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 on 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 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 dew-drop 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 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 hood-wink, “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, “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. “I believe it! ’Tis thou, God, that givest, ’tis I who receive: “In the first is the last, in thy will is my powder to believe. “All’s one gift: thou canst grant it, moreover, as prompt to my prayer, “As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air. “From thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth: “I will?—the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loth “To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare “Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair? “This;—’tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do! “See the King—I would help him, but cannot, the wishes fall through. “Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, “To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would—knowing which, “I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now! “Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou—so wilt thou! “So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown— “And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down “One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath, “As thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved “Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved! “He who did most shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak. “’Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! my flesh that I seek “In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be “A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, “Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand “Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!” XIX. I know not too well how I found my way home in the night. There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right, Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware: I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there, As a runner beset by the populace famished for news— Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews; And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not, For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest. Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth— Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day’s tender birth; In the gathered intensity brought to the grey of the hills; In the shuddering forests’ held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still, Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill That rose heavily as I approached them, made stupid with awe: E’en the serpent that slid away silent—he felt the new law. The same stared in the white humid faces 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!” Stanza 14.—Observe the meeting of the human and divine in the poet-prophet’s inspiration. As poet, his powers were in their fullest exercise, and still there was an unfathomable heaven of the unknown above him, till “one lift of Thy hand cleared that distance.” The close of this stanza sets before us the scene of the writing of this reminiscence. Stanza 15.—The soothing influence of the singing begins to appear. Be sure to keep in mind the picture, so wonderfully illustrated, of the attitude of the two; and mark the words of David, “All my heart how it loved Stanza 17.—Shall God be infinitely above his creature man, in all faculties except one, and that “the greatest of all,” viz., Love? (Note, in passing, the exquisite beauty of the lines: “With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too,” and “As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet.” The passage immediately following this line is of course ironical at his own expense, which is indicated by the parenthetical “I laugh as I think”; as if to say “how utterly foolish the thought that such a wide province, such a grand gift, as Love, should be mine quite apart from God, the great Ruler and Giver of all!”) Stanza 18.—Impossible! God is the giver: all that I have—Love, as well as everything else—is from him; I can wish, but cannot will the thing I would; but God can, therefore God will; his love cannot be frustrated as mine is; it must even for such as “Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,” find Salvation; being infinite it must have its will, and find a way, however hard it be (see the striking line “it is by no breath,” &c.); and there it is! See the Christ stand! Remember carefully the position as explained in the 15th stanza as you read the magnificent climax, beginning— “O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee;” observe also the effect of the spondee with which stanza 18 closes, instead of the usual anapÆst; it gives wonderful dignity and strength to the thought. The same effect is produced several times in the early part of the poem by the same means, but nowhere with such power as in this, the grand climax. What a contrast here to the petty mechanical notions of inspiration which have so often degraded the loftiest subject of human thought; and how marvellously is the presence and the power of the Unseen on such a soul as David’s imaged forth in the lines of the closing stanza, in words which seem almost to utter the unutterable. |
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