“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. 150
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 mindest when
these too, in turn
Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect:
yet more was to learn,
E’en 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.
I pour thee such wine.
Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit
be thine! 160
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, tho’ clouds spoil
him, tho’ 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 170
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!
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 four-square, 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,—Such
was Saul, so he did;
With the sages directing the work, by the populace
chid,—
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
With the gold of the graver, Saul’s story,—the
statesman’s great word.
Side by side with the poet’s sweet comment.
The river’s a-wave
With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds
rave;
So the pen gives unborn generations their due and
their part
In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank
God that thou art!” 190
