Bells and Pomegranates.
"On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies
"Still living and blue
"As thou brak'st them to twine round thy harp-strings,
"As if no wild heat
"Were raging to torture the desert!
Then I, as was meet,
Knelt down to the God of my fathers,
And rose on my feet,
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder.
The tent was unlooped;
I pulled up the spear that obstructed,
And under I stooped;
Hands and knees o'er the slippery grass-patch—
All withered and gone—
That leads to the second enclosure,
I groped my way on,
Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open;
Then once more I prayed,
And opened the foldskirts and entered,
And was not afraid;
And spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!"
And no voice replied;
And first I saw nought but the blackness;
But soon I descried
A something more black than the blackness
—The vast, the upright
Main-prop which sustains the pavilion,—
And slow into sight
Grew a figure, gigantic, against it,
And blackest of all;—
Then a sunbeam, that burst thro' the tent-roof,
Showed Saul.
"Still living and blue
"As thou brak'st them to twine round thy harp-strings,
"As if no wild heat
"Were raging to torture the desert!
Then I, as was meet,
Knelt down to the God of my fathers,
And rose on my feet,
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder.
The tent was unlooped;
I pulled up the spear that obstructed,
And under I stooped;
Hands and knees o'er the slippery grass-patch—
All withered and gone—
That leads to the second enclosure,
I groped my way on,
Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open;
Then once more I prayed,
And opened the foldskirts and entered,
And was not afraid;
And spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!"
And no voice replied;
And first I saw nought but the blackness;
But soon I descried
A something more black than the blackness
—The vast, the upright
Main-prop which sustains the pavilion,—
And slow into sight
Grew a figure, gigantic, against it,
And blackest of all;—
Then a sunbeam, that burst thro' the tent-roof,
Showed Saul.
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