SAUL.
Thou whose spell can raise the dead,
Bid the prophet’s form appear!
Samuel, raise thy buried head—
King, behold the phantom seer!
Earth yawn’d—he stood the centre of a cloud;
Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud;
Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye—
His hand was withered, and his veins were dry;
His foot in bony whiteness glittered there,
Shrunken, and sinewless, and ghastly bare.
From lips that moved not, and unbreathing frame,
Like cavern’d winds the hollow accents came;
Saul saw and fell to earth as falls the oak—
At once, and blasted by the thunder stroke.
Why is my sleep disquieted?
Who is he that calls the dead?
Is it thou, O king? Behold,
Bloodless are these limbs and cold.
Such are mine, and such shall be
Thine to-morrow when with me—
Ere the coming day is done,
Such shalt thou be, such thy son.
Fare-thee-well—but for a day;
Then we mix our mouldering clay—
Thou, thy race—lie pale and low,
Pierced by shafts of many a bow;
And the falchion by thy side,
To thy heart thy hand shall guide—
Crownless, breathless, headless fall,
Son and sire—the house of Saul.
Byron.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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