en,
Behind thee blow: and on our enemies' eyes
May the sun smite to-morrow, and blind them for thee!
But, O Saul, do not fail us.

"_Saul._ Fail ye
Let the morn fail to break; I will not break
My word. Haste, or I'm there before you. Fail?
Let the morn fail the east; I'll not fail you,
But, swift and silent as the streaming wind,
Unseen approach, then, gathering up my force
At dawning, sweep on Ammon, as Night's blast
Sweeps down the Carmel on the dusky sea."

This is a fine picture of Saul steeling his nature to cruelty, when be
has reluctantly resolved to obey Samuel's command "to trample out the
living fire of Amalek":--

"Now let me tighten every cruel sinew,
And gird the whole up in unfeeling hardness,
That my swollen heart, which bleeds within me tears,
May choke itself to stillness. I am as
A shivering bather, that, upon the shore,
Looking and shrinking from the cold, black waves,
Quick starting from his reverie, with a rush
Abbreviates his horror."

And this of the satisfied lust of blood, uttered by a Hebrew soldier,
after the slaughter:--

"When I was killing, such thoughts came to me, like
The sound of cleft-dropped waters to the ear
Of the hot mower, who thereat stops the oftener
To whet his glittering scythe, and, while he smiles,
With the harsh, sharpening hone beats their fall's time,
And dancing to it in his heart's straight chamber,
Forgets that he is weary."

After the execution of Agag by the hand of Samuel, the demons are
introduced with more propriety than in the opening of the poem. The
following passage has a subtle, sombre grandeur of its own:--

"_First Demon._ Now let us down to hell: we've seen the last.

"_Second Demon._ Stay; for the road thereto is yet incumbered
With the descending spectres of the killed.
_'Tis said they choke hell's gates, and stretch from thence
Out like a tongue upon the silent gulf_;
Wherein our spirits--even as terrestrial ships
That are detained by foul winds in an offing--
Linger perforce, _and feel broad gusts of sighs
That swing them on the dark and billowless waste_,
O'er which come sounds more dismal than the boom,
At midnight, of the salt flood's foaming surf,--
Even dead Amalek's moan and lamentation."

The reader will detect the rhythmical faults of the poem, even in these
passages. But the