165
sun
Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though 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 ardor, till they too 170
give forth
A like cheer to their sons, who in turn, fill the South and the
North
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 175
flight.
No! Again a long draft 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 180
would ye know?
Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go
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 185
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 190
In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou art!"

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 195
word--
Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavor
And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as ever
On the new stretch of heaven above me--till, mighty to save,
Just one lift of th