e harp or the other, they persuaded one of the
Ionian sailors to ask Homer again to sing to them.

It was hard to persuade Homer. He shook his head, and turned back to the
soldier-poet.

"What should _I_ sing?" he said.

They did not enter into his notion: hearers will not always. And so,
taking his question literally, they replied, "Sing? Sing us of the
snow-storm, the storm of stones, of which you sang at noon."

Poor Homer! It was easier to do it than to be pressed to do it; and he
struck his harp again:--

"It was as when, some wintry day, to men
Jove would, in might, his sharp artillery show;
He wills his winds to sleep, and over plain
And mountains pours, in countless flakes, his snow.
Deep it conceals the rocky cliffs and hills,
Then covers all the blooming meadows o'er,
All the rich monuments of mortals' skill,
All ports and rocks that break the ocean-shore.
Rock, haven, plain, are buried by its fall;
But the near wave, unchanging, drinks it all.
So while these stony tempests veil the skies,
While this on Greeks, and that on Trojans flies,
The walls unchanged above the clamor rise."[2]

The men looked round upon David, whose expression, as he returned the
glance, showed that he had enjoyed the fragment as well as they. But
when they still looked expectant, he did not decline the unspoken
invitation; but, taking Homer's harp, sang, as if the words were
familiar to him:--

"He giveth snow like wool;
He scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes;
He casteth forth his ice like morsels;
Who can stand before his cold?
He sendeth forth his word, and melteth them;
He causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow."

"Always this '_He_,'" said one of the young soldiers to another.

"Yes," he replied; "and it was so in the beginning of the evening, when
we were above there."

"There is a strange difference between the two men, though the one plays
as well as the other, and the Greek speaks with quite as little foreign
accent as the Jew, and their subjects are the same."

"Yes," said the young Philistine harper; "if the Greek should sing one
of the Hebrew's songs, you would know he had borrowed it, in a moment."

"And so, if it were the other way."

"Of course," said their old captain, joining in this conversation.
"Homer, if you call him so, sings the thing made: David sings the maker.
Or, rather, H