"His beautiful eyes!-they ill beseem the flash, That blasts, like lightning, in its sheer descent; Tears might have trembled on their long dark lash,A seraph's tears,-whom God's high will had sent, Of wrath the all-unwilling instrument; Or seraph-rapture might have glistened there, When forth on messages of love he went, To snatch the thorn-wreath from the brow of care, Or bring to waiting hope the promised meed of prayer.” "Oh, what was that, of which the wreck he wears Is still so sadly beautiful? He fell Below his happy, holy, bright compeers,― With a superior essence-I could tell A tale, not all unlike-for what are we We mortals, who mistrust-repine-rebel But dæmons of an humbler pedigree, Lifting an arm of dust-to combat Deity?" -Sad musings these!-but who was he, whose breast Bred them in loneliness, in silence nursed? Say, who was he ?-Of goodly forms the best,- Of all her kings the stateliest and the first,- Aye he, whose Godlike tone and graceful port The flimsy fopperies of a gaudy court, The purple robe and jewelled coronal: He,5 freedom's champion-when, by Jabesh' wall, He set his foot on Ammon's haughty neck,— Or hurled, commissioned by the prophet call, The delegated bolt of wrath and wreck Upon thy hapless sons, devoted Amalec! But he was changed; and long long hours would spend, Sitting in 'rapt and melancholy mood, And hold strange converse with some viewless friend: So said he; and his courtiers trembling stood, Froze in their cheeks,--but ne'er were they allowed All cures were tried :-Philosophy talked long Of lofty reason's self-controlling power: : He frowned, but spake not :-Friendship's silver tongue As ever slaked the desert:-Priests would call On heaven for aid:-but then his brow did lower With treble gloom. "Peace! Heaven is good to all;To all," he sighed, "but one: God hears no prayer for Saul." At length one spake of music,-and he told How, wandering late in sorrow's vigil pale, Where Bethlehem's7 towers, in outline dark and bold, He heard wild harp-tones, borne along the gale, It seemed the very air grew musical, To wail his suffering; and he bowed him low, And hid his face, and wept :-but wept away his woe. 'Twas but a shepherd-boy, whose simple song Stole on the hush of midnight's deep repose, What time, reclined his fleecy charge among, He watched the heavens, till day-break should unclose Their gates of amethyst.-How oft the foes, That baffle Reason, own the mild control Of simple spells, inanimate Nature throws, The voiceless quiet of the starry pole, Or sounds, that boast no speech, yet sweetly soothe the soul! They sent, and sought him out,—the shepherd-boy, Who chanted to the hills his lonely strain, In youth's simplicity of grief or joy ;— And, when that fit returned, and heart and brain Then scanned he the dæmoniac's face, as fain To explore its meaning;-'twas a page, where Hell Had written darker things than one like him might spell. And yet he gazed unblanched,—his innocent eyes Fixed on those bloodshot orbs,-that iron brow; Till, in its own despite, with mere surprise, It half unbent its sternness;-e'en as though A Seraph, in his walks of love below, Confronted and rebuked the Evil one. Oh there is power in the unclouded glow Of virtue and of innocence alone To cope with Satan's self, and bid his fiends begone! |