Classic Poem

D AVID , B ETHSABE , S ALOMON , N AIHAN , A
DONIA , C HILEAB , with their train .

Beth. What means my lord, the lamp of Israel,
From whose bright eyes all eyes receive their light,
To dim the glory of his sweet aspect,
And paint his countenance with his heart's distress?
Why should his thoughts retain a sad conceit,
When every pleasure kneels before his throne,
And sues for sweet acceptance with his grace?
Take but your lute, and make the mountains dance,
Retrieve the sun's sphere, and restrain the clouds,
Give ears to trees, make savage lions tame,
Impose still silence to the loudest winds,
And fill the fairest day with foulest storms:
Then why should passions of much meaner power
Bear head against the heart of Israel?
Dav. Fair Bersabe, thou mightst increase the strength
Of these thy arguments, drawn from my skill,
By urging thy sweet sight to my conceits,
Whose virtue ever served for sacred balm
To cheer my pinings past all earthly joys:
But, Bethsabe, the daughter of the Highest,
Whose beauty builds the towers of Israel,
She that in chains of pearl and unicorn
Leads at her train the ancient golden world,
The world that Adam held in paradise,
Whose breath refineth all infectious airs,
And makes the meadows smile at her repair, —
She, she, my dearest Bethsabe,
Fair Peace, the goddess of our graces here,
Is fled the streets of fair Jerusalem,
The fields of Israel, and the heart of David,
Leading my comforts in her golden chains,
Linked to the life and soul of Absalon.
Beth. Then is the pleasure of my sovereign's heart
So wrapt within the bosom of that son,
That Salomon, whom Israel's God affects,
And gave the name unto him for his love,
Should be no salve to comfort David's soul?
Dav. Salomon, my love, is David's lord;
Our God hath named him lord of Israel:
In him (for that, and since he is thy son,)
Must David needs be pleased at the heart;
And he shall surely sit upon my throne
But Absalon, the beauty of my bones,
Fair Absalon, the counterfeit of love,
Sweet Absalon, the image of content,
Must claim a portion in his father's care,
And be in life and death King David's son.
Nath. Yet, as my lord hath said, let Salomon reign,
Whom God in naming hath anointed king.
Now is he apt to learn th' eternal laws,
Whose knowledge being rooted in his youth
Will beautify his age with glorious fruits;
While Absalon, incensed with graceless pride,
Usurps and stains the kingdom with his sin:
Let Salomon be made thy staff of age,
Fair Israel's rest, and honour of thy race.
Dav. Tell me, my Salomon, wilt thou embrace
Thy father's precepts graved in thy heart,
And satisfy my zeal to thy renown
With practice of such sacred principles
As shall concern the state of Israel?
Sal. My royal father, if the heavenly zeal,
Which for my welfare feeds upon your soul,
Were not sustained with virtue of mine own;
If the sweet accents of your cheerful voice
Should not each hour beat upon mine ears
As sweetly as the breath of heaven to him
That gaspeth scorched with the summer's sun;
I should be guilty of unpardoned sin,
Fearing the plague of heaven and shame of earth:
But since I vow myself to learn the skill
And holy secrets of his mighty hand
Whose cunning tunes the music of my soul,
It would content me, father, first to learn
How the Eternal framed the firmament;
Which bodies lend their influence by fire,
And which are filled with hoary winter's ice;
What sign is rainy, and what star is fair;
Why by the rules of true proportion
The year is still divided into months,
The months to days, the days to certain hours;
What fruitful race shall fill the future world;
Or for what time shall this round building stand;
What magistrates, what kings shall keep in awe
Men's minds with bridles of th' eternal law.
Dav. Wade not too far, my boy, in waves too deep:
The feeble eyes of our aspiring thoughts
Behold things present, and record things past;
But things to come exceed our human reach,
And are not painted yet in angels' eyes:
For those, submit thy sense, and say — " Thou power,
That now art framing of the future world,
Know'st all to come, not by the course of heaven,
By frail conjectures of inferior signs,
By monstrous floods, by flights and flocks of birds,
By bowels of a sacrificed beast,
Or by the figures of some hidden art;
But by a true and natural presage,
Laying the ground and perfect architect
Of all our actions now before thine eyes,
From Adam to the end of Adam's seed:
O heaven, protect my weakness with thy strength!
So look on me that I may view thy face,
And see these secrets written in thy brows.
O sun, come dart thy rays upon my moon!
That now mine eyes, eclipsed to the earth,
May brightly be refined and shine to heaven;
Transform me from this flesh, that I may live,
Before my death, regenerate with thee.
O thou great God, ravish my earthly sprite!
That for the time a more than human skill
May feed the organons of all my sense;
That, when I think, thy thoughts may be my guide,
And, when I speak, I may be made by choice
The perfect echo of thy heavenly voice. "
Thus say, my son, and thou shalt learn them all.
Sal. A secret fury ravisheth my soul,
Lifting my mind above her human bounds;
And, as the eagle, roused from her stand
With violent hunger, towering in the air,
Seizeth her feathered prey, and thinks to feed,
But seeing then a cloud beneath her feet,
Lets fall the fowl, and is emboldened
With eyes intentive to bedare the sun,
And styeth close unto his stately sphere;
So Salomon, mounted on the burning wings
Of zeal divine, lets fall his mortal food,
And cheers his senses with celestial air,
Treads in the golden starry labyrinth,
And holds his eyes fixed on Jehovah's brows.
Good father, teach me further what to do.
Nath. See, David, how his haughty spirit mounts,
Even now of height to wield a diadem:
Then make him promise that he may succeed,
And rest old Israel's bones from broils of war.
Dav Nathan, thou prophet, sprung from Jesse's root,
I promise thee and lovely Bethsabe,
My Salomon shall govern after me.
Beth. He that hath touched thee with this righteous thought
Preserve the harbour of thy thoughts in peace!

Enter Messenger.

Mess. My lord, thy servants of the watch have seen
One running hitherward from forth the wars.
Dav. If he be come alone, he bringeth news
Mess. Another hath thy servant seen, my lord,
Whose running much resembles Sadoc's son.
Dav. He is a good man, and good tidings brings.

Enter A HIMAAS .

Ahi. Peace and content be with my lord the king,
Whom Israel's God hath bless'd with victory.
Dav. . Tell me, Ahimaas, lives my Absalon?
Ahi. . I saw a troop of soldiers gathered,
But know not what the tumult might import.
Dav. Stand by, until some other may inform
The heart of David with a happy truth.

Enter C USAY .

Cu. Happiness and honour live with David's soul,
Whom God hath blessed with conquest of his foes
Dav. But Cusay, lives the young man Absalon?
Cu. The stubborn enemies to David's peace,
And all that cast their darts against his crown,
Fare ever like the young man Absalon!
For as he rid the woods of Ephraim,
Which fought for thee as much as all thy men,
His hair was tangled in a shady oak;
And hanging there, by Joab and his men
Sustained the stroke of well-deserved death.
Dav. Hath Absalon sustained the stroke of death?
Die, David, for the death of Absalon,
And make these cursed news the bloody darts
That through his bowels rip thy wretched breast.
Hence, David, walk the solitary woods,
And in some cedar's shade the thunder slew,
And fire from heaven hath made his branches black,
Sit mourning the decease of Absalon:
Against the body of that blasted plant
In thousand shivers break thy ivory lute,
Hanging thy stringless harp upon his boughs;
And through the hollow sapless sounding trunk
Bellow the torments that perplex thy soul.
There let the winds sit sighing till they burst;
Let tempest, muffled with a cloud of pitch,
Threaten the forests with her hellish face,
And, mounted fiercely on her iron wings,
Rend up the wretched engine by the roots
That held my dearest Absalon to death.
Then let them toss my broken lute to heaven,
Even to his hands that beats me with the strings,
To show how sadly his poor shepherd sings.
Beth. Die, Bethsabe, to see thy David mourn,
To hear his tunes of anguish and of hell
O, help, my David, help thy Bethsabe,
Whose heart is pierced with thy breathy swords,
And bursts with burden of ten thousand griefs!
Now sits thy sorrows sucking of my blood:
O, that it might be poison to their powers,
And that their lips might draw my bosom dry,
So David's love might ease him, though she die!
Nath. These violent passions come not from above;
David and Bethsabe offend the Highest,
To mourn in this immeasurable sort.
Dav. O Absalon, Absalon! O my son, my son!
Would God that I had died for Absalon!
But he is dead; ah, dead! Absalon is dead:
And David lives to die for Absalon.

Enter J OAB , A BISAI , I IHAY , with their train .

Joab. Why lies the queen so prostrate on the ground?
Why is this company so tragic-hued?
Why is the king now absent from his men,
And marcheth not in triumph through the gates?
David, awake; if sleep have shut thine eyes,
Sleep of affection, that thou canst not see
The honour offered to the victor's head:
Joab brings conquest pierced on his spear,
And joy from all the tribes of Israel.
Dav. Thou man of blood, thou sepulchre of death,
Whose marble breast intomb[s] my bowels quick,
Did I not charge thee, nay, entreat thy hand,
Even for my sake, to spare my Absalon?
And hast thou now, in spite of David's health,
And scorn to do my heart some happiness,
Given him the sword and spilt his purple soul?
Joab. What, irks it David, that he victor breathes,
That Juda and the fields of Israel
Should cleanse their faces from their children's blood?
What, art thou weary of thy royal rule?
Is Israel's throne a serpent in thine eyes,
And he that set thee there so far from thanks,
That thou must curse his servant for his sake?
Hast thou not said that, as the morning light,
The cloudless morning, so should be thine house,
And not as flowers by the brightest rain
Which grow up quickly and as quickly fades?
Hast thou not said, the wicked are as thorns,
That cannot be preserved with the hand,
And that the man shall touch them must be armed
With coats of iron and garments made of steel,
Or with the shaft of a defenced spear?
And art thou angry he is now cut off
That led the guiltless swarming to their deaths,
And was more wicked than an host of men?
Advance thee from thy melancholy den,
And deck thy body with thy blissful robes,
Or, by the Lord that sways the heaven I swear,
I'll lead thine armies to another king
Shall cheer them for their princely chivalry,
And not sit daunted, frowning in the dark,
When his fair looks, with oil and wine refreshed,
Should dart into their bosoms gladsome beams,
And fill their stomachs with triumphant feasts;
That when elsewhere stern war shall sound his trump,
And call another battle to the field,
Fame still may bring thy valiant soldiers home,
And for their service happily confess
She wanted worthy trumps to sound their prowess:
Take thou this course and live; refuse and die.
Abis. Come, brother, let him sit there till he sink;
Some other shall advance the name of Joab.
Beth. O, stay, my lords, stay! David mourns no more,
But riseth to give honour to your acts
Dav. [ Stay. — He riseth up .] Then happy art thou, David's fairest son,
That, freed from the yoke of earthly toils,
And sequester'd from sense of human sins,
Thy soul shall joy the sacred cabinet
Of those divine ideas that present
Thy changed spirit with a heaven of bliss
Then thou art gone; ah, thou art gone, my son!
To heaven, I hope, my Absalon is gone:
Thy soul there placed in honour of the saints,
Or angels clad with immortality,
Shall reap a sevenfold grace for all thy griefs;
Thy eyes, now no more eyes but shining stars;
Shall deck the flaming heavens with novel lamps;
There shalt thou taste the drink of seraphins,
And cheer thy feelings with archangels' food;
Thy day of rest, thy holy sabbath-day,
Shall be eternal; and, the curtain drawn,
Thou shalt behold thy sovereign face to face,
With wonder, knit in triple unity,
Unity infinite and innumerable — —
Courage, brave captains! Joab's tale hath stirred,
And made the suit of Israel preferred.
Joab . Bravely resolved, and spoken like a king:
Now may old Israel and his daughters sing.