The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses

Excerpt

The design followed out in the succeeding poem has been to touch upon the leading historical incidents of Saul's career that lead up to and explain his tragic death on Mount Gilboa. With him, nearly 3,000 years ago, commenced the Monarchical government of the Israelites, who had previously been governed by a Theocracy. The Prophet Samuel, who anointed Saul, was the last of the High Priests or Judges under this Theocracy, which existed for 800 years, and died out with the acceptance of Saul, by the Israelites, as "King of all the tribes of Israel." The incidents touched upon range from the proclamation of Saul as King, by Samuel (1095 B.C.), to the fall of the hapless Monarch at the battle of Gilboa, 40 years afterwards.

Death of Saul

  As through the waves the freighted argosy  Securely plunges, when the lode star's light  Her path makes clear, and as, when angry clouds  Obscure the guide that leads her on her way,  She strikes the hidden rock and all is lost,  So he of whom I sing—favoured of God,  By disobedience dimmed the light divine  That shone with bright effulgence like the sun,  And sank in sorrow, where he might have soared  Up to the loftiest peak of earthly joy  In sweet foretaste of heavenly joys to come.  Called from his flocks and herds in humble strait  And made to rule a nation; high in Heaven  The great Jehovah lighting up the way;  On earth an upright Judge and Prophet wise  Sent by the Lord to bend his steps aright;  Sons dutiful and true; no speck to mar  The noble grandeur of a proud career;  Yet, from the rays that flickered o'er his path,  Sent for his good, he wove the lightning shaft  That seared his heart, e'en as the stalwart oak,  Soaring in pride of pow'r, falls 'neath the flash,  And lies a prostrate wreck. Like one of old,  Who, wrestling with the orb whose far-off light  Gave beauty to his waxen wings, upsoared  Where angels dared not go, came to his doom,  And fell a molten mass; so, tempting Heaven,  Saul died the death of disobedient Pride  And self-willed Folly—curses of mankind!  Sins against God which wrought the Fall, and sent,  As tempests moan along the listening night,  A wail of mournful sadness drifting down  The annals of the world: unearthly strains!  Cries of eternal souls that know no rest.

Episode the First.

  "God save the King!" the Israelites exclaimed, (a)  When, by the aged Prophet summoned forth  To Mizpeh, all the tribes by lot declared  That Saul should be their ruler. Since they left  The land of Egypt and its galling stripes,  Till then, the only living God had been  Their King and Governor; and Samuel old,  The last of Israel's Judges, when he brought  The man they chose to be their future King,  And said: "Behold the ruler of your choice!"  Told them of loving mercies they for years  Had from the great Jehovah's hand received,  And mourned in sorrowing tones that God their Judge  Should be by them rejected: and they cried  "A King!...