RIZPAH WITH HER SONS

(The Day Before They Were Hanged on Gibeah).

"BREAD for my mother!" said the voice of one

Darkening the door of Rizpah. She look'd up

And lo! the princely countenance and mien

Of dark-brow'd Armoni. The eye of Saul

The very voice and presence of the king

Limb, port, and majesty,—were present there,

Mock'd like an apparition in her son. Yet, as he stoop'd his forehead to her hand

With a kind smile, a something of his mother

Unbent the haughty arching of his lip, And, through the darkness of the widow's heart

Trembled a nerve of tenderness that shook

Her thought of pride all suddenly to

tears.

"Whence comest thou?" said Rizpah.

"From the house

Or creature of the wild-what flower of earth

Was like this fairest of the sons of Saul!

The violet's cup was harsh to his blue eye.

Less agile was the fierce barb's fiery step.

His voice drew hearts to him. His smile was like

The incarnation of some blessèd dreamIts joyousness so sunn'd the gazer's eye! Fair were his locks. His snowy teeth divided

A bow of Love, drawn with a scarlet thread.

His cheek was like the moist heart of the rose;

And, but for nostrils of that breathing fire

That turns the lion back, and limbs as lithe

As is the velvet muscle of the pard, Mephibosheth had been too fair for

man.

As if he were a vision that would fade, Rizpah gazed on him. Never, to her

eye, Grew his bright form familiar; but, like stars,

That seem'd each night new lit in a new heaven,

He was each morn's sweet gift to her. She loved

Her firstborn, as a. mother loves her child,

Tenderly, fondly. But for him - the last

What had she done for heaven to be his mother!

Her heart rose in her throat to hear his voice;

She look'd at him forever through her tears;

Her utterance, when she spoke to him, sank down,

As if the lightest thought of him had lain

In an unfathom'd cavern of her soul. The morning light was part of him, to her

What broke the day for, but to show his beauty?

The hours but measured time till he should come; .

Too tardy sang the bird when he was gone;

She would have shut the flowers-and call'd the star

Back to the mountain-top-and bade the

sun

Pause at eve's golden door—to wait for him!

Was this a heart gone wild?-or is the love Such as

Of mothers like a madness? this

Is many a poor one in her humble home, Who silently and sweetly sits alone, Pouring her life all out upon her child. What cares she that he does not feel how close

Her heart beats after his-that all un

seen

Are the fond thoughts that follow him by day,

And watch his sleep like angels? And, when moved

By some sore needed Providence, he

stops

In his wild path and lifts a thought to heaven,

What cares the mother that he does not

see

The link between the blessing and her prayer!

He who once wept with Mary-angels keeping

Their unthank'd watch-are a foreshadowing

Of what love is in heaven. We may believe

That we shall know each other's forms hereafter,

And, in the bright fields of the better land,

Call the lost dead to us. Oh conscious

heart!

That in the lone paths of this shadowy world

Hast bless'd all light, however dimly shining,

That broke upon the darkness of thy

way

Number thy lamps of love, and tell me, now,

How many canst thou re-light at the

stars

And blush not at their burning? Oneone only

Lit while your pulses by one heart kept time,

And fed with faithful fondness to your

grave

(Tho' sometimes with a hand stretch'd back from heaven)

Steadfast thro' all things-near, when most forgot

And with its finger of unerring truth Pointing the lost way in thy darkest hour

One lamp-thy mother's love-amid the

stars

Shall lift its pure flame changeless, and, before

The throne of God, burn through eternity

Holy-as it was lit and lent thee here.

The hand in salutation gently raised To the bow'd forehead of the princely boy,

Linger'd amid his locks. "I sold," he said,

"My Lybian barb for but a cake of meal

Lo! this my mother! As I pass'd the street,

I hid it in my mantle, for there stand Famishing mothers, with their starving babes,

At every threshold; and wild, desperate

men

Prowl, with the eyes of tigers, up and down,

Watching to rob those who, from house to house,

Beg for the dying. Fear not thou, my mother!

Thy sons will be Elijah's ravens to thee!"

[UNFINISHED.]

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS (1806-1867).

RIZPAH.

HEAR what the desolate Rizpah said, As on Gibeah's rocks she watched the dead.

The sons of Michal before her lay, And her own fair children, dearer than they :

By a death of shame they had all died. And were stretched on the bare rock, side by side.

And Rizpah, once the loveliest of all That bloomed and smiled in the court of Saul,

All wasted with watching and famine now,

And scorched by the sun her haggard brow,

Sat, mournfully guarding their corpses there,

And murmured a strange and solemn air:

The low, heart-broken and wailing strain Of a mother that mourns her children slain :

And, when the shadows of twilight came,

I have seen the hyena's eyes of flame, And heard at my side his stealthy tread, But aye at my shout the savage fled; And I threw the lighted brand, to fright The jackal and wolf that yelled in the night.

Ye were foully murdered, my hapless

sons,

By the hands of wicked and cruel ones; Ye fell, in your fresh and blooming prime,

All innocent, for your father's crime. He sinned-but he paid the price of his guilt

When his blood by a nameless hand was spilt;

When he strove with the heathen host in vain,

And fell with the flower of his people slain;

And the sceptre his children's hands should sway

From his injured lineage passed away.

But I hoped that the cottage roof would be

A safe retreat for my sons and me; And that while they ripened to manhood fast,

They should wean my thoughts from the woes of the past.

And my bosom swelled with a mother's pride,

As they stood in their beauty and strength by my side.

Tall, like their sire, with the princely grace

Of his stately form and the bloom of his face.

Oh, what an hour for a mother's heart, When the pitiless ruffians tore us apart! When I clasped their knees and wept and prayed,

And struggled and shrieked to Heaven for aid,

And clung to my sons with desperate strength,

Till the murderers loosed my hold at length,

And bore me breathless and faint aside, In their iron arms, while my children died.

They died-and the mother that gave them birth

Is forbid to cover their bones with earth.

The barley harvest was nodding white When my children died on the rocky height,

And the reapers were singing on hill and plain

When I came to my task of sorrow and pain.

And now the season of rain is nigh, The sun is dim in the thickening sky, And the clouds in sullen darkness rest Where he hides his light at the doors of the west.

I hear the howl of the wind that brings The long, drear storm on its heavy wings;

But the howling wind and the driving rain

Will beat on my houseless head in vain : I shall stay, from my murdered sons to

scare

The beasts of the desert and fowls of air."

WILLIAM CULLEN Bryant (1794-1878).

RIZPAH.

II. Samuel xxi: I-II.

NIGHT came at last. The noisy throng had gone;

And where the sun so late, like alchemist, Turned spear and shield and chariot to gold

No sound was heard.

The awful deed was done; And vengeance sated to the full had turned

Away. The Amorites had drunk the blood

Of Saul* and were content. The last armed guard

Had gone, and stillness dwelt upon the

scene.

The rocky mount slept fast in solitude; The dry, dead shrubs stood weird and

grim, and marked

The narrow, heated road that sloped and wound

To join the King's highway. No living thing

*His children's blood.

And led her laughing boys before her lord,

Their father. Starting then, with upturned face,

And gazing from her hollow, tearless eyes,

Her blackened lips would move, but make no sound.

Then sinking to the ground she caught

once more

The thread of thought, and thought brought other scenes;

She saw the stripling warrior David,

son

Of Jesse, whom the populace adored And Saul despised; then Merab came, and then

Her sweet-faced sister, Michal, whose quick wit

And love saved David's life.

Then Rizpah rose,

Yea, like a tigress sprang unto her feet. "Thou David, curst be thou and thine!" she shrieked,

"Thou ingrate murderer! Had Saul but lived,

And hadst thou fallen upon thy sword instead,

My sons, my children, still would live!" 'Twas in

The morning watch, and Rizpah's last, that bright,

Clear, glowed The Milky Way. The Pleiades

Like molten gold shone forth; e'en Sisyphus

Peeped timidly, and with her sisters gazed

Upon the seven crucified below.

Such cause for woman's pity ne'er was seen,

And stars, c'en stones, might weep for Rizpah's woe,

Whose mother love was deathless as her soul.

The gray dawn came. The sky was

overcast;

The wind had changed, and sobbed a requiem.

Still Rizpah slept, and dreamed. She heard the sound

Of harps and timbrels in her girlhood home

When rush of wings awakened her. She rose,