The thoughtful ancient, standing by my side, Gazed on it mildly sad. I asked him why. "Well may'st thou join in gladness," he replied, "With the glad earth, her springing plants and flowers, And this soft wind, the herald of the green Luxuriant summer. Thou art young like them, And well may'st thou rejoice. But while the flight Of seasons fills and knits thy spreading frame, In utter darkness. Hearest thou that bird ?" I listened, and from 'midst the depth of woods Heard the love signal of the grouse, that wears A sable ruff around his mottled neck; Partridge they call him by our northern streams, And pheasant by the Delaware. He beat 'Gainst his barred sides his speckled wings, and made A sound like distant thunder; slow the strokes At first, then fast and faster, till at length They passed into a murmur, and were still. "There hast thou," said my friend, "a fitting type Of human life. "Tis an old truth, I know, But images like these revive the power By swiftly running waters hurried on To shoot some mighty cliff. Along the bank, And isles and whirlpools in the stream appear Darts by so swiftly, that their images "Wisely, my son, while yet thy days are long, Long since that white-haired ancient slept-but still, While the red flower-buds crowd the orchard bough, And the ruffed grouse is drumming far within The woods, his venerable form again Rizpah, Rizpah was king Saul's concubine. To stay the famine, and in atonement for the sin of the house of Saul in slaying the Gibeonites, her two sons Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michal (Saul's daughter) were taken by king David, “And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord; and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of the harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest. "And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night." 2 Sam. xxi. 9-11. EAR what the desolate Rizpah said, As on Gibeah's rocks she watched the dead. And her own fair children, dearer than they. And were stretched on the bare rock, side by side: That bloomed and smiled in the court of Saul, All wasted with watching and famine now, "I have made the crags my home, and spread On their desert back my sackcloth bed; I have eaten the bitter herb of the rocks, In the blaze of the sun and the winds of the sky, "Ye were foully murdered, my hapless sons, He sinned-but he paid the price of his guilt "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 I clasped their knees, and wept, and prayed, |