Preludes 1921-1922 | Page 3

worn, and in my hand?A sling, and pebbles taken from the brook.?Now shall I go, content that God has watched me?So habited and armed through all my youth.?Should I pretend another David now,?I should meet this man with neither honour nor hope.?If I am sent against the Philistine?Out of God's anger, and I know it is so,?It is not one the chosen of Saul's hosts,?But I, David of Bethlehem must go,?The son of Jesse, and keeper of his flocks."
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Almost the tears were seen in Jonathan's eyes,?Because of David's words, of which he knew?The poor ghosts hiding somewhere in his own heart.?And then he spoke his fear, and then the words,?Resting his sword, "I love him. Let him go."?And David stept out of the emerald light?That played up from the grass floor of the tent,?Into the full flood of the April noon,?And walked a little way, and those two stood?Parted a hundred paces, the man of terror,?Hewn massy and with shock of builded limbs,?And David moulded like a sea boy risen?From caves of music where the water spins?Wet sand into the shapes of flowing flowers;?David with limbs all bright with the sun's tones,?And ruddy locks curling with youth and light,?His body all alert on steady loins,?Clean spun of flesh that knew the winter snows,?And mellow pools of summer, and the dews?Dropping among the crocuses of dawn.?His sandle-straps bound ankles as a girl's,?And fluttering to his knees the sheepskin hung,?Cloaking one shoulder, while the other gleamed.?And there he paused, the sling in his right hand,?His left hand fingering the pouch of pebbles,?While Israel fearing murmured, and the hosts?Of Philistine derision rocked the noon.?Then did Goliath cry, "Am I a dog,?For a boy's whipping? Have you not a man,?That you would send a cleaner up of crumbs?From the queen's table? Come then, and be broken,?For birds to find you and the dogs at night."?And Jonathan heard Philistia shout again,?And David, like a flame unwinded, stood?Quivering at the cry, and laid a stone?In the sling's fold, and cast his staff, and ran,?Fleet as the king bird gliding under leaves,?Towards Goliath. And a giant spear?Swung from the Philistine hand, and forty paces?Sang in the air and brushed the flying sheepskin,?And sudden David's feet were planted firm,?Locked on the earth, and circling in the sun?The tight thong flashed and loosened, and the stone?Smote the Philistine wrath above the eyes,?And the day was clouded from him, and he fell.
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Then Israel spared not. And, when night was come,?Jonathan sent for David to his tent,?And those two sat while the yellow torches burned,?And Jonathan spoke and said, "David, my brother,?To-day you have made a story that shall be?For ever fruitful in the heart of man.?This day is David's. But of this day I too?Share, not in the honour, but in the harvesting,?Or the harvesting I think is wholly mine.?Shall I speak on?" And David said, "Speak on."?Then Jonathan--"This morning there was a man,?And it was Jonathan, who many years?Had gone snared in a purpose not his own,?That is, not truly mine. Always I knew,?Walking by that self I said was honest,?Another self, the true self, in a shadow,?Or at an angle that my eyes refused.?I was a proud man, David, very virtuous,?Or, in fairness to myself, desiring virtue,?Truly desiring it, I may say that.?And yet even in that desire there moved?A lie, for I knew the virtue of my desire?Was something tainted. No--I knew it not,?But that other self walking beside me knew it,?And whispered, I knew, a thing that I would not hear.?Always it whispered, as I stood alone,?I said, in subtle thought among all Israel.?God had spoken to me, David, that the Philistine?Was evil, evil, that was all God said,?And bade me strike as a man by God assured.?But the man to whom God spoke I put aside,?The still self walking, whispering, in the shadow.?And I, the Jonathan of daily light,?Tempered the word of God, I tempered it--?I who should be God's outcast doing so.?I counted evil twenty different ways,?And none of them plain evil. I diced with God,?And the dice fell as often to my hand,?It seemed, as His, but falling so the whisper?Was ever shadowed at my ear, unheard.?And ever as this new intelligence,?This pride of thought, crept over me and filled?My dawn and noon and sleep, a hunger grew,?A dreadful hunger for that self denied,?And every word I spoke for righteousness?Turned bitter on my lips, because I knew?That every word was righteousness undone.?Such was the man this morning when you came,?Who from the king's tent watched you, David. Then?Change and completion and I know not what?Of heavenly fulfilment fell upon me.?Not from myself, nor of my own devising,?But marvellously spoken in a space?Of golden light that glowed about the form?Of a boy standing in my father's tent.?Quite suddenly the thing I lacked was there,?The