The Death of Saul | Page 3

to the National Eisteddfod of
Wales. 'David' was among his fellow-competitors as Saul was amongst
his brethren, higher than any of them from his shoulders upwards, and
to him he awarded the prize which his poem well deserved."
HISTORICAL NOTE.
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.
THE ISRAELITES DEMAND A KING, AND SAUL IS GIVEN
TO RULE OVER THEM.
"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! give us a King--for thou art
old (_b_)
"And in those ways thou all thy life hast walked
"Walk
not thy sons: lucre their idol is--
"And Judgment is perverted by the
bribes
"They take to stifle justice: give us, then,
"A King to judge
us. Other nations boast
"Of such a chief--a King, give us a King!"

So Saul became the crowned of Israel--
The first great King of their
united tribes.
Episode the Second.
SAUL DISAPPOINTS THE EXPECTATIONS OF JEHOVAH,
AND
IS VISITED WITH THE ALMIGHTY'S DISPLEASURE.
Brave is the heart that beats with yearning throb
Tow'rds highest
hopes, when, wandering in the vale,
Some snowy Alp gleams forth
with flashing crown
Of golden glory in the morning light.
Brave is
the heart that lovingly expands
And longs the far-off splendour to
embrace.
Thus yearned the heart of Saul, when from his flocks
The
Prophet led him forth, and, pointing up
Tow'rds Israel's crown,

exclaimed: "See what the Lord
Hath done for thee!" But Saul upon
the throne
Grew sorely dazed. Though brave the heart, the brain

Swam in an ecstasy of wildering light--
A helmless boat upon a
troubled sea.
Men nursed in gloom can rarely brook the sun;
And
many a life to sombre paths inured
The sunshine of Prosperity hath
quenched,
As dewdrops glistening on the lowly sward
Like
priceless jewels ere the morning breaks,
Melt into space when light
and heat abound,
As though they ne'er had been. Relentless fate!

This ruthless law the world's wide ways hath fringed
With wreckage
of a host of peerless lives;
And Saul is numbered 'mongst the broken
drift.
Saul, though the Lord's anointed, saw not God:
But--curse of
life! ingratitude prevailed.
His faith waxed weak as days of trial came:

And when, deserted by his teeming hosts
At Gilgal, he the
Prophet's priestly right
In faithless haste assumed, the Prophet cried

"The Lord hath