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I. THE PRINCELY David, with his outlaw-band, | |
| Lodged in the cave Adullam. Wild and fierce, | |
| With lion-like faces, and with eagle eyes, | |
| They followed where he led. The danger pressed, | |
| For over all the land the Philistines | 5 |
| Had spread their armies. Through Rephaim’s vale | |
| Their dark tents mustered thick, and David’s home, | |
| His father’s city, Bethlehem, owned them lords. | |
| ’Twas harvest, and the crops of ripening corn | |
| They ravaged, and with rude feet trampled down | 10 |
| The tender vines. Men hid themselves for fear | |
| In woods or caves. The brave undaunted few, | |
| Gathering round David, sought the mountain hold. | |
| The sun was hot, and all day long they watched | |
| With spear in hand and never-resting eye, | 15 |
| As those who wait for battle. But at eve | |
| The eye grew dim, the lips were parched with thirst, | |
| And from that arid rock no trickling stream | |
| Of living water gushed. From time-worn skins | |
| The tainted drops were poured, and fevered lips | 20 |
| Half-loathing drank them up. And David’s soul | |
| Was weary; the hot simoom scorched his veins; | |
| The strong sun smote on him, and, faint and sick, | |
| He sat beneath the shadow of the rock: | |
| And then before his eyes a vision came, | 25 |
| Cool evening, meadows green, and pleasant sounds | |
| Of murmuring fountains. Oft in days of youth, | |
| When leading home his flocks as sunset fell, | |
| That fount had quenched his thirst, and dark-eyed girls, | |
| The pride and joy of Bethlehem, meeting there, | 30 |
| Greeted the shepherd boy, their chieftain’s son | |
| (As, bright and fair with waving locks of gold | |
| Exulting in the flush of youth’s full glow, | |
| He mingled with their throng), and gazing, rapt | |
| With wonder at his beauty, gave him drink. | 35 |
| And now the words came feebly from his lips, | |
| A murmur half in silence, which the ear | |
| Of faithful followers caught: “Ah! who will bring | |
| From that fair stream, which flowing by the gate | |
| Of Bethlehem’s wall makes music in the ear, | 40 |
| One drop to cool this tongue?” They heard, the three, | |
| The mightiest of the thirty, swift of foot | |
| As are the harts upon the mountains, strong | |
| As are the lions down by Jordan’s banks; | |
| They heard and darted forth; down rock and crag | 45 |
| They leapt, as leaps the torrent on its course, | |
| Through plain and vale they sped, and never stayed, | |
| Until the wide encampment of the foe | |
| Warned them of danger nigh. But not for fear | |
| Abandoned they their task. When evening fell, | 50 |
| And all the Philistines were hushed in sleep, | |
| And over all the plain the full, bright moon | |
| Poured its rich lustre, onward still they stole, | |
| By tent fires, creeping with hushed breath, and feet | |
| That feared to wake the echoes, till at last | 55 |
| They heard the babbling music, and the gleam | |
| Of rippling moonlight caught their eager eye, | |
| And o’er them fell the shade of Bethlehem’s gate. | |
| They tarried not. One full delicious draught | |
| Slaked their fierce thirst, and then with anxious haste | 60 |
| They filled their water-urn, and full of joy, | |
| They bore it back in triumph to their lord. | |
| With quickened steps they tracked their path again | |
| O’er plain and valley, up o’er rock and crag, | |
| And as the early sunlight kissed the hills | 65 |
| They stood before him. He had won their hearts | |
| By brave deeds, gentle words, and stainless life; | |
| And now they came to give him proof of love, | |
| And pouring out the water bade him drink. | |
| But lo! he would not taste. He heard their tale | 70 |
| (In few words told, as brave men tell their deeds), | |
| And lifting up his hands with solemn prayer, | |
| As though he stood, a priest, before the shrine, | |
| He poured it on the earth before the Lord. | |
| “Far be it from me, God, that I should drink, | 75 |
| The slave of selfish lust, forgetting Thee, | |
| Forgetting these my brothers. In Thine eyes | |
| This water fresh and cool is as the blood | |
| Of hero-souls who jeopardied their lives: | |
| That blood I may not taste. As shrink the lips | 80 |
| From the hot life-stream of the Paschal Lamb, | |
| So shrinks my soul from this. To Thee, O Lord, | |
| To Thee I pour it. Thou wilt pardon me | |
| For mine unkingly weakness, pardon them | |
| For all rough deeds of war. Their noble love | 85 |
| Shall cover all their sins; for Thou hast claimed, | |
| More than all blood of bulls and goats, the will | |
| That, self-forgetting, lives in deeds like this.” | |
| So spake the hero-king, and all the host | |
| Looked on and wondered; and those noble three, | 90 |
| The mightiest of the thirty, felt their souls | |
| Knit closer to King David and to God. | |
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II. THROUGH wastes of sand the train of camels wound | |
| Their lingering way. The pilgrims, hasting on | |
| To Mecca’s shrine, were grieved and vexed at heart, | 95 |
| Impatient of delay. The scorching sand | |
| Lay hot and blinding round them, and the blast | |
| Of sultry winds, as from a furnace mouth, | |
| Brought blackness to all faces. Whirling clouds | |
| Of white dust filled their eyes, and, falling flat, | 100 |
| Crouching in fear, they waited till it passed. | |
| Then, lifting up their eyes, there met their gaze | |
| One fierce, hot glare, a waveless sea of sand. | |
| No track of pilgrims’ feet, nor whitening bones | |
| Of camels or of asses, marked their way. | 105 |
| They wandered on, by sun and moon and stars | |
| Guessing their path, not knowing where they went, | |
| But Mecca’s shrine they saw not. Day by day, | |
| Their scant stores scantier grew. Their camels died; | |
| No green oasis met their yearning eyes, | 110 |
| No rippling stream brought gladness to their hearts; | |
| But glittering lakes that sparkled in the light, | |
| Girt with the soft green tufts of feathery palm, | |
| Enticed them, hour by hour, to wander on, | |
| And, as they neared them, turned to wastes of sand. | 115 |
| They thirsted, and with looks of blank despair | |
| Beheld the emptied skins. One only, borne | |
| By Ka’ab’s camel, met their wistful gaze,— | |
| Ka’ab, the rich, the noble, he who knew | |
| The depths of Islam, 1 unto Allah’s will | 120 |
| Resigning all his soul. And now he showed | |
| How out of that submission flows the strength | |
| For noblest acts of love. That priceless store | |
| He claimed not as his own: the “mine” and “thine” | |
| Of selfish right he scattered to the winds, | 125 |
| And to his fellow-pilgrims offered all. | |
| They shared it all alike. To Ka’ab’s self | |
| And Ka’ab’s slave an equal portion came: | |
| “Allah is great,” he cried, about to drink | |
| With thankful adoration, when a wail | 130 |
| Of eager craving burst from parchèd lips, | |
| And upturned eyes with fevered anguish watched | |
| The precious life-draught. Ka’ab heard that cry, | |
| His eye beheld that anguish, and his heart | |
| Was stirred with pity. Tasting not a drop, | 135 |
| With calm and loving look he passed the cup | |
| To those poor dying lips, and bore his thirst, | |
| As martyrs bear their flames. His soul had learnt, | |
| Not Islam’s creed alone that God is great: | |
| A mightier name was written on his heart, | 140 |
| “God, the compassionate, the merciful;” | |
| And yielding up his will to God’s, the three, | |
| Compassion, mercy, greatness, were as one. | |
| So ends the tale. And whether death came soon | |
| As sleep’s twin-brother, with the longed-for rest, | 145 |
| And clear bright streams in Paradise refreshed | |
| The fevered thirsts of earth; or if the dawn | |
| Revealed the distant gleam of Mecca’s shrine, | |
| And led those pilgrims on to Zemzem’s fount, | |
| We know not. This we know, that evermore, | 150 |
| Like living water from the flinty rock, | |
| Gladdening the hearts of Hagar’s sons, as once | |
| God’s angel helped the mother and her child, | |
| The memory of that noble deed flows on, | |
| And quickens into life each fainting heart, | 155 |
| And through long ages, in each Arab’s tent | |
| It passed into a proverb—“Ka’ab’s deed | |
| Of noble goodness:—There is none like that.” 2 | |
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III. THE SETTING sun fell low on Zutphen’s plain; | |
| The fight was over, and the victory won, | 160 |
| And out of all the din and stir of war | |
| They bore the flower of Christian chivalry, | |
| The life-blood gushing out. He came, the pure, | |
| The true, the stainless, all youth’s fiery glow, | |
| All manhood’s wisdom, blended into one, | 165 |
| To help the weak against the strong, to drive | |
| The Spaniard from a land which was not his, | |
| And claim the right of all men to be free, | |
| Free in their life, their polity, their faith. | |
| He came, no poor ambition urging on, | 170 |
| But loyalty and duty, first to God, | |
| And then to her, the Virgin Queen, who ruled | |
| His guileless heart, and of a thousand good | |
| Found him the best. We wonder that he bowed | |
| Before so poor an idol, knowing not | 175 |
| That noble souls transfer their nobleness | |
| To that whereon they gaze, and through the veils | |
| Of custom or of weakness reach the heart | |
| That beats, as theirs, with lofty thoughts and true. | |
| And now that life was ebbing. Men had hoped | 180 |
| To see in him the saviour of the state | |
| From thickening perils, one in open war | |
| To cope with Alva, and in subtle skill, | |
| Bating no jot of openness and truth, | |
| To baffle all the tortuous wiles of Spain: | 185 |
| And some who knew him better hoped to see | |
| His poet’s spirit do a poet’s work, | |
| With sweetest music giving voice and shape | |
| To all the wondrous thoughts that stirred the age, | |
| Moving the world’s great heart, attracting all, | 190 |
| The children at their play, the old man bent | |
| By blazing hearths, to listen and rejoice. | |
| And now his sun was setting. Faint and weak | |
| They bore him to his tent, and loss of blood | |
| Brought on the burning thirst of wounded men, | 195 |
| And he too craved for water. Brothers true, | |
| Companions of his purpose and his risk, | |
| Brought from the river in their helmet cup | |
| The draught he longed for. Yet he drank it not; | |
| That eye had fallen on another’s woe, | 200 |
| That ear was open to another’s sigh, | |
| That hand was free to give, and pitying love, | |
| In that sharp pain of death, had conquered self. | |
| The words were few and simple: “Not for me; | |
| I may not taste: He needs it more than I:” | 205 |
| Few as all noblest words are, pearls and gems | |
| Of rarest lustre; but they found their way, | |
| More than all gifts of speech or poet’s skill, | |
| To stir the depths of England’s heart of hearts, | |
| And gave to Sidney’s name a brighter life, | 210 |
| A nobler fame through all the immortal years, | |
| Than Raleigh’s friendship, or his own brave deeds, | |
| Or counsel’s wise, or Spenser’s silver notes,— | |
| A trumpet-call to bid the heart awake, | |
| A beacon-light to all the rising youth, | 215 |
| Fit crown of glory to that stainless life, | |
| The perfect pattern of a Christian knight, | |
| The noblest hero of our noblest age. | |
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IV. AND one day they shall meet before their God, | |
| The Hebrew, and the Moslem, and the flower | 220 |
| Of England’s knighthood. On the great white throne | |
| The Judge shall sit, and from his lips shall flow | |
| Divinest words: “Come, friends and brothers, come; | |
| I speak as one whose soul has known your pangs; | |
| Your weariness and woe were also mine; | 225 |
| The cry, ‘I thirst,’ has issued from these lips, | |
| And I too would not drink, but bore the pain, | |
| Yielding my will to do my Father’s work, | |
| And so that work was finished; so I learnt | |
| The fullest measure of obedience, learnt | 230 |
| The wide, deep love embracing all mankind, | |
| Passing through all the phases of their woe | |
| That I before their God might plead for all. | |
| And thus through all the pulses of their life | |
| I suffer when they suffer; count each deed | 235 |
| Of mercy done to them as done to Me, | |
| Am one with them in sorrow and in joy, | |
| Rejoicing in their likeness to My life, | |
| And bearing still the burden of their sins | |
| For which I once was offered. I was there, | 240 |
| The light of each man’s soul, in that wild cave, | |
| On that parched desert, on that tented field; | |
| That self-forgetting love I owned as Mine, | |
| And ye who, true to that diviner Light | |
| Which triumphed over nature, freely gave | 245 |
| That water to the thirsty, gave to Me. * * * * * | |
