Part 7 (1/2)

He made darkness his resting-place, His pavilion were dark waters and clouds of the skies; At the brightness before him his clouds pa.s.sed by, Hail-stones and coals of fire.

The Lord also thundered in the heavens, And the highest gave his voice; Hail-stones and coals of fire.

Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them, And he shot out his lightnings, and discomfited them.

Then the channels of waters were seen, And the foundations of the world were made known, At thy rebuke, O Lord!

At the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

He sent from above, he took me, He drew me out of many waters.”

”Mine were but a few verses,” said Homer. ”I am more than repaid by yours. Imagine Neptune, our sea-G.o.d, looking on a battle:--

”There he sat high, retired from the seas; There looked with pity on his Grecians beaten; There burned with rage at the G.o.d-king who slew them.

Then he rushed forward from the rugged mountains, Quickly descending; He bent the forests also as he came down, And the high cliffs shook under his feet.

Three times he trod upon them, And with his fourth step reached the home he sought for.

”There was his palace, in the deep waters of the seas, s.h.i.+ning with gold, and builded forever.

There he yoked him his swift-footed horses; Their hoofs are brazen, and their manes are golden.

He binds them with golden thongs, He seizes his golden goad, He mounts upon his chariot, and doth fly: Yes! he drives them forth into the waves!

And the whales rise under him from the depths, For they know he is their king; And the glad sea is divided into parts, That his steeds may fly along quickly; And his brazen axle pa.s.ses dry between the waves, So, bounding fast, they bring him to his Grecians.”[3]

And the poets sank again into talk.

”You see it,” said the old Philistine. ”He paints the picture. David sings the life of the picture.”

”Yes: Homer sees what he sings; David feels his song.”

”Homer's is perfect in its description.”

”Yes; but for life, for the soul of the description, you need the Hebrew.”

”Homer might be blind; and, with that fancy and word-painting power of his, and his study of everything new, he would paint pictures as he sang, though unseen.”

”Yes,” said another; ”but David--” And he paused.

”But David?” asked the chief.

”I was going to say that he might be blind, deaf, imprisoned, exiled, sick, or all alone, and that yet he would never know he was alone; feeling as he does, as he must to sing so, of the presence of this Lord of his!”

”He does not think of a snow-flake, but as sent from him.”

”While the snow-flake is reminding Homer of that hard, worrying, slinging work of battle. He must have seen fight himself.”

They were hushed again. For, though they no longer dared ask the poets to sing to them,--so engrossed were they in each other's society,--the soldiers were hardly losers from this modest courtesy. For the poets were constantly arousing each other to strike a chord, or to sing some s.n.a.t.c.h of remembered song. And so it was that Homer, _apropos_ of I do not know what, sang in a sad tone:--

”Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground: Another race the following spring supplies; They fall successive, and successive rise.