Part 7 (2/2)

So generations in their course decay, So flourish these, when those have pa.s.sed away.”[4]

David waited for a change in the strain; but Homer stopped. The young Hebrew asked him to go on; but Homer said that the pa.s.sage which followed was mere narrative, from a long narrative poem. David looked surprised that his new friend had not pointed a moral as he sang; and said simply, ”We sing that thus:--

”As for man, his days are as gra.s.s; As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth; For the wind pa.s.seth over it, and it is gone, And the place thereof shall know it no more.

But the mercy of the Lord Is from everlasting to everlasting Of them that fear him; And his righteousness Unto children's children, To such as keep his covenant, As remember his commandments to do them!”

Homer's face flashed delighted. ”I, like you, 'keep his covenant,'” he cried; and then without a lyre, for his was still in David's hands, he sang, in clear tone:--

”Thou bid'st me birds obey;--I scorn their flight, If on the left they rise, or on the right!

Heed them who may, the will of Jove I own, Who mortals and immortals rules alone!”[5]

”That is more in David's key,” said the young Philistine harper, seeing that the poets had fallen to talk together again. ”But how would it sound in one of the hymns on one of our feast-days?”

”Who mortals and immortals rules alone.”

”How, indeed?” cried one of his young companions. ”There would be more sense in what the priests say and sing, if each were not quarrelling for his own,--Dagon against Astarte, and Astarte against Dagon.”

The old captain bent over, that the poets might not hear him, and whispered: ”There it is that the Hebrews have so much more heart than we in such things. Miserable fellows though they are, so many of them, yet, when I have gone through their whole land with the caravans, the chances have been that any serious-minded man spoke of no G.o.d but this '_He_'

of David's.”

”What is his name?”

”They do not know themselves, I believe.”

”Well, as I said an hour ago, G.o.d's man or Dagon's man,--for those are good names enough for me,--I care little; but I should like to sing as that young fellow does.”

”My boy,” said the old man, ”have not you heard him enough to see that it is not _he_ that sings, near as much as this love of his for a Spirit he does not name? It is that spirited heart of his that sings.”

”_You_ sing like him? Find his life, boy; and perhaps it may sing for you.”

”We should be more manly men, if he sang to us every night.”

”Or if the other did,” said an Ionian sailor.

”Yes,” said the chief. ”And yet, I think, if your countryman sang every night to me, he would make me want the other. Whether David's singing would send me to his, I do not feel sure. But how silly to compare them!

As well compare the temple in Accho with the roar of a whirlwind--”

”Or the point of my lance with the flight of an eagle. The men are in two worlds.”

”O, no! that is saying too much. You said that one could paint pictures--”

”--Into which the other puts life. Yes, I did say so. We are fortunate that we have them together.”

”For this man sings of men quite as well as the other does; and to have the other sing of G.o.d--”

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