The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865

"The winds of heaven,
Behind thee blow: and on our enemies' eyes
May the sun smite to-morrow, and blind them for thee!
But, O Saul, do not fail us.

"Saul. Fail ye
Let the morn fail to break; I will not break
My word. Haste, or I'm there before you. Fail?
Let the morn fail the east; I'll not fail you,
But, swift and silent as the streaming wind,
Unseen approach, then, gathering up my force
At dawning, sweep on Ammon, as Night's blast
Sweeps down the Carmel on the dusky sea."

This is a fine picture of Saul steeling his nature to cruelty, when be has reluctantly resolved to obey Samuel's command "to trample out the living fire of Amalek":—

"Now let me tighten every cruel sinew,
And gird the whole up in unfeeling hardness,
That my swollen heart, which bleeds within me tears,
May choke itself to stillness. I am as
A shivering bather, that, upon the shore,
Looking and shrinking from the cold, black waves,
Quick starting from his reverie, with a rush
Abbreviates his horror."

And this of the satisfied lust of blood, uttered by a Hebrew soldier, after the slaughter:—

"When I was killing, such thoughts came to me, like
The sound of cleft-dropped waters to the ear
Of the hot mower, who thereat stops the oftener
To whet his glittering scythe, and, while he smiles,
With the harsh, sharpening hone beats their fall's time,
And dancing to it in his heart's straight chamber,
Forgets that he is weary."

After the execution of Agag by the hand of Samuel, the demons are introduced with more propriety than in the opening of the poem. The following passage has a subtle, sombre grandeur of its own:—

"First Demon. Now let us down to hell: we've seen the last.

"Second Demon. Stay; for the road thereto is yet incumbered
With the descending spectres of the killed.
'Tis said they choke hell's gates, and stretch from thence
Out like a tongue upon the silent gulf;
Wherein our spirits—even as terrestrial ships
That are detained by foul winds in an offing—
Linger perforce, and feel broad gusts of sighs
That swing them on the dark and billowless waste,
O'er which come sounds more dismal than the boom,
At midnight, of the salt flood's foaming surf,—
Even dead Amalek's moan and lamentation."

The reader will detect the rhythmical faults of the poem, even in these passages. But there is a vast difference between such blemishes of the unrhymed heroic measure as terminating a line with "and," "of," or "but," or inattention to the cæsural pauses, and that mathematical precision of foot and accent, which, after all, can scarcely be distinguished from prose. Whatever may be his shortcomings, Mr. Heavysege speaks in the dialect of poetry. Only rarely he drops into bald prose, as in these lines:—

"But let us go abroad, and in the twilight's
Cool, tranquillizing air discuss this matter."

We remember, however, that Wordsworth wrote,—

"A band of officers
Then stationed in the city were among the chief
Of my associates."

We had marked many other fine passages of "Saul" for quotation, but must be content with a few of those which are most readily separated from the context.

"Ha! ha! the foe,
Having taken from us our warlike tools, yet leave us
The little scarlet tongue to scratch and sting with."

"Here's lad's-love, and the flower which even death
Cannot unscent, the all-transcending rose."

"The loud bugle,
And the hard-rolling drum, and clashing cymbals,
Now reign the lords o' the air. These crises, David,
Bring with them their own music, as do storms
Their thunders."

"Ere the morn
Shall tint the orient with the soldier's color,
We must be at the camp."

"But come, I'll disappoint thee; for, remember,
Samuel will not be roused for thee, although
I knock with thunder at his resting-place."

The lyrical portions, of the work—introduced in connection with the demoniac characters—are inferior to the rest. They have occasionally a quaint, antique flavor, suggesting the diction of the Elizabethan lyrists, but without their delicate, elusive richness of melody. Here most we perceive the absence of that highest, ripest intellectual culture which can be acquired only through contact and conflict with other minds. It is not good for a poet to be alone. Even where the constructive faculty is absent, its place may be supplied through the development of that artistic sense which files, weighs, and adjusts,—which reconciles the utmost freedom and force of thought with the mechanical symmetries of language,—and which, first a fetter to the impatient mind, becomes at length a pinion, holding it serenely poised in the highest ether. Only the rudiment of the sense is born with the poet, and few literary lives are fortunate enough, or of sufficiently varied experience, to mature it.

Nevertheless, before closing the volume, we must quote what we consider to be the author's best lyrical passage. Zaph, one of the attendants of Malzah, the "evil spirit from the Lord," sings as follows to one of his fellows:—

"Zepho, the sun's descended beam
Hath laid his rod on th' ocean stream,
And this o'erhanging wood-top nods
Like golden helms of drowsy gods.
Methinks that now I'll stretch for rest,
With eyelids sloping toward the west;
That, through their half transparencies,
The rosy radiance passed and strained,
Of mote and vapor duly drained,
I may believe, in hollow bliss,
My rest in the empyrean is.