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The Day before They Were Hanged on Gibeah
“BREAD for my mother!” said the voice of one | |
| Darkening the door of Rizpah. She looked up, | |
| And lo! the princely countenance and mien | |
| Of dark-browed Armoni. The eye of Saul, | |
| The very voice and presence of the king,— | 5 |
| Limb, port, and majesty,—were present there, | |
| Mocked like an apparition in her son. | |
| Yet, as he stooped his forehead to her hand | |
| With a kind smile, a something of his mother | |
| Unbent the haughty arching of his lip, | 10 |
| And through the darkness of the widow’s heart | |
| Trembled a nerve of tenderness that shook | |
| Her thought of pride all suddenly to tears. | |
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“Whence comest thou?” said Rizpah.
“From the house | |
| Of David. In his gate there stood a soldier, | 15 |
| This in his Land. I plucked it, and I said, | |
| ‘A king’s son takes it for his hungry mother!’ | |
God stay the famine!”
As he spoke, a step, | |
| Light as an antelope’s, the threshold pressed, | |
| And like a beam of light into the room | 20 |
| Entered Mephibosheth. What bird of heaven | |
| Or creature of the wild, what flower of earth, | |
| Was like this fairest of the sons of Saul! | |
| The violet’s cup was harsh to his blue eye. | |
| Less agile was the fierce barb’s fiery step. | 25 |
| His voice drew hearts to him. His smile was like | |
| The incarnation of some blessed dream, | |
| Its joyousness so sunned the gazer’s eye! | |
| Fair were his locks. His snowy teeth divided | |
| A bow of love, drawn with a scarlet thread. | 30 |
| His cheek was like the moist heart of the rose; | |
| And, but for nostrils of that breathing fire | |
| That turns the lion back, and limbs as lithe | |
| As is the velvet muscle of the pard, | |
| Mephibosheth had been too fair for man. | 35 |
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| As if he were a vision that would fade, | |
| Rizpah gazed on him. Never, to her eye, | |
| Grew his bright form familiar; but, like stars, | |
| That seemed each night new lit in a new heaven, | |
| He was each morn’s sweet gift to her. She loved | 40 |
| Her firstborn, as a mother loves her child, | |
| Tenderly, fondly. But for him,—the last,— | |
| What had she done for Heaven to be his mother! | |
| Her heart rose in her throat to hear his voice; | |
| She looked at him forever through her tears; | 45 |
| Her utterance, when she spoke to him, sank down, | |
| As if the lightest thought of him had lain | |
| In an unfathomed cavern of her soul. | |
| The morning light was part of him, to her | |
| What broke the day for but to show his beauty? | 50 |
| The hours but measured time till he should come; | |
| Too tardy sang the bird when he was gone; | |
| She would have shut the flowers, and called the star | |
| Back to the mountain-top, and bade the sun | |
| Pause at eve’s golden door, to wait for him! | 55 |
| Was this a heart gone wild, or is the love | |
| Of mothers like a madness? Such as this | |
| Is many a poor one in her humble home, | |
| Who silently and sweetly sits alone, | |
| Pouring her life all out upon her child. | 60 |
| What cares she that he does not feel how close | |
| Her heart beats after his,—that all unseen | |
| Are the fond thoughts that follow him by day, | |
| And watch his sleep like angels? And, when moved | |
| By some sore needed Providence, he stops | 65 |
| In his wild path and lifts a thought to heaven, | |
| What cares the mother that he does not see | |
| The link between the blessing and her prayer! * * * * * | |
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