’twas Saul as before. 
I looked up, and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any more
Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore,
At their sad level gaze o’er the ocean—­a sun’s slow decline
Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o’erlap and entwine
Base with base to knit strength more intensely:  so, arm folded arm
O’er the chest whose slow heavings subsided.

XI

What spell or what charm,
(For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urge
To sustain him where song had restored, him?  Song filled to the verge
His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields 130
Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty:  beyond, on what fields
Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye,
And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by? 
He saith, “It is good:”  still he drinks not:  he lets me praise life,
Gives assent, yet would die for his own part.

XII

Then fancies grew rife
Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep
Fed in silence—­above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep;
And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie
‘Neath his ken, tho’ I saw but the strip ’twixt the hill and the sky: 
And I laughed—­“Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks, 140
Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks,
Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show
Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know! 
Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains,
And the prudence that keeps what men strive for!” And now these old trains
Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the string
Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus—­

XIII

“Yea, my King,”
I began—­“thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring
From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute: 
In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit. 150
Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree,—­how its stem trembled first
Till it passed the kid’s lip, the stag’s antler; then safely outburst
The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these too, in turn
Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect:  yet more was to learn,
E’en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit.  Our dates shall we slight,
When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight
Of the palm’s self whose slow growth produced them?  Not so! stem and branch. 
Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall staunch
Every wound of man’s spirit in winter.  I pour thee such wine.