Page:Poems Sigourney, 1834.pdf/219

218 Saul's moody hatred, stern Philistia's spear, His alien wanderings, and his warrior toil, Found nought so bitter as the rankling thorn Set by thy madness of ingratitude Deep in his yearning soul. What were thy thoughts When in the mesh of thy own tresses snared Amid the oak whose quiet verdure mocked Thy misery, forsook by all who shared Thy meteor-greatness and constrained to learn There in that solitude of agony, A traitor hath no friends!—what were thy thoughts When death careering on the triple dart Of vengeful Joab found thee? To thy God Rose there one cry of penitence, one prayer For that unmeasured mercy which can cleanse Unbounded guilt? Or turned thy stricken heart Toward him who o'er thy infant graces watched With tender pride, and all thy sins of youth In blindfold fondness pardoned? All thy crimes Were cancelled in that plentitude of love Which laves with fresh and everlasting tide A parent's heart. I see that form which awed The foes of Israel with its victor-might Bowed low in grief, and hear upon the breeze That sweeps the palm-groves of Jerusalem, The wild continuous wail,—"Oh Absalom! My son! My son!" We turn us from thy tomb, Usurping prince! Thy beauty and thy grace Have perished with thee, but thy fame survives— The ingrate son that pierced a father's heart.