Page:Sentimental reciter.pdf/11

 down as low in the yawning abyss, which irresistibly drove them upon the fatal sand, or dashed them in shipwreck upon the pointed and resistless rock,—these told them in accents loud as the last trumpet’s voice,—“The sea is God’s, and he made it!” .

Thou whose spell can raise the dead,

Bid the prophet’s form appear!

Samuel, raise thy buried head—

King, behold the phantom seer!

Earth yawn’d—he stood the centre of a cloud;

Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud;

Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye—

His hand was withered, and his veins were dry;

His foot in bony whiteness glittered there,

Shrunken, and sinewless, and ghastly bare.

From lips that moved not, and unbreathing frame,

Like cavern’d winds the hollow accents came;

Saul saw and fell to earth as falls the oak—

At once, and blasted by the thunder stroke.

Why is my sleep disquieted?

Who is he that calls the dead?

Is it thou, O king? Behold,

Bloodless are these limbs and cold.

Such are mine, and such shall be

Thine to-morrow when with me—

Ere the coming day is done,

Such shalt thou be, such thy son.

Fare-thee-well—but for a day;

Then we mix our mouldering clay—

Thou, thy race—lie pale and low,

Pierced by shafts of many a bow;

And the falchion by thy side,

To thy heart thy hand shall guide—

Crownless, breathless, headless fall,

Son and sire—the house of Saul.

.

THE SPANISH CHAMPION.

The warrior bow’d his crested head,

And tamed his heart of fire,

And sued the haughty king to free

His long imprisoned sire: