Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/426

392 Thy fall, the theme of choral song

From virgin voices poured!

To weep would do thy glory wrong:

Thou shalt not be deplored.

SAUL.

I.

whose spell can raise the dead,

Bid the Prophet's form appear.

"Samuel, raise thy buried head!

King, behold the phantom Seer!"

Earth yawned; he stood the centre of a cloud:

Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud.

Death stood all glassy in his fixéd 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 caverned winds, the hollow accents came.

Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak,

At once, and blasted by the thunder-stroke.

II.

"Why is my sleep disquieted?

Who is he that calls the dead?

Is it thou, O King? Behold,

Bloodless are these limbs, and cold: