Then sound the clarion, wake the timbrel shrill
Pale and abstracted is his aspect still.
Strike then the cymbal and the rolling drum ! -
His God has left him, and his hour is come.*

His captains spoke ; the warrior raised his eye,-
“ And these,” the gloomy prophet said, “ must die.”
His sons rebuked him,-“ Ye must also fall,
And they, and I, and Israel, and all.”+
6. Know

ye
the
weapon

that
ye

bear in hand ?”
The wistful monarch looked upon his brand :-
“ Ay, sons, my steel—a warrior's work has done,
And soon shall finish what the Lord begun.
Ye gaze on it, and then survey the foe;
Ye know 'twill smite, but that is all ye

know.
Proud steel! the prophet tells me what thou art,-
The night shall find thee in a monarch's heart.
Why stand I here to descant on my shame?
He told me not that I was lost to fame !
He told me not, my sinews should deny
Their wonted office, or be stretched to fly!
Come, chiefs, array ! light up your martial fire ;
Like Saul ye conquer, or like Saul expire !"

As rocks that topple from some mountain hoar,
Crash in the waves, and drive them to the shore;
Or howling torrents that from high hills leap,
And o'er the valleys with destruction sweep;

Sam, xxix. 2.) The jealousy of the Philistine lords, however, caused Achish to send David back into the land of the Philistines; and he did not appear in this battle.

* The Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy. 1 Samuel, ch. xxviii. v. 16.

+ Ch. xxviii. v. 19.

I The Lord shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines. 1 Samuel, xxviii. 16–20.

So from Gilboa's reverend slope they fly,
Charge with the Gentiles, with the Gentiles die,
Batter'd and dripping with the scarlet gore,
Their shields and swords reflect the sun no more ;
Fierce through the ranks the scythed chariots flash,
And mow out alleys wheresoe'er they dash :
The prancing charger neighs and springs in air,
And treads down hundreds that the sabres spare ;
By furious arms opposing spears are thrust,
And man and steed together bite the dust.-
Hark! hark ! a shriek ! 'twas loud, and wild, and shrill,
Echoed in thunder from the shuddering hill;
And caverned silence, maddened with the sound,
Opes his scared lips, and pours the yell around.
Ah me! how yonder spouting rills are dyed
With crimson issue from the Hebrew's side ;
And the green grass, with dew late sprinkled o'er,
Smokes up to heaven, a sacrifice of gore !

“ Back, back, great king! Gilboa's caves shall show Some present refuge from the unsparing foe.” “ Said I not thus ?" the desperate chief replied, The winged arrow trembling in his side; “Said I not thus, the godless should prevail And Israel fall, like corn before the hail ? Where are my sons?” --- These corses !"_" Said I notA monarch's children like a beggar's rot. Away, away ! degenerate Hebrews fly!But Saul -Begone! nor see a monarch die, 'The dreadful phantom, vainly now implored, Unmann'd my spirit and unedged my sword, Else fled not Saul before the haughty foe, Nor on his back received the Gentile blow.Haste, slave-strike, strike :* the victor shall not say

* Ch. xxxi. v. 4.

The chief of Israel was a living prey :
Strike the sharp weapon through my mangled breast,
One better wound be added to the rest."
“O fly, great chief! a happier day"

6 Away,
Thou poor pale coward : this is Saul's last day!
This is the day-Said I not?—this is the hour:
Saul not outlives his glory and his power.......
Eternity! how dark the waves that roll
In booming discord on my frighted soul !
Eternity! how filled with wrack and gloom !-
Creation's vast and never-closing tomb !
Billows that float in awful shade and fire,
Black lowering horror, and fierce flashing ire;
Mystic and hideous, yet unshunn'd by me,
Thy dismal desert, O Eternity !"

He said : the weapon made its furious way-
And night and horror closed the fatal day.

THE TRUE AMERICAN STATESMAN.

BY NICHOLAS BIDDLE.

For the high and holy duty of serving his country,

he begins by deep and solitary studies of its constitution and laws, and all its great interests. These studies are extended over the whole circumference of knowledge-all the depths and shoals of the human passions are sounded to acquire the mastery over them. The solid structure is then strengthened and embellished by familiarity with ancient and modern-languages-with history, which supplies the treasures of old experience—with eloquence, which gives them attraction--and with the whole of that wide miscellaneous literature, which spreads over them all a perpetual freshness and variety. These acquirements are sometimes reproached by the ignorant as being pedantry. They would be pedantic if they intruded into public affairs inappropriately, but in subordination to the settled habits of the individual, they add grace to the strength of his general character, as the foliage ornaments the fruit that ripens beneath it. They are again denounced as weakening the force of native talent, and contrasted disparagingly with what are called rough and strong minded men. But roughness is no necessary attendant on strength; the true steel is not weakened by the highest polish just as the scymetar of Damascus, more flexible in the hands of its master, inflicts a keener wound than the coarsest blade. So far from impairing the native strength

of the mind, at every moment this knowledge is available. In the play of human interests and passions, the same causes ever influence the same results; what has been, will again be, and there is no contingency of affairs on which the history of the past may not shed its warning light on the future. The modern languages bring him into immediate contact with the living science and the gifted minds of his remote cotemporaries. All the forms of literature, which are but the varied modifications in which the human intellect develops itself, contribute to reveal to him its structure and its passions; and these endowments can be displayed in a statesman's career only by eloquence—itself a master power, attained only by cultivation, and never more requiring it than now, when its influence is endangered by its abuse. Our institutions require and create a multitude of public speakers and writers—but, without culture, their very numbers impede their excellence—as the wild richness of the soil throws out an unweeded and rank luxuriance. Accordingly, in all that we say or write about public affairs, a crude abundance is the disease of our American style. On the commonest topic of business, a speech swells into a declamation—an official statement grows to a dissertation. A discourse about any thing must contain every thing. We will take nothing for granted. We must commence at the very commencement. An ejectment for ten acres, reproduces the whole discovery of America -a discussion about a tariff or a turnpike, summons from their remotest caves the adverse blasts of windy rhetoric -and on those great Serbonian bogs, known in political geography as constitutional questions, our ambitious fluency often begins with the general deluge, and ends with its own.

It is thus that even the good sense and reason of some become wearisome, while the undisciplined fancy