Rizpah

Said one who led the spears of swarthy Gad,     To Jesses mighty son: My Lord, O King,     I, halting hard by Gibeons bleak-blown hill     Three nightfalls past, saw dark-eyed Rizpah, clad     In dripping sackcloth, pace with naked feet     The flinty rock where lie unburied yet     The sons of her and Saul; and he whose post     Of watch is in those places desolate,     Got up, and spake unto thy servant here     Concerning her yea, even unto me:     Behold, he said, the woman seeks not rest,     Nor fire, nor food, nor roof, nor any haunt     Where sojourns man; but rather on yon rock     Abideth, like a wild thing, with the slain,     And watcheth them, lest evil wing or paw     Should light upon the comely faces dead,     To spoil them of their beauty. Three long moons     Hath Rizpah, daughter of Aiah, dwelt     With drouth and cold and rain and wind by turns,     And many birds there are that know her face,     And many beasts that flee not at her step,     And many cunning eyes do look at her     From serpent-holes and burrows of the rat.     Moreover, spake the scout, her skin is brown     And sere by reason of exceeding heat;     And all her darkness of abundant hair     Is shot with gray, because of many nights     When grief hath crouched in fellowship with frost     Upon that desert rock. Yea, thus and thus     Fares Rizpah, said the spy, O King, to me.     But David, son of Jesse, spake no word,     But turned himself, and wept against the wall.     We have our Rizpahs in these modern days     Whove lost their households through no sin of theirs,     On bloody fields and in the pits of war;     And though their dead were sheltered in the sod     By friendly hands, these have not suffered less     Than she of Judah did, nor is their love     Surpassed by hers. The Bard who, in great days     Afar off yet, shall set to epic song     The grand pathetic story of the strife     That shook America for five long years,     And struck its homes with desolation he     Shall in his lofty verse relate to men     How, through the heat and havoc of that time,     Columbias Rachael in her Rama wept     Her children, and would not be comforted;     And sing of Woman waiting day by day     With that high patience that no man attains,     For tidings, from the bitter field, of spouse,     Or son, or brother, or some other love     Set face to face with Death. Moreover, he     Shall say how, through her sleepless hours at night,     When rain or leaves were dropping, every noise     Seemed like an omen; every coming step     Fell on her ears like a presentiment     And every hand that rested on the door     She fancied was a herald bearing grief;     While every letter brought a faintness on     That made her gasp before she opened it,     To read the story written for her eyes,     And cry, or brighten, over its contents.