RIZPAH. And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord; and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of the harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley-harvest. And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. HEAR what the desolate Rizpah said, 2 SAMUEL, xxi., 10. As on Gibeah's rocks she watched the dead. And her own fair children, dearer than they: And were stretched on the bare rock, side by side. And Rizpah, once the loveliest of all That bloomed and smiled in the court of Saul, All wasted with watching and famine now, I have made the crags my home, and spread On their desert backs my sackcloth bed; I have eaten the bitter herb of the rocks, I have wept till I could not weep, and the pain In the blaze of the sun and the winds of the sky. Ye were foully murdered, my hapless sons, By the hands of wicked and cruel ones ; Ye fell, in your fresh and blooming prime, All innocent, for your father's crime. He sinned-but he paid the price of his guilt When his blood by a nameless hand was spilt; When he strove with the heathen host in vain, And fell with the flower of his people slain, And the sceptre his children's hands should sway From his injured lineage passed away. But I hoped that the cottage roof would be A safe retreat for my sons and me; And that while they ripened to manhood fast, They should wean my thoughts from the woes of the past. Of his stately form, and the bloom of his face. Oh, what an hour for a mother's heart, The barley-harvest was nodding white, When my children died on the rocky height, And the reapers were singing on hill and plain, When I came to my task of sorrow and pain. But now the season of rain is nigh, The sun is dim in the thickening sky, And the clouds in sullen darkness rest Where he hides his light at the doors of the west. The long drear storm on its heavy wings; But the howling wind, and the driving rain THE INDIAN GIRL'S LAMENT. AN Indian girl was sitting where I've pulled away the shrubs that grew That shining from the sweet southwest It was a weary, weary road That led thee to the pleasant coast, 'Twas I the broidered mocsen made, That shod thee for that distant land; 'Twas I thy bow and arrows laid Beside thy still cold hand; |