Rizpah
Said one who led the spears of swarthy Gad,To Jesse’s mighty son: “My Lord, O King,I, halting hard by Gibeon’s bleak-blown hillThree nightfalls past, saw dark-eyed Rizpah, cladIn dripping sackcloth, pace with naked feetThe flinty rock where lie unburied yetThe sons of her and Saul; and he whose postOf watch is in those places desolate,Got up, and spake unto thy servant hereConcerning her—yea, even unto me:—‘Behold,’ he said, ‘the woman seeks not rest,Nor fire, nor food, nor roof, nor any hauntWhere sojourns man; but rather on yon rockAbideth, like a wild thing, with the slain,And watcheth them, lest evil wing or pawShould light upon the comely faces dead,To spoil them of their beauty. Three long moonsHath Rizpah, daughter of Aiah, dweltWith 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 herFrom serpent-holes and burrows of the rat.Moreover,’ spake the scout, ‘her skin is brownAnd sere by reason of exceeding heat;And all her darkness of abundant hairIs shot with gray, because of many nightsWhen grief hath crouched in fellowship with frostUpon that desert rock. Yea, thus and thusFares 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 daysWho’ve 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 sodBy friendly hands, these have not suffered lessThan she of Judah did, nor is their loveSurpassed by hers. The Bard who, in great daysAfar off yet, shall set to epic songThe grand pathetic story of the strifeThat shook America for five long years,And struck its homes with desolation—heShall in his lofty verse relate to menHow, through the heat and havoc of that time,Columbia’s Rachael in her Rama weptHer children, and would not be comforted;And sing of Woman waiting day by dayWith that high patience that no man attains,For tidings, from the bitter field, of spouse,Or son, or brother, or some other loveSet face to face with Death. Moreover, heShall say how, through her sleepless hours at night,When rain or leaves were dropping, every noiseSeemed like an omen; every coming stepFell on her ears like a presentimentAnd every hand that rested on the doorShe fancied was a herald bearing grief;While every letter brought a faintness onThat made her gasp before she opened it,To read the story written for her eyes,And cry, or brighten, over its contents.