Take but your lute, and make the mountains dance,
Retrieve the sun's sphere, and restrain the clouds,
Give ears to trees, make savage lions tame,
Impose still silence to the loudest winds,
And fill the fairest day with foulest storms;
Then why should passions of much meaner power,
Bear head against the heart of Israel ?
DAV. Fair Bethsabe, thou mightst increase the
strength
Of these thy arguments, drawn from my skill,
By urging thy sweet sight to my conceits,
Whose virtue ever serv'd for sacred balm
To cheer my pinings past all earthly joys:
But Bethsabe, the daughter of the highest,
Whose beauty builds the towers of Israel,
She, that in chains of pearl and unicorn,
Leads at her train the ancient golden world,
The world that Adam held in paradise,
Whose breath refineth all infectious airs,
And makes the meadows smile at her repair;
She, she, my dearest Bethsabe,
Fair peace, the goddess of our graces here,
Is fled the streets of fair Jerusalem,
The fields of Israel, and the heart of David,
Leading my comforts in her golden chains,
Link'd to the life, and soul of Absalon.
BETH. Then is the pleasure of my sovereign's heart
So wrapt within the bosom of that son,
That Salomon, whom Israel's God affects,
And gave the name unto him for his love,
Should be no salve to comfort David's soul?
DAV. Salomon, my love, is David's lord;
Our God hath nam'd him lord of Israel:
In him (for that, and since he is thy son,)
Must David needs be pleased at the heart;
And he shall surely sit upon my throne:
But Absalon, the beauty of my bones,
Fair Absalon, the counterfeit of love,
Sweet Absalon, the image of content,
Must claim a portion in his father's care,
And be in life and death king David's son.
NATH. Yet as my lord hath said, let Salomon
Whom God in naming hath anointed king.
Now is he apt to learn th' eternal laws,
Whose knowledge being rooted in his youth
Will beautify his age with glorious fruits;
While Absalon, incens'd with graceless pride,
Usurps and stains the kingdom with his sin:
Let Salomon be made thy staff of age,
Fair Israel's rest, and honour of thy race.
DAV. Tell me, my Salomon, wilt thou embrace
Thy father's precepts graved in thy heart,
And satisfy my zeal to thy renown,
With practice of such sacred principles
As shall concern the state of Israel?
SAL. My royal father, if the heavenly zeal,
Which for my welfare feeds upon your soul,
Were not sustain'd with virtue of mine own,
If the sweet accents of your cheerful voice
Should not each hour beat upon mine ears
As sweetly as the breath of heaven to him
That gaspeth scorched with the summer's sun;
I should be guilty of unpardoned sin,
Fearing the plague of heaven, and shame of earth:
But since I vow myself to learn the skill
And holy secrets of his mighty hand
Whose cunning tunes the music of my soul,
It would content me, father, first to learn
How the eternal fram'd the firmament;
Which bodies lead their influence by fire;
And which are fill'd with hoary winter's ice;
What sign is rainy; and what star is fair ;
Why by the rules of true proportion
The year is still divided into months,
The months to days, the days to certain hours;
What fruitful race shall fill the future world;
Or for what time shall this round building stand;
What magistrates, what kings shall keep in awe
Men's minds with bridles of th' eternal law.
DAV. Wade not too far, my boy, in waves too
The feeble eyes of our aspiring thoughts
Behold things present, and record things past;
But things to come exceed our human reach,
And are not painted yet in angels' eyes:
For those, submit thy sense, and say-Thou power,
That now art framing of the future world,
Know'st all to come, not by the course of heaven,
By frail conjectures of inferior signs,
By monstrous floods, by flights and flocks of birds,
By bowels of a sacrificed beast,
Or by the figures of some hidden art;
But by a true and natural presage,
Laying the ground and perfect architect
Of all our actions now before thine
eyes,
From Adam to the end of Adam's seed:
O heaven, protect my weakness with thy strength!
So look on me that I may view thy face,
And see these secrets written in thy brows.
O sun, come dart thy rays upon my moon!
That now mine eyes, eclipsed to the earth,
May brightly be refin'd and shine to heaven:
Transform me from this flesh, that I may live
Before my death, regenerate with thee.
O thou great God, ravish my earthly sprite!
That for the time a more than human skill
May feed the organons of all my sense;
That, when I think, thy thoughts may be my guide,
And, when I speak, I may be made by choice
The perfect echo of thy heavenly voice.
Thus say, my son, and thou shalt learn them all.
SAL. A secret fury ravisheth my soul,
Lifting my mind above her human bounds;
And, as the eagle, roused from her stand
With violent hunger towering in the air,
Seizeth her feather'd prey, and thinks to feed,
But seeing then a cloud beneath her feet,
Lets fall the fowl, and is emboldened
With eyes intentive to bedare the sun,
And styeth close unto his stately sphere;
So Salomon, mounted on the burning wings
Of zeal divine, lets fall his mortal food,
And cheers his senses with celestial air,
Treads in the golden starry labyrinth,
And holds his eyes fix'd on Jehovah's brows.
Good father, teach me further what to do.
NATH. See, David, how his haughty spirit mounts, Even now of height to wield a diadem ;
Then make him promise, that he may succeed,
And rest old Israel's bones from broils of war.
DAV. Nathan, thou prophet, sprung from Jesse's
root,
I promise thee, and lovely Bethsabe,
My Salomon shall govern after me.
BETH. He that hath touch'd thee with this right
Preserve the harbour of thy thoughts in peace.
MESS. My lord, thy servants of the watch have
One running hitherward from forth the wars.
DAV. If he be come alone, he bringeth news. MESS. Another hath thy servant seen, my lord, Whose running much resembles Sadoc's son.
DAV. He is a good man, and good tidings brings.
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