Major Henry Livingston Jr. (1748-1828)

Of RISPAH. (who had been the concubine of King SAUL) when DAVID hanged her children, because their father had done amiss.


From morn to eve from eve to rosy morn,
On this bleak rock I'll lay me all forlorn;
Here will I stay, tho' tempests frown around,
Fierce lightnings glare, or earthquakes rock the ground.
The prowling wolves, the hungry birds of prey,
Pierc'd with my moans, will rove another way:
Less steel'd than man, with hearts dissolv'd they go,
And lose their nature at the voice of woe.
And did ye, O my hapless offspring! bleed
For your unhappy father's thoughtless deed?
He fell, alas! on Gilboa's fatal plain,
And gave his life 'mong thousands nobly slain.
--He had his faults; but he was kind and brave,
And with him all his errors found a grave;
-- Thus fondly I
With cursed, deadly hate
Against his house are hurl'd the bolts of state;
For royal David, wrapt in purple-grieves
While one of Saul's unfort'nate lineage lives:
His word is fate -- myself, my children all,
Must in an undistinguish'd ruin fall.