DAVID.
David, the son of Jesse, the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel.—II. Samuel, xxiii. 1.
He chose David also his servant, and took him from the sheep-folds:
From following the ewes great with young, he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance.—Psalm lxxviii. 70, 71.
I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him.—Psalm lxxxix. 20.
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people,
And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.—Luke, i. 68, 69.
For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face.—Acts, ii. 25.
Beauteous and bright is he among the tribes;
As when the sun attired in glistering robe
Comes dancing from his oriental gate,
And, bridegroom-like, hurls through the gloomy air
His radiant beams: such doth King David show,
Crowned with the honour of his enemies’ town,
Shining in riches like the firmament,
The starry vault that overhangs the earth:
So looketh David, King of Israel.
George Peele.
See Judah’s promised king bereft of all:
Driven out an exile from the face of Saul.
To distant caves the lonely wanderer flies,
To seek that peace a tyrant’s frown denies.
Hear the sweet accents of his tuneful voice;
Hear him, o’erwhelmed with sorrows, yet rejoice;
No womanish or wailing grief has part,
No, not a moment, in his royal heart;
’Tis manly music, such as martyrs make,
Suffering with gladness for a Saviour’s sake;
His soul exults; hope animates his lays;
The sense of mercy kindles into praise;
And wilds, familiar with the lion’s roar,
Ring with ecstatic sounds unheard before.
Cowper.
And lo! the glories of the illustrious line
At their first dawn with ripened splendours shine,
In David all expressed; the good, the great,
The king, the hero, and the man, complete.
Serene he sits, and sweeps the golden lyre,
And blends the prophet’s with the poet’s fire.
See, with what art he strikes the vocal strings
The God, his theme, inspiring what he sings!
Bishop Lowth.
Thy living lyre alone, whose dulcet sounds
In gentlest murmurs floating on the air,
Could calm the fury of the woe-struck king,
And soothe the agony which pierced his heart.
Or when thou swept the master strings, and rolled’st
The deep impetuous tide along with more
Than mortal sound, could’st raise his raptured soul
To ecstacy; or from the tortured strings
Harsh discord shaking, sink him in the gulf
Of dire despair, while horror chilled his blood,
And from each pore the agonizing sweat
Distilled! that deep-toned lyre alone can sing
Thy fervent piety, thy glowing zeal.
William Hodson.
One struggle of might, and the giant of Gath
With a crash like the oak in the hurricane’s path,
And a clangour of arms, as of hosts in the fray,
At the feet of the stripling of Ephratah lay.
A hush of amazement;—a calm as of death,
When the watcher lists long for that spasm-drawn breath,
Then a shout like the roll of artillery rose,
And the armies of Israel swept on to their foes.
For a space the Philistine had paused, as in doubt,
Ere the Israelite triumph rang gloriously out;
Then, scattering his arms on the mountains, he fled,
Till the valley of Elah was strewn with the dead.
The carnage moved on, and alone in the vale,
The Shepherd knelt down by the dead in his mail,
And there, with his arm on that still reeking sword,
Poured forth his thanksgiving in prayer to the Lord.
Anon.