Let a youngster read this, I say, just as it is written; and how the true East—sound, scent, form, colour—pours into the narrative!—cymbals and trumpets, leagues of sand, caravans trailing through the heat, priest and soldiery and kings going up between them to the altar; blood at the foot of the steps, blood everywhere, smell of blood mingled with spices, sandal-wood, dung of camels!
Yes, but how—if you will permit the word—how the enjoyment of it as magnificent literature might be enhanced by a scholar who would condescend to whisper, of his knowledge, the magical word here or there, to the child as he reads! For an instance.—
No child—no grown man with any sense of poetry—can deny his ear to the Forty-fifth Psalm; the one that begins 'My heart is inditing a good matter,' and plunges into a hymn of royal nuptials. First (you remember) the singing-men, the sons of Korah, lift their chant to the bridegroom, the King:
Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty … And in thy majesty ride prosperously.
Or as we hear it in the Book of Common Prayer:
Good luck have thou with thine honour… because of the word of truth, of meekness, and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things….
All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia: out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.
Anon they turn to the Bride:
Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house…. The King's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold.
She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework: the virgins that be her fellows shall bear her company. And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift. Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.