Always it whispered, as I stood alone,
I said, in subtle thought among all Israel.
God had spoken to me, David, that the Philistine
Was evil, evil, that was all God said,
And bade me strike as a man by God assured.
But the man to whom God spoke I put aside,
The still self walking, whispering, in the shadow.
And I, the Jonathan of daily light,
Tempered the word of God, I tempered it--
I who should be God's outcast doing so.
I counted evil twenty different ways,
And none of them plain evil. I diced with God,
And the dice fell as often to my hand,
It seemed, as His, but falling so the whisper
Was ever shadowed at my ear, unheard.
And ever as this new intelligence,
This pride of thought, crept over me and filled
My dawn and noon and sleep, a hunger grew,
A dreadful hunger for that self denied,
And every word I spoke for righteousness
Turned bitter on my lips, because I knew
That every word was righteousness undone.
Such was the man this morning when you came,
Who from the king's tent watched you, David. Then
Change and completion and I know not what
Of heavenly fulfilment fell upon me.
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