King David

King David was a sorrowful man:

No cause for his sorrow had he;

And he called for the music of a hundred harps,

To ease his melancholy.

They played till they all fell silent:

Played—and played sweet did they;

But the sorrow that haunted the heart of King David

They could not charm away.

He rose: and in his garden

Walked by the moon alone.

A nightingale hidden in a cypress tree

Jargoned on and on.

King David lifted his sad eyes

Into the dark-boughed tree—

“Tell me, thou little bird that singest,

Who taught my grief to thee?”

But the bird in no wise heeded;

And the king in the cool of the moon

Hearkened to the nightingale’s sorrowfulness,

Till all his own was gone.