O lips! MICHAL With but A sling, a shepherd’s sling, you sped the brook, Drew from its bed a stone, and up the hill Where the great Philistine contemning cried, Mounted and flung it deep upon his brain! DAVID This is the victory and not his death! Tell, tell thy joy with kisses on my lips! Thy mouth! thy arms! thy breast! MICHAL No no! DAVID Thy soul! Too much of waiting and of severance! Of dread and distance and the deep of doubt. Now must I fold you, falter all my love And triumph on your senses till they burn Beautiful to eternity with bliss. MICHAL Loose, loose me! DAVID Nay, again! immortal kisses! MICHAL A frenzy, ’tis a frenzy! From me! see! This irremediable victory Over Goliath severs us the more. [_The tumult breaks again, afar._] Hear how the people lift you limitless! Almost, to-day, and in my father’s room They would that you were king. DAVID But ere to-morrow Dim shall I be, and ere the harvest bend Less than a gleam in their forgotten peril! MICHAL O were it, were it! But all silently Jehovah fast is beckoning the realm Into thy hands. DAVID Then futile to resist The gliding on of firm divinity. And yet whatever may be shall be done. MICHAL All, all? DAVID That for thee reverently may. MICHAL The anointing, then-- DAVID Of that!… not that! MICHAL Yet grant It may be told my father; that I may Say to him all the secret! DAVID And provoke Murder in him, insatiable though I fled upon the wilderness and famine? MICHAL He would not! DAVID Nay. MICHAL I’ll plead with him. DAVID In vain! MICHAL Then [_coldly_] it is as I thought. DAVID You are distraught. MICHAL This stroke to-day [_pointing to_ GOLIATH’S _head_] no love of me had in it. DAVID A love, a passion fervid thro’ me as The tread and tremble of immortal song Along the infinite. MICHAL You use me! DAVID Use? MICHAL A step to rise and riot in ambition! DAVID So bitter are you, blind? MICHAL It was a trick! You snared me to you. DAVID Michal! MICHAL Cunningly With Samuel netted fears about my father Till I am paltrily unto you pledged. DAVID Enough. MICHAL Too much. DAVID