172. _Carouse in the past._ This line marks a change in the direction of David's thought. Up to stanza X it was the glorious past that he had been urging upon Saul's attention. But now he realizes that true inspiration comes not so much from a re-living of one's achievements, as from the thought of the permanence of one's fame and one's deeds. 192. _And behold while I sang._ At this point David is overcome by the memory of the sudden spiritual illumination that came to him in his interview with Saul. He had reached the summit of his endeavor (l. 191) and yet knew himself powerless to give the King new life. Then there flashed upon him the truth expressed in stanzas XVII-XIX. He breaks off in lines 192-205, going, in his strong feeling, ahead of his story and commenting on what is described in stanza XIX. In stanza XV he resumes his narrative. 204. _Hebron._ David watches the slow coming of the dawn over the hill on which is situated the town of Hebron. 205. _Kidron._ A brook near Jerusalem. It is fed by springs, and the amount of water in it is sensibly decreased by the extreme heat of the day. 214. _Ere error had bent._ In _I Samuel_, Chapter xv, is an account of Saul's disobedience and punishment. The choosing of Saul to be king is described in _I Samuel_, Chapters ix and x. 292. _Sabaoth._ The word means "hosts" and is ordinarily used in the phrase "The Lord of hosts." It represents the omnipotence of God. 303. _Nor leave up nor down_, etc. At the end of stanza xv, the thought that had come to David was that God had proved supreme in all the ways in which a human being could test knowledge and power, but that in the one way of love the creature might surpass the Creator. At line 302 he has come to believe in the infinitude of God's love as well as in the infinitude of His power. It is interesting to note that George Eliot in _Silas Marner_ gives to ignorant Dolly Winthrop an experience and a philosophy of life almost identical with those of Browning's David. 307-312. A prophecy of the revelation of the divine in the human, the coming of God in the person of Christ. It is the human in the divine that men seek and love. In the Old Testament days such an idea, though foretold and longed for, could be but vaguely conceived except in moments of especial insight in the minds of poet-prophets like David. Mr. Herford (_Robert Browning_, p. 120) says of this passage: "David is occupied with no speculative question, but with the practical problem of saving a ruined soul; and neither logical ingenuity nor divine suggestion, but the inherent spiritual significance of the situation, urges his thought along the lonely path of prophecy. The love for the old King, which prompted him to try all the hidden paths of his soul in quest of healing, becomes a lighted torch by which he tracks out the meaning of the world and the still unrevealed purposes of God; until the energy of thought culminates in vision and the Christ stands full before his eyes."