David waited for a change in the strain; but Homer stopped. The young
Hebrew asked him to go on; but Homer said that the passage which
followed was mere narrative, from a long narrative poem. David looked
surprised that his new friend had not pointed a moral as he sang; and
said simply, "We sing that thus:--

"As for man, his days are as grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth;
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone,
And the place thereof shall know it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord
Is from everlasting to everlasting
Of them that fear him;
And his righteousness
Unto children's children,
To such as keep his covenant,
As remember his commandments to do them!"

Homer's face flashed delighted. "I, like you, 'keep his covenant,'" he
cried; and then without a lyre, for his was still in David's hands, he
sang, in clear tone:--

"Thou bid'st me birds obey;--I scorn their flight,
If on the left they rise, or on the right!
Heed them who may, the will of Jove I own,
Who mortals and immortals rules alone!"[E]

"That is more in David's key," said the young Philistine harper, seeing
that the poets had fallen to talk together again. "But how would it