1.

Pity the sorrows of a poor old man
Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door;
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span;--
Oh, give relief, and heaven will bless your store!

2.

The king stood still till the last echo died; then, throwing off the
sackcloth from his brow, and laying back the pall from the still features
of his child, he bowed his head upon him, and broke forth in the resistless
eloquence of woe:--

"Alas! my noble boy! that thou should'st die! Thou, who wert made so
beautifully fair! that death should settle in thy glorious eye, and leave
his stillness in thy clustering hair! How could he mark thee for the silent
tomb, my proud boy, Absalom!

"Cold is thy brow, my son! and I am chill, as to my bosom I have tried to
press thee! How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill, like a rich harp-
string, yearning to caress thee, and hear thy sweet '_My father_!'
from those dumb and cold lips, Absolom!

"But death is on thee! I shall hear the gush of music and the voices of the
young; and life will pass me in the mantling blush, and the dark tresses to
the soft winds flung;--but thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come
to meet me, Absalom!"