The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1876-04-12
TIE LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS OF
THE SONG OF DEBORAH"
CONCLUDED J


s.Then sang Deborah and Barak. son of Abins.
oam on that day." &e-Judges v: l.
Let US attend, in the next place, to the
bold, animated, and striking imagery, in
which this poem abOunds. We must remem-
Der that it was composed during what has
been called the heroic age of Israel. In the
primitive days of nations life, romance is
wont to throw around everything the en-
ehantment of its hues and cOlOriug. Then,
with all peoples,
Strength is gigantic vslor high,
And wisdom scars beyond the sky.
Add to this that the Hebrews were a pasto-
raj people, that their land was full of pic
turesque scenery, and that their history was
the most extraordinary and awe.inspiring OF
all the nations of the earth. Their poets
were therefore supplied with an ample field
of imagery. Indeed with such land, such
history, and such God, they could not
well help being pOetical.
Almost in the very first verse of DebO-
rsh's song, we fud the most striking figure
of personiGcation. Jehovah is represented
as marching out of the field of E1Om, and
the earth as trembling, and the heavens as
dropping at his approach, the mountains as
melting from before him. Insnimste nature
is bodily personi6ed as bOwing in homage
before the Creators footsteps. We are re-
minded of the famous line by Crashaw;*-
''Ths conscious water saw its God, and blusbed; -
And of the celebrated personi6catioDs in the
description By Childe Harold of the storm in
the Alps:
-" Far along
From peak to peak, the rafting crags among,
LEAPS the live thunder Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found tongue;
And Jura QrSlCerS, through her misty shroudS
Back to the Joyous Alps, who call to her aOudp'
The demoralzed and enervated state of
the people, after the iron of subjugatiOn had
entered their souls, is depicted by one brief
yet graphic figure: "Was there shield or
spear seen among forty thousand in Israel 2
Var az the gates is the imagery under which
anarchy and misrule are represented. The
highways being unoccupied and the travel
ers walking through by,ways, give US the
liveliest impressions of the peris of travel
and the ruin of the land. What an enehsnt-
ing picture of peace and order is drawn for
us in the pastoral scene, in which they that
have been delivered from the noise of arch
ers in the places of drawing water, are repre-
sented as rehearsing there the righteous acts
of the Lord; and the people Of the Lord as
going down then to the gates The reOre-
ant division of Reuben, for which there were
"great thoughts of heart aud "great
searchings of heart, are contemptuOusly
stigmatised for abiding amidst the tempest
and fury of the battle, among their sheep
folds, listening to the bleatings of the Aocks.
The gallantry of Zebulun and Napthali is
extolled for having jeOparded their lives IN
the high places of the field. But when the
shock of the battle is described, it seems tC
US that the imagery becomes sublime. -
Kings q" came and fought by the waters oI
Megiddo; they took no gain of money. -
"They fought from heaven; the stars il
their courses fought against Sisera." "Ther
were the horse hoofs broken by the means o
the prancings, the prancings of their might.
ones" The stars, which have been calleC
the poetry of heaven, are thus introduced b.
the bOldest imagery as taking part in th,
battle. Animated must be indeed, the strife
of which the celestial orbs could not remain
Indifferent spectators The imagination i
carried to the highest pitch of interest, lk
it is by the battles of the Iiad, where tn
gods themselves take sides with the Greek
or Trcjans; and like it is, as we may recall
By those two fine lines, in which death an
battle are personally represented as engag
ing in the bloody field of Talsvera:
..Death rides upon the sulphury Siroci
Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel th
shock l'
The song before US is a Hebrew lyric; an
she Hebrews had poetry of their own, W
This line was Inadvertently attributed by tn
writer OF this essay to Milton, but friend has ri
minded him that it belongs to Crashsw. 1t is how
avar not original with him beinp q translation frOr