i8 7 7] POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 431 



see what his heart cannot assimilate. The desert blossoms 

 with his joy, and the orchards and gardens of Carmel 

 wither in his despair. The fairest things are spurned 

 with impatient hate, or blighted with bitter curses, if their 

 beauty stands in contrast to his woe. 



Ye mountains of Gilboa, 



No dew, no rain be upon you, 



Ye fields rich in oblations ! 



For there the shield of the mighty lies rusting, 



The shield of Saul not anointed with oil. 1 



We have already observed that the subjective intensity 

 of such a poetry can appear extravagant or untruthful 

 only when judged by too narrow a canon of taste. In the 

 nature of the case artistic truth is always more or less 

 partial, for the artist isolates and treats as a perfect whole 

 what in reality is only one factor of a larger unity of 

 nature or of thought. And so, if the unity to be realised 

 is one of supreme emotion, it is not only legitimate, but 

 imperative that all opposing elements be sacrificed to the 

 ruling idea. But, on the other hand, an art which proceeds 

 on such principles must often be obscure and unattractive 

 to those whose less intense subjectivity is unable to share 

 the resistless sweep of the poet s passion. A Semitic 

 poetry of the ordinary themes of life can hardly attain to 

 the perfect catholicity that appeals to all minds in all 

 ages ; for at least we of the Western races require a special 

 effort of cultivated literary appreciativeness to throw 

 ourselves into the vein of uncontrolled immediate feeling 

 in which the Oriental naturally moves. But the very 

 characters that constitute a certain particularism of 

 interest in the treatment of secular themes mark out the 

 Hebrew poetry as the most perfect and catholic vehicle 

 for the aesthetic expression of religious faith. In every 

 other case the artistic propriety of making all nature bend 



1 2 Sam. i. 21. The unction by which the shield of the warrior is 

 kept bright is alluded to in Is. xxi. 5. The &quot; fields of offerings &quot; (A.V.) 

 are, as Ewald rightly explains, fields so fertile that many offerings of 

 first-fruits are sent from them to the sanctuary. 



