Rizpah

Blood will have blood. Here is a grievous pest,
And Gibeon craves the blood of guilty Saul.
And what can David do ? He gives not all —
One he reserves, to death resigns the rest.
Poor Rizpah, mother of a brood unbless'd,
Must see Armoni and Mephibosheth
For Israel's life to ignominious death.
Because their sire so fatally transgress
Consign'd tho' guiltless. She, sad mother, staid
On her stern seat of sackcloth day by day,
And, like a statue, scared the fowls away,
'Till genial rain the thirst of earth allay
Patient in grief, she won the historic Spirit,
To make immortal mention of her merit.