# Oh Zealots So Red

Zither, myrrh, red wine, ev'ry delight

Betray me too, refuse to satisfy,

Assault my hearing, smell, my taste and sight,1

As you, in murmurs, plot to nullify

My battered throne. You crave to do me wrong.

Even village girls with dusty feet

Conspire to mock my conquests with their song,2

Emasculate my triumph as defeat.

The blood of my slain thousands flows to sea

To feed their fish-god deep beneath the waves.3

How fine an ending that—to cease to be,

To wash the dust from off a soul that craves

No more, of God himself be out of reach.

Evoked by love, the waves caress the beach.

# Footnotes

1: In his melancholy, Saul addresses his court. See I Samuel 16:14.

2: See I Samuel 18:7.

3: The Philistines worshipped a fish-god named Dagon. See I Samuel 5:1-5, and Rashi op.cit.



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