Once again... a journalistic apology... I couldn't make a photograph of the lion fountain taken today fit the journal writing... It would have been handy if the homily in church today had included the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den, but it didn't.

This morning the emphasis was on the familiar story of David and Goliath from the Old Testament. It’s a story that grabs and holds the attention of children and adults, as it did this morning; and it has fascinated sculptors and painters for centuries. When I got back home from church, I went through my files to find photographs I have made of some of the works. Photography in the Academy was forbidden when I was in Florence a couple of years ago, but I found in my files some pictures I took when photography was still allowed. There is probably nobody over the age of ten in the Western World who could not identify Michelangelo’s David. Fewer people are familiar with Donatello’s David and with the many other sculptures and paintings based on the Old Testament story.

As I listened to the sermon today, Robert Graves unsettling version of the story kept running through my mind. I remembered being stunned by it when I first heard it. I don’t remember another experience in a class as vividly as I remember hearing the professor in a poetry class reading Graves “David and Goliath.” I was shocked. I didn’t feel like getting out of my seat when the class was dismissed. As soon as I could move, I went directly to the library to get the poem so I could read it for myself and be sure I had heard correctly. I read it again today when I got home from church, and I am still stunned by it. Our world today is wracked by wars and domestic violence. Apparently it has always been so. Graves dedicated his poem to the memory of a friend, David Thomas, who was killed at Fricourt, March, 1916.

DAVID AND GOLIATH
By Robert Graves


If I am Jesse’s son, ‘said he,
Where must that tall Goliath be?’
For once an earlier David took
Smooth pebbles from the brook:
Out between the lines he went
To that one-sided tournament,
A shepherd boy who stood out fine
And young to fight a Philistine
Clad all in brazen mail. He swears
That he’s killed lions, he’s killed bears,
And those that scorn the God ofZion
Shall perish so like bear or lion.
But...the historian of the fight
Had not the heart to tell it right.
Striding within javelin range,
Goliath marvels at this strange
Goodly-faced boy so proud of strength.
David’s clear eye measures the length;
With hand thrust back he cramps one knee,
Poises a moment thoughtfully,
And hurls with a long vengeful swing.
The pebble, humming from the sling
Like a wild bee, flies a sure line
For the forehead of the philistine;
Then...but there comes a brazen clink,
And quicker than a man can think
Goliath’s shield parries each cast,
Clang! clang! And clang! was David’s last.

Scorn blazes in the Giant’s eye,
Towering unhurt six cubits high.
Says foolish David, ‘Curse your shield!
And curse my sling! But I’ll not yield.’
He takes his staff of Mamre oak,
A knotted shepherd-staff that’s broke
The skull of many a wolf and fox
Come filching lambs from Jesse’s flocks.
Loud laughs Goliath, and that laugh
Can scatter chariots like blown chaff
To rout; but David, calm and brave,
Holds his ground, for God will save.
Steel crosses wood, a flash, and oh!
Shame for beauty’s overthrow!
(God’s eyes are dim, His ears are shut),
One cruel backhand sabre-cut
I’m hit! I’m killed!’ young David cries,
Throws blindly forward, chokes...and dies.
Steel-helmeted and grey and grim
Goliath straddles over him.