Man's will is powerless to change the world of atoms: from God's
will stream the stars. Yet if man's will were equal in power to his
benevolence, how quickly would I, David, restore Saul to happiness!
The fact that I love my King with such intensity, whilst I am
powerless to change his condition, makes me believe in the coming of
Him who shall have my wish to help humanity with the accompanying
power. Man is contemptible in his strength, but divine in his ideals.
'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!
The last stanza of the poem has been thought by some critics to be a
mistake, worse than superfluous. For my part, I am very glad that
Browning added it. Up to this point, we have had exhibited the
effect of the music on Saul: now we see the effect on the man who
produced it, David. While it is of course impossible even to imagine
how a genius must feel immediately after releasing some immortal work
that has swollen his heart, we can not help making conjectures.
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