David

Your altar smelled of the slaughterhouse.
The innocent eyes of tender beasts
lost in confusion of laws and vows
were the high price paid to you for feasts.
They had to be men of iron, your priests.

And so did I, born but to sing,
to attend the lambs and not to kill.
Why, my Lord, did you have to bring
me down from the safety of my hill
into the danger of your will?

I learned to fight, I learned to sin,
I battled heathen, fought with lust;
when you were on my side I'd win.
My appetite I could not trust.
I only knew your wrath was just.

What I desired I went and stole.
I had to fight against my son.
You bound my wounds and made me whole
despite the wrong that I had done.
I turned from you and tried to run.

You took me, also, by the hair
and brought me back before your altar.
You terrified me with your care.
Against your rage I could but falter.
You changed me, but refused to alter.

So I grew old, but there remained
within me still the singing boy.
I stripped and sang. My wife complained. 
Yet all my ill did I destroy
dancing before you in our joy.

My God, my God, is it not meet
that I should sing and shout and roar,
leap to your ark with loving feet?
I praise thee, hallow, and adore,
and play before thee evermore.

-- Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007), Episcopal laywoman, author, and poet, from A Cry Like a Bell

Relevant scripture: 1 Samuel 16: 1-13