Absalom and Achitophel advice of the double agent Hushai over the good advice of Achitophel. Achitophel, realising that the rebellion is doomed to failure, goes home and hangs himself. Absalom is killed (against David's explicit commands) after getting caught by his hair in the thick branches of a great oak tree: "His head caught fast in the oak, and he was left hanging between heaven and earth, while the mule that was under him went on" (NRSV 2 Sam. 18:9). The death of his son, Absalom, causes David enormous personal grief. A second allegory in the poem, beginning on line 425, is the
A Song to David a poet who, though he produced much, has not produced elsewhere a single line which indicates the power here displayed." A Song to David A Song to David, a poem by Christopher Smart, was most likely written during his stay in a mental asylum while he wrote "Jubilate Agno". Although it received mixed reviews, it was his most famous work until the discovery of "Jubilate Agno". The poem focuses on King David and various aspects of his life, but quickly turns to an emphasis on Christ and Christianity. There is no evidence proving that Christopher Smart wrote "A Song to