Man of Uz, and Other Poems | Page 5

righteousness,?And robed in that respect which greatness wins?When leagued with goodness, and by wisdom crown'd.?The grateful prayers and blessings of the souls?Ready to perish, silently distill'd?Upon him, as he slept.
So as a tree?Whose root is by the river's brink, he grew?And flourish'd, while the dews like balm-drops hung?All night upon his branches.
Yet let none?Of woman born, presume to build his hopes?On the worn cliff of brief prosperity,?Or from the present promise, predicate?The future joy. The exulting bird that sings?Mid the green curtains of its leafy nest?His tuneful trust untroubled there to live,?And there to die, may meet the archer's shaft?When next it spreads the wing.
The tempest folds?O'er the smooth forehead of the summer noon?Its undiscover'd purpose, to emerge?Resistless from its armory, and whelm?In floods of ruin, ere the day decline.

Lightning and sword!
Swift messengers, and sharp,?Reapers that leave no gleanings. In their path?Silence and desolation fiercely stalk.?--O'er trampled hills, and on the blood-stain'd plains?There is no low of kine, or bleat of flocks,?The fields are rifled, and the shepherds slain.
The Man of Uz, who stood but yestermorn?Above all compeers,--clothed with wealth and power,?To day is poorer than his humblest hind.?A whirlwind from the desert!
All unwarn'd?Its fury came. Earth like a vassal shook.?Majestic trees flew hurtling through the air?Like rootless reeds.
There was no time for flight.?Buried in household wrecks, all helpless lay?Masses of quivering life.
Job's eldest son?That day held banquet for their numerous line?At his own house. With revelry and song,?One moment in the glow of kindred hearts?The lordly mansion rang, the next they lay?Crush'd neath its ruins.
_He_,--the childless sire,?Last of his race, and lonely as the pine?That crisps and blackens 'neath the lightning shaft?Upon the cliff, with such a rushing tide?The mountain billows of his misery came,?Drove they not Reason from her beacon-hold??Swept they not his strong trust in Heaven away?
List,--list,--the sufferer speaks.
"The Lord who gave?Hath taken away,--and blessed be His name."
Oh Patriarch!--teach us, mid this changeful life?Not to mistake the ownership of joys?Entrusted to us for a little while,?But when the Great Dispenser shall reclaim?His loans, to render them with praises back,?As best befits the indebted.
Should a tear?Moisten the offering, He who knows our frame?And well remembereth that we are but dust,?Is full of pity.
It was said of old?Time conquer'd Grief. But unto me it seems?That Grief overmastereth Time. It shows how wide?The chasm between us, and our smitten joys?And saps the strength wherewith at first we went?Into life's battle. We perchance, have dream'd?That the sweet smile the sunbeam of our home?The prattle of the babe the Spoiler seiz'd,?Had but gone from us for a little while,--?And listen'd in our fallacy of hope?At hush of eve for the returning step?That wake the inmost pulses of the heart?To extasy,--till iron-handed Grief?Press'd down the _nevermore_ into our soul,?Deadening us with its weight.
The man of Uz?As the slow lapse of days and nights reveal'd?The desolation of his poverty?Felt every nerve that at the first great shock?Was paralyzed, grow sensitive and shrink?As from a fresh-cut wound. There was no son?To come in beauty of his manly prime?With words of counsel and with vigorous hand?To aid him in his need, no daughter's arm?To twine around him in his weariness,?Nor kiss of grandchild at the even-tide?Going to rest, with prayer upon its lips.
Still a new trial waits.
The blessed health?Heaven's boon, thro' which with unbow'd form we bear?Burdens and ills, forsook him. Maladies?Of fierce and festering virulence attack'd?His swollen limbs. Incessant, grinding pains?Laid his strength prostrate, till he counted life?A loathed thing. Dire visions frighted sleep?That sweet restorer of the wasted frame,?And mid his tossings to and fro, he moan'd?Oh, when shall I arise, and Night be gone!
Despondence seized him. To the lowliest place?Alone he stole, and sadly took his seat?In dust and ashes.
She, his bosom friend?The sharer of his lot for many years,?Sought out his dark retreat. Shuddering she saw?His kingly form like living sepulchre,?And in the maddening haste of sorrow said?God hath forgotten.
She with him had borne?Unuttered woe o'er the untimely graves?Of all whom she had nourished,--shared with him?The silence of a home that hath no child,?The plunge from wealth to want, the base contempt?Of menial and of ingrate;--but to see?The dearest object of adoring love?Her next to God, a prey to vile disease?Hideous and loathsome, all the beauty marred?That she had worshipped from her ardent youth?Deeming it half divine, she could not bear,?Her woman's strength gave way, and impious words?In her despair she uttered.
But her lord?To deeper anguish stung by her defect?And rash advice, reprovingly replied?Pointing to Him who meeteth out below?Both good and evil in mysterious love,?And she was silenced.
What a sacred power?Hath hallow'd Friendship o'er the nameless ills?That throng our pilgrimage. Its sympathy,?Doth undergird the drooping, and uphold?The foot that falters in its miry path.?It grows more precious, as the hair grows grey.?Time's alchymy that rendereth so much dross?Back for our gay