Читать книгу The Man of Uz, and Other Poems - L. H. Sigourney - Страница 3

THE MAN OF UZ.

A joyous festival.—

The gathering back

Of scattered flowrets to the household wreath.

Brothers and sisters from their sever'd homes

Meeting with ardent smile, to renovate

The love that sprang from cradle memories

And childhood's sports, and whose perennial stream

Still threw fresh crystals o'er the sands of life.

—Each bore some treasured picture of the past,

Some graphic incident, by mellowing time

Made beautiful, while ever and anon,

Timbrel and harp broke forth, each pause between.

Banquet and wine-cup, and the dance, gave speed

To youthful spirits, and prolong'd the joy.

The patriarch father, with a chasten'd heart

Partook his children's mirth, having God's fear

Ever before him. Earnestly he brought

His offerings and his prayers for every one

Of that beloved group, lest in the swell

And surging superflux of happiness

They might forget the Hand from whence it came,

Perchance, displease the Almighty.

Many a care

Had he that wealth creates. Not such as lurks

In heaps metallic, which the rust corrodes,

But wealth that fructifies within the earth

Whence cometh bread, or o'er its surface roves

In peaceful forms of quadrupedal life

That thronging round the world's first father came

To take their names, 'mid Eden's tranquil shades,

Ere sin was born.

Obedient to the yoke,

Five hundred oxen turn'd the furrow'd glebe

Where agriculture hides his buried seed

Waiting the harvest hope, while patient wrought

An equal number of that race who share

The labor of the steed, without his praise.

—Three thousand camels, with their arching necks,

Ships of the desert, knelt to do his will,

And bear his surplus wealth to distant climes,

While more than twice three thousand snowy sheep

Whitened the hills. Troops of retainers fed

These flocks and herds, and their subsistence drew

From the same lord—so that this man of Uz

Greater than all the magnates of the east,

Dwelt in old time before us.

True he gave,

And faithfully, the hireling his reward,

Counting such justice 'mid the happier forms

Of Charity, which with a liberal hand

He to the sad and suffering poor dispensed.

Eyes was he to the blind, and to the lame

Feet, while the stranger and the traveller found

Beneath, the welcome shelter of his roof

The blessed boon of hospitality.

To him the fatherless and widow sought

For aid and counsel. Fearlessly he rose

For those who had no helper. His just mind

Brought stifled truth to light, disarm'd the wiles

Of power, and gave deliverance to the weak.

He pluck'd the victim from the oppressor's grasp,

And made the tyrant tremble.

To his words

Men listened, as to lore oracular,

And when beside the gate he took his seat

The young kept silence, and the old rose up

To do him honor. After his decree

None spake again, for as a prince he dwelt

Wearing the diadem of 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 entrustments, shows more pure

The perfect essence of its sanctity,

Gold unalloyed.

How doth the cordial grasp,

Of hands that twined with ours in school days, now

Delight us as our sunbeam nears the west,

Soothing, perchance our self-esteem with proofs

That 'mid all faults the good have loved us still,

And quickening with redoubled energy

To do or suffer.

The three friends of Job

Who in the different regions where they dwelt

Teman, and Naamah and the Shuhite land,

Heard tidings of his dire calamity,

Moved by one impulse, journey'd to impart

Their sorrowing sympathy.

Yet when they saw

Him fallen so low, so chang'd that scarce a trace

Remained to herald his identity

Down by his side upon the earth, they sate

Uttering no language save the gushing tear—

Spontaneous homage to a grief so great.

Oh Silence, born of Wisdom! we have felt

Thy fitness, when beside the smitten friend

We took our place. The voiceless sympathy

The tear, the tender pressure of the hand

Interpreted more perfectly than words

The purpose of our soul.

We speak to err,

Waking to agony some broken chord

Or bleeding nerve that slumbered. Words are weak,

When God's strong discipline doth try the soul;

And that deep silence was more eloquent

Than all the pomp of speech.

Yet the long pause

Of days and nights, gave scope for troubled thought

And their bewildered minds unskillfully

Launching all helmless on a sea of doubt

Explored the cause for which such woes were sent,

Forgetful that this mystery of life

Yields not to man's solution. Passing on

From natural pity to philosophy

That deems Heaven's judgments penal, they inferr'd

Some secret sin unshrived by penitence,

That drew such awful visitations down.

While studying thus the wherefore, with vain toil

Of painful cogitation, lo! a voice

Hollow and hoarse, as from the mouldering tomb,

"Perish the day in which I saw the light!

The day when first my mother's nursing care

Sheltered my helplessness. Let it not come

Into the number of the joyful months,

Let blackness stain it and the shades of death

Forever terrify it.

For it cut

Not off as an untimely birth my span,

Nor let me sleep where the poor prisoners hear

No more the oppressor, where the wicked cease

From troubling and the weary are at rest.

Now as the roar of waves my sorrows swell,

And sighs like tides burst forth till I forget

To eat my bread. That which I greatly feared

Hath come upon me. Not in heedless pride

Nor wrapped in arrogance of full content

I dwelt amid the tide of prosperous days,

And yet this trouble came."

With mien unmoved

The Temanite reprovingly replied:

"Who can refrain longer from words, even though

To speak be grief? Thou hast the instructor been

Of many, and their model how to act.

When trial came upon them, if their knees

Bow'd down, thou saidst, "be strong," and they obey'd.

But now it toucheth thee and thou dost shrink,

And murmuring, faint. The monitor forgets

The precepts he hath taught. Is this thy faith,

Thy confidence, the uprightness of thy way?

Whoever perish'd being innocent?

And when were those who walk'd in righteous ways

Cut off? How oft I've seen that those who sow

The seeds of evil secretly, and plow

Under a veil of darkness, reap the same.

In visions of the night, when deepest sleep

Falls upon men, fear seiz'd me, all my bones

Trembled, and every stiffening hair rose up.

A spirit pass'd before me, but I saw

No form thereof. I knew that there it stood,

Even though my straining eyes discern'd it not.

Then from its moveless lips a voice burst forth,

"Is man more just than God? Is mortal man

More pure than He who made him?

Lo, he puts

No trust in those who serve him, and doth charge

Angels with folly. How much less in them

Dwellers in tents of clay, whose pride is crush'd

Before the moth. From morn to eve they die

And none regard it."

So despise thou not

The chastening of the Almighty, ever just,

For did thy spirit please him, it should rise

More glorious from the storm-cloud, all the earth

At peace with thee, new offspring like the grass

Cheering thy home, and when thy course was done

Even as a shock of corn comes fully ripe

Into the garner should thy burial be

Beldv'd and wept of all."

Mournful arose

The sorrowful response.

"Oh that my grief

Were in the balance laid by faithful hands

And feeling hearts. To the afflicted soul

Friends should be comforters. But mine have dealt

Deceitfully, as fails the shallow brook

When summer's need is sorest.

Did I say

Bring me a gift? or from your flowing wealth

Give solace to my desolate penury?

Or with your pitying influence neutralize

My cup of scorn poured out by abject hands?

That thus ye mock me with contemptuous words

And futile arguments, and dig a pit

In which to whelm the man you call a friend?

Still darkly hinting at some heinous sin

Mysteriously concealed?

Writes conscious guilt

No transcript on the brow? Hangs it not out

Its signal there, altho' it seem to hide

'Neath an impervious shroud?

Look thro' the depths

Of my unshrinking eye, deep, deep within.

What see ye there? what gives suspicion birth?

As longs the laborer for the setting sun,

Watching the lengthening shadows that foretell

The time of rest, yet day by day returns

To the same task again, so I endure

Wearisome nights and months of burdening woe.

I would not alway live this loathed life

Whose days are vanity. Soon shall I sleep

Low in the dust, and when the morning comes

And thro' its curtaining mists ye seek my face

I shall not be."

Earnest the Shuhite spake,

"How long shall these thy words, like eddying winds

Fall empty on the ear?

Doth God pervert

Justice and judgment? If thy way was pure,

Thy supplication from an upright heart

He would awake and make thy latter end

More blest than thy beginning.

For inquire

Of ancient times, of History's honor'd scroll

And of the grey-hair'd fathers, if our words

Seem light, we who were born but yesterday.

Ask them and they shall teach thee, as the rush,

Or as the flag forsaken of the pod,

So shall the glory of the hypocrite

Fade in its greenness.

Tho' his house may seem

Awhile to flourish, it shall not endure.

Even tho' he grasp it with despairing strength

It shall deceive his trust and pass away,

As fleets the spider's filmy web. Behold

God will not cast away the perfect man

Nor help the evil doer."

In low tones,

Sepulchral, and with pain, the sufferer spake,

"I know that this is truth, but how can man

Be just with God? How shall he dare contend

With Him who stretches out the sky and treads

Upon the mountain billows of the sea,

And sealeth up the stars?

Array'd in strength,

He passeth by me, but I see Him not.

I hear His chariot-wheels, yet fear to ask

Where goest Thou?

If I, indeed, were pure,

And perfect, like the model ye see fit

To press upon me with your sharpest words,

I would not in mine arrogance arise

And reason with Him, but all humbly make

Petition to my Judge.

If there were one

To shield me from His terrors, and to stand

As mediator, I might dare to ask

Why didst Thou give this unrequested boon

Of life, to me, unhappy? My few days

Are swifter than a post. As the white sail

Fades in the mist, as the strong eagle's wing

Leaves no receding trace, they flee away,

They see no good.

Hath not Thy mighty hand

Fashion'd and made this curious form of clay,

Fenc'd round with bones and sinews, and inspired

By a mysterious soul? Oh be not stern

Against Thy creature, as the Lion marks

His destin'd prey.

Relent and let me take

Comfort a little, ere I go the way

Whence I return no more, to that far land

Of darkness and the dreary shades of death."

Scarce had he ceas'd ere Zophar's turbid thoughts

Made speed to answer.

"Shall a tide of talk

Wash out transgression? If thou choose to set

The truth at nought, must others hold their peace?

Hast thou not boasted that thy deeds and thoughts

Were perfect in the almighty Maker's sight?

Canst thou by searching find out God? Behold

Higher than heaven it is, what canst thou do?

Deeper than deepest hell, what canst thou know?

Why wilt thou ignorantly deem thyself

Unblamed before Him?

Oh that He would speak,

And put to shame thine arrogance.

His glance Discerns all wickedness, all vain pretence

To sanctity and wisdom. Were thine heart

Rightly prepared, and evil put away

From that and from thy house, then shouldst thou lift

Thy spotless face, clear as the noon-day sun

Stedfast and fearless. Yea, thou shouldst forget

Thy misery, as waters that have past

Away forever.

Thou shouldst be secure

And dig about thee and take root, and rest,

While those who scorn thee now, with soul abased,

Should make their suit unto thee.

But the eyes

Of wicked men shall fail, and as the groan

Of him who giveth up the ghost, shall be

Their frustrate hope."

Dejectedly, as one

Who wearied in a race, despairs to reach

The destined goal, nor yet consents to leave

His compeers masters of an unwon field.

Job said—

"No doubt ye think to have attained

Monopoly of knowledge, and with you

Wisdom shall die. This modesty of creed

Befits ye well. Yet what have ye alledg'd

Unheard before? what great discoveries made?

Who knoweth not such things as ye have told?

Despised am I by those who call'd me friend

In prosperous days. Like a dim, waning lamp

About to be extinguished am I held

By the dull minds of those who dwell at ease.

Weak reasoners that ye are, ye have essay'd

To speak for God. Suppose ye He doth need

Such advocacy? whose creative hand

Holdeth the soul of every living thing,

And breath of all mankind?

He breaketh down,

And who can build again? Princes and kings

Are nothing in his sight. Disrobed of power

Ceaseless they wander and He heedeth not.

Those whom the world have worship'd seem as fools.

He lifteth up the nations at His will,

Or sweeps them with his lightest breath away

Like noteless atoms.

Silence is for you

The truest wisdom. Creatures that ye count

Inferior to yourselves, who in thin air

Spread the light wing, or thro' the waters glide,

Or roam the earth, might teach if ye would hear

And be instructed by them.

Hold your peace!

Even tho' He slay me I will trust in Him

For He is my salvation, He alone;

At whose dread throne no hypocrite shall dare

To stand, or answer.

Man, of woman born

Is of few days, and full of misery.

Forth like a flower he comes, and is cut down,

He fleeth like a shadow. What is man

That God regardeth him? The forest tree

Fell'd by the woodman may have hope to live

And sprout again, and thro' the blessed touch

Of waters at the root put forth new buds

And tender branches like a plant. But man

Shorn of his strength, doth waste away and die,

He giveth up the ghost and where is he?

As slides the mountain from its heaving base

Hurling its masses o'er the startled vale,

As the rent rock resumes its place no more,

As the departed waters leave no trace

Save the groov'd channels where they held their course

Among the fissur'd stones, his form of dust

With its chang'd countenance, is sent away

And all the honors that he sought to leave

Behind him to his sons, avail him not."

He ceas'd and Eliphaz rejoin'd,

"A man

Of wisdom dealeth not in empty words

That like the east wind stirs the unsettled sands

To profitless revolt. Thou dost decry

Our speech and proudly justify thyself

Before thy God. He to whose searching eye

Heavens' pure immaculate ether seems unclean.

Ask of tradition, ask the white hair'd men

Much older than thy father, since to us

Thou deign'st no credence. Say they not to thee,

All, as with one consent, the wicked man

Travaileth with fruitless pain, a dreadful sound

Forever in his ears; the mustering tramp

Of hostile legions on the distant cloud,

A far-off echo from the woe to come?

Such is his lot who sinfully contends

Against the just will of the Judging One,

Lifting his puny arm in rebel pride

And rushing like a madman on his doom.

The wealth he may have gathered shall dissolve

And turn to ashes mid devouring flame.

His branch shall not be green, but as the vine

Casteth her unripe grapes, as thro' the leaves

Of rich and lustrous hue, the olive buds

Untimely strew the ground, shall be his trust

Who in the contumacy of his pride

Would fain deceive both others and himself."

To whom, the Man of Uz—

"These occult truths

If such ye deem them, I have heard before;

Oh miserable comforters! I too

Stood but your soul in my soul's stead, could heap

Vain, bitter words, and shake my head in scorn.

But I would study to assuage your pain,

And solace shed upon your stricken hearts

With balm-drops of sweet speech.

Yet, as for me,

I speak and none regard, or drooping sit

In mournful silence, and none heed my woe.

They smite me on the cheek reproachfully,

And slander me in secret, though my cause

And witness rest with the clear-judging Heaven.

My record is on high.

Oh Thou, whose hand

Hath thus made desolate all my company,

And left me a poor, childless man—behold

They who once felt it pride to call me friend,

Make of my name a by-word, which was erst

Like harp or tabret to their venal lip.

Mine eye is dim with grief, my wasted brow

Furrow'd with wrinkles.

Soon I go the way

Whence I shall not return. The grave, my house,

Is ready for me. In its mouldering clay

My bed I make, and say unto the worm

Thou art my sister."

With unpitying voice

Not comprehending Job, the Shuhite spake.

"How long ere thou shalt make an end of words

So profitless and vain? Thou dost account

Us vile as beasts. But shall the stable earth

With all its rocks and mountains be removed

For thy good pleasure?

See, the light forsake

The wicked man. Darkness and loneliness

Enshroud his dwelling-place. His path shall be

Mid snares and traps, and his own counsel fail

To guide him safely. By the heel, the gin

Shall seize him, and the robber's hand prevail

To rifle and destroy his treasure hoard.

Secret misgivings feed upon his strength,

And terrors waste his courage. He shall find

In his own tabernacle no repose,

Nor confidence. His withering root shall draw

No nutriment, and the unsparing ax

Cut off his branches. From a loathing world

He shall be chased away, and leave behind

No son or nephew to bear up his name

Among the people. No kind memories

Shall linger round his ashes, or refresh

The bearts of men. They who come after him

Shall be astonish'd at his doom, as they

Who went before him, view'd it with affright.

Such is the lot of those who know not God

Or wickedly renounce Him."

Earnestly

Replied the suffering man,

"Ye vex my soul

And break it into pieces. These ten times

Have ye reproach'd me, without sense of shame

Or touch of sympathy. If I have err'd

As without witness ye essay to prove

'Tis my concern, not yours.

But yet, how vain

To speak of wrong, or plead the cause of truth

Before the unjust.

Can ye not understand

God in his wisdom hath afflicted me?

Ilis hand hath reft away my crown and stripp'd

Me of my glory. Kindred blood vouchsafes

No aid or solace in my deep distress.

Estrang'd and far away, like statues cold

Brethren and kinsfolk stand. Familiar friends

Frown on me as a stranger. They who dwell

In my own house and eat my bread, despise me.

I call'd my own tried servant, but he gave

No answer or regard. My maidens train'd

For household service, to perform my will

Count me an alien;—even with my wife

My voice hath lost its power. Young children rise

And push away my feet and mock my words.

Yea, the best loved, most garner'd in my heart

Do turn against me as a thing abhorr'd.

Have pity, pity on me, oh my friends!

The hand of God hath smitten me.