The Man of Uz, and Other Poems — Themes and Context

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."