Part 15 (2/2)
”For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field, And the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee; And thou shalt know that thy tent is in peace.”
Can one recall a description of peace more searching and ample, not to say fraught with more tender suggestion?
”My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, As the channel of brooks that pa.s.s away.”
For my part, I know no cry that paints pain with surer pathos than a pa.s.sage now to be quoted.
I see and hear the lonely sufferer, and watch beside his bed as if to subdue his pain.
”Is there not warfare to man upon the earth?
Are not his days like the days of a hireling?
As a servant that earnestly desireth the shadow, And as a hireling that looketh for his wages?
So am I made to possess months of vanity, And wearisome nights are appointed to me.
When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise? But the night is long; And I am full of tossings to and fro until the dawning of the day.
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, And are spent without hope.”
”I would not live alway: Let me alone; for my days are vanity.”
In a pa.s.sage now to be adduced is sublimity pa.s.sing the sublimity of Milton the sublime:
”G.o.d, which removeth the mountains, and they know it not When he overturneth them in his anger; Which shaketh the earth out of her place, And the pillars thereof tremble; Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; And sealeth up the stars; Which alone stretcheth out the heavens, And treadeth upon the waves of the sea; Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and the Pleiades, And the chambers of the South; Which doeth great things, past finding out; Yea, marvelous things without number: He breaketh me with a tempest.”
Before words like these one may well stand dumb, with the finger of silence on the lips. Hear Job wail:
”Now my days are swifter than a post: They are pa.s.sed away as the swift s.h.i.+ps, As the eagle that swoopeth on the prey, My soul is weary of my life.”
”Thou shalt forget thy misery: Thou shalt remember it as waters that are pa.s.sed away.”
”He poureth contempt upon princes, And looseth the belt of the strong; He discovereth deep things out of darkness, And bringeth out to light the shadow of death.”
This ”bringeth out to light the shadow of death” appears to me as bold and transfiguring a figure as is to be found in literature. It is majesty itself.
”They grope in the dark without light, And he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.”
”Wilt thou hara.s.s a driven leaf, And wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?”
”I am like a garment that is moth-eaten.”
”He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.”
”He breaketh me with breach upon breach; He runneth upon me like a giant.”
”Aforetime I was as a tabret.”
”His strength shall be hunger-bitten, And calamity shall be ready at his side.”
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