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 da