Then followed Joseph in a silver car,

Drawn by eight horses, white as evening clouds;
His feet were resting upon Pharaoh's sword;
And on his head a crown of drooping corn
Mock'd that of Ceres in high holiday.

His robes were simple, but were full of grace,
And (out of love and truth I speak him thus)
I never did behold a man less proud,
More dignified or grateful to admire.
His honors nothing teas'd him from himself;
And he but filled his fortunes like a man
Who did intend to honor them as much
As they could honor him.

CHARLES J. WELLS

20

JACOB

My sons, and ye, the children of my sons,

Jacob your father goes upon his way;

His pilgrimage is being accomplished.

Come near and hear him ere his words are o'er.

Not as my father's or his father's days,

As Isaac's days or Abraham's have been mine;
Not as the days of those that in the field
Walked at the eventide to meditate,
And haply, to the tent returning, found
Angels at nightfall waiting at their door.
They communed; Israel wrestled with the Lord.
No, not as Abraham's or as Isaac's days,
My sons, have been Jacob your father's days;

Evil and few, attaining not to theirs

In number, and in worth inferior much.

As a man with his friend, walked they with God;
In His abiding presence they abode,

And all their acts were open to His face.
But I have had to force mine eyes away,

To lose, almost to shun the thoughts I loved;
To bend down to the work; to bare the breast,
And struggle, feet and hands, with enemies;
To buffet and to battle with hard men,
With men of selfishness and violence;
To watch by day, and calculate by night;
To plot, and think of plots, and through a land
Ambushed with guile, and with strong foes beset,
To win with art safe wisdom's peaceful way.
Alas! I know and from the onset knew,
The first-born faith, the singleness of soul,
The ancient pure simplicity with which
God and good angels communèd undispleased,
Is not; it shall not any more be said,
That of a blameless and a holy kind,
The chosen race, the seed of promise comes.
The royal high prerogatives, the dower
Of innocence and perfectness of life,
Pass not unto my children from their sire,
As unto me they came of mine; they fit
Neither to Jacob nor to Jacob's race.
Think ye, my sons, in this extreme old age
And in this failing breath, that I forget
How on the day when from my father's door,
In bitterness and ruefulness of heart,

I from my parents set my face, and felt
I never more again should look on theirs;
How on that day I seemed unto myself
Another Adam from his home cast out,
And driven abroad unto a barren land

Cursed for his sake, and mocking still with thorns
And briers that labor and that sweat of brow
He still must spend to live! Sick of my days,
I wished not life, but cried out, Let me die;
But at Luz God came to me; in my heart
He put a better mind and showed me how,
While we discern it not, and least believe,
On stairs invisible, betwixt His heaven
And our unholy, sinful, toilsome earth,
Celestial messengers of loftiest good
Upward and downward pass continually.
Many, since I upon the field of Luz
Set up the stone I slept on, unto God,-
Many have been the troubles of my life;
Sins in the field, and sorrows in the tent;
In mine own household anguish and despair,
And gall and wormwood mingled with my love.
The time would fail me should I seek to tell
Of a child wronged and cruelly revenged
(Accursed was that anger, it was fierce;
That wrath, for it was cruel); or of strife
And jealousy and cowardice, with lies
Mocking a father's misery; deeds of blood,
Pollutions, sicknesses and sudden deaths.
These many things against me many times,
The ploughers have ploughed deep upon my back,

JACOB

And made deep furrows; blessèd be His name
Who hath delivered Jacob out of all,

And left within his spirit hope of good.

69

Come near to me, my sons; your father goes;
The hour of his departure draweth nigh.
Ah me! this eager rivalry of life,
This cruel conflict for pre-eminence,
This keen supplanting of the dearest kin,
Quick seizure and fast unrelaxing hold
Of vantage-place; the stony hard resolve,
The case, the competition and the craft
Which seems to be the poison of our life,
And yet is the condition of our life!

To have done things on which the eye with shame
Looks back, the closed hand clutching still the prize!
Alas! what of all these things shall I say!
Take me away unto Thy sleep, O God!
I thank Thee it is over, yet I think
It was a work appointed me of Thee.
How is it? I have striven all my days
To do my duty to my house and hearth,
And to the purpose of my father's race,
Yet is my heart therewith not satisfied.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

66

21

MOSES ON THE NILE

Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray

Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep ; The river-bank is lonely; come away!

The early murmurs of old Memphis creep Faint on my ear; and here unseen we stray (Deep in the covert of the grove withdrawn), Save by the dewy eye-glance of the dawn. "Within my father's palace, fair to see,

Shine all the Arts, but oh! this river-side, Pranked with gay flowers, is dearer far to me Than gold and porphyry vases bright and wide; How glad in heaven the song-bird carols free!

Sweeter these zephyrs float than all the showers Of costly odors in our royal bowers.

"The sky is pure, the sparkling stream is clear: Unloose your zones, my maidens, and fling down To float awhile upon these bushes near

Your blue transparent robes: take off my crown, And take away my jealous veil; for here

To-day we shall be joyous while we lave
Our limbs amid the murmur of the wave.

"Hasten; but through the fleecy mists of morn,
What do I see? Look ye along the stream!
Nay, timid maidens, we must not return!

Coursing along the current, it would seem
An ancient palm-tree to the deep sea borne,
That from the distant wilderness proceeds,
Downwards, to view our wondrous Pyramids.