University of Virginia Library

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
Belov'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.”