Narrative and Lyric Poems (Second Series) for Use in the Lower School
General
Narrative and Lyric Poems (Second Series) for Use in the Lower School
English poetry
He was not all unhappy. His resolve
Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore 800
Prayer from the living source within the will,
And beating up thro’ all the bitter world,
Like fountains of sweet water in the sea,
Kept him a living soul. ‘This miller’s wife’
He said to Miriam ‘that you told me of, 805
Has she no fear that her first husband lives?’
‘Ay, ay, poor soul’ said Miriam, ‘fear enow!
If you could tell her you had seen him dead,
Why, that would be her comfort;’ and he thought
‘After the Lord has call’d me she shall know, 810
I wait his time’ and Enoch set himself,
Scorning an alms, to work whereby to live.
Almost to all things could he turn his hand.
Cooper he was and carpenter, and wrought
To make the boatmen fishing-nets, or help’d 815
At lading and unlading the tall barks,
That brought the stinted commerce of those days;
Thus earn’d a scanty living for himself:
Yet since he did but labour for himself,
Work without hope, there was not life in it 820
Whereby the man could live; and as the year
Roll’d itself round again to meet the day
When Enoch had return’d, a languor came
Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually
Weakening the man, till he could do no more, 825
But kept the house, his chair, and last his bed.
And Enoch bore his weakness cheerfully.
For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck
See thro’ the gray skirts of a lifting squall
The boat that bears the hope of life approach 830
To save the life despair’d of, than he saw
Death dawning on him, and the close of all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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