"My father loved injustice, and lived long; I loved the good he scorned and hated wrong-- The gods declare my recompense to-day. I looked for life more lasting, rule more high; And when six years are measured, lo, I die! Yet surely, O my people, did I ween Man's justice from the all-just gods was given, A light that from some upper point did beam, Some better archetype whose seat was heaven: A light that, shining from the blest abodes, Did shadow somewhat of the life of gods." The indignation of Mycerinus often finds an echo on Pagan tombstones, as in the famous epitaph on the grave of the girl Procope:-- "I, Procope, lift up my hands against the gods, Who took me hence undeserving, Aged nineteen years." It was far otherwise with Hezekiah. There was anguish in his heart, but no rebellion or defiance. He wept sore; he turned his face to the wall and wept;[516] but as he wept he also prayed, and said,-- "O Lord, remember now how I have walked before Thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in Thy sight." Isaiah, after delivering his dark message, and doubtless adding to it such words of human consolation as were possible--if under such circumstances any were possible--had left the king's chamber. On every ground his feelings must have been almost as overwhelmed with sorrow as those of the king. Hezekiah was personally his friend, and the hope of his nation. Doubtless the prophet's prayers rose as fervently and as effectually as those of Luther, which snatched his friend Melanchthon back from the very gates of death. By the time that he had reached the middle of the court,[517] he felt borne in upon him, by that Divine intuition which constituted his prophetic call, the certainty that God would withdraw the immediate doom which he had been commissioned to announce. It has been conjectured by some that the conviction was deepened in his mind by observing on the steps of Ahaz one of those remarkable but rare effects of refraction--or, as some have conjectured, of a solar eclipse, involving an obscuration of the upper limb of the sun--which had seemed to take the advancing shadow ten steps backwards; and that this was to him a sign from heaven of the promise of God and the prolongation of the king's life. Awestruck and glad, he hastened back into the presence of the dying king with the life-giving message that God had heard his prayer, and seen his tears, and would add fifteen years to his life, and would defend him, and deliver him and Jerusalem out of the hand of the King of Assyria. And this should be the sign to him from Jehovah--Jehovah would bring again the shadow ten steps up the stairs of Ahaz. To this sign--if it was visible from the chamber-window--he called the attention of the astonished king.[518]