The patriarch father, with a chasten'd heart Partook his children's mirth, having God's fear Ever before him. Earnestly he brought His offerings and his prayers for every one Of that beloved group, lest in the swell And surging superflux of happiness They might forget the Hand from whence it came, Perchance, displease the Almighty. Many a care Had he that wealth creates. Not such as lurks In heaps metallic, which the rust corrodes, But wealth that fructifies within the earth Whence cometh bread, or o'er its surface roves In peaceful forms of quadrupedal life That thronging round the world's first father came To take their names, 'mid Eden's tranquil shades, Ere sin was born. Obedient to the yoke, Five hundred oxen turn'd the furrow'd glebe Where agriculture hides his buried seed Waiting the harvest hope, while patient wrought An equal number of that race who share The labor of the steed, without his praise. --Three thousand camels, with their arching necks, Ships of the desert, knelt to do his will, And bear his surplus wealth to distant climes, While more than twice three thousand snowy sheep Whitened the hills. Troops of retainers fed These flocks and herds, and their subsistence drew From the same lord,--so that this man of Uz Greater than all the magnates of the east, Dwelt in old time before us. True he gave, And faithfully, the hireling his reward, Counting such justice 'mid the happier forms Of Charity, which with a liberal hand He to the sad and suffering poor dispensed. Eyes was he to the blind, and to the lame Feet, while the stranger and the traveller found Beneath, the welcome shelter of his roof The blessed boon of hospitality.