Oh Patriarch!--teach us, mid this changeful life Not to mistake the ownership of joys Entrusted to us for a little while, But when the Great Dispenser shall reclaim His loans, to render them with praises back, As best befits the indebted. Should a tear Moisten the offering, He who knows our frame And well remembereth that we are but dust, Is full of pity. It was said of old Time conquer'd Grief. But unto me it seems That Grief overmastereth Time. It shows how wide The chasm between us, and our smitten joys And saps the strength wherewith at first we went Into life's battle. We perchance, have dream'd That the sweet smile the sunbeam of our home The prattle of the babe the Spoiler seiz'd, Had but gone from us for a little while,-- And listen'd in our fallacy of hope At hush of eve for the returning step That wake the inmost pulses of the heart To extasy,--till iron-handed Grief Press'd down the _nevermore_ into our soul, Deadening us with its weight. The man of Uz As the slow lapse of days and nights reveal'd The desolation of his poverty Felt every nerve that at the first great shock Was paralyzed, grow sensitive and shrink As from a fresh-cut wound. There was no son To come in beauty of his manly prime With words of counsel and with vigorous hand To aid him in his need, no daughter's arm To twine around him in his weariness, Nor kiss of grandchild at the even-tide Going to rest, with prayer upon its lips. Still a new trial waits. The blessed health Heaven's boon, thro' which with unbow'd form we bear Burdens and ills, forsook him. Maladies Of fierce and festering virulence attack'd His swollen limbs. Incessant, grinding pains Laid his strength prostrate, till he counted life A loathed thing. Dire visions frighted sleep That sweet restorer of the wasted frame, And mid his tossings to and fro, he moan'd Oh, when shall I arise, and Night be gone!