Page:Life of William Blake 2, Gilchrist.djvu/452

 348 poison. Still following down the darkening steps of grief, we behold the 'terror by night'—described by Eliphaz—transacted in vision over a crouching group of the bereaved pair and their friends. The hair of his head stands up, while an apparition, dignified and ominous, walks, arrayed with white nimbus and fire-darting cloud. Then, again, Job kneels, and the six scornful hands of his friends are levelled against his expanded Neptunian breast like spears, as he proclaims his integrity; and worse than this, the fearful hissing whisper of the over-tempted wife of his bosom rises to his ear, bidding him to curse God and die.

That is not the extremest depth of his woe. All hell seems to hurtle over his couch in the succeeding design; jointed lightnings splinter amidst a lurid gloom; demons throng the chamber, and shake their chains by the bed; innumerable tongues of fire search through and through what should be the place of rest; while the arch-enemy—now transformed into a voluminous incubus, serpent-wreathed, presses down in thunderous imminence upon his very soul, as foul and fiendish arms grasp the limbs of Job, longing to hurry him away. The border is now all fire, which wavers and soars triumphantly, as over a sacked city. Our memory recalls a fine MS. stanza, by a friend, which expresses the sentiment of this dark picture:—

But now a calm falls on the scene of sorrow. Heads are uplifted. Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, speaks, and the vast stars shine around his head out of the black pall of night. All eyes rest on him, except those of the despairing wife.