Page:Life of William Blake 2, Gilchrist.djvu/454

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How sweet and grave is the next chapter of the story.

Dappled lights break over the newly-fruited fig-tree; corn waves in the morning wind. Subdued, but with more than his old dignity, the restored patriarch unresentfully and thankfully receives from 'every one a piece of money.'

Time flows on, and in future years we look on him once again. In 'a chamber of imagery,' frescoed round with reminiscences of the long past 'days of darkness,' Job sits. Three daughters, more lovely than those he had lost, clasp his knees, while he, with longer waving beard, and an aspect of deeper eld, recounts—his arms wide floating in grateful joy—the story of his trial and his deliverance.

In the last scene of all, a full-voiced pæan rises. Under the aged oak, where we saw the former family gathered in prayer, we now see, standing in the exultation of praise, a group of sons more strong and active, of daughters more beautiful and sweet. The psalm swells on the evening air; resonant harp keeps time with warbling lute; the uplifted silver trumpets peal; the pastoral reed soothes the close-crowding, white-fleeced flocks; a crescent rises as of yore; while the sun, darting its rays to the zenith, sinks over the hills of God, who blesses 'the latter end of Job more than the beginning.'

If we might have our wish, we would select some accessible but far removed, quiet vale where Corinthian capitals could never intrude. Here we would have built a strong, enduring, greystone simple building of one long chamber, lighted from above. This chamber should be divided into niches. In each niche, and of the size of life,