Jon Huer writes

THE SEDUCTION OF JOB:  Twenty Years Later   

A Dramatic Poem

 

EPILOGUE

Satan, acknowledging defeat in Job, muses on other souls.

SATAN TO SELF:

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Who has stood by His servant Job;

And praiseworthy is Job the new saint

Who is redeemed through a trial by fire

In the dark nights of his soul,

And the lonely and terrible ordeal he endured.

As he won his hard‑fought peace in victory

And took his steps toward heaven and God, 

Must I bide my time and await the next turn.

Sweet and bountiful is the next turn,

For every Job, for every sinner renewed,

Millions await my temptations and powers,

To sweeten their souls with greed and stupidity,

Self‑love and pleasure, without pause or rest,

Crying for my temptations and powers, without end,   In heartlessness and savagery unspeakably evil,

And the bitter warfare of neighbors against neighbors,

Brothers against brothers, all against all. 

For every Job saved I see multitudes forsaken,

Who lust and yearn after created things.

I am their hero to worship and model to follow;

For me they build towers and coliseums;

And their children love me as their god!

In greed they lose all their wisdom and understanding,

In pleasure’s self‑love are their hate and violence justified,

And in stupidity the answers to all their vexation!

I lost Job to God and His saints,

But my consolation is still in the men and women

Who labor and toil from dawn to dusk, and more,

Just to make my work easier and greater,

Pleading with me to invent new distractions,

And to invite all to my banquet of blood and death,

As their day is sin's pilgrimage to Sodom,

And their night hell's homage to Gomorrah!

O you restless seekers of darkness and emptiness,

You plead with me and look to my workshops

For never‑ending thrills and excitement

And ever‑pleasing life round the clock.

But, alas, is there even a moment of contentment,

Or rest in grace given to anyone who asks,

For you are trapped in a race that never ends,

Only restless hearts and petulant souls,

Falling all over each other's dead bodies

And one another's trampled flesh in frenzy

To return one more time to fools' paradise?

O you pitiful spirits, where is your rest?

O you driven souls, where is your peace?

What kind of world has Job forsaken?

Your calendar is an invitation from my hell,

All year round, with every plaything conceivable,

To amuse, entertain, humor, and distract you,

Yet your feasts leave your spirits still hungry,

And your banquets never fill up your souls!

One entertainment follows day into night,

Another amusement chases night into day,

Yet your spirits and souls hunger for more

And your hearts and minds remain in despair

Even at the overabundant feasts and banquets,

And with the overlapping spectacles on my calendar!

O the multitude of souls that are my pickings,

Who steal from their neighbors, calling it business,

Who kill their brothers for god and country,

Who worship wealth in manners sacred and holy,

In their endless struggle, calling it human nature,

And in their loveless dwelling place misnamed community,

To purchase favors, to possess one more silver piece,

To gain entry into the hall of moneychangers,

In the company of malice and ill‑will as progress!

No, I do not weep that Job is redeemed,

For the teeming humanity is ripe for my hell:

Their life is little more than an empty shell

Filled with conceit, busily amused and distracted;

Honor is for sale, as are trust and sincerity,

To the bidder with the most gold and power;

Truth and opinion are mixed in confusion

So that only the sweetest is heard and applauded;

Philosophers choose their masters and buyers

Like the hirelings seeking their daily work and wages;

Leaders falsify their image and substance

And followers demand their circus and wine!

Man's delusions of grandeur turn his earth

Into a pit of hate and violence against himself,

As his ingenuity for making his desires insatiable

Breeds his own confounding sorrows and miseries;

And his cravings for sins of the flesh

Blinding him in the midst of passions and errors,

Only bring me smiles and exultations.

My smiles widen as man resembles me more,

And I exult as earth and hell become one;

Man's appetites for self‑love are my delights

And his screams of pleasure my music from hell.

Man's inventions only corrode his humanity

And his pleasure is bought with my money;

Yet the best and brightest are selected on earth

To increasing his inventive evil genius

And delay the payment to hell for another day.

O you worthless man soon to be dust and ashes,

To live like beasts and insects without souls

And to die like dried‑up flowers and grass,

So full of arrogance and pride in yourself,

Only to turn into rotten flesh, then dirt,

On a moment's notice and without God's grace,

Forsaking the Almighty and His saints

For false heroes and evil geniuses like me!

O man, whose destiny is but dirt and grass,

Your already‑dead spirit fills my Book of Death;

My food for thought is your stupid mind;

And your corrupt soul sings at my infernal feasts!

Your dead spirit's stench overflows my hell;

My workers feed on your mind's carcass;

And I am your soul's master, for you are mine!

O how abundant is your number‑‑

Rich and poor, high and low, old and young‑‑

Who crowd all four corners of the earth,

Shedding each other's blood in war and contest,

Tearing into one another's flesh for one more morsel,

To worship me instead of Almighty God,

And to follow me to hell, not His heaven!

O you poor in affluence, lost amid grace,

Your houses and homes are hell's pretty affection;

Your streets and cities reek blood and death;

Your temples preach man's hypocrisy;

And the art of deviltry is your scholarship!

The merchants cheat and officials deceive;

The princes lie and leaders mislead;

The prophets appease crowds, priests congregations!

O man, who feels neither shame nor fear,

In his fortress of silly diversions and false security;

He has no shame for his own wickedness,

Nor does he know fear of God eternal;

His shamelessness stinks to the depth of hell

And abominable is his fearless defiance of the law;

With his shameless conduct he forsakes salvation,

And with his fearlessness does he forgo knowledge;

In science and philosophy is his false understanding

And in his art and play does he exalt his demigods;

His ardor for trivia is mistaken for fulfillment,

His command of public approval, for heaven's truth,

And his gilded self‑image, for the likeness of God!

O miserable beings, sorry in damnation,

You make the angels sigh and saints lament

With your pompous self‑love and blasphemy,

Your disobedience to God and His Commandments,

Your pitiless disregard for your brothers,

Living for the moment with no burden of eternity,

Crawling on your belly like my condemned serpents,

While the heavens above beckon you with weeping

And God's mercy and grace with open arms!

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Who has stood by His servant Job;

And praiseworthy is Job the new saint

Who is redeemed through a trial by fire

In the dark nights of his soul in a burning furnace

And the lonely and terrible ordeal he endured.

As he won his hard‑fought peace in victory

And took his steps toward heaven and God,

And His Sweetness and Happiness eternal,

Must I bide my time and await the next turn.

Hell -- William Blake