Jon Huer writes

THE SEDUCTION OF JOB: Twenty Years Later   

A Dramatic Poem 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Job laments his dilemma.

JOB TO SELF: 

O how long can I withhold it from her; 

She deserves the truth as life requires breath, 

And as naturally as earth demands four seasons. 

But, O the bitterness of truth that will tear her apart. 

Her soul should be torn away from her spirit, 

And her spirit from her being, whole and complete.   

Where is my pledge of love I swore upon God? 

What will the Almighty instruct me to do: 

To tell her the truth that shall surely banish 

Her heart into eternally bitter conflict 

Against all that she loves and cherishes? 

Or not to tell her the truth‑‑but how long?‑‑ 

That is a tale of sordid betrayal and infidelity, 

To spare her the loss of trust and peace of mind?   

I am attracted to one, repulsed by the other; 

Then my attraction and repulsion switch sides 

Causing a madness of wavering and hesitation. 

During the daylight of resolve I am of one mind, 

In the night's loneliness and sorrow, the other. 

I have betrayed her as her husband; 

Now as her mate I withhold truth from her. 

O the wages of sin, so unforgiving and exacting!   

God may forgive but man does not. 

I have handed over to the king's chief counsel 

A perfect weapon with which to slay me 

And a rope to snare me off my pedestal. 

The king is disappointed, his chief counsel delighted, 

With the sorry spectacle of their renowned sage, 

Who used to be their thunder and lightning 

Against the sins of the world and in the men's hearts, 

Now ready for his own trial of damnation and disgrace. 

What greater irony could have cornered me, 

Just one door away from the ruins of hell?   

O I long for the days of my past without guilt or shame 

When righteousness and innocence were my companions, 

Which sustained my honor with substance, 

And my claim to piety with self‑acknowledgement. 

My righteousness made my innocence necessary, 

As my innocence made my righteousness possible. 

Now as goes one, so does the other‑‑ 

Without innocence my righteousness is hypocrisy;             

Without my righteousness the honorable house of Job 

Collapses like a sandcastle washed by waves, 

Or a house built with cards shaken by tremors. 

Alas, lost innocence cannot be recalled 

Any more that an arrow that leaves its bow, 

Or the days of youth longed by an old man. 

But what is the value of innocence 

That I should mourn its departure; 

What is the price of righteousness 

That I should weep, for it is no more?   

How insignificant to God is a man's monument 

That it can be wiped out in a moment's whim; 

How vapor‑like is a man's claim to virtue 

That it can evaporate in trivia and caprice! 

O how I wish to recapture the grace of God 

That gave me the rebirth of my spirit 

And moved me to the pledge of love to all! 

O how I wonder the meaning of my trial‑‑ 

If it is the secret plan of the Almighty 

To test my resolve and faith in a new crucible! 

But would He force me into another tribulation, 

At the threshold of hell and its pitiful screams 

That only I, and no one else, can hear?   

I am possessed by the terror of my sin 

That clings to me like my own skin, 

From which I can neither run nor hide, 

Like the sinner and the Devil in good company. 

  

I am consumed by the shadow of death and doom 

That stalk the damned and forsaken without rest 

Like hungry vultures circling the dead 

And fiery hell calling to the abandoned.   

I am haunted by the specter of contrition 

That runs my day into night, and night into day, 

And time into the endless, in fear and hope: 

Fear in man and hope in God.   

At dawn I tremble with the day's portent, 

And I pray to prolong the comfort of darkness. 

The warmth of the bed is my desperate refuge, 

And the oblivion of slumber my uncertain haven, 

From the thorns of my conscience, unrelenting and sharp,           

And the king's looming revenge upon my sin. 

The night's fitful sleep is now my coffin, 

The grateful descending of blackness my grave, 

And the messenger's footsteps my heartbeats in grieving.   

Why is the day of reckoning so long, 

And the escape into the darkness so short? 

I weigh the measure of my evil by day 

And crawl into the fleeting peace by night. 

In fear of God I see the coming of light; 

With silent wailing do I meet the fading sun.      

 

 Job's Evil Dreams -- William Blake