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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=118207" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Jacob's Wives</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">These are the words of Jacob’s wives, the words<br>Which Leah spake and Rachel to his ears,<br>When, in the shade at eventide, he sat<br>By the tent door, a palm-tree overhead,<br>A spring beside him, and the sheep around.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Rachel spake and said, The nightfall comes<br>Night, which all day I wait for, and for thee.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Leah also spake, The day is done;<br>My lord with toil is weary and would rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Rachel said, Come, O my Jacob, come;<br>And we will think we sit beside the well,<br>As in that day, the long long years agone,<br>When first I met thee with my father’s flock.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Leah said, Come, Israel, unto me;<br>And thou shalt reap an harvest of fair sons,<br>E’en as before I bare thee goodly babes;<br>For when was Leah fruitless to my lord?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Rachel said, Ah come! as then thou cam’st,<br>Come once again to set thy seal of love;<br>As then, down bending, when the sheep had drunk,<br>Thou settedst it, my shepherd O sweet seal!<br>Upon the unwitting, half-foretasting lips,<br>Which, shy and trembling, thirsted yet for thine<br>As cattle thirsted never for the spring.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Leah answered, Are not these their names<br>As Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah four?<br>Like four young saplings by the water’s brim,<br>Where straining rivers through the great plain wind<br>Four saplings soon to rise to goodly trees<br>Four trees whose growth shall cast an huger shade<br>Than ever yet on river-side was seen.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Rachel said, And shall it be again<br>As, when dissevered far, unheard, alone,<br>Consumed in bitter anger all night long,<br>I moaned and wept, while, silent and discreet,<br>One reaped the fruit of love that Rachel’s was<br>Upon the breast of him that knew her not?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Leah said, And was it then a wrong<br>That, in submission to a father’s word,<br>Trembling yet hopeful, to that bond I crept,<br>Which God hath greatly prospered, and my lord,<br>Content, in after-wisdom not disowned,<br>Joyful, in after-thankfulness approved?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Rachel said, But we will not complain,<br>Though, all life long, an alien, unsought third,<br>She trouble our companionship of love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Leah answered, No, complain we not,<br>Though years on years she loiter in the tent,<br>A fretful, vain, unprofitable wife.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Rachel answered, Ah! she little knows<br>What in old days to Jacob Rachel was.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Leah said, And wilt thou dare to say,<br>Because my lord was gracious to thee then,<br>No deeper thought his riper cares hath claimed,<br>No stronger purpose passed into his life?<br>That, youth and maid once fondly, softly touched,<br>Time’s years must still the casual dream repeat,<br>And all the river far, from source to sea,<br>One flitting moment’s chance reflection bear?<br>Also she added, Who is she to judge<br>Of thoughts maternal, and a father’s heart?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Rachel said, But what to supersede<br>The rights which choice bestowed hath Leah done?<br>What which my handmaid or which hers hath not?<br>Is Simeon more than Napthali? is Dan<br>Less than his brother Levi in the house?<br>That part that Billah and that Zilpah have,<br>That, and no more, hath Leah in her lord;<br>And let her with the same be satisfied.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Leah asked then, And shall these things compare<br>(Fond wishes, and the pastime, and the play)<br>With serious aims and forward-working hopes<br>Aims as far-reaching as to earth’s last age,<br>And hopes far-travelling as from east to west?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Rachel replied, That love which in his youth,<br>Through trial proved, consoles his perfect age;<br>Shall this with project and with plan compare?<br>Is not for-ever shorter than all time,<br>And love more straitened than from east to west?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Leah spake further, Hath my lord not told<br>How, in the visions of the night, his God,<br>The God of Abraham and of Isaac, spake<br>And said, Increase, and multiply, and fill<br>With sons to serve Me this thy land and mine;<br>And I will surely do thee good, and make<br>Thy seed as is the sand beside the sea,<br>Which is not numbered for its multitude?<br>Shall Rachel bear this progeny to God?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Rachel wept and answered, And if God<br>Hath closed the womb of Rachel until now,<br>Shall He not at His pleasure open it?<br>Hath Leah read the counsels of the Lord?<br>Was it not told her, in the ancient days,<br>How Sarah, mother of great Israel’s sire,<br>Lived to long years, insulted of her slave,<br>Or e’er to light the Child of Promise came,<br>Whom Rachel too to Jacob yet may bear?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Moreover, Rachel said, Shall Leah mock,<br>Who stole the prime embraces of my love,<br>My first long-destined, long-withheld caress?<br>But not, she said, methought, but not for this,<br>In the old days, did Jacob seek his bride;<br>Where art thou now, O thou that sought’st me then?<br>Where is thy loving tenderness of old?<br>And where that fervency of faith to which<br>Seven weary years were even as a few days?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Rachel wept and ended, Ah, my life!<br>Though Leah bear thee sons on sons, methought<br>The child of love, late-born, were worth them all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Leah groaned and answered, It is well:<br>She that hath kept from me my husband’s heart<br>Will set their father’s soul against my sons.<br>Yet, also, not, she said, I thought, for this,<br>Not for the feverish nor the doating love,<br>Doth Israel, father of a nation, seek;<br>Nor to light dalliance, as of boy and girl,<br>Incline the thoughts of matron and of man,<br>Or lapse the wisdom of maturer mind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Leah ended, Father of my sons,<br>Come, thou shalt dream of Rachel if thou wilt,<br>So Leah fold thee in a wife’s embrace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">These are the words of Jacob’s wives, who sat<br>In the tent door, and listened to their speech,<br>The spring beside him, and above the palm,<br>While all the sheep were gathered for the night.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Arthur+Hugh+Clough">Arthur Hugh Clough</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=118207" data-title="Jacob's Wives de Arthur Hugh Clough" data-description="These are the words of Jacob’s wives, the words/Which Leah spake and Rachel to his ears,/When, in the shade at eventide, he sat/By the tent door, a palm-tree overhead,/A spring beside him, and the sheep around./And Rachel spake and said, The nig..."></div>
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