In a place of the ancient mountains,
And the time of the midnight dead,
Where the great wide skies of his father’s land
Loomed vastly overhead,
Jacob, the son of the ancient of days,
Stood out alone with his dread
And there in that place of darkness,
When the murk of the night grew dim,
Under the wide roof-tree of the world
An unknown stood with him,—
Whether a devil or angel of God,—
With presence hidden and grim,
And spake—“Thou Son of Isaac,
On mountain and stream and tree,
And this wide ruined world of night,
Take thy last look with me:
For out of the darkness have I come,
To die, or conquer thee.”
Then Jacob made stern answer,—
“Until thy face I see,
Though I strive with life or wrestle with death,
Yet will I strive with thee:
For better it were to die this hour
Than from my fate to flee.
“Yea, speak thy name or show thy face,
Else shall I conquer thy will.”
But the other closed with an iron shock,
Till it seemed the stars so still,
With the lonely night, in a wheeling mist,
Went round by river and hill.
And Jacob strove as the dying strive,
In the woe of that awful place.
Yea, he fought with the desperate soul of one
Who fights in evil case:
And he called aloud in the pauses dread,
“O give me sight of thy face.
“Yea, speak thy name, what art thou, spirit,
Or man, or devil, or God?
Yea, speak thy name!” But no voice came,
From heaven or deep or sod:
And the spirit of Jacob clave to his flesh
As the dews in a dried-up clod.
Then they rocked and swayed as Autumn storms
Do rock the centuried trees:
Yea, swayed and rocked: that other strove,
And drave him to his knees,
And Jacob felt the wide world’s gleam
And the roar of unknown seas.
Like to a mighty storm it seemed,
There thundered in his ears:
Then a mighty rushing water teemed
Like brooks of human tears,
And opened the channels of his spent heart,
And washed away his fears.
And he rose with the last despairing strength
Of life’s tenacity,
And he swore by the blood of man in him,
And God’s eternity,
“’Tis my life, my very soul he wants;
That he shall not have of me.”