"Who first invented work?" asks Elia, he
Whose life to an ungenial task was wed,
And answers, "Satan"; but it could not be—
On idleness his foul ambition fed;
By idleness the heavenly domiciles
Were lost to him and all his idle crew;
In idleness he hatches all his wiles,
And mischief finds for idle hands to do.
His business ever was to scamp and shirk,
And scout the task that too ignoble seemed,
And in snug corners serpentlike to lurk
Where no one of his presence ever dreamed;
He never knew the zest of honest work,
Nor ever shall, or he would be redeemed.
WORK.
Not to the Arch-Idler be the honor given
Of first inventing work, but to his Lord,
Who made the light, the firmament of heaven,
And sun and moon and planets in accord,
The land and cattle on it, and the sea
And fish therein, and flying fowl in air,
And grass and herb and fair fruit-yielding tree,
And man, His own similitude to wear;
Whose works are old and yet for ever new,
Who all sustains with providential sway,
Whose Son, "My Father worketh hitherto
And I work," said, and ere He went away,
"Finished the work thou gavest me to do,"
And unto us, "Work ye while it is day."
THE JOY OF CREATION.
How must have thrilled the great Creator's mind
With radiant, glad and satisfying joy,
Ever new self-expressive forms to find
In those six days of rapturous employ!
How must He have delighted when He made
The stars, and meted ocean with His span,
And formed the insect and the tender blade,
And fashioned, after His own image, man!
And unto man such joy in his degree
He hath appointed, work of mind and hand,
To mould in forms of useful symmetry
Words, hues, wood, iron, stone, at his command
To toil upon the navigable sea
And ply his industry upon the land.