i8 7 ;] POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 419 



but no pencil could reproduce the war-horse or the 

 leviathan of Job, where the unity of the picture lies wholly 

 in the emotion of admiration and awe into which the 

 sensuous elements of the description are absorbed. Or 

 for an example of a different kind take the Book of Ruth. 

 Could a Western writer have related a story so idyllic with 

 a harmony so poetically perfect, and yet with so complete 

 an elimination of the plastic pictorial element ? The book 

 is full of vivid lifelike detail. But everywhere that detail 

 is directly subservient to the human interest of the action. 

 There is not one touch of colouring or description that 

 would help a painter in depicting the scene. 



It must not be imagined that for this reason Hebrew 

 poetry is remote from nature. The whole Old Testament 

 literature is rich in small fragments of the most delicate 

 observation embodied in a sentence, sometimes in a word ; 

 but these fragments are strung upon a thread of feeling 

 instead of being set forth by artistic composition and 

 grouping of parts. A typical example is the first chapter 

 of the prophecy of Joel. Every verse sparkles with gems. 

 Each little picture, suggested rather than drawn, is in the 

 most exquisite harmony with the feeling of the prophet. 

 The fig tree stripped of its bark, standing white against 

 the arid landscape ; the sackcloth-girt bride wailing for 

 her husband ; the night watch of the supplicating priests ; 

 the empty and ruinous garners ; the perplexed rush of the 

 herds maddened with heat and thirst ; or the unconscious 

 supplication in which they raise their heads to heaven 

 with piteous lowing, are indicated with a concrete preg 

 nancy of language which the translator vainly strives to 

 reproduce. But the composition is a crystallisation, not 

 an organism, a series of boldly etched vignettes, not a 

 single picture. 



It is obvious that a poetry of this type refuses to be 

 judged by our usual canons of criticism. We are not to 

 ask for unity of composition where the poet himself 

 designs only unity of feeling ; nor may we, in criticising 



