i8 7 7] POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 427 



only under the influence of a comprehensive and all- 

 absorbing personal interest to which no part of nature 

 should be alien, and which should bind up the whole 

 universe in the oneness of a transcendental purpose. 

 And this was an influence which only the religion of 

 Jehovah could supply. To realise the scope of these 

 remarks we have only to compare the Song of Solomon 

 with the Book of Job. No Old Testament writer has a 

 richer sensuous fancy or a truer eye for the features of 

 nature than the poet who, nurtured amidst the northern 

 mountains, where all that is beautiful or majestic in 

 Canaan is gathered up, lavishes the whole wealth of his 

 imagery in singing the love and constancy of the Shula- 

 mite. But perfect as is the poem in its kind, few Western 

 readers can peruse it without a feeling of monotony. 

 The infinite succession of similes, all just and even brilliant, 

 all showing the true poet, but strung together like a 

 necklace of pearls, only by the common theme of emotion 

 that runs through them, at length wearies us by the very 

 prodigality of fancy. We are perplexed by the total 

 absence of objective grouping, the want of light and shade, 

 which is carried so far that even the beauty of the Shula- 

 mite is praised only by the choice of a comparison for each 

 separate feature of her person. The poem is full of nature, 

 but it is too one-sided, and strikes too exclusively only 

 such notes as are in unison with the dominant passion, to 

 be a great nature-poem. But while not even the noblest 

 of merely human affections is broad enough to sustain an 

 all-sided poetry of nature, it is otherwise with such a 

 theme as occupies the Book of Job. To the relations of 

 man to his Creator and Redeemer the whole universe 

 vibrates responsive. Here there is no room for monotony, 

 for the theme itself is infinitely varied. Nor could any 

 pictorial grouping of images equal the sublime grandeur 

 of the closing chapters of the book, in which all creation is 

 marshalled in glorious wealth of disorder to do homage to 

 the wisdom and power of the Most High. Thus it is that 



