The weary months, like to a stubborn brood
Of disobedient children, still do swerve

From nature's docile rule, and mar themselves.
Heaven does not weep to see so sad a spring,
And therefore is she parched in her youth,
And summer smoulders like a smothered fire,
And bakes the crusted earth. Rivers dry up,

And the winter is all wind.

Moist nourishment

Is sucked up from the land, and barrenness,

In all its ugliness, mocks at man's need.

(Enter SIMEON, LEVI, ZEBULUN, and ISSACHAR.)

SIMEON.

We shall be starved to death:

ISSACHAR.

What farther ill?

ZEBULUN.

Lo you! we left ten cattle in the mead,

And nine are dead of hunger.

LEVI.

There is no mead,

But all the place that was a general swamp

Is as though struck by lightning, singed and burnt.

DAN.

Mountain and flat, low glen, or peering mound,

Hath cast its mantle for an umber gloom,

And summer's vestige only doth remain

In dying ivy or in holy sere.

SIMEON.

Our cattle languish, bellowing for food;

And when they die, we lack the means to live.

REUBEN.

Famine is like the demon of despair;

It swallows all the substance it can find,

Then preys on its own arms.

ZEBULUN.

Things of kine

We often see do feed upon their young;

This famine eats itself.

JUDAH.

I turned a mouse

From out his nest by chance-stored in the hold
With nuts, with acorns, almonds, and with rice :
"Herein (saith I) man's lofty pride's pulled down,
E'en by a creature that doth live in straws,
Had all my brothers had but half thy wit
We should be full and frugal, sleek as thee;
Not like the empty lions howling."

REUBEN.

Yea, man's chief lesson is man's extremity.
He never knows what precious comfort is
Till he hath lost it.

JUDAH.

How weary are our days

That used to pass in health and exercise,
In pleasurable thrift, and sweet repast.

Our nights were like a minute thrown away—
A draught of barm unto a parched thirst
Changed for renovation and fresh joy.

Now all our minutes fledged with leaden wings,
Are like to notes struck from a domed bell
By a vast giant with an iron club.

All that part of our days called musing vacancy
We find was sweet content; and all in vain
We try to touch the time with cheerfulness
Which hangs about us like a brooding cloud.

ISSACHAR.

Yea, who shall mend it? What's the best to do?

JACOB.

A general vengeance from the hand of God,

In heavy visitation on the land,

Is spread around: it is a bitter cup!

A little mercy at the bottom still

Was ever left for man's affliction.

Arise, my sons: I cannot mend your wants,
But I do hear there is a certain man

Of wisdom and renown, who rules the land
Where Pharaoh, the Egyptian, reigns as king.

Go, get ye up; carry your mules and sacks;

Take money in
your palms, and crave of him
To sell you corn, that ye and yours may live,
Nor linger thus in want. Go, every man,
Excepting Benjamin, my youngest boy;
Him I will keep, lest danger by the way
Should be enamour'd of his tender youth,
And rob me of his sight.

NAPHTALI.

Better we may;

Much worse we cannot be.

JACOB.

Heaven prosper you. (Exit.)

SCENE. A Vineyard.

JOSEPH.

Time wendeth by us in eventful life
E'en as the trees and houses seem to glide
As we do pass them in a rapid car :
But as the wind doth rob the seeded grass,
Lodging it on some mountain out of sight,
So in his passage time doth steal away
The seeds of old remembrance, and but leaves

The fruitless husk of all our wealth of woe-
Of woe, indeed, for things of joy do die
Upon the action.-Joy is the grave of joy :
And all the past, that was so long a-doing,
Is swallowed in the minute that's to come.
New hope still smiles to hear old memory,
In long perspective, tell the tale of woe:
At best, joy touched with melancholy pain.
Just so I do forget my father's house,
Filling another place in this great world.
And now my grieved heart is worn as smooth
As wounds that heal, and leave a tender scar.
Youth is soon trammelled in new circumstance,
And man at best returneth to himself,

Or e'er his holy grief hath made him feel

Why God afflicts him. There is a precious door, And to that door a precious court in heaven, Where I do hope to see my father's face,

And all our house; and shed no human tears.

(Enter STEWARD.)

STEWARD.

Great lord, the famine rageth in the land,
And the two barren seasons that are gone
Shew us no hope, but rather 'bate in strength
To recoil with more effect in stubborn wrath.