PATIENTIA VICTRIX; OR, The BOOK of JOB: In LYRICK Verse.
I.
1. IN that fam'd Quarter of the world, the East,
Where light expiring in th' Atlantick Main
So gloriously revives again,
The Uzzites a large tract of ground possest,
And here liv'd Job among the rest;
Holiness his delight he made,
Of God and Sin he was afraid,
That is, of th' highest good and greatest ill,
That he ador'd, this he avoided still:
2. The God whom he ador'd
Ten Children did to him afford;
Sev'n of 'um were to weild the sword,
Three were to sit at home and spin,
And work in silk the victories those sev'n should win.
3. For ev'ry lusty lad
A thousand Sheep he had,
For ev'ry maid
About his house as many Camels stray'd,
His grounds five hundred yoke
Of Oxen broke,
Wherein as many Female asses bray'd;
He had m'ny a spat'ous mead
Where-in so many Sheep might feed;
He had as many goods as might suffice
To make those loaden Camels rise;
And all those Kine were scarce enough
His fields to plow;
And all those Asses were to work and breed,
Their milk his healthy people did not need:
Yet his estate was not so large
But he had as great a charge,
Which he so nobly saw maintain'd
That the Sirname of Most Magnificent he gain'd.
4. His young men in their turns Sympos'archs were,
And to provide good commons did not spare,
And with their sisters to prevail
That they'd not fail
To come and take a share
In their (so termed) ordinary fare:
5. Now when the course was done,
And ev'ry one
Had took and given a collation,
Job order'd a Parasceuë,
And on the foll'ing day
By light just rising offered
A Holocaust for ev'ry head;
And, ev'ry time he fired, said;
Oh Thou who heav'n, and earth, and sea hast made,
If such or such an one have done amiss,
If he have bow'd his knee
To that vile Drunken Deity,
And secretly blasphemed thee,
Oh for his crime accept the life of this,
And spare thou his!
As oft as they renew'd their feast,
He acted both the Prince and Priest:
6. Now when the solemn time drew near
For those blest Spirits who above remain'd,
And what they had been born withall retain'd
Before their Great King-Father to appear,
Out a bright creature sprang
And the Quis sicut Deus sang;
Another did proclaim that Light
Where-of himself was one weak beam;
Another shewed forth his Makers Might
Where-of himself a part did seem;
Another Anthems did indite,
And made that Spring of Health his theam
Where-of himself was one poor stream;
Mich'el gaz'd,
[...]r'el blaz'd,
Gabriel gave a Victor's sho [...]t,
Raphael joyful acclamat'ons rais'd,
The other Angels lay his throne about,
And their Almighty Soveraign prais'd:
Seraphims the Service led,
Holy, holy Majesty
Was the substance of their cry,
Cherubims loudly answered:
Domin'ons with their nature did dispence,
And would be no Domin'ons now;
Pow'rs their pow'r did disavow;
Principalities did bow;
Virtues resign'd their influence;
Thrones were ambit'ous to do reverence:
All came to owne their Lord, and homage do,
So likewise did the Grand Apostate too;
7. And being asked, Satan, whence come you?
By him who that and all things knew,
I come (quoth he)
From land and sea;
From the poles, and from the line;
From Syria, Arab'a, Palestine;
From among Graec'ans, Pers'ans, Moors,
Their City-gallants and their Country-boors;
I have been rambling too and fro,
For from my way I cannot go;
Where any travel, there's my road,
Where any live, there's my aboad;
Where last of all I was I have forgot,
But come in general from yonder spot:
8. There's one cry'd up, Ʋz gave him birth,
(Quoth the high Majesty of heav'n and earth)
And he gives that a lasting name;
Took you no notice of this Man of fame,
As through Arabia you came?
Satan, I challenge Hell,
And all those env'ous ones that with thee fell,
What is't where-of you can my Job accuse?
What ill doth he embrace? what good refuse?
There is not such a Saint on earth as he;
My honor on his holy life I'le trust,
He's so made up of purity,
To me so pious, and to men so just,
Speaking the truth and shaming thee:
9. I know him well, the Enemy reply'd,
From Mount Seir's top I have his lands descry'd;
I have observd his dwelling tow'rs,
I have survey'd his pleasure-bowr's,
And I have counted his devot'on-hours;
Well may he serve his God and holy be,
What servant e'r such wages had as he?
So rich an income's a good salary:
10. So well improv'd a Stock! so sweet a Soil!
It seem'd another Paradise to me,
Which I was thinking how to spoil;
But 'tis not spoild, nor like to be;
My Strength not much, my Art but little can,
I can't here through the Woman tempt the Man;
He will not hear me in her call,
He will not from his Innocency fall;
For why, your Angel doth his Eden guard,
He lives so well, 'cause you so well reward:
But alter now your course a while,
Cease on your Favourite to smile;
His cattel give away
To the Pickeerers for a prey,
In harvest time his harvest stay,
The fruit of his own body slay,
Be fur'ous now, and blow his palace down,
He'll give you wrath for wrath, and frown for frown;
And, if let in into this place,
His holiness will curse you to your face.
With that these words were utterd from the Throne,
[...]o then, Abhaddon, go,
And as thy name is, be thou so;
Destroy all that he calls his own,
Only his person let thou that alone:
Then Satan went his way,
And being gone made no delay
To exercise the power he had gain'd,
13. When not long after that, Job's eldest son
His hospitality begun,
And's brothers and his sisters entertain'd:
He on his near relat [...]ons spent
The double port'ons Heav'n had sent;
They lovingly sate down, and did not fear
To fall to their untasted chear,
For fatal figs were yet unknown,
Nor did they send away their souls
E'r they durst venture on their bowls,
For riot was not yet a custom grown:
Their Sire at home in his apartment fate,
Both in himself and them yet fortunate;
But now the Tragedy began,
Now the indeed Desert Arabian
Was in Afflictions furnace to be try'd,
For in came one and cry'd,
14. Sir, We were plowing up a piece of land,
And so your Oxen were imploy'd;
The Asses not far off did stand,
And what the close allow'd enjoy'd;
15. When out came the Sabaean bands,
I need not tell you what to do,
Having their steel Commissions in their hands
Your beasts they plunder'd, and your servants slue;
Oxen and Asses, Sir, are borne away,
Yesterday yours, but theirs to day;
Your men that then were now are not,
Only I away have got,
I only scap'd to you to run,
To signifie what they have done:
Thus having said, aside he stept,
16. And in another leapt,
And, Sir, (quoth he) the element of Fire
Is held still upwards to aspire,
But it lately downwards fell
Bringing from heav'n a hell;
And having burn'd
Your flocks of Sheep,
And those you sent those flocks to keep,
Up to its proper place again return'd;
I only scap't the greedy flame,
To live to let you know the same:
17. His tale was scarcely finish't yet,
When another in did get,
He seemed doubly wet,
First with tears and then with swet;
Ill news! (cry'd he) your Camels, Sir, are ta'ne,
Three troops came scouring o'r the plain,
And having seiz'd the beasts went back again;
Your neighbours of Assyria they were,
(If all are neighbours that live near)
They seem'd that way the prize to bear;
We fought 'um, but in vain,
For being overpow'rd your men are slain;
I only scap't their thirsty sword,
To live to come and bring you word:
18. He scarce had done,
When in another rush't, and thus begun,
Your Son, (ah Sir!) your eldest Son
Who now shall never be your heir,
Lately a banquet did prepare,
And made his private house
The common Rendesvouz
For all to whom you Father are,
And they accordingly assembled there;
Thither both Sexes came to dine,
19. But as they eat
Their pleasant meat,
And quaff't the riches of the Vine,
19. There suddenly was heard a ruffling sound,
From th' wilderness a mighty tempest blew,
And down the corners of the house it threw,
With which the whole fell to the ground,
And th'guests with ruine were incompass't round;
Who having no way left to flie,
Now buried in the rubbish lie;
I only scap't the dismal fall,
To live to come and tell you all.
20. Then arose Job,
And rent his robe,
His decent locks he layed by,
Where formerly they grew
There did he ashes strew,
Acquitting thus the angry Deity;
Which, while his body on the earth did ly,
Aloft his spirit soar'd,
And in humility ador'd;
21. Naked came I from the womb,
And naked must I to the tomb;
I may no goods of any sort
From hence export;
God gives, and what he gives retakes,
Of poor men rich, of rich men poor he makes;
Let him do what he please, I thank him for't:
22. Though wind and fire,
Saboean and Chaldoean troops conspire
Twisted destruction upon Job to bring,
He's still unchangd, he's still the same,
He throws not up though cross the game,
He does no impious devices frame,
No trait'rous thoughts against his Maker and his King.
II.
1. A Second time the Angels did appear
'Forc their dread Soveraign,
And in their train
The long-since banish't Mutineer
Who could his former lustre feign,
Did for some space a readmission gain;
Among the children came that slave,
Among the morning-stars that cloud,
The cursed Spirit was allow'd
Once more to thrust into the blessed crowd,
And like a loyal Courtier himself behave:
2. Who being asked as before,
Satan, whence comest thou?
As he had answer'd then, he answer'd now,
The Center-globe I have been rambling o're,
Cross the seas, along their shore,
Where trav'llers were I made one more,
And whither Sea-men bore I hore,
In short I come into this world from yonder low'r:
3. God asked on, and said,
Hast thou of Job no observation made?
That Grand Exemplar of Integrity,
Who cannot imitated be,
Loving all goodness and its author Me.
Hating all evil and its father thee,
And adding unto true Religion Constancie;
He's not from Me 's old Master to be won,
Though I to satisfie thy lust
Have been t'wards him (I'd almost said) unjust,
And he o'rewhelmd with misery be quite undone:
4. O'rewhelmed (quoth the Enemy)
With misery!
This seems not misery to be,
His goods, his men, his children are not he;
When was e'r such folly show'n
As for one not to let his beasts be ta'ne.
His men and children slain,
And give their lives to save his dearer own?
5. All these Relation-crosses are in vain,
Now in his Person give him pain,
Strike him with diseases sick.
His sides with aches prick.
Do but touch him to the quick,
Do but break a bone,
And then your servant will not stick
To talk unto you in another tone:
6. Why, then descend
(Reply'd the Deity)
Thy rage upon his body satisfie;
Let him no pain escape, no penalty
Which doth not unto Life extend:
7. With that away the Great Destroyer went
To all the World to shew
What angry Fate can do,
Where-of h'had leave to be the Instrument,
He enter'd Job at ev'ry pore,
All o're his body nasty boils he spread,
He cover'd him with scurff from foot to head,
His flesh he mangled, and his skin he tore,
That rags of both the wretched Uzzite wore,
And where was any thing of him there was a sore;
8. Hard by into a heap much rubbish grew,
Hither the servants broken vessels threw,
Hither the house its filth did vent,
Down upon this heap Job fell
And took some potsherd, stick, or dirty shell
Wherewith to scrape off that vile stuff he meant
Which inward venome to his outward parts had sent:
9. And then out came his wife, and thus began,
What ails this everlasting Puritan?
As godly now as at the first!
Come, curse this God of thine, for when he's curst
He can but kill thee, let him do his worst:
10. Ah silly soul! (replied he)
These words are fit indeed for thee,
Thou like to those of thy own sex dost speak
Who are in judgment as in body weak;
I know you will confess
We 're to express
Our Thankfulness
For that estate which Heav'n has sent,
And, are we not to be content
When it calls in the summs it lent,
And we are of our goods bereft?
Is God all right hand? has he not a left?
Thus was Job all along
As to profane expressions dumb;
Nothing but what might Pat'ence-self become:
11. Now over all those parts the rumour run
How the rich Uzzite was undone;
And thereupon alarumed by fame,
Eliphaz did from Teman-town descend,
Bildad from Shuah Southward came,
Zophar from Naamah did Eastward tend;
These did to one another send
To come and first condole, and then chear up their friend:
12. Who, as they did before 'um look
And notice of the forlorne Creature took,
They could him not for their acquaintance own,
This Job to them being quite unknown,
He was in such a piteous case,
So disfigur'd was his face,
That it extorted from 'um many a groan;
Then, each man tearing his Imper'al gown,
Dust upon their heads they threw
Having heaven in their view,
And on the dunghill with their friend sate down;
13. Sev'n times arose the unregarded light,
Sev'n times it yielded to the silent night,
While they that silent night did imitate,
His grief by words not seeking to abate,
For they despair'd e'r to asswage
His Melancholy rage,
It new was grown s'immeasurably great.
III.
1. JOb at length his silence brake,
2. And thus he spake
Cursing the time of his nativity,
3. That day, oh that unlucky day (quoth he)
Where-in her son my mother bore!
Oh, may it be a day no more;
And oh! that fatal night
Where-in the Plastick pow'r began
To shape what I was made of into man,
May it for ever be forgotten quite:
4. May darkness seize that day,
May God there-in his influ'nce stay,
May heaven dart there-on no ray:
5. If there-in the Moon
Herself with lucid azure shall adorn,
May her robe be torn,
Or stain'd with spots astonishingly dark,
And may Death set thereon her dismal mark;
If the light should dare to rise,
May't all-beclowded ne'r reach humane eyes;
If ever day was justly call'd the Black,
May this of that's unfortunateness nothing lack:
6. Let that dark night be darker yet;
Let him which the Errata shall correct
Which in the Solar year he may detect,
Those four and twenty hours neglect;
And he that shall the Lunar year new-set,
Oh let him that unhappy time forget:
7. Let all men there-in Hermits be,
[...] [...]Let 'um take no pleasant walk,
Let 'um have no chearful talk,
But banish all Sociability:
8. You who your misfortunes rue,
And Tragedies out of true Story frame,
You who gainst Time declame,
Here's a fit subject, a fit theme for you:
9. Let that day's stars, if culminant they grow,
Leave their shine below;
Or, if their rays behind them will not stay,
Let 'um (as some have fondly thought they do)
Beams emit of a sable hue;
Let heav'n that light which is my birth-day's due
Bestow upon the Northern world's short day:
And when men think the dawn is near,
Sun, come not nigh this Hemispshere,
But see thou shun
From our Horizon the eighteenth degree,
That must a new Tropick be,
And thou at sight thereof must backward run:
10. This I desire, this I'le have done,
'Cause that day hinder'd not my fathers wife
From travelling with me her son,
Nor me from entring into so sad a life:
11. Why was I safely hither hurld?
Why went I not, as to this world
Out of the belly of my mother,
So out of this into another?
12. Wo worth the time I had my nurses hug;
Wo worth the time I had my mothers dug;
Had one ne'r set me on her knee,
Or t'other never suckled me,
13. I had been quiet now, and found e'r this
That Summum Bonum, that eternal bliss
Which weary Sophists seek in vain;
Into a sleep I had been cast,
I should have slept so fast
As ne'r to have been wak't with any kind of pain:
14. These had my compan'ons been,
On one side some great Potentate,
On that side some Chief Minister of State,
Here one stil'd Wise, there one stil'd Great,
Who made the day, yet car'd not to be seen;
But to anticipate
That happiness which death would bring too late,
From all mankind did separate,
Some place of retirement got,
Prepar'd some Grot,
Some unknown cell
Wherein alone to dwell,
And there the world forgot,
Bidding her when she smiled most, Farewell:
15. I had at rest with Princes lain
Who had been each the Landlord of a Mine,
Whose grounds were famous for the Silver-vein,
Whose Courts did with that metal shine:
16. I had been like that too too forward breed
Whose life (as 't were) before begun was past,
Who 'nto this world made too much haste,
And accordingly did speed;
Who what Light is did never know.
Nor what those evils are which Light doth show:
17. I should have been where Trouble ne'r appears,
Where no Tyrant domineers,
Where people cease their fears,
Not caring for his Instruments nor him
Where's case both for the heavy heart and weary limb:
18. Who into dungeons were pris'ners cast,
There find their Liberty at last;
There they are no more opprest,
No ruffling Jaylor there disturbs their rest;
19. There worthless Peasants be,
And there be men of Dignity,
There Servants from their Masters free
Enjoy an Age of Jubilee:
20. Why doth the Light arise
And look at one that's plung'd in misery?
Why do they breath at all
With whom to sigh's to breath,
Who do their restless souls to heav'n bequeath,
Their bodies to the earth beneath,
Whose sp'rits have surfeited on grief, are drunk with gall?
21. Who earnestly do their dismiss'on crave,
But what they beg for cannot have;
They dig as if rich oar they'd find,
But th' only thing design'd
Is to prepare themselves a grave;
22. Whose life has in't this onely joy,
That death that life is coming to destroy:
23. Why do'st thou shine on him, imprudent day,
Who by thy light can't find his way,
But must t'eternity in prison stay;
I am shut in by Providence,
This is her Labyrinth, and I shall ne'r get hence:
24. With cruel groans my fast I break,
Tears my mornings draught I make;
So do I roare,
That with their noise to fright th' Egypt'an shore
The Cataracts from me example take:
25. With petty enemies I've fought,
And was 'gainst them as fortunate as stout;
But sure Destruct'on now has found me out;
And where I was least able to resist,
At that part she has aim'd, and has not mist:
26. I never did presume
To place my safety in a wall,
Or trust for rest unto my bed of plume;
He was my strength, my rest, my all,
And yet see into what a case he lets me fall:
IV, V.
1, 2. IF we the point should undertake,
If we (quoth Eliphaz) should answer make
Would you not grieve?
However, with or without leave,
Let your heart or hold or break,
We can't contain our selves, but needs must speak:
3. Thou help'dst the weaker head to understand,
Thou helpd'st to work the weaker hand;
4. Into the dying man of soul berest,
Thou breath'dst a piece of thine, as 'twere,
Thou taught'st those knees their bulk to bear,
Which Sense and Motion had left;
5. But yet what thou deserv'dst, is come at last,
'Tis come, and all the strength thou hast
Cannot the force thereof endure;
'Tis come and brought along with't thy distress,
6. This 'tis to be so safe, so sure,
So confident, and so secure;
This 'tis to fancy a fine Right'ousness:
7. Go, ask the Sun if he did ever see
Goodness co-subjected with misery;
Or if the Sun
When such a thing begun
May be suspected to have hid his face,
Time in anc'ent records trace,
And see if ever an unhappy end
Did on a holy life attend:
8. I in my time have seen
They that plow vice, they that sow sin,
The fruits there-of at harvest gather'd in,
And answerable to the seed the crop has been:
9. But breath'd upon
They're gone and gone;
God blasteth them, and that they sow,
That neither doth to full perfect'on grow:
10. The fiercest Lions roaring voice,
I [...] proveth but an empty noise;
The lusty Lion in his vig'rous youth
Has much ado
His meat to chew
With scarcely half a tooth;
11. While the decrepit one
Oft pines away
For want of prey,
His kind provider being gone;
And the stout old ones whelps about are thrown:
12. Now I'le communicate what I have found,
I found it though I know not where,
It gently brusht my ear
Like to some Eccho's just expiring sound:
13. About the time when Mortals on their beds
Strange apparitions spy,
And their affrighted eye
Awakes their heads;
When fancy's high, thoughts are as deep
And thereunto proport'on keep,
When sense is fast lock't up by sleep;
14. A Vis'on made me fear, it made me shake,
It made my dislocated bones to quake;
15. A thing did pass
Before my face
Some Incorpor'al Substance 'twas;
At the unus'al fight
My hair grew stiff and stood upright;
16. Its mot'on seem'd to gull my eye,
Afterwards it fixed stood,
But that would do no good,
I could not yet its shape descry,
Something indeed I saw confusedly;
Heaven and Earth and all in them was still,
At last these words my ears did fill,
Words formed in the aire,
And to my apprehension these they were;
17. What? will the stream
Absurdly dream
Of being purer than the Fountain is?
Will frail mortality
More just than the Creator be?
Will miserable man contend with bliss?
18. The Officers which in his Court did move,
Some were unwise, some did unfaithful prove
And basely from their station fell,
They had no arts,
They had no parts,
Or if they had, they us'd 'um to rebell;
God would not trust them who he knew
Would much weakness shew,
And be to him and to themselves untrue,
19. Much less can he put any trust
In men who live in kindred dust,
Whose houses rot and slide away
Being founded but on clay,
And whom moths animated feathers slay;
20. On those that rose in health and ease
Noon-tide distempers seise;
O'r whom the midday dangers pass
A sure destruction at night doth fall;
And, like white-powder in the hollow brass,
They're light, go out, and make no noise at all:
21. Their glorious youth must yield to age,
Their noble souls like those which we
Brand with Irrationality
Must one day take their leave of their spruce earthly cage.
1. GO make a noise unto the rising Sun,
Let th' hereabout so Sacred Fire
First hear and then accomplish thy desire,
To Angels or men now Immortal run;
Which of 'um all
When thou dost call
Will free thee from the tort'ring gout?
Which save thy tooth from being taken out?
Which will the stone within thee break?
Which cause thy head no more to ake?
Which cause thy Palsie-arm no more to shake?
2. Their healing pow'r can't be so strong
But men more pow'rful are themselves to wrong;
Angers flame burns up their hearts,
And Envy's canker eats away their inward parts:
3. My self a fool have often seen,
By fool a wicked man I mean,
I've seen him surely fixt at rest,
Friends, wife, children, meat,
Cattel, goods, estate, and seat,
He had of ev'ry thing the best,
And him that heaven blest I also blest;
But soon that best was turn'd to worst,
His sap soon dry'd,
His root soon dy'd,
And him that heaven curst I also curst:
4. As for his luckless progeny,
Where Safety is I cannot tell,
But where 'tis not know very well,
'Tis far, far enough off when they are nigh;
They're mis'rably prest out of bre [...]th,
In the gates built to keep out death
Their ruine they receive,
While no man brings or pardon or reprieve:
5. All that the field
At reaping time doth yield
Is made a prey to puny-starv'ling-thieves;
And then for their houshold-stuff,
In comes a vilain bold and strong enough,
And the poor orphans of their goods bereaves:
6. Thistles (I know) not look't to sprout,
Briers from untill'd earth spring out;
But sorrows pricks, and cares black thorns,
Soul-wounding crosses,
Undoing losses,
Biting mocks and cutting scorns,
None of these can ever grow,
But what an unseen hand doth sow:
7. That fire which the Creator blends
With water, air, and chiefly earth,
To give the sons of Adam birth,
It hath no weight and so ascends;
But that wherewith he's pleas'd to try mankind
'Tis very ponderous, we find,
And unto us as to its center tends:
8. You cannot know
By weal or woe
Whether a man be just or no;
Therefore unto a higher Court I flie,
His Verdict shall be past on me,
HE shall be my Referree,
9. Into whose works we cannot see,
Nor comprehend how many, or how great they be;
10. Who doth proportionately pour
On every bow'r
Its proper show'r,
And doth his universal dew
Over the universal Earth renew:
11. Look any wheel upon,
Observe it and its motion;
The fortune of the World is such;
His finger gives the World a touch,
And there-with-all the lowest spoke ascends.
And there-with-all the highest downward tends:
12. He gulls State-Artists in such sort,
That they of their designs come short;
13. The cur'ous threds of Policy they spin
Prove halters for to hang them in;
The wisest plot of every peevish soul
Sent out from Reasons Capitol,
From thence as from a precipice doth headlong roll:
14. Twelve at Mid-day and twelve at Night
Is all alike to their dull sight,
And they at both those hours are blind;
Nor can they soon
At very Noon
What's just before 'um find:
15. 'Twas their intent
To seise upon the innocent,
Who by the help of God escape
Their grasping claws,
Their gaping jaws,
16. And so those claws now no more grasp, jaws no more gape:
17. Ah! happy man, who is by God chastis'd!
Such chastisements are not to to be despis'd;
18. For where he causes it he lays the pain,
He wounds and cures that wound again:
19. If trouble chance six times to rise,
Six times he will deliver thee,
If thou'rt assail'd by seven miseries,
Sev'n times invulnerable thou shalt be:
20. Thou shalt not food for famine be;
The sword when drawn shall not be sheath'd in thee;
21. No, thou shalt be secure,
And ne'r endure
The lashes of a cruel jeer;
Nor shall Destruct'on ever make thee fear:
22. No thoughts of ruine shall disturb thy ease,
No thoughts of famine spoil thy feasts;
Bears, tygers, wolves shall be no more wild beasts;
Thou the stones shalt please,
And much more sense-indued these;
23. The very stones, brute-beasts, and thou
Though seeming diversly compounded now,
Shall make a cov'nant, and agree
As well as when you were not three,
When yet you were one element,
Ere stones were from their quarry sent,
And thou and beasts from softer earth were rent:
24. Thou and they shall both possess
The self-same happiness;
And there shall only be this difference.
They of their fortune ha'nt a sense,
But thou reflecting on thy peace
Shalt make the same increase;
I, thou shalt see
Thy palace furnish't with prosperity;
It shall be such as thou mayst glory in,
And yet that glory'ng be no sin:
25. Thou shalt see
Thy progeny
Rising, thriving, growing great;
It shall like the grass be seen,
Whose spikes are infinite and colour green,
It shall be like the grass in ev'ry thing but height
26. Thou thy self thy bough shalt lop,
And from the Tree of Life most freely drop,
As now not caring longer there to grow;
And a ripe Wheat-sheaf for thy Crest shall show
Thy mot'on to thy grave was slow:
27. This did we try,
This we found to be no ly,
And therefore under-write Probatum est:
Copy it out, and make thereof your best.
VI, VII.
1. JOb by way of Answer said,
2. Oh that my heavy heart were fully weigh'd,
And what I suffer in the ballance laid!
3. The sand of th' sea put in th' contrary scale
While this sunk down aloft would rise;
And therefore doth my Rhet'rick fail,
For to set forth such grief no words suffice:
4. Poyson'd darts from Heav'n shot
Into my flesh have got,
These prey upon my vital wet,
And by their numbers I'm beset:
5. Brays the wild Ass
Over his grass?
Does the Oxe low
Where he finds fodder grow?
6. Didst ever care to eat
Insipid meat
Wherein no borrow'd salts corroborate
The otherwise-not-tastable innate?
The milky Jelly taken from the nest
Ere 'tis consolidated into flesh,
Canst thou therewith make a feast?
Canst thou therewith thy hungry self refresh?
7. What I did formerly refuse
Now as my melancholy cheer I choose:
8. Oh that my God would grant what I require!
Oh that he'd give me what I so desire!
9. Oh that I might but have my doom!
Oh that he'd give his arm full room
To strike me so
As that I may not need a second blow!
10. Would he would shew the utmost of his spight!
'Twould be some comfort that I knew the same;
Then I'ld defie him and his might;
For why, the holy heavenly flame
Down into my bosom came,
And I have never smothered the light:
What strength have I
From whence any hope to raise?
How terrible a thing is it to die,
That I should lengthen out my days?
12. Am I so strong as if compos'd of flint?
Or ha's my flesh brass mixed in't?
13. Am I so silly in your sight
As that to help my self I have no might?
Cannot this brain
Study to rid this body of its pain?
Has wisdom taken from this breast her flight?
14. When a man's unfortunate,
His neighbours should his case commiserate;
But you absurdly cry,
'Tis for his high Impiety
He's justly brought into this sad estate:
15. My nearest kinsfolks most deceitful seem,
When I on my relat'ons look,
Me-thinks they're like the failing brook,
They're like the waters of a shallow stream;
16. All over whom an icy cover grows,
And when that cover once doth crack
The treasuries of snow it did inclose
Are not so white as they are black:
17. In summer they boil quite away,
The sultry air their water drinks,
Or into th' earth their water sinks
Not able to endure the scorching day:
18. They're from their wonted channel gone,
Themselves have lost the tide,
So faintingly they glide,
And are so strangely dry'd
As if they'd suffer'd an annihilation:
19. The Temanites with thirst and mot'on burn'd
Thitherward for refreshment turn'd,
The Sheba-Merchants thought
To borrow thence a cooling drought,
20. But ah! in what confusion they stood
Seeing instead of water mud,
And a large furrow for a flood;
They could not find what they desir'd,
But like so many fools retir'd;
Brim-full of hope they came,
But they retreated back as full of shame:
21. Just such Comforters are ye;
Ye dare not, now my fall ye see,
Owne me in this my misery:
22. Did I bear for my Motto, Give?
Did the rewards I gat
Diminish that
On which my neighbours were to live?
23. Was I afraid,
Or ever said,
Oh! yonder comes the Enemy,
For mercy's sake now now lends your aid
And from my dreadful foe deliver me?
24. Instruct me, and I'll silently attend;
Shew me wherein I ever did offend:
25. Oh the great pow'r of Rhet'rick! oh its force
But oh the vanity of your discourse!
26. Does your spleen it self prepare
To laugh at what I utter in despair
And carp at words, which are but empty air?
27. Hellward ye tend and dig a pit,
And tumble in poor orphans into it:
And after them your dearest friend
Is forced thither headlong to descend;
28. Therefore pray give me leave,
Mark what it is I say,
And see (as easily you may,)
My words are not intended to deceive:
29. Come, leave this talk, I wish you, I intreat,
Lest at the Grand Sess'ons time
At the Almighty's barr this prove your crime
That you dar'd thus to take his Judgment sea
Leave off this rash accusing me,
For now I stand on my delivery:
30. D'ye find, Sirs, I've a naughty tongue?
Has my soul lost her taste to judge of right and wrong?
1. IS there not set a certain day
Beyond the which I shall not stay,
But must away
Out of this worlds tempest'ous Ocean,
And make into Eternity's calm bay,
Live I not here like to some Journy-man?
2. Servants long for th'approaching night,
Their Flow'r turns only to the setting Sun;
Hirelings in that sweet hour delight
Where-in their work's rewarded because done;
3. They wait and wait, I wait no less,
While Time attends Heav'ns Trav'ller through the Signes,
Days into weeks, weeks into mon'ths it twines,
That empty casket a rich nothing lines,
Whole mon'th-fulls I of Expectation possess:
4. Going to bed, Oh when! oh when! I cry,
When will the morning shine?
When will be drawn th' black curtains of the sky.
That so I may draw mine?
Now on my pillowbeir I madly ride,
Now to the beds feet I slide,
Now in the midway Down my self I hide,
Whose ev'ry feather proves a wing
And sloth instead of ease new motion bring,
Hither there-on I flie, thither I spring,
Forward I jerk and back again I fling;
While through twelve glasses Time away doth slide,
For ev'ry sand that rolls I change a side;
Now on my left I lie, now on my right;
Till th' Eastern heaven blushes at th'unseemly sight:
5. The Silkworms out of their rich store
Serv'd me before,
Their bowels neatly wove I wore,
But now that stock is done,
Those nasty ones which we so loath
Into a covering for me are spun,
Whom dirt and they but dirt inliv'ned cloath:
6. The shuttle moves not o'r the loom
Faster than my short days ne'r to return consume:
7. Consider that my breath is but a blast,
The good allotted me is past
And I my eye on more shall never cast:
8. They who have notice of my glory took
No more shall see
Or that or me,
He must put on Invisibility
Whom thou do'st into nothing look:
9. The clouds that once are rarifi'd
In the air no more shall ride,
No more so re-condense as to be spy'd;
And he who once has dy'd,
Who once in's grave has lain
No Resurrection shall gain,
Shall ne'r shake off that Earth which doth his body hide:
10. His house and he
No more shall one another view,
Nor have an opportunity
Their old acquaintance to renew:
11. Therefore my lips must move, they can't refrain,
I'll speak, or (if you will) not I,
But this my bitter Agony;
My soul shall from the rack, as 'twere, complain:
21. Princes sometimes build forts along the strand
The under-rolling surges to command,
And Mariners observe the Whale
Which way that floating Isle doth sail;
Am I this, or am I that,
That I'm so strictly looked at,
And of a watchful guard must never fail?
13. Thus have I oft repin'd,
And what to do have mus'd as oft,
My silks (thought I) and dounes are soft,
The ease I can't elswhere in them I'll find:
14. But as soon as I'm a-bed,
In th'upper Reg'on of my Head
Such Met'ors flie
As my beholding fancy terrifie;
That which has no shape I see,
That which has no voice I hear,
I make what neither was not is appear;
No things so fair their being owe to Thee,
But quite as ugly ones owe theirs to me,
I give to new Hobgoblins entity,
And then my own creatures fear:
15. So that methinks upon the fatal Tree
Grows all delight and true Nobility,
And 'tis far better not to be than be:
16. Life! the onely thing I hate,
The onely thing I fear will end too late;
Far be't from me, Propit'ous Fate,
To be s'unfortunately fortunate
As to meet here with an Eternal state:
Therefore forbear to comfort me,
For t'ent a life I lead, but vanity;
This Time 'tis but a not'on, but a toy
Uncapable of true substant'al joy:
17. Lord, how has man such favour won
That he should be plac'd so high,
Ev'n on the top of the Creation?
What's he that he should be so much set by?
18. Why shouldst Thou visit mortals thus
As oft as Light this Hemisphere doth climb?
Or what are we, that Thou shouldst fill up time
With new Experiments concerning us?
19. When wilt thou hide thy frighting brow,
Dispatch those wrinkles, send away that frown,
One lucid Interval to me allow,
One moment but to let my spittle down?
20. Ah! I have broke thy Laws,
I have transgrest indeed;
What shall I do? how shall I plead?
Oh thou the Ʋniversal Cause
Both Procreative and Conservative,
By whom we were at first, and still do live:
Hark, hark,
Me-thinks I hear the whizzing dart;
It tends directly to my heart;
Ah! wherefore mak'st thou that thy mark,
That my existence is my smart?
21. Rather wipe out, wipe out my score,
Remember my transgressions no more;
For I am going under ground
Where I a long nights sleep shall have;
To morrow I shall not be found
If fought for any where but in the grave.
VIII.
1. WIth that the Shuhite made reply,
How long intend you at this rate to speak?
How long for words shall tempests from you fly?
3. Do's Heav'n the course of Justice break,
And cease to be a Court of Equity?
4. If your jov'al girls and boys
That sate down innocent did nocent rise,
Must God accept your Sacrifice
Or be unjust if Sinners he destroys?
5. If thou didst follow Morning-pray'r,
And call betimes upon the Deity,
6. If thy Act'ons blameless were,
He'd wake and rise, and act for thee,
And to thy Vertue and Prosperity,
This should as well as that thy Inmate be:
7. Thy stock, though at the first 'twere ne'r so small,
Ere very many years be o're
Should differ from what 'twas before
As much as they from beggars differ that have All:
8. Go, search into Antiquity,
See what discoveries our Sires have made;
(9. For but of one days-standing we
Of nature can but little see;
Our Life not only for'ts uncertainty
But also for its darkness seems a shade;)
10. The Fathers sage instruct'on will impart,
And, as if Souls like Lamps could meet
And kindle one at th' others heat,
Send knowledge from their own into thy heart:
11. You can't find rushes where no myre is found;
The flag won't grow except in moorish ground;
12. Which when 't has to some Verdure grown
It soon preventeth being mown;
(The fittest plant to be
The Emblem of Mortality!
It is so quickly up, so quickly down;)
13. So shall Relig'ons cheats decay
Who whom they seem to serve remember not,
Forgetting him themselves shall be forgot;
Their Hopes shall die and fade away;
14. What e'r they trusted in
Shall quite consume;
Webs of Hope these Spiders spin,
But there's a brush, but there's a broom:
15. The Sinner on his house himself shall cast,
But all in vain,
For why, it sha'nt his weight sustain;
But, when he holds it fast,
Slide through his grasping hand and never last:
16. He is so green, that the beholding Sun
Wonders to see what his own rays have done,
His garden-slips as bravely show;
17. His roots well-earthed thither run
Where stones in subterran'ous quarries grow:
18. But now if God the wretch dethrone,
And make him from his Palace fly;
And strip him of his Majesty,
His Highness Court its Master will disown
And swear that such a one there-in was never known:
19. This is the Sinners sad Catastrophe,
This is that he nick-names mirth;
Thus must he removed be
To make more room upon the Earth
To give his coming Successors a birth:
20. But take't from me
The Right'ous Deity
Will never Vertues friends despise;
Those that are Vertues enemi [...]s
He will as little patronize:
21. If thou art once truly his
He from his service will thee not dismiss,
Untill all thy Grief be gone
And Laughter to that Grief succeed,
Till Joy in thy each look we read,
And thy each word's an Epinicion:
22. Who malice towards thee express
They shall shortly blush all o're,
The pallaces of wickedness
Shall be a little while, and after that no more.
9, 10.
1. JOb soon retorts, the Shuhite stopping here,
2. All you have said is very true;
But can you me the method shew
My self at Gods tribunal how to clear?
3. If he once be severe,
If he accuse a man ten thousand times,
That man cannot so just appear
As t'answer one of those ten thousand crimes:
4. He has great wisdom his great strength to wield:
And what fool-hardy foes
Did him in battel e'r oppose,
And not with disadvantage leave the field?
5. He teaches Mountains motion,
Though no Soul Sensitive that motion guides;
They'r soon dismounted when he chides,
And down into the filling Vallies gone:
6. Out of her place (now Planet-) Earth he shakes;
At his approach her very Basis quakes:
7. If he forbid no Sun can rise,
If he forbid no spangles deck the skies;
8. 'Tis he, 'tis onely he
That wrought the spreading Azure Canopy,
He onely can tread water in the Sea:
9. He plac'd that Lamp betwixt the Bawters thighs;
He bad the Starry Gyant rise
He made the glor'ous Seven;
And he adorn'd those stately Galleries
Of the Antartick Heaven:
10. His works we cannot fathom they'r so great;
We cann't his miracles enumerate:
11. Perchance he passes by just here;
Yet can I not discern him though so near;
There he may go, and yet not to my sight appear:
12. When he intends mens goods to take away,
Who can withstand his rude design?
Who dare rise up and say
Why medlest thou with what is none of thine?
13. If (fur'ous once) he will be fur'ous still,
Self-Saviours must soon submit,
And ridd of their Ambitious fit
Confess 'twas wind not substance did their bottles fill:
14. Much less may I pretend my self to purge,
And study'd arguments most stoutly urge:
15. Had I obtained Purity,
Yet from that Purity I'd fly
Unto his Mercy-seat, and there for mercy cry
16. If I had pray'd, and he had smil'd,
Yet should I not have Faith e'r to believe
He did me with a smile receive,
But rather thinks some dream had me beguil'd:
17. My vessel's in Afflict'ons tempest broke;
And causelesly I've many, many a stroke:
18. He will not let me breathe pure Air;
For Air I suck in anguish and despair;
19. He is Omnipotent as to his Pow'r,
In doing Justice so exact
That I e'en tremble at that hour
When I must owne my sin, and answer for the fact:
20. Which when I go about to do,
My words will call themselves untrue;
When I seem perfect to my flattering eye
My tongue will give my eye the lye:
21. Could I to full perfect'on rise,
I'd not my self too highly prise,
I would my self my own so useless life despise:
22. 'Tis a sad truth, but such as I'le maintain,
He lets the Good and Bad alike be slain:
23. When to chastise the World he doth prepare,
When men by Death arrested are
Before they are aware,
When his great Trial-Furnace none doth spare,
But Golden ones too tumble in
Who have in them no dross of sin,
It makes him sport to see them glowing there:
24. H'has given all to Cain's posterity,
The Earth is their own large Elysium;
People for Justice to their Judges come,
There's ne'r a Judge can see
How to do Equity,
For why, he hoodwinks and he muffles 'um;
If he's Existent any where it must be he:
25. The flying Post is by my days out flown,
Let him ride ne'r so fast
They make more haste;
But of them all there's ne'r a feasting one;
26. As well-built ships when under sail
Along the billows glide, away they glide;
As Eagles when their meat doth fail
Cross the Air swiftly slide, away they slide:
27. If I begin once in a jolly tone,
What folly's this to sit and groan!
Hence, ye distracting cares, be gone;
Hence, Melancholy, sad complexion,
I'm now for th' Sanguine merry one:
28. When thus my griefs before me stand
Rendesvouz'd but to disband,
With thoughts thereof my mind I dare not trust,
Because I know thou'lt not account me Just:
29. Though that I am, Just is plain,
For why else should I talk in vain?
30. Though I should bathe my self in melting snow,
Though ne'r so clean my hands should grow,
31. He would unwhiten me anon,
Into the mire he would me throw,
He would besmear and dawb me so
That my own cloaths should scorn to be put on:
32. For I am I, and He is He,
I nothing, He Infinity,
Nor can I Plaintiff, He Defendant be;
33. Nor can I any Umpire see
Whose hands should joyn and make us both agree,
This being laid on him, and that on me:
34. If he would lay aside his rod,
If to his rage obnox'ous I
Did not under Duress lie,
If he would be a loving God;
35. Then you should see, I would be bold,
I'd quickly talk to th' purpose then; but hold
1. I Long to hear it said from heaven Die,
I long to word my deep anxiety,
And now, what e'r s the shame,
What e'r's the blame,
I am resolv'd to word the same,
And keep proport'on to my Agony;
2. I'l e'en unto my Judg, and make request
That he'd not yet sentence pass,
I'l ask what misdemeanor 'twas
Which stirr'd him up with me thus to contest:
3. Is't fitting thou should'st tyrannize?
Or is it proper (Righteousness) for thee
When Varlets dev'llish plots devise
To turn thy face to them, thy back to me?
4, 5, 6. Do carn'ous tunicles fill up thy eyes?
Are thy days measur'd by the winding Sun?
Doth thy Eternity in glasses run?
Or seest thou objects Decussat'on-wise?
Art thou in Durance or in Sight like us
That thou need'st to observe my failings thus?
7. Of my Integrity thou do'st not doubt,
Thou know'st 'tis for no sin of mine
I fall into those hands of thine
Out of which they that once fall in shall ne'r get out.
8 Nature seems to be thy Art,
One of whose Master-pieces Men am I;
Thou gav'st me matter, colour, symmetry;
And now thou spoilest what thou didst impart:
9. Consider how thy hand to give me breath
Small clods of clay together laid;
Wilt thou unmake what thou hast made?
And shall I be again reduc'd to earth?
10. Didst thou not pour me out like milk in th'womb?
Did not thy Rennet make my members come?
11. This flesh I wear
Thou didst prepare,
This double skin
Thou wrapp'st me in;
Here stand my bones, my arteries run there;
With those thou hast my body fortifi'd,
With these thou hast my parts together ty'd:
12. Alive thou keep'st me, dost me favour shew;
Thou look'st to me, and I'm well look't to:
13. All this thou think'st on oft unknown to me,
All this (I'm sure) thou hast in memory:
14. If I grow towards such a father rude
Thou mark st it well
And wilt me of my rudeness tell,
And ne'r acquit me of Ingratitude:
15. If I do any thing unjust
I'm sure the penalty to undergo,
Or if I conquer sinful Lust
Yet ha'nt I confidence my head to show:
I do'nt know what I do, I'm at a loss;
Look on my grief, and poise my heavy cross:
16. My Cross doth heav'r now, and heav'er prove
Whilst Lion thou dost me pursue,
Anon again, thy bowels move,
And Mercy doth her miracles renew:
17. Soon after up and down such Symptoms flie
As too too well thy fury testifie:
The Spring-tide there-of rises high;
God fights against me with varietie:
18. Was it for this that I was born?
Was it for this my mothers womb was torn?
Was it for this she underwent such pain,
And groan'd some hours, and then rejoyc'd again,
That I my self all my life long might mourn?
Oh that I but once had cry'd!
Oh that I in my Nurses arms had dy'd!
19. Oh that I had ne'r been seen!
Then I had been and yet not been,
I h'd found a bur'al in my mother Earth
As soon as t'other e'r had gi'n me birth:
20. The days which I have yet to see
How scarcely worth the numbering they be!
Then give me room to draw my breath,
And sing a little just before my death;
21, 22. Before I go unto that boundless shade
Where there's no Mot'on Retrograde,
Before I go into that darksom dale,
Before I sink into that deadly vale,
Where Order is Confusion,
And Night eternal muffles up the Sun.
XI
1, 2. THen up stood the Naamathite,
And, Sha'nt we all these words with words requite?
Sha'nt we, quoth he, this prating fool indite?
3. What? shall your Auditors dispence
With Falshood back't by Impudence?
Shan't we take notice of your Pride
Which makes you others so deride,
And with a Medium from thence
Make you those scornful looks in blushes hide?
4. For you appear secure
Both that your Doctrine's pure,
And that your life will Heavens test endure:
5. Now oh that God his lips and heav'n would move,
And thee in these thy Reasonings disprove!
6. Oh that he would his Wisdom show
In its ev'ry mystery,
Whereof thou only half dost see!
In the mean time I'd have you know,
His wrath is short of thy Impiety:
7. Canst thou the full Dimensions take
Of the Great All in all?
Canst thou of him a Definition make
Which shall be Essential?
8. His works as high as heaven swell?
What there-of canst thou tell?
They reach below the lowest hell;
What there-of canst thou spell?
9. The Length thereof is more
Than by Earths Axis can be measured;
The Breadth thereof exceeds the space that's spread
'Twixt Ez'on-gaber and the Ophir shore:
10. If he by sword or sickness Thousands slay,
If Myr'ads in fast hold he lay,
Bundles of life suppose he throw away,
Who can him in his fury stay?
11. He knows, he knows our vanity,
He sees how impious we be;
And w'ont he make use of what he doth see?
12. A whimsy 'tis possesses some,
That they will needs be thought Prudential,
Although into the world they come
As silly Colts from the wild Asses fall:
13. If thy heart upward rise,
Thy Index-hand still pointing to the skies;
14. If what was faulty yester-night
This morning's Reformat'on right;
And no uncleanness in thy lodging lies;
15. Thou shalt shew thy honest face,
And challenge Physiognomy
Any thing there-in to descry
Which she can construe unto thy disgrace;
Thou shalt be nobly bold,
And shalt not fear to be controul'd:
16. For thou shalt former miserie forget;
In new Joys Oc'an that absorp't shall be;
As any petty Rivulet
Is in th'adjoyning vast Arab'an Sea:
17. The glor'ous Sun when Culminant
Shall much of thy splendor want,
And when he rises and first visits us,
Himself shall look like thy Parelius:
18. Confidence alwaies is secure,
And thou shalt on just grounds be confident,
Walls thou shalt build, but not thy self immure,
Building them not for Strength but Ornament:
They'l onely serve thy Art or State to show;
For when thou go'st to sleep,
Providence the Guard shall keep
And Safeties-self shall be thy bed-fellow;
Thou shalt no Alarum hear,
Thou shalt no Scalado fear;
Nothing shall disturb thy rest
But some unseasonably-made request:
20. While the great Patrons of Impiety
They shall be blind as to prosperity,
That they never shall espie,
But Ruine they shall see too nigh,
And have this onely comfort left, They can but dye.
12, 13, 14.
1. YEs, by all means, (Job replies)
2. Take you away, and where's the Wise?
When you die Art and Knowledge dies;
3. But stay, I have my understanding too,
I have as well indu'd a soul as you;
Who could not tell all this you've said was true?
4. Just persons have Heav'n open to their crie,
Yet their bold neighbours at their prayer mock;
You're some of these, and one of those am I;
You make a holy Saint your laughing-stock:
5. A man that's under God's afflicting hand
People will sleight
As Seamen do th' Directing Light
When in a dark tempest'ous night
They find themselves arrived safe on Land:
6. Thieves live in stately Palaces
And those which heaven seem'd to scale
God cannot chuse but bless,
And see that their provis'on never fail!
Ask now the Oxen in the stall,
Inquire of the inhab'tants of the Air,
Consult with this gross earthy Ball,
On the Sea's scaly people call;
Beasts, birds, earth, fishes will these things declare;
10. Which the Repository is of Souls;
And all our breaths within its hollow holds?
11. Han't words their Judge as well as meat?
Doth not the ear
Try what we hear
As well as th' Palate what we eat?
12. In failing bodies thriving souls are found,
The hoary head is with Pan-laurels crown d
13. God is the Strong, the Knowing one;
What's to be done can best by him be shown:
14. None can rebuild that Citadel
Which once at his commandment fell;
Whom he confines unto their Cell,
The wall's so high, they can't get o'r,
So thick they cannot through it bore,
But must therein for ever dwell:
15. He bids the waters cease to roar,
And they away in silence dry;
Out at his signe again they fly,
And bear along with them the shore:
16. To be Wise, and to be Strong,
Unto his nature do belong;
Legerdemain's chief Masters he commands
And likewise those who lose by theft;
The gull'd, the guller, both are in his hands,
That in his right, this in his left:
17. He takes and rifles Counsellors of State,
Judges he doth infatuate;
18. The reins he wresteth from the Magistrate,
And makes them draw who in the Royal char'ot sate:
19. He seiseth on and plunders mighty Kings;
And o'r great Princes Epinic'ons sings:
20. He strikes the confident Declamers dumb
That they can't finish their Exordium;
Those that are wise men by their age
He turns their Understanding into Rage:
21. Princes into contempt he brings;
And makes puissant Warr'ours puny things:
22. He through the Ocean of Darkness wades,
And fetches thence what lay hid there;
Thither he sends inlightned aire
Where Death sits Queen in her eternal shades:
23. His blessing makes the Nat'ons multiply,
Anon he cuts 'um off as fast;
He gives 'um room wherein at ease to lie,
And recontracts that room at last:
24. That unto which a Man doth owe
His being so,
That which when it is once ceas't,
The Man turns Beast,
He takes from him who the Worlds scepter swa
And, where there's no Inhabitant
But Wildness, Solitude, and Want,
Where passengers ne'r come because they can't,
Thither he sends him out to grase:
25. Barons, Dukes, Emp'rors of their way do miss
For which they all be-nighted feel,
And like those to whom Wine bad ballast is
Up and down they rudely reel.
1. THis I my self have seen, I've heard it too;
If I know ought, I know all this is true:
2. I understand as much as you can do,
You've taken no Degree which I can't claim;
Our Faculties by Nature are the same,
And I've improved mine as well as you:
3. To change some words with God is my intent;
Fain would I urge to him one argument:
But you! you're even Practitioners in lies,
Meer Conscience-quacks whom no body will prize:
W'ud you would hold your peace at length!
That would be your wisest way;
6. Mind my discourse, and wherein lies its strength,
And hear what the Defendant has to say:
7. Will you for that God who so holy is
In so profane a fashion contend?
Will you the God of truth defend
With such sophistry as this?
8. Will you on purpose judge amiss
That so the conquest may be his
Who is so Great, and th' best rewards can send?
9. Wilt make for you that he should find you out?
For such your dealings now with him appear
As men do men you your Creator jeer;
This seems Offic [...]ousness, but 'tis a flout:
10. He'l punish you for partiality
Although the person you accept be he:
11. And can his Light and your weak eyes agree?
Can y'unastonished such Glory see?
12. Come, all these stories which you call to mind,
So little use they serve unto,
Your words like ashes in the air you strew;
Your bodies seem to be but bits of clay conjoyn'd:
13. Silence a while, Sirs, and give way to me;
For I must speak what e'r the issue be:
14. What makes me mad-man-like my flesh to gnaw?
What makes me ready on my self to draw?
15. Well, though in running thither I'm undone,
Into my Makers arms I'l run
But it shall well appear that I am pure;
17. My Manifesto hear attentively,
And whether what I say's to th' purpose trie;
18. Ready to plead with any here stand I,
I'm sure my self fully to justifie;
19. Send me out some disputing enemy,
For if I've none to plead withal I die:
20. And grant me (God) this double courtesie,
And from thy presence I no more will flie;
21. Let not thy rod for ever on me lie,
And don't thou fright me to eternitie;
Take off thy dreadful vizard, hold thy hand,
22. And what thou wilt demand of me,
I shall not fear to answer thee,
Or Answer thou to what I shall demand:
23. Let me my misdemeanors see,
How many and how great they be,
Acquaint me with their Either Quantity:
24. Ah! wherefore dost thou turn away thy face,
And count me one of thy Antagonists?
25. Wilt thou take with an Aspen-leaf the Lists?
Is the drie stubble worthy of thy chace?
26. For thou prepar'st against m' a long black bill;
That is not past which I thought past;
A note of my youth-sins thou hast,
Which on my conscience thou urgest still:
27. Fast in the stocks my self I feel,
And thou thy Spies where e'r I go dost lay;
My feet are lock'd in heavie steel,
The marks whereof appear upon my heel;
28. And thus poor Job like dirt consumes away,
Or like the cloth which moths have made their prey.
1. WHo-e'r he be that's of a woman born,
If his Lands be well survay'd
He'll find 'um bearing nought but thorn,
He'll find his Lease but for few years is made;
2. Like Flowres he sprouts up, like them he doth fade,
And quickly flies away as flies the shade:
3. Deignest Thou then to look on me?
Wilt Thou with Job commence a suit,
And must I go to Law with Thee?
4. What? evince his purity
Who's utterly impure! there's none can do 't:
5. Frail Man! his time is set, alas;
Thou know'st the minutes of his glass;
The Months that Heaven gives
Those Months indeed he lives,
But never can beyond that number pass:
6. Let him alone, that he may take some ease;
E're Death, when's work is done, the hireling seise:
7. The Tree, whose branches this days Axe doth pare,
May again to morrow bear,
May a new bark to morrow wear,
And get fresh boughs, and put on other hair:
8. Though under-ground the root decay,
Though the stock Age rot away;
9. The scent of water its cold limbs new-warms,
And makes it rear its head, and spread its arms:
10. But man once dead
Doth irrecoverably waste;
And who knows whither he is fled
When once h'has breath'd his last?
11. The Sea is qnaff't up by the Sun,
And Floods dry'd up no longer run;
12, So is 't with Man, so down he lies,
No more to wake; no more to rise,
Till at the day of Doom
The shrivell'd Heav'ns consume,
Then he may chance to rub, and ope his eyes:
13. Come, I 'le be buried alive,
Into the deepest sea I 'le dive
Where nothing is but Night and Secrecy;
Thither I 'le hie,
And there I 'le lie,
Until Avenging Thou art passed by;
Until thy Anger (like ascending fire)
Growing still less and less at last expire:
Hasten, oh, hasten that sweet day
When thou with Mercy wilt thy-self array,
And (this grim vizard being laid aside)
Thy native colours wilt no longer hide;
And when Thou 'rt pleased such to be
As flesh and blood may safely see,
Forget not then to cast an eye on me:
14. If from this body this foul take her flight,
And I in pieces fall;
Wilt thou my limbs together call?
Wilt thou my scatter'd parts unite?
Strong Hope and never weary'd Constancy
Shall carry me through ev'ry change and turn,
Till my last change come, my urn;
And then this great Experiment I 'le try:
15. Then Thou to Glory's feast wilt me invite,
And then up I shall start
And go and take place next thy heart,
Thy bosom-darling, and thy souls delight,
Always thy Creature, then thy Favourite:
16. Though now indeed thou art severe,
My Mot'ons are Excentrical
And Thou dost calculate them all;
One eye doth watch me here, the other there;
17. Thou hast a bag for ev'ry sin;
This fact Thou seal'st up, that Thou sowest in.
18. That Mountain which so proudly stands,
The boundary of divers lands,
The Pioneer can crumble into sands
And teach to move;
And, when in them the delver delves,
We find the very Rocks themselves
Of Immobility ill Emblems prove:
19. Drops hollow stones they fall upon;
So sweeps away Thy deluge fertile dust
And all that ever grew there-on,
And thou spoil'st all where-in poor Man doth trust:
20. Thou strikest and away goes he
Dispos'd of to Eternity;
His eyes grow dark, his cheeks grow pale,
Those Di'monds wink, these Roses fail,
And he thus metomorphis'd down doth fly:
21. He doth not see
The Infamy
Which his posterity incurrs,
Nor hears he of the Honor which they gain;
No, but his Sense endures its proper pain,
His Ʋnderstanding hers.
XV.
1. THe Noble Temanite replies,
2. This is not handsom (Sir) for one so wise
To give himself to Not'ons such as these,
This is to feed upon an Eastern breeze;
3. Such a one should not this day Method take,
Or such unprofitable speeches make:
4. Thou hast so little of the Orator,
Thy Auditors thou car'st not for,
But boldly carry'st on thy speech begun,
Substracting what
Thou add'st too much to that
From thy unperfected Devotion;
Thy Prayer-incense, which of late
Arab'as perfumes did perfume,
Like those gross odours now is taught
To spend with using and consume:
5. That Mouth wherewith thou used'st heav'n to greet
Now speaks not ought
But what is nought
Thy Tongue has prov'd of late an arrant Cheat:
6. I would thee willingly acquit,
But thou by talking thus wilt not permit,
Thou thy own Dirge do'st sing,
No witness need against thee rise,
It will abundantly suffice
Thy self against thy self to bring:
7. Why, Joh! art thou the Protoplast?
Or (prithee say)
Wert thou moulded out of clay
E'r this ruff superficies'd ball was cast?
8. Has heav'n acquainted you with that Decree
Which had lain hid from all Eternity?
Doth wisdom only appertain to thee?
Hast thou a grant of the Monopoly?
9. What know'st thou that we ne'r knew?
What do'st perceive that we perceive not too?
10. The rev'rend White upon our heads appears;
Thy father, liv'd he, would want of our years:
11. We'd have you only owne your fault,
And upon true Contrit'ons feet
Step and fetch Comfort from the Mercy-seat;
And is this Comfort proffer'd ye worth naught?
Have you in Divinity
More skill than we?
And can you e'en into Gods closset see?
12. Whither away by thy proud heart art born?
Why read we in thy winking eye such scorn?
13. Why d' you (one man) oppose our Common Lord?
Why can't you better words at least afford?
14. Alas! what is discursive dust
That he should be accounted just?
Where is there now the Eve
A Right'ous Abel to conceive?
15. His greatest Saints God dares not trust;
They and the Heav'n they're heirs unto
Are both impure as to his view,
Who in his Saints sees vice, in th' heav'nly Spangles rust;
16. Much filthy'r 's Man who quaffs Iniquity
17. As doth Leviathan the Sea:
17. Harken, and I shall let you understand
(What I my self have seen and understood;
18. What Volumes treat of writ before the flood,
And thence derived down from hand to hand;
And what was held by men as Great as Good,
19. Who had the world at their command;
Whose neighbours ne'r incroach't upon their land;
20. How that the Sinner doth in torment live,
And travail with the plots he doth devise,
Not knowing how long he has to tyrannise;
21. He hears strange tones and frighting cries;
And when they cease; and he in quiet lies,
He's set upon by Enemies
Which quarter neither use to take nor give:
22. He quite despairs of scaping those black foes,
Of getting out of those eternal woes
To which, the sword now sending him, he goes:
23. Hungry he grows,
And then to ev'ry one he shows
His me [...]ger face, his hollow eye,
And Oh, some Bread, some Bread's his cry;
The terrible Night-day is nigh,
And that he knows:
24. His sin shall trouble, trouble sorrow bring,
The pangs of both which he already feels;
Fear charges him like some puissant King
With a great Army at his heels:
25. For he has gi'n his Maker the first blow,
And thinks to deal with an Almighty foe;
26. Whom he doth therefore fur'ously assail,
Whose very throat he maketh at,
Ready but he will come at that
To cut through's thick-boss't Shields and Coats of Mail:
27. Large level vallies of Fat smooth his face,
Mountains thereof his pamper'd sides do grace;
28. Such to Mankind is his antipathy,
He dwells in towns and rooms from concourse free,
Towns where no man lives but he,
And houses which e'r long will rubbish be:
29. His bags, when most, they shall be quickly told,
In their enjoyment he shall not grow old;
H' has got him an estate, but that shan't hold:
30. He shall be cast on that Blind rock the Grave,
Never from thence to launch;
And there the flame no light shall have,
But heat enough to quite dry up his branch;
He shall be blown by the Almighty's b [...]eath
Below the Center, beyond Hell and Death:
31. It is not meet
Men on themselves should put so great a cheat
As to expect high things from being Vain,
Alas! a Golden Nothing's all they gain;
32. Th' emolument for which they do so strive
Like an Abortive birth shall thrive;
The Auto-focus shall about 'um move,
But ne'r their branches into green improve:
33. Look on the Sinner as a Vine,
His raw grapes make but sowre wine;
Look on him as an Olive-tree,
His flow'r as soon as such shall cease to be:
34. Death and Destruction shall exercise
New tricks, new fallacies
On the Grand Masters of the same;
Bribes sha'nt stave off the raging flame
From Palaces which by their heaps did rise:
35. Fond hypocrites believe
They something really conceive,
But this conception at last we find
To be a Tympany, and caus'd by wind;
They do with Sin
(As 'twere) lie in,
And therefore that which they bring forth
Accordingly must be little worth
XVI, XVII.
1. JOb this sober Answer gave,
2. I've often seen such thundring Preachers rave,
I've heard 'um vent upon this head their rage;
Is this the comfort I shall have?
You give worse words than e'r they gave,
And you increase the grief you should asswage:
3. Surcease your nonsense-argument;
Methinks you're something confident
So many fond object'ons to invent:
4. If you were I, and I were you,
I could keep a prating too;
I could give words as odd,
I could give as shrewd a nod;
5. I could do so; but would that be discreet?
Sure I should utter what would be more meet;
Each word that from my lips should fall
Should prove a Cordial;
I'de you another story tell,
Ev'ry syllable I'd say
Should be a pow'rful spell
To drive your evil melancholy sp'rit away:
6. Ah me! I can't attain the rest I seek
Though ne'r so much I speak,
Nor doth my sorrow cease
Though ne'r so long I hold my peace;
7 Ah! weary, weary; ah! my spirirs faile,
Thou draw'st them out, and they exhale;
I am left all alone,
Thou fright'st away my friends, and they are flow'n:
8. Thou, Cruel—, with thy heavy plough
Hast draw'n these wrinckles on my brow;
Each hollow in my wither'd cheeks
Abundantly my sad condit'on speaks:
9. I am a proof how man can act the Bear,
How in his fury he can tear;
I such an Enemy have met
As doth his teeth on one another set,
Shewing them what with me they are to do,
And seems his eyes to whet
Looking me therewith through and through:
10. Men stretch their jaws,
And on me gape,
And against all Civility's known laws
Without a box on th' ear I seldom scape;
Worse affronts yet, I fear, they coin;
For lo, into a body now they join:
11. God gives me over to such rogues as these,
They may do with me what they please:
12. My joynts he hath asunder took
Which lately had such Symmetry,
H' has every limb of me in pieces shook
Unless my neck, perchance, the which he held me by;
And making me th' unhappy spot
13. He pours upon me show'rs of shot,
Whole woods of crooked yew beset me round;
The parts where-in my life lay bound
Are loosly scatter d on the ground;
Here one, and there another rein doth fall,
And yonder lies my useless gall:
14. He leaves no member sound,
But gives me blows
Not unlike those
Which on his foes
A Giant when inrag'd bestows,
And makes my body one continu'd wound:
15. Sack-cloth upon my flesh I bind
And ashes spread
Upon that head
Which with a double White of Age and Glory shin'd:
16. My face was foul before,
And washing it with tears I foul it more;
While Death as one that did begin
Into my house to enter in
Already stands before my eye her door:
17 And why all this? I do no harm;
I never robb'd a town,
And having robb'd it, burnt it down,
My hands at such a fire to warm;
My Orphan-gormandizing throat
With an unsanctified note
The holy Temple never yet profan'd;
With my infected sheep
Offer'd because it would not keep
The holy'r Altar never yet was stain'd:
18. Oh earth, oh earth, find thou a tongue
While I am silent to proclaim my wrong;
And do thou teach
My blood the blood of Abels speech,
That it may cry, and crying heaven reach:
19. I'm righteous in heavens eye,
The starrs have seen and know my purity:
20. Scoff then, not Enemy but Friend,
Of a far better friend I shall not fail;
My tears like water Midday-beams exhale
The heav'nly towres know how to scale,
And in his bosom dry themselves to whom th' ascend:
21. Oh might I be so bold
As this pure hand up at his bar to hold,
And cry Not guilty there and pl [...]d
As one man for another at his need:
22. Oh might I! but I wish in vain,
I have not long to stay,
To morrow's Execut'on-day,
And when that comes I must away
Ne'r to return again
Unto my dungeon from whence I'm ta'ne.
1. MY breath doth stink, my strength's decay'd,
The Sexton also my last bed hath made;
2. Death bends her bow, and Jeerers too let fly,
Me-thinks I have them in my eye
Who do my failing age upbraid:
3. Give me a man that dares to stake,
That in the Chain of Amity
A Link will make,
And forfeit if that Chain he break;
Give me the man that will in earnest be
My other self to me,
And of my mirth and of my grief partake;
4. Dull people won't this mot [...]on entertain,
Thou wilt not let 'um be so wise,
Thou wilt them not such honor deigne
That they should up unto true Friendship rise:
5. He that himself a friend to all will make,
But is not that which he pretends,
His Children they shall seek for friends,
But e'r they find out one their eyes shall ake:
6. Ah! He has spun me a hard destiny,
I'm made the But which all men [...]it,
The silly thing on whom all try their wit,
As formerly I was their melody
When they their Tabr [...]t laid aside to play on me
8. What with tear and what with sigh
My eye is grown so dim,
Such little clouds there-in do swim
I cannot see my hand there-with;
Or if I could, I have no hand to see;
There where my hand should be
Hangs a piece of Vacuity;
My hand, and arm, and foot, and thigh, and knee,
Which while vigor through them ran
Had a shadow of their own,
Now that that Vigor's gone
Seem but the shadow of other man:
9. The right'ous soul, that pure and cleanly Dove,
On in his milky path shall move;
And the Arm that ne'r did wrong
Shall be found truly strong,
And shall its strength contin'ally improve:
10. But as for you, I'd have you stay,
Come back, and take another way;
The road where-in so fast you ride
Of that City leadeth wide
Where Wisdom doth her choisest treasures hide:
11. My glass is run,
My work not done;
Death my deep designes prevents,
And my intents prove but intents:
12. I force some few half-hours out of the night,
And by such fires as oil and art
To them that want the Sun impart
Regain the time which length'ned darkness wins from light:
13. If I with hopes of happiness am fed,
For Lodgings a cold Tomb I meet,
And for Tent-cloaths a Winding-sheet,
And go to Darkness when I should to bed:
14. Rottenness I Father call,
If you'd my Female-kindred have
Look but about the Grave,
Here creeps my mother, there my sisters crawl:
15. And where's my Hope now? I have none;
Hope to Heaven back is flown;
See! now she lessens, now she's out of sight!
16. I and my fellow-men make haste away,
I from my Zenith hasten, so do they;
And, though we have a diverse Day,
We all at length shall have in th' dust the self-same Night.
XVIII.
1. THe Princely Shuhite then begun;
2. When will this long discourse be done?
When will you cease to bawl?
Our turn is come,
You must be dumb;
3. Why are we counted brutish things
Even amidst our Reasonings?
Why look'st thou on us through a glass
Through which our Spec'es (alas!)
While to thy eye they pass
Must needs be very small,
So small as scarcely to be seen at all?
4. The man's outragious
To tear himself in pieces thus:
Shall Rightousness her flight to Heaven take
And leave this lower globe
To pleasure Job?
Shall rocks be moved for thy sake?
5. No, no, (my friend) Justice Divine
Shall gloriously shine
Whilst the Sinners day grows dark,
And his dead fire sends forth no glitt'ring spark:
6. The light which round the Universe doth flie
Shall be no light his tent about,
His lamp shall sink in'ts socket and go out,
He into's grave shall fall and therein rotting lie:
7. He into streights shall run
Struggle he ne'r so strong therein to stick,
And most unfortunately Politick
Shall be by his own wit undone:
8. He shall by his own trait'rous feet be led
Where snares are set,
A crafty net
Where e'r he goeth shall be spread:
9. The grin shall hold him by the heels
While he the fury of the Rifler feels:
10. Nimrodists along the way
Here shall prepare
For him a snare,
There they a secret trap shall lay:
11. His fancy shall besiege him round
And make him take his feet and fly;
12. Comfort which feeds the soul shall not be found,
But he shall have enough of misery;
13. Misery shall his beauty waste,
And in its flower his manhood blast,
And of Deaths bitter cup he first shall taste:
14. Hope from his Court away shall hie,
Or if it tarry there
Hope it self shall turn to Fear,
And he shall dy
The slave of Crowned Cruelty;
15. Despair, Hells Envoy, shall abate his bliss,
And with sulphur'ous streams from that Abyss
Annoy the Palace which is none of his;
Which from a better man he keeps,
And therefore therein never soundly sleeps;
When slumber scarce has clos'd his eyes
Up he starts, and Treason, Treason cries,
Then down again he lies,
And by and by again must rise,
And rising to another bed he creeps;
But there likewise
Fresh horrors him surprise,
Some dream the Tyrant terrifies,
Every wall strange shapes assumes,
Those pictures of his King he spies
Which hang themselves all round their Masters room;
His feigned fears His real Majesty,
And sees him just approach, and thinks him nigh;
Though he (alas!) through foreign lands doth flie,
And with what heav'n sends content
Sweetly endures a twelve years banishment,
Doth customs, men, and neighb'ring realms descry,
Making a vertue of necessity;
Till the appointed time be come
For God to call his own Anointed home,
And give his Deputy his own,
For sacred oil up to the top to slow,
For puddle-water to sink down below;
And then, then down the Wretch doth go
Not from the Coach-box but th' usurped Throne;
16. Neither his root nor branch shall thrive;
His root that shall be choak't below,
His branch so prun'd as ne'r to grow;
17. What was his name no verse shall show,
Nor any marble keep his deeds alive;
18. He shall Beings shun with speed
And Light by which he should those Beings see,
And only have the company
Of Darkness and Non-entity;
19. None shall the Father in the Children read,
Nephew or Neice he shall have none
No brothers daughter nor no sisters son,
Nor be immortal in an endless seed:
20. Those cur'ous ones who time and parts abuse,
And will those things and men reveal
Which heaven would conceal,
Finding out him themselves shall lose;
A life so sad,
So strange an end he had,
That his Contemporaries at the sight
Astonish't e'n ran mad,
And these shall be in full as great a fright:
21. They who fly away apace
From that which gave 'um feet,
Who though a Deity they meet
In ev'ry field, in ev'ry street,
Yet they're resolv'd they will not see't,
Such is their goal, and such is their unresting place.
XIX
1, 2. WIth that, how long, quoth Job, will ye go on
My very heart to tear?
To limb me as it were
With these fierce disputat'ons pro and con?
3. Ten times some biting Irony
In your discourse has taken place;
Nay, you have had the face
To bear your selves like strangers towards me:
4. What if Het'rodox I be!
On me lies that Het'rodoxiety:
5. But since int' other mens affairs you thrust,
And bravely urge an Argument
Only to this intent
To baffle me, and prove I am unjust,
6. I tell you God has my destruct'on wrought,
H' has catch't me in his net, and I am caught:
7. I shew the world my injury,
But none takes notice of my cry,
I cry yet louder, louder yet,
Yet cannot any satisfaction get:
8. Blocks in the path where I should go he lays,
Nor do I know
Whither or how to go
He doth so darken my now Inky ways:
9. He has eclyps'd my glor'ous rays,
And robb'd my head of its Imper'al bays:
10. I am beset with misery,
It doth me hence and thence accost,
So that whole Job is lost;
There 's no more hope of me
Than of a rotten wither'd tree:
11. His Anger gainst me glows,
And he still reckons me among his foes?
12. He musters up his Regiments;
His pioneers raise battlements,
And compass in my tents;
13. Far enough off he all my brethren sends,
I seek in vain my friends among my friends:
14. Such as to me in blood were joyn d,
Any of them I cannot find;
Such as with me their Friendship-loves combin'd,
I'm out of sight with them and out of mind:
15. My Inmates and Maid-servants on me stare
As on some stranger in an Antick dress,
Some of whom discreetly ghess
I'm dropt from the cold Reg'on of the Air;
One calls me Chaldee, t' other Syrian,
A third says I'm some broken Persian,
A fourth, I'm sneak't out of some thred-bare Isle,
A fifth dare swear I'm scap't out of the Nile
Half-eaten up by some old Crocodile;
Another viewing my strange hue a while
Whom adust matter and black scurff defile,
Takes me to be an Ethiopian;
I'm sprung from Japhet, Sem, and Ham;
I'm ev'ry thing but what I am
The formerly well-known Arabian:
16. My servant seems not for my call to care,
I'm fain to speak my servant fair:
17. My wif [...] cannot my breath indure,
There's nothing can my scornful Lady move;
The living pl [...]g [...]s of our former love
Can't me a sight of her procure:
18. I am abus'd by ev'ry brat;
I cannot rise but I'm their chat:
19. My bosom friends cannot abide my sight;
My love is recompenc'd with slight:
20. My flesh, my skin, my bone
Cling all together but disorderly,
Some of my teeth alone
Are to their cov'ring as they ought to be:
21. See, Sirs, what I have undergone,
And shew me some compassion,
For God, I'm sure, has shewn me none
22. Why d'ye on your distressed neighbour play
Having unhandsomly presum'd
T'intitle God to what you do and say?
My flesh long since is all consum'd
And you would make my soul too pine away:
23. Oh that my words, which now 'll prove vain,
Were by a ready writer ta'ne
For ever on record to lie!
Oh that Typography
Which, as the knowing Sophist sings,
Shall be in time found out by Westerlings
Might now be hansell'd with my Threnody!
24. Oh that this were in brass ingravened,
And wrought e'en in the rock there to be read
In well-set Characters of lasting lead▪
25. For on my Sav'our I rely
A Second Person in a Trinity,
I have his Pass'on in my eye,
I ken the top of Calvary,
Hither (me-thinks) I hear him cry,
Eli, Eli, Lamaschabactany!
I hear him give one groan, and dy;
And therefore he endures such pain,
Therefore he groans, therefore he dies,
That I now groaning joy may gain,
And dying I to life may rise;
I see the marks of his dear feet,
They're plain on s cred Olivet;
There he twice his feet shall set,
There I at last shall my Redeemer meet:
26. Although these eyes are sure to wink,
And like Lamps in their sockets sink
Although Death stop these ears, rot off these knee [...],
Although Corruption my body seise,
New Lamps shall in those sockets burn,
Acousticks organs shall return,
My knee shall rise out of their [...]rn;
27. I shall have eyes which for themselves shall see,
My Nature cloathed with Divinity;
I shall have ears to bear him bid me Come,
Come (Job) into my Kingdom, and thy home;
I shall have better knees, and yet the same
To bow unto that holy Name,
Though time and worms destroy this goodly frame;
28. This (Friends) in brief
Is my Belief,
And We, you should say, it approve,
And therefore need the man no more to more;
Si [...]e he has go [...]
A true and lively faith,
Though outwardly he blosso [...] [...]
The heav'nly seed wi [...]hin he hath:
29. There i [...] V [...]ti [...]e Justice, look you to [...],
For wrath with wrath doth su [...],
And God with angry one [...] and angry he;
You have your sword, and so has he;
You now rashly judge of me,
There's one in time will judge of thee, and thee, and thee.
XX.
1, 2. I, This, this doth my Rhetorick engage,
This forces me in haste to take the stage,
Replied the Naamathite,
3. If I perceiv'd not how you put me to't
I had been mute,
I had not sought your Satyr to confute,
But now I must retort, so deep you bite:
4. You've often sure of this been told,
For 'tis as true as heav'n and earth are old;
5. Hypocrites, I suppose, you know
Let 'um make ne'r so gay a show
Their triumphs are but pageantries,
As soon as e'r 'tis born their comfort dies:
6. Though Lucifer lend the proud man his pride
And prompt him to do as himself had done,
Teach him t'attempt the Char'ot of the Sun,
Though on the clouds the Sinner ride;
7. Yet never to return he must away,
And be thrown off like his own excrement;
They that enjoy'd him t'other day
Shall stare about, and say,
Why, whither? whither's our old Crony sent?
8. A dream soon vanishes, and so shall he;
Such a Substant'al Nothing he shall be
As in the empty air by night our fancies see:
9. He that saw him heretofore
Gods banisht wretch never again descries;
His house with all her stately window-eyes
Beholds her Master now no more:
10. His children seek the poorest folks to please,
And he gives back all that he did unjustly seise:
11. The youthful Sinner's punish't in the old;
Lust which at Thirty was so hot
Makes his bones at Sixty rot,
Which in the grave at length with him grows cold:
12. Though vice delight the palate of his soul,
Though the sweet lumps long in his mouth he roul,
13. Though he fall to and do not spare,
Though he chew the cud (as 'twere)
Being loth quite to let down his dainty fare,
14. His Maw is but a bag of nasty snakes
Which of his meat instead of Chyle it makes:
15. He us'd on Gold to dine, on Silver sup,
But both upon his stomack lie,
He must refund 'um by and by,
God makes him disimbogue and cast 'um up:
16. That Asps are venomous shall grow a doubt,
For he shall suck their poison out;
He shall leave goods, and wife, and children stung
By the Viper's forked tongue:
17. Lakes shall stand, and rivers grow,
Oceans themselves shall flow
With hony's sweetness, and with butter's fat,
But he shall ne'r enjoy or this or that:
18. He shall restore all he hath got,
One crum there-of he swallows not;
He shall Restitut'on make,
And making Restitut'on break,
For all his gain
He by couz'ning did obtain,
And so nothing shall remain
Where-in he full delight may take:
19. Because he has the poor opprest,
And what another built possest,
20. His purse shall so quite empty be of g [...]in
As his wide paunch shall be brim-full of pain:
21. Of all his Chattels he shall be bereft,
There shall so small a st [...]ck be left
So mean a table and so pit'ous fare
As none shall care
To be design'd by Will his heir:
22. When he shall seem with all things to abound
He destitute of all things shall be found;
And he shall be
An Axine Sea,
Exposed to all kind of storms,
Mater'a prima to all luckless Forms:
23. When he sits down to eat
Heaven shall him unkindly greet,
And, when he (poor man!) shall think
His pleasant food
Shall do him good,
Rain down to it a most unpleasant drink;
24. Assailed by his armed foe
In his grim face he shall not dare to look,
He shall fly from the iron bow
But flying shall thereby be overtook:
25. Now, now the dart
Pierceth his heart,
And now the weeping Surg'on pulls it out;
Out of his gall
The sword doth fall.
Terrors and terrors compass him about:
26. His closset seemeth Darknesses black [...]eat,
He melts away with unblown heat;
And they that in his tabernacle are
Shall fare the worse for being there:
27. In the Starrs there shall be writ,
Though not his Fate, his sin that causeth it;
Burst clouds above [...]gainst him shall declame,
Earthquakes bene'th shall thunder out his shame;
Heaven it self shall then tell tales,
And Earths large hollow vales
Shall eccho back the sound they thence receive;
28. To his incoming crop
There shall be put a fatal stop,
His goods their Masters falling house shall leave:
29. This is the prize by the ungodly won
This is the port'on God allows his Rebel son.
XXI.
1. JOb return'd, Friends, give me leave,
2. Lend me both your ears, I pray,
To what in short I have to say,
Some consolat on thence you may receive;
3. Suspend your scoff
Till I break off,
When I have spoken all
Then be most bitterly Satyrical:
4. Do I to mortals make my moans?
Or if I did
What doth forbid
But I may so communicate my groans?
5. Mind me, and be afraid,
And let your hands upon your mouths be laid:
6. When to my thoughts these things appear,
And come into my mind afresh,
Horror seizeth me and fear,
And Tremulative Motions my flesh:
7. Why have the wicked in the earth a place?
Why live they any, why so many years?
Why still are the As'an Peers
Of the accursed race?
8. Their Children they well setled see,
They see the rooting of their Family;
9. They're safe enough from any fright,
Nor doth the rod
Of an avenging God
Upon their habitations light;
10. Their Bull his like doth procreate,
Nor doth his generative pow'r abate,
Their Cow comes swelling from her mate,
And never doth her calf precipitate:
11. Their pretty Babes in swarms go out,
Their hopeful Children dance about;
12. Timbrels they tune, to harps they sing,
And sweetly finger ev'ry string,
The Organ 's drowned with their joyful shout:
13. Long is the life in luxury they spend,
But short the pains that luxury attend;
Deaths feeble dart
Brings but one moments smart,
And there's of them and of their pains an end:
14. Therefore they profanely cry
Fly, Thou Eternal Being, fly,
Fly hence unto thy proper sphere the sky,
We all thy holy ways defy;
15. What's this Almighty that you talk of thus?
What title hath he over us?
If as a Master we shall him obey,
What wages will our Master pay?
If as a Deity we him adore,
What shall we have that we had not before?
16. These wretches what they have they han't,
They'ld use their goods aright but can 't;
Though indeed whether they do or no,
What trade they drive,
What plots contrive
I neither do nor care to know:
17. How oft their lamps extinguished
Choak't by that oil wherewith it should be fed!
How oft they into ruine fall!
On them God no reward bestow;
But sorrows and afflict'ons throws,
For here his Justice is Vindictive all:
18. They 're like the tost and tumbled leaves
Which ev'ry blast of rest bereaves;
They're like the chaff which from the winnow'd corn
By ev'ry puff away is born:
19, 20. Of ev'ry wicked word and deed
Record is in heaven ta'ne
To be in time produc'd again
To th' pain of Speakers and of Actors seed;
The Sinner in 's own life may read
How after him his sons shall speed;
A portion of thoughtfulness and care,
Of trouble, and of Fear,
Of killing grief, and of Despair
Such as Almighty fury doth prepare
He shall be forced to drink up,
And they shall pledge him in the self-same cup:
21. What's house and land to him when he wants brea [...],
To what end last they when he's done,
When once his thread is cut short off by death
Whereof one only half was spun?
22. Then think not e'r to be Gods Counseller,
For where's the man
So much a Politician
That he dare be so, or can?
Since God abases those which lofty are,
And brings ev'n Judges to his bar:
23. One goes off robust'ously,
And doth without anxiety,
Without or care or torment dy,
Falling without a Metaphor asleep;
24. His bones, his breasts
No drought infests,
Blood thorough these disguis'd in white doth creep,
And those well marrow'd their due temper keep:
25. Another dying undergoes
As many pangs, as many woes
As a capac'ous soul can feel,
He dies ere he ha's made one merry meal:
26. Unlike they go to their last bed,
But all alike therein they [...]e;
The worms which do their flesh o'rspread
Find in their food no great variety:
27. I know what dev'lish thoughts within you rise,
I know what lyes
Against me you devise,
And how malic'ously you Syllogise;
28. Your argument is this,
The man whose pallace is we know not where,
It can't be found nor here, nor there,
Such a one a Sinner is,
But—Therefore Somebody has done amiss;
30. That there's a day, a rec [...]ng day
When sinners still consum'd shall not consume;
Now they're secure, but at that day of doom
Then to their trial our come they:
31. There's none dares undertake
A Tyrant sensible to make
How from Right'ousness he swerves,
There's none dares handle him as he deserves;
32. Yet shall he to his dust return
And dwell for ever in his u [...];
33. He shall find sweetness in the [...]lay
With which he must bolow be minded o [...]e,
Thousands o [...]e thither gone before,
And he to Myriads shall lend the way:
34. Therefore (my Friends) your labour spare,
Comforters-would be, pray, forbear;
The he [...]rt, I see, goes not along
With the dissembling tongue,
One thing you utter here, but mean another there
XXII.
1. ELiphaz then to th' company appeal'd;
2. Can Policy, which may our Fortunes build,
To our Creator any profit yield?
3. Suppose thy thoughts thy words, thy ways be right,
How should this cause his delight?
How should the Deity be richer by't?
4. Will he only gently chide
As fearing for to curb thy stubborn pride?
Or is there any need
He should in Court shew thee thy Life-misdeed?
5. Are not thy Vices Cardinal?
Each slip of thine has it not been a fall?
6. Thou took'st Substant'al pawns for trifling ware
Of him who was thy common mothers son;
From him whose rags could scarcely be put on
Thou snatchedst them and made him yet more bare:
7. Thou ne'r did'st fetch
Water for the thirsty wretch,
The hungry soul thou hast not fed;
But when they cry'd
Hast barb'rously deny'd
The one a cup of drink, th'other a crust of bread:
8. But he that had the longest arm,
He that best could Nimrodize,
And higher than his Fellow-mortals rise,
Th' whole town his house, th' whole countrey was his farm:
9. Widows for thee could not enjoy their own;
Orphans little better far'd,
With whom to lose but limbs was to be spar'd;
10. Therefore where-e'r thou go'st there lies a snare,
And wheresoe'r thou stay'st there terrors are;
11. Into a dark abyss thou'rt thrown,
And with a flood of misery o'rflown:
12. Doth not God sit enthron'd on high
In heav'n whose ev'ry star
Is from our earth so far
That Parallaxes can't its heighth descry?
13. He doth indeed; thou wilt reply;
And therefore of what here below is done
I wonder how he should be told,
I wonder how he should my Action
Through Clouds the Quintessence of mists behold:
14. Within those clouds he is confin'd,
And there he has his work assign'd
To be some nobler Orbs Intelligence,
But never or to move or see from-thence:
15. Hast thou observ'd paths of Impiety
Which, if Records are true,
Of old vile Caitiffs used to
16. Whom Time scarce brings unto our memory,
(His sithe was sooner on them than his eye)
Whose palace rotted with the blood they shed
And yielded to that undermining Sea of Red;
17. When God arproacht, they entertain'd him thus,
Be gone (thou useless Deity)
Be more and more Invisible to us,
We slight all thou canst do and thee;
18. Such language unto him they gave
Who made their sides so fat, their backs so brave,
Though what returns they make,
What kind of course they take,
I have no knowledge, neither care to have:
19. The Right'ous God's proceedings see
And triumph at the Sinners misery;
20. Who, while the house and treasure of the just
Was and is as it should be,
That is not turn'd to dust,
This is not impair'd by rust,
Loses by fire what scap't the plund'ring enemy:
21. Keep up the trade 'twixt Heav'n and Earth,
That intercourse increaseth mirth;
And, while thy soul ascending thither
Returneth richly laden hither,
There shall be no spirit'al poverty nor dearth:
22. In ev'ry man, God sets a light,
Soberly use the light he doth impart;
His Law in the two hollows of thy heart
As on two living Tables write:
23. Return to him and thou shalt thrive,
And from thy much improving hive
All rascal drones away shalt drive:
24. The treasures of the Ophir mine
Shall make themselves by moving Westward thine;
Consistent yellow Earth shall fill thy hand
As looser sands o'rspread the strand;
What we call Stony now
Shall quickly be
The Golden Araby
And the possessor there of thou:
25. I, God himself to thee
Shall be wooden walls at Sea,
God shall be Iron works [...]n Land;
And thou with Silver shalt abound,
As if what is or shall be found
Were all at thy command:
26. Thy vessel in Joy's Ocean shall [...],
And thou shalt have a full, full view of Him
27. Thou need [...]st not fear,
He will thee hear;
Find thou a tongue, he 'll find an ear;
And thou thy justly taken oaths shalt keep;
28. Whatsoe'r thou dost intend
Sha'nt fail to have a prosp'rous end;
To follow thee, and light to lend
The very Sun shall from th' Ecliptick leap:
29. Thy scale shall mount as other scales do sink;
God rights him whom men abuse,
God honors him who honor doth refuse,
Thus thou with thy self shalt noise,
Thus thou shalt have suffic'ent cause to think:
30. The harmless he delivers from the grave,
The suff'rings of one Royal Job
[...]ix a great Canton of the tottring globe,
And just now-drowning Ilands save.
XXIII, XXIV.
1, 2. YOu hear, my friends, (quoth Job again)
How I complain,
Yet my complaint is less than my distress,
Much I confess
I do express,
But I much more sustain:
3. Were but the way into his presence known,
Might I but cast my self before his throne;
4. I'd set my Answers in array,
I'd quickly have enough to say,
5. What he could charge me with I'd soon detect,
I'd soon discover what he could object:
6. Would he against me use his Dignity?
And should I from the Bench accused be?
Upon good grounds I make no doubt
He'd rather in my pleading help me out:
7. With him good men in favour are,
And freely with their Judge dispute;
With him I'm certain well to fare,
For I my mighty Tryer should confute:
8. I directly on proceed
But cannot with him meet,
Then again backward I retreat
Yet cannot [...]p [...]ed;
9. My left hand feels his Energy,
But my sight of him doth miss;
On my right hand he surely is,
But so as not to be discern'd by humane eye:
10. Thus being on ev'ry side
He can't but know
Which way and how there-in I go,
Only he'll have me try'd,
That so like Gold I may the brighter show:
11. I walk as uprightly as they must do
Who tread the paths which God doth shew;
12. What he injoyn'd I have accounted Good,
My life's the transcript of his words,
What Nature for our sustenance affords
Could not compare
With what they are,
For I could better want my daily food:
13. But oh that Attribute! it strikes me dead,
He is Immutable, we know,
And being so
Can by no humane force be altered;
14. He will perform his own desire;
His own decree
Concerning me,
He'll actuate, and go yet high'r:
15. 'Tis this my trouble doth create,
This stiles me Job the most unfortunate;
When of his pow'rful pow'r I think,
Those thoughts within me make me sink;
16. His arm lies heavy on my heart
Whose little finger causes endless smart;
He me into this misery hath hurl'd
Who can into far greater throw the World;
Therefore I grieve
For the damage I receive
From my not setting with my setting Sun,
And my not ending ere this fatal night begun.
1. SInce Times may in th' Eternal One be seen,
Those that with that Eternal One have been
How come they of the sight there-of to m [...]ss?
Why see they not in that bright Glass
When our Sin-working days away shall pass,
And those blest days begin we may call His?
2. Some men their ant'ent bounds w'ont keep,
But throw the common stakes away,
Enter their neighbours grounds, and seize his sheep,
Which drest unto their table they convey:
3. Into their field the Orphans Ass is drawn,
In their stall stands the Widows Oxe a pawn:
4. Poor Foot-men leave the road to them that ride,
And seek some hole which will them kindly hide:
5. Just like wild Asses in the woods they stray,
Like them in ev'ry thing but ease,
For they ne'r work, and so do these,
These rise to work, that is, to seek their prey;
And what the barren Desert bears
Must be for food to them and theirs:
6. If towards home their course they bend
They're made to toil with reapers in the fields;
Their Tyrants these their vassals send
To get in for them what the Harvest yields;
7. Whom they find cloath'd they of their cloaths bereave,
And whom they naked find they naked leave,
And will not take 'um in to bed,
But let 'um lie in th' cold uncovered:
8. They make 'um when it rains apace
Those showers with their bodies intercept
Which heav'n upon the mountains would have wept,
And the light shelter of a rock embrace:
9. Orphans off from the dug they rudely shake,
And poor mens whole estates in pledges take;
10. Totter'd they make 'um go and torn,
And rob the hungry of their sheaf of corn:
11. Their bondslaves labour in their Olive-yard,
But with the oil they make sha'nt shine,
They squeeze out tuns of wine
But shall not have one cup for their reward:
12. The hearty sighs of the oppressed ones
Frequently drown
The noise of th' town,
Out through their wounds to heav'n ascend their groans;
And all this while the World God vainly rules,
Proving none of these cruel Politic'ans fools;
13. Politic'ans that can baulk
Their inlightned Conscience.
And with its reproofs dispence,
And will not walk as that would have them walk:
14. He who forgets Thou shalt not kill
Rises with the rising light
Like common water poor mens blood to spill,
A murderer by day, a thief by night:
15, He who forgets Thou shalt not fornicate
Doth for the dusky evening wait,
When ev'ry thing that looks like light is gone;
For now there's hopes of Secrecy,
Thus sweetly to himself sings he,
And puts his periwig and patches on:
16. Night will not wicked men betray,
She rather them occas'on sends
To break up houses which by day
They did survey
To see where the booty lay;
But light and they
Are far enough from being friends:
17. They'd rather have Deaths curtain o'r them drawn
Than be or'taken by the dawn;
If any neighbour chance to spy
That neighbour has a Cockatrices killing eye:
18. They're borne away by the swift tide of Sin,
They're of the cursed Family;
The Vineyard-road ne'r wanteth company,
And you shall never find 'um ride therein:
19. When the weather 's hot and dry
Snow melts away,
No otherwise do they decay
Who have been Patrons of Impiety:
20. Their dam shall say she ne'r the monsters bore;
The worm shall seize on them for meat
And find them sweet,
And they shall be remembred no more;
Trees quickly broken shew their rottenness,
And Vice not holding shall betray it self no less:
21. The Tyrant barren women uses hard,
Nor doth he widows (fruitful once) regard:
22. He catches strong ones in his well wrought snares,
And makes 'um know their lives are none of theirs:
23. Thus is he of Felicity possest,
And there in sinfully dotly rest
Yet God can very well endure
To look upon, and keep the wretch secure:
24. Now he's in place of dignity,
Now he like the Most High doth grow,
But he's degraded by and by
And falls as low;
He goes away as other mortals shall,
And falls as ears of corn when reaped fall:
25. Who can disprove me now in what I say,
And shew in hearing me they have but lost a day.
XXV.
1. THe Prince of Shua made reply,
2. HE lives and reigns above the sky,
Empire sure fixt and shaking Fear stand by;
There War ne'r yielded yet to Peace,
For what begins not cannot cease:
3. Can any Numerat'on tell
The Myr'ads which his colours bear?
Or can Geometry declare
Where his enliv'ning beams ne 'r fell?
4. How then can Man, that heap of dust,
When God makes trial of him scape as just?
At lights tribunal how shall he be freed,
Whose generat'on was so dark a deed?
5. The very Moon, why, in his sight
It is eclipsed ev'ry night;
The Stars as out of credit quite
Seem to borrow no more light;
6. Much less can heated clay his sight endure,
Much less can Earth-worm Man be pure,
Or his dim glow-worm race be counted bright.
26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31.
1. THen up stood Job and answered,
2. Tis a good Lecture you ha' read,
I like your words, but fain would see your deeds;
Who e'r relies on you and speeds?
How have you e'r the helpless sav'd from harm?
How have you strengthened the strengthless arm?
3. How have you ever gi'n advice
To him who could not his adviser fee?
How hav' you patronized Verity,
Biass'd by Consc'ence, not by Avarice?
4. What kind of words do you let fly?
What spirit are you acted by?
5. He whom you lately spoke of, he
Doth influence the deepest Sea,
And in the bottom of it doth create
Things animate and things inanimate:
6. He doth the Center of the world espy;
The place where sinful mortals fry,
Where souls still dying never dye,
He reaches with his All-beholding eye:
7. The Frozen Oc'an he doth glaze,
The snowy mountains he doth raise,
Those unknown reg'ons he stretcheth forth,
Making that place
Which was but space,
And filling it with that thou call'st the North,
He bids the Earth thou tread'st upon
Be its own building and foundation:
8. Those vapours which from hence the Sun exhales
With knobs of clotted water he ingrails;
Let subtle Physiologists declare
How that weak Element the Aire
Bodies more heavy than it self should bear:
9. Bold Artists with their Optick tubes alone
Intend to see their Makers very throne,
But then in steps a ragged cloud or two,
And their short sight through that can nothing view:
10. He gives command
Unto the sand
The overflowing waters to withstand,
As long as an ensuing night
Shall bound the overflowing light:
11. If the stars twinkle, 'tis this causes it,
They're taken with a trembling fit;
Heav'ns Arch, Pylasters, Pedestal,
All totters, shakes, and slides,
All's ready down to fall,
Astonished as often as he chides:
12. When the Sea too high doth flow,
Too mad, too boisterous doth grow,
And of its limits too forgetful seems,
His hand divides it into divers streams,
And so [...]bates the fury of the flood;
Proud Man is far more fur'ous than the Main,
He has his storms too, which are laid again,
While God lets out and cools his heated blood:
13. He by his wisdom did the Heavens frame,
And by his wisdom he adorn'd the same;
He rounded and he gilded every Sphere,
There he fixt Stars, Planets he placed here;
He bid the Snake in such bright curls to flow,
As here with us Meander doth below:
14. But all the Stars which shine in that
Are but dim lamps to see our Maker at;
Some of his works we have look't ore,
But that which is unseen is more;
That must have end which terminates our sight,
But what of him 's unseen is infinite;
That power which makes the thunder rore
We cannot comprehend, and therefore must adore,
1. HEre having stopt a while, As sure, quoth he,
As the Immortal God is God,
Whose dealings with me are so odd
That though I am not void of piety
He by his Act'ons so interprets me;
2. As sure as he has any might
Who is so mighty to oppress,
And my so well known Right [...]ousness
With such a desolat'on to requite;
3. While that my mouth above and lungs beneath
Their correspondence (as they use to do)
Through the Rough Artery renew,
While God is pleas'd in me to breathe;
4. That Aire which I so pure into me draw
Shan't doubly, whilst returned, be defil'd
By immixt Fumes and naughty Phrases too;
My Auditors shan't be beguil'd
By my relating any thing untrue:
5. Far be 't from me I should you justifie
Who to unjustifie me strive;
No, as long as I'm alive
I'll still be I,
On my own merits I will still rely:
6. With my Sincerity I will not part,
But am resolv'd to stick unto 't,
Lest my Consc'ence me confute
And ring Memento's in my beating heart:
7. To my Oppressor I can wish no worse
Than that the Sinners fortunes may be his;
When for my Foe I would invent a Curse,
The cruell'st I can think upon is this,
May he obtain the Swearers heav'n, the Drunkards bliss!
8. For what delight can the dissembler have
In his purchased Estate,
When God calls in the breath he gave,
And which when 'tis call'd in he must repay't?
9. Then, when he s just in sight of's grave,
He ll seek commerce with Heav'n, but shall he ha 't?
10. Is God his Joy, his Sweet, his Dear?
At present he may chance to pray,
But will he so the next, and follow'ng day?
Will he in his Devot'on persevere?
11. That strength which Heaven doth me spare
I'll spend in teaching yo [...],
I will abundantly declare
What God is wont to do;
12. Though having seen 't as well as I
Why don't you leave these follies? why?
13. This port'on God affords the unjust wretch,
And this is all he lets the mighty Hunter catch:
14. The only reason why
His Children multiply
Is 'cause the Sword with them is to be fed;
But they themselves in vain shall cry,
Their crying shall procure but little bread:
15. His for ever-cursed seed
Shall die indeed, be buried indeed;
And when he to his grave is born
His widow shall not mourn,
She to his death shall take so little heed:
16. He hoards up Silver as 'twere dust,
And lays up Cloaths as if as cheap as clay;
17. Silver and Cloaths prepare he may;
But one shall prove the Right'ous peoples prey,
The other be of use unto the Just:
18. Observe the Pallace which he rears,
A Moth 's as good an Architect;
That trifling Booth the weather better bears
Which th' Keeper doth ex tempore erect:
19. The rich man shall into the ground be put,
But not into the Vault off's Family;
His eye shall give one glance to see
If there be hopes of a recovery,
And then ne'r to re-open, close and shut:
20. Terrors about him make a tempest round,
But one shall prove the Right'ous peoples prey,
Wherein he's overwhelm'd, he sinks, he 's drown'd;
See his frail vessel on a Dead Sea ride,
Hurry'd away by th' fury of the tide:
21. While he on his Death-bed lies
Horrible winds arise,
And bear away this loathsom prize;
Massie trees dance about, and point at him
When he begins to die;
Oaks, Elms, and Pines had learnt before to swim,
Now they attempt the air and flie;
As if they did officiously desire
To be fuel for his urn,
But they (alas!) when kindled can expire.
And therefore they are useless to that fire
Where-in such Malefactors burn:
Thus to the shades the Tyrant goes,
A Hurricano fetches him away,
Whence all see, whither no man knows
And his last puff makes a tempestuous day:
22. For God doth lay upon him, and not spare
Till the wretch be quite destroy'd;
Fain he would, but can 't avoid
That mighty Arm which reaches every where:
23. At him shall all 's Spectators clap their hands
Not in kind applause but scoff;
Though now upon the Royal Stage he stands,
Hisses shall quickly send him off.
1. THere 's in the Macro-cosme a Mine
Which with its rivulets of Silver seems
To ape the Micro-cosmes purple streams;
And somewhere Artists Gold refine:
2. These force Iron from the place
Where it ingend' red was,
And others out of melted Oar make Brass:
3. God doth the finite Darkness bound;
He vieweth all things that perfect on have,
Black Rocks, and light-less quarries under ground,
And sees into Deaths shady cave:
4. Those Miners when their Mine is made
And they go down into 't,
Their passage by a flood is staid
Through which for m'ny an age no foot
Had been observ'd to wade;
And which dries by and by away,
And doth them or their work no longer stay:
5. Earths surface doth recruit our Butt'ry-store,
Her bowels send our Chimneys coals;
6. There lurk Saphyres in their holes
There grows the yellow oar:
7. There is a path which scapes the Vulturs eyes,
Which never any fowl yet saw,
9. He but his hand thereto applies,
And up by th' roots the mountain flies:
10. Among the Rocks he makes streams run;
And sees whatever rareness maketh good;
11. He bridles up the swelling flood;
And things that never saw't before he shews the Sun:
12. But where is Wisdom? who can tell?
And where does Understanding dwell?
13. Men know not what its price may be;
'Tent above ground,
'T ent among Mortals to be found;
14. 'Tis not in me,
Cries the vast Sea;
I have it not, answers Profundity:
15. It can't be purchased for Gold,
Talents of Silver will in vain be told;
16. Ophire ingots will not do 't,
Onyx and Saphyre's nothing to 't:
17. Low will be Golds and Chrystals rate,
Chrystal will be but common glass,
Gold but for common dirt will pass;
Nay, you sha'nt ha 't
Though you would give for't houses full of plate:
18. Coral may blush and pearls look pale,
This may be vexed, that asham'd
Because with her not to be nam'd;
Rubies as worthless must to Wisdom vail:
19. Th' Ethiop'an Topaz to her doth not shine,
Nor will she be compar'd to th' Golden mine:
20. Come then, Philosopher, and shew me this,
Whence Wisdom comes, and where it is:
21. Alas! there's none alive can tell;
When she's the thing they'd find
Eagles are blind,
And Vultur's know not how to smell;
22. Death and Destruct'on know all things too well,
Yet even these declare
How ignorant of her they are,
Only her Fame (they say) hath reach't their cell:
23. God fully knows
Whither she goes,
And where she grows;
24. For Earth to him its secrets shows,
And all things under Heav'n themselves to him disclose:
25. He looks about
The World throughout
To poise the rudely rumbling wind,
The Ocean in unseen scales to lay,
And there the Waters weigh,
And see 'um keep the measure he assign'd:
26. And when h' ordain'd how Rain the Earth should wash,
How Thunder crack, how Light'ning flash,
When he did her and all things frame,
27. He looked through and through the same,
He pleas'd to study that which he had made
And gave report there-of, and said,
28. Here-in Ʋnderstanding lies,
To fear thy God is to be wise;
And Practical Theology alone
Is all the Arts and Sciences in one.
1. JOb farther yet replyd,
2. Oh that Times tide
Might backward flow,
And I might no more sorrow know
Than I did twelve and twelvescore moons ago,
When God still interpos'd 'twixt me and woe;
3. When of his servant careful he
Held out of heav'n a candle unto me;
With whose fair beams my face was ray'd,
And with whose aid
I fear'd no shade,
But could through Oceans of Darkness wade;
4. When yet no doun upon my chin did rise,
When Gods more gen'ral Providence
To guard my house did not suffice,
But I felt too his secret Influence;
5. When he brought with him Heav'n into my tent;
When my children round me went,
I being Center, they Circumference;
6. When I had so rich a soil
I trod on butter as I went it round;
And, as if ev'ry day I had been crown'd,
The very rocks were found
To run continually with oil;
7. When I went through the town to th' Judgment-seat,
And rode in state along the street;
8. For then the young that did me meet
Stole privately away;
Up also rose the gray
And would not see me but upon their feet:
9. To talk the Princes were afraid,
Upon their mouths their hands they laid:
10. And men of noble blood
Quite speechless stood,
Their tongue now fail'd
As if within their mouths 't were nail'd:
11. Who e'r my story heard applauded me;
Passengers seeing me cry'd This is he:
13. They whom I sav'd in their extremity
Thank't God first for the life He gave,
And then they thank't him for creating me
That their expiring life to save;
I taught their Widows too their melody:
14. Holiness was my Royal gown,
I put on Justice for a crown:
15. Sight to the sightless I became,
And Loco-mot'on to the lame:
16. I study'd (Father-like) the poor mans cause,
To find what I for him might say;
17. I broke the persecutors cruel jaws,
And snatch't from thence the bleeding prey:
18. Then thus my self I blest,
Here in my nest,
Here I until my glass be done shall rest;
Which glass of mine will not be done
Till Natures stock of sand be through it run:
19. My root, as by the water-side I grew,
I did far and wide diffuse;
The breath of Heav'n condensed into dew
Did it self 'mongst my branches lose:
20. I found my blooming Glory still renew;
My hand was fertile earth to th' growing crooked yew:
21. All men my discourse approv'd,
All heard with silence whatso-e'r I mov'd:
22. My words once spoke were ne'r oppos'd by theirs,
They dropt so sweetly from my mouth into their ears:
23. They long'd for them as earnestly
As the parch't fields do for rain,
And as, when they 're again adry,
They long in harvest time to drink again:
24. If being pleasant for a while
On any I bestow'd a smile,
They to themselves did seem
To be in a sweet sanguine dream,
Not able to believe they did possess
Truly and really such happiness;
My favorable looks were Light,
Whose very dawn none of 'um all would slight:
25. In ev'ry serious affair
I took the chair,
And was Lord Paramount in th' Field;
I was look't upon as born
To help my friends when helpless and forlorn,
And comfort unto my afflicted country yield.
1. BUt now young fellows me their Seno'r mock,
Fellows whose Grandsires were so base
I'd ne'r allow 'um place
Among those currs I keep to guard my flock:
2. For how could such e'r stand a man in stead
Whose strength, though they still breath'd, was dead?
Through fourscore Zod'acks Time had run
Since first he had begun
To scatter Fourscore's whiteness on their head:
3. To strange by-holes and wildnesses they fled,
Famine forced them away
To Deserts unto which no footsteps led
Whose first Inhabitants were they:
4. Mallows by th' bushes they cut up to eat,
Juniper-roots to them were fragrant meat:
5. From their acquaintance they were made to fly,
And were pursued with an Hue and Cry:
6. Into the solitary vale they went
Where Nature found ' [...]m clifts, Art dug 'um caves,
The Rock too an unusull monument
Lent the yet-living wretches graves:
They lay along the hedges side
And there for Alms they cry'd;
The nettles did the couchant vermine hide:
8. The foolish Two's that joyn'd to give 'um birth
Very little understood;
They were meer muck-worms, sons of earth,
Sons of earth! said I? they were not so good:
9. These, these mens sons make me their melody,
When they want one to jeer they think on me:
13. They loath me, and they run from me apace,
And ev'ry tag-rag spitteth in my face:
11. For God the reins out of my hand hath took,
My happiness and pow'r is ceas't,
And now the Multitude that heady beast
The late coercive bridle off hath shook:
12. The 'pprentices soon arm'd
Trip up the heels of Government;
And they new ways invent
How I may be farther harm'd:
13. They spoil the path where I should go,
And to procure my wo
They of Auxiliaries have no need,
They're able of themselues to do the deed:
14. (Surely) Dead Seas break in upon my soul,
Floods of corroding waters on me roul;
15. Fears and Terrors (certainly)
Themselves in humane shapes array,
And upon me as swift as tempests fly;
As with a cloud the tempests roughly play,
And carry the weak Met'or quite away,
E'en so deal these with my tranquillity:
16. My vital moisture owzes through my skin;
My merry days are past, my sad begin:
17. Where marrow ought to flow
There needles seem to grow,
My pointed marrow doth my bones infest;
And through immod'rate heat
My pulse so high doth beat
That all my other members take no rest:
18. 'Tis a disease that's strong enough
To stain the very cloaths I wear;
I'm girt about as 'twere
With long congealed clods of putrid stuff:
19. Into the mire I'm headlong thrown;
Dust and Ashes I am grown:
20. I beg, and beg, but can't be heard;
I stand, and wait
At Heaven-gate,
Yet my petition can't be preferr'd:
21. Thy Be'ng, for ought I understand,
's but one continued Act of Tyranny;
And thy strong, resistless hand
Has set it self to work my misery:
22. What a Guardian have I!
I am some Evil Spirits care
Who doth me bear
I know not where,
Upon and through the Clouds I fly,
And when I'm there
Evaporate into the thinnest aire:
23. The life Thou gavest me I'm sure to lose;
Thou'lt bring me to the Gen'ral Rendevouz:
24. Thou, whose Tutelary pow'r
Doth not extend unto the grave;
Men call upon Thee at their dying-houre.
But at their dying-houre thou wilt not save:
25. Looked not I
Still with a watry eye
On people plung'd into distress?
Did not I pity them no less
Whom I beheld reduc'd to Poverty?
26. Yet when I look to have all things serene
There's no Serenity 'll be seen;
My self with hopes of Day I feed,
But still one Night another doth succeed,
And no Day intervene:
27. My bowels in me tumults raise;
Through heat boil'd water rises, they through strife;
My Fasting and my mourning days
I find the greater part of all my life:
28. The Sun to me might always set,
No need of his bright Rayes to make me cry;
As soon as the Assembly met
Presently up stood I,
And entertain'd them with my Tragedy:
29. Certain strange creatures in the Desert are,
They're plated o re with scales,
They've long and bearded tails,
Their bulk huge massy wings can hardly bear;
You may in them the Image spy
Of Heav'ns degraded Hierarchy;
And I am one of their Fraternity:
There is another winged race
With a thick neck, and broader face,
Which doth all day in Ivy-thickets lie
Asham'd of its deformity,
And then when others cease, begin to fly;
And I am free of this rare Company:
30. Adust matter blacks my skin,
And preternat'ral heat within
Burns up my bones;
31. I to tune my Harp begin,
But make therewith only melod'ous groans,
My whining Organ sends out nought but doleful tones.
1. MY eyes did lately undertake
Nothing through them us passage make
But they would it, if vain, controll;
Why should any Spec'es then
Pleasing to wanton men
Pass through them into my soul?
2. That heart for th'truly lovely One can't seek
In which the pictures hudled lie
Of a jet brow, a di'mond eye,
A ruby lip and cheek;
Into that room
Where candles come
Must not heav'n but dimly shine?
Will not the Carnal Love extinguish the Divine?
3. And then when that doth once expire
Is there not kindled strait a dismal fire?
They that delight in wickedness
What can they gain
But endless pain?
What can they look for but astonishing distress?
4. As if he did not fully know
How I step, and where I go!
5. If with sin
I have struck in,
If I have practis'd foolish feats,
And gadded after cheats,
6. Ballance-trial here I claim
To prove of how full weight I am:
7. If I have gone a [...]ry,
And, when my eye
Hath fondly glanc't,
After it my heart hath danc't,
And if my ravish't hands have lost their purity;
8. Then let my en [...]mies sithe cut what I sow,
And let his sword my childrens children mow:
9. If I have doted on some comely lass,
And watch't when she by the next door did pass;
10. Then let my wise a strumpet be,
And so dishonor both her self and me:
11. Should I have such unclean desires,
Should I nourish such strange fires,
Those fires would quickly find their vents,
Their flame would rise,
And bring me in as guilty at th' Assize.
12. They spoil my Country-rents,
And damnifie my Candle-tenements:
13. If I to do my servants right refus'd,
If I my man because my man abus'd,
Or wrong'd my maid because my maid;
14. When God appears, as he will do ere long,
When he makes Inquisition for wrong,
What's my Apology? what can for me be said?
15. Why should I with my servant disagree?
I have no reason to do so;
He is my fellow quondam-Embrie;
And he that formed him has formed me:
16. If I have gull'd th' afflicted ones,
Lessen'd their goods, increas't their groans;
If I the widows did neglect,
And made them long but all in vain expect;
17. If by my self in state I din'd
While Orphans at my door with hunger pin'd;
If all on my own gut I spent
And to the poor no crums of comfort sent;
18. Then— But the party that had none
A father found in me,
And when the widow made her moan
A husband to her I ne'r scorn'd to be:
19. If surlily I bid poor folks be gone
When they begg'd something to put on;
If these eyes could e'r behold
Sad wretches starve with cold;
20. If I did never care
My sheep to sheare
And so my flocks to cold condemn
To provide warm coats for them;
If they me as their Cloather never blest;
21. If I have basely those assail'd
Whom help in their deceased father fail'd
When I the works and upper ground possest;
22. Then let this arm rot off in torturing pain,
Never to be in wrath lift up again:
23. But this is not my case,
I saw how right'ous Heaven was;
I saw destruct'on against Tyrants dash,
They scap't it not,
The bullet hot,
And I took warning by the flash:
I saw what God did on Oppressors send,
And seeing dared not that way offend:
24. If with the thoughts of gold my soul I fed,
If in my money I e'r gloried,
25. Either as such,
Or as so much,
Or if I rested on full bags my head;
26. If my affections had run
After th' affect'on-worthy Sun,
Whose bury'd beams Earth cannot hold,
They're dug up clods of gold,
Had I made these the object of my love,
Or doted on him culminant above;
Had I been Luna's worshipper,
Or gaz'd too much upon the face in her;
27. Had I been into vanity trapann'd,
Had my mouth idoliz'd my thrifty hand;
28. Had this been so, God might have done with me
As Judges with convicted persons do;
I had deny'd his Deity,
Owning my self for one, and there cannot be two:
29. If in's distress my foe I jeer'd,
If at his fall I domineer'd,
Then— 30. But his ruine was against my will,
I neither did nor wisht him ill;
Such projects I still let alone
Whereby mad Politicians are known
Other mens souls to curse and wound their own:
31. My servants ne'r had cause to cry,
Oh for some vict'als that would satisfie!
Oh for a bit of what our Master eats!
His sav'ry dishes, his substant'al sweets!
We can't live on these empty meats;
32. Strangers that chance't to come that way
Never had cause to say
Oh might we but within doors lie!
Here cold o'recomes our vitals, and we die;
Lodgings to them I did afford,
I was free of bed and board:
33. If I confest not of my own accord,
But dodg'd and cry'd The woman, Lord,
34. If I have been of multitudes afraid,
Or cared what whole families have said,
If seeing them begin
To scoff and grin
I held my tongue and kept with-in;
25. Then indeed— But you shall find
I'm quite of another mind;
'Tis my desire 'twere once agreed
That I might plead,
And that the Judge would take his Judgment-seat,
And I might there my Adversary meet;
I long to see him with his fatal bill,
36. Which, if I might, I would embrace,
And my proud forehead with it grace,
37. Which also I my self would help to fill;
I would new matter of inditement bring,
I'de shew him where aside I stept,
What laws I have, what laws I have not kept,
And I would rev'rence him e'n as I would my King:
38. If what I call my land
Should against me plaintiff stand,
If th' furrows like so many mouths should gape
And accuse their Lord of rape;
39. If I into my barns have brought
The income of that ground I never bought;
If I have seized upon ought
By cutting of the owners throat;
40. Then let me'nstead of wheat wild thistles grind,
And when I seek for barley cockle find.
32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37.
1. THus urged he;
The other three
Hereat grew mute,
And ceased farther to dispute
Seeing their Friend so strangely Resolute;
They would perswade him that he was unjust,
But he'd believe no more than needs he must:
2. Then on Elihu fell,
(Sprung from the loins of Berachel,
As he from Ram, and Ram from Buz)
Foully he fell upon the Prince of Uz
For thinking ill of God, and of himself too well:
3. He fell too on the company,
Because of all that Job relates
None ought denies, none ought evalidates,
Yet they'd deny him his Integrity:
4. Thus long staid he
Till they and Job and all had done
Ere he begun,
Out of respect to Seniority:
5. But when he saw them stand, and stare, and gaze,
When all their Eloquence was spent,
Then began Angers flame within to blaze,
6. Which the bold Buzite thus did vent;
I am brown, and you are gray,
And therefore what I thought I fear'd to say;
7. Old Age (quoth I) and long Experience,
They, they shall talk in Justices defence;
8. But if my self I rightly prize
My soul too has her noble Faculties;
Knowledge descends, and he is wise,
Who utters what is whisper'd from the skies:
9. Wit doth not always upon pow'r attend,
And Age and Judgment are not always Twins,
But sometimes one comes to its end
When the other but begins:
10. This reason to my self I gave
Why I should dare your best attent'on crave,
And shew you what opinions I have:
11. I long your Answers did expect,
I heard and conn'd your Argument;
I waited whilst you o'r the Topicks went
To find out something which you might object:
12. I lookt to have what you should speak
Stownd this conceited Saint,
But found your Answers faint,
And your Convictives very weak:
13. So that you have no cause, you see,
To boast you've done the deed by Sophistry;
But if Job humbled be
And have a sense of his impurity,
'Tis God, not you, makes the discovery:
14. I a'nt against him prejudic'd
For his taunting Ironies,
And therefore will not such retorts devise
As you incensed by his cutting jeers devis'd:
15, 16. They loo'kt on one another o'r and o'r
Surpris'd with strange stupidity,
I look't on them, and they on me,
Standing like stocks, and answering no more:
17. Nay then, thought I, the turn is come to me,
And now to give my verdict I am free:
18. I'm full of sence, full to the brim,
I have a Prompter in my breast
'Tis he my matter doth suggest,
And I, whate'r it is, must follow him:
19. Spirit'ous wine too close in bottles pent
The temper of my soul doth represent,
As that its earthen, this its fleshly pr'son doth rent:
20. I'll out with what I cannot hold,
And for my easement will make bold:
21. I do'nt desire to complement, not I;
Nor shall my tongue relate for true
(As your Sycophants will do)
What in my heart I know to be a lye,
Or any mans small merits magnifie;
22. Should I Panegyricks frame,
And adding fuel to Ambit'ons flame
Words for a better use intended waste,
I should finely earn my Death,
Essent'al Truth would quickly stop my breath,
'Twould be the read'est way for me to speak my last.
1. THerefore, my honest friend,
To my plain discourse attend;
2. Since through my mouth my thoughts have found their vent,
Since my tongue has once begun
Into a long discourse to run,
And answer'ng Natures wise intent
Prove useful Speeche's chiefest Instrument;
3. Into my words I'll put my heart,
And make the honesty thereof appear;
Solid knowledge I'll impart,
And in imparting it I will be clear:
4. Gods Sp'rit did me my being give;
He breathed life into me, and I live:
5. If thou art able to dispute,
And what I assert gainsay,
Put thy self into a way,
Hold up thy face, and boldly do 't:
6. You see you have your own desire;
It pleaseth the Great Deity
By proxy to contest with thee,
And here you are to answer me
Made like your self out of consistent mire:
7. I have no dreadful glory thee to fright,
I cannot crush thee by my might;
I have no Golden-rayed head,
I have no hand of Lead:
8. Come, come, I have heard your Cant,
I've heard you to this purpose rant;
9. I have done nought amiss,
Look m' o'r and o'r, you'll find in me no spot;
The Child unborn less harmless is,
And for Iniquity, I know it not;
10. Where I ne'r gave offence, offence he takes,
And needs will make me his Antagonist;
11. My feet fast in the Stocks he makes;
And notes where I've done right, where I have mist:
12. Sir, under favor, 'tis a lye,
And what I say I'll justifie,
That God is far superior to thee;
13. What ails thee to keep such a doe?
He will no Reason of 's proceedings shew,
But ever was in them and ever will be Free:
14. God speaks, and speaks, and speaks again,
But of his speaking there's no notice ta'ne;
Men though awake asleep they seem;
15. And therefore in some vision or dream
He makes 'um make as 'twere when they should sleep;
Then he at their bed-side appears,
16. And lets in his Instruct'on through their ears,
Which they when once 'tis in shall ever keep:
17. And wherefore, think you, does he thus?
'Tis to teach frail man to shun
That into which he else would run,
And keep him from to be Ambitious;
18. So that his soul, as things are brought about,
Shall not down to the hid'ous vault,
Though the proud Faulch'on did the same assault
Just ready to have let it out:
19. Yet by and by, poor man! he bed-rid lies;
Now, oh my back! now, oh my hip! he cries.
20. He can't believe his bread is sweet,
He finds no daintiness in dainty meat:
21. What he had of flesh is gone,
That cannot be discern'd as it has been;
And so his till-now-latent bones are seen
And represent him a meer Sceleton:
22. His soul draws nigh
To the devouring grave,
And he a prey doth lie
To those who no mans life will save:
23. Then if there come a Malachy,
An Orthodox Divine,
One worth nine hundred ninety nine;
For while so many uselesly stand by,
And to the sad dark wretch no light supply,
This one doth gloriously shine,
And shews him how himself to justifie;
24. And so th' Eternal Word is heard to say,
Throw not his soul into the pit,
Stay, recall, deliver it,
My self will to my self its ransom pay:
25. His wither'd flesh
Shall be as fresh
As when he was but five moneths old,
Infancy's heat shall drive out Ages cold:
26. He of his pardon shall not miss,
But when he doth for mercy cry
Find favour in his Judges eye;
God shall display himself to him in bliss,
And give the just man what is his:
27. God often doth the World survey;
And, if there's any found therein to say
Ah! guilty before heaven here I stand,
And whatsoever went
For a thing indifferent
I made it bad by taking it in hand;
What profit's in my Act'ons? what great gain?
Whilst the poor Penitent doth thus complain,
Heav'ns hollow Arch re-eccho's back Great Gain:
28. He once was to have been
A brand where damned spirits are
Eternal Love doth change the scene,
And shews him heav'n and makes him there a star:
29. This course with man God often takes,
And a Prince of a pris'ner makes,
30. Bringing him from the dung'on to the Throne,
From Darkness to Lights Beatifick Vision:
31. Mind me (my Friend) in what I say,
Bridle your tongue, and give me way;
32. If thou hast an Apology
Thou may'st there on dilate,
I'm on thy side, and would thee justifie;
33. If thou hast not, attend, and cease to prate;
I have some knowledge to communicate.
1. FƲrther he urg'd, and pray (quoth he) attend,
You who for Virtuoso's go,
An ear unto me lend,
You who would be thought to know;
3. The taste is judge of grosser meat,
The ear is judge of what the soul must eat:
4. Integrity is variously defin'd,
Let us consider ev'ry kind
Which therof's commonly assign'd,
And what is found to be the best
Let's hold to that, and flight the rest;
Let us among our selves agree
What that which we will own for Good shallbe:
5. Our friend here, Job is ma [...] [...]er [...],
And needs will his own Right'ousness assert;
God (cries he) ha's done me wrong;
6. I will no [...] wrong my self too by a lye,
By fearing my own deeds to justifie;
I ne'r deserved this, not I,
Yet I'm undone without recovery,
This is the impious burden of his imp'ous song:
7. Did e'r the Word the like to Job produce?
When drunk to, 'tis his use
Proudly to pledge his friends with an abuse:
8, 9. He useth most to them that are profane,
He is their fellow traveller;
He's not ashamed to aver
That to converse with Heaven's all in vain:
10. Now you (whom Knowledges whole self doth fill)
Please you, while I discourse, be still;
Far be it from Jehovah to do ill,
And act by a corrupted Will:
11. When he mens Act'ons shall requite,
Their work shall be the measure of their pay,
They shall find sev'ral Inns at night
According as they ride a sev'ral way:
12. God will not Providence commit,
Nor other sentence give than what is fit:
13. Who put the World to him to rule, rehearse;
Who chose him Monarch of the Universe?
14. If h' have a mind no more to lend,
If he'll no longer trust,
But for the life and breath we borrow send,
15. All of us crumble into dust:
16. As you have Reason, my discourse endure;
17. Shall he be set distemper'd States to cure
Who himself a Leper is,
And hates what's not amiss?
Wilt thou esteem even Crown-gold impure?
18. Is't fit to bring a Monarch to the bar?
Is it not Sacred Majesty,
And (as such) from reck'nings free?
Must not only Heaven o'rsee
Those Kings which only Heavens Stewards are?
When Clouds in th' lower Reg'on rise,
Trouble our State, or cast its skies,
Charge we that darkness on our Polar Star?
Is 't fit to go to Men of high Degree,
And tell one to his face
Thou wantest grace,
And cry t' another There's no Light in thee?
19. Much less may you him condemn
In whole account
The Spade 's as good as th' Dradem,
And Princes but to Pe [...]sants do amount,
For he alike created these and them:
20. They shall receive their doom
Sooner than Sol shoots out a ray;
When they to sleep assay
Terrors shall frighten sleep away;
The Commons shall consume,
The Grandees shall be slain, and none shall know by whom:
21. There's no mot'on cheats his eye,
He doth the walks of Mankind mark,
22. Prevaricators he 'll descrie
As in the shade by night they lie,
Be that shade ne'r so thick, be that night ne'r so dark:
23. And when he has them and their act'ons seen,
Accordingly with them he'll deal;
How heinous their offence hath been
They in their punishment shall feel,
And sha'nt to any other Judge appeal:
24. He'll take Commanders, be they ne'r so high,
And th' one against the other throw
Till they all into shivers fly,
And upon others what they had bestow;
25. Well does he know
They are not right,
And therefore turns 'um off by night
Off they are turned and away they go:
26 They like condemned malefactors dy
Publick Examples as it were,
Acting their own Tragedy
Upon the Worlds wide Amphi-theatre:
27. For they from him Apostatiz'd,
And all his holy ways despis'd:
28. They did their fellows (too) too much despise,
Men of their make, though not so richly lin'd;
Who b'ng opprest send up to heav'n their cryes,
Up get those cryes to heav'n, and there admittance find:
29. When he Wars tumults doth asswage,
Who can alarum and disturb the town?
And when he flings away in rage
Who can endure his frown?
Who dares with an incensed God ingage,
When he a person fills with discontent,
Or when he breeds a Nat'ons dissettlement?
30. For both oftentimes doth he,
Lest some dissembling Generall
By vows he makes, by tears which he lets fall
Should cheat the Many into slavery,
Grasp Empire, make himself their Lord
By Inspirat'on and a longer Sword:
31. You should fall down at your Creators feet,
And there adore, and thus him greet,
What thou inflictedst (Lord) I kindly bore,
For I had sinn'd, but I will sin no more;
32. Teach me what I do not know,
And, if I've done amiss before,
Now for the future I will not do so:
33. Is't reasonable your Will the World should sway?
Or give you way,
Or cry you Nay,
He, while I
Only stand by,
As men have wrought will them their wages pay;
Now out with what you have to signifie:
34. And let men that are wise
With me about these things advise;
And in the interim my words obey:
35. For, Job's discourse! it is not fit,
His tongue so runs before his wit;
26. Yet, now I think on't, what he has to say,
Let him be heard it out to day;
Lest if we stop abruptly here,
All Self-justiciaries domineer;
37. Convince him now, it is high time,
Since he so stiffly justifies his crime;
Long of a silly Argument
He triumphs thus
O'r baffled us,
And grows t'wards his Creator more than Impudent.
1. ELihu further goes, and pleads,
2. Are you in earnest then?
Must the Almighty yield to men?
Think'st thou thy justice his exceeds?
3. For so thy words seem to import;
If I leave sin,
What do I win?
If sin I choose,
What do I lose?
Integrity! I'm ne'r the better for 't;
What I in other men reward,
That he in me doth not at all regard:
4. I'll undertake the point with you
And your unbelieving crue;
5. The skies and starry heavens see,
The clouds survey
Lower than they,
Yet higher far than thee;
6. Who framed these, must certainly be such
As thy impiety can never touch;
Do thou amiss,
It is no loss of his;
Do what is right,
He gains not by 't;
He's unconcern'd in what thou dost;
8. Although some men get by thy being just,
Others be holocausted to thy Lust:
9. Lust, said I? Lusts I should have s [...]id,
Tyrannique man sends out
Armies thereof the World throughout,
And by their aid
People not born his slaves are made;
They suffer so much harm,
The strokes of such a weighty arm,
That you might well esteem them stone,
Rather than made of flesh and bone,
Were 't not that they make their moan
In a kind of humane tone,
For bitterly they sigh and groan;
10. But not a man for God enquires
Who fills with joy the vessels that he made,
Who when his darlings down to sleep are laid
Turns their bed-chambers into quires;
Who in the silent night makes us to sing;
11. Who gives us such a noble soul,
That on our Judgments feet, and Fancy 's wing
W' outrun the swiftest beast, w' outfly the swiftest fowl.
12. Ah me! how the inslaved wretches lie?
Who have this comfort in their misery,
It is permitted them to call and cry,
But they can't reach the proud Oppressor's ear;
For who so deaf as they that will not hear?
13. Well, let worldly Vanity
In its own thoughts grow ne'r so high,
It shall not reach th' Almighty's eye;
No notice shall thereof by him be ta'ne,
No, it shall be it self, it shall be vain:
14. Thy deeds, thou cry'st,
How just soever they have been,
Yet are they not so much as seen;
Nay, but they are, they are, thou ly'st;
He doth behold, he doth approve be sure,
And thou, were unbelief away,
Did not that thy reas'nings sway,
Might'st on that approbation rest secure:
15. It is thy horrid unbelief
Which unto thee unknown doth cause thy grief;
16. So that of this dispute there is no need,
Thy foolish lips are mov'd indeed,
But what 'tis from them doth proceed
Thou seemest to take little heed;
Th' hast arguments enough,
But what they prove, or how,
We neither can perceive, nor knowest thou.
1. THen having made a little pause,
2. Hear me (quoth he) another clause,
Pardon my being so prolix,
And I will on some certain med'um fix
Which I shall use in my great Masters cause;
3. I'le pierce the bowels of the Earth,
Where richest Min'rals have their birth;
Down to the bottom of the Sea I'll go,
Where prec'ous shells so thick do grow;
From those remotest parts from thence
Some fetch pearls, and some fetch gold,
I'll reach an' Argument from thence,
And pleading for my Maker will be bold:
4. Mark me, for of the truth I shall not miss,
Wisdom it self my prompter is:
5. How large and absolute is God's command!
Yet is it not attended with disdain;
Notice by him of ev'ry one is ta ne,
Who ha's both a strong head and hand:
6. He'll have no Malefactors death deferr'd;
He'll have all honest men be fully heard:
7. The righteous by him are own'd, and own'd,
They are the Nobles, they're the onely Peers,
So setled in the State they have no fears
Of being e'r dethron'd:
8. But then again when once his favor fails,
And they prove only fit to people Jails,
When they are laid in hold
Shackled with pains
As common pris'ners are with chains,
9. Then of their former deeds they're told,
And shewn where-in they've been too free,
Where-in they've taken too much liberty:
10. Their lately Adder-ear
Quickly wide open doth appear
Unto Afflict'ons charm,
By which when once admonish'd they begin
To leave their heav'n-provoking sin,
And cease to do their neighbours harm;
11. If they obey
And mind what Miseries sharp voice doth say,
Obed'ence sure Felicity shall bring;
Their days shall all
Be Festival,
And all the Quarters of their year be Spring;
12. If otherwise, unhappy they!
The Sword shall send 'um e'n like brutes away:
13. But they that so demurely act their part
As to be rotten in their heart,
And yet in appearance sound,
Do but for themselves invent
New Degrees of punishment
While far enough from to Relent
Though in Adversities strong fetters bound:
14. In their Prime they're snatcht away;
As the unclean die, so die they:
15. He saves the poor in their distress;
'Tis in designe he doth oppress,
That so his Counsel they may heed
And follow'ng it be freed,
16. He has help't thousands at their need,
And would, be sure, have helped thee no less;
He would have brought thee out of all thy straits,
Thy Sitnah Rehcboth had been,
Thy Zoar a whole Palestine,
And he that at thy table waits
Nothing but marrow should have served in:
17. But now what plagues to them are due
Which from Right'ousness do swerve,
All those your Actions deserve,
And Justice now doth justly seise on you:
18. He hath an Attribute
Which we his Justice call,
'Twill be your wisdom to look to't
Lest under that you fall,
For then whole worlds paid down upon the nail
To ransom your lost soul cannot prevail;
19. He will with scorn behold
Thy bags of Gold,
And slight thy sword, and shield, and coat of mail:
21. Such imp'ous thoughts detest
Which to thy breast
Some evil sp'rits suggest
Making thee wish rather out-right to dye
Than live and suffer farther misery:
22. Be 't known unt' ye
Th' Almighty one alone is he
Who places men in high degree,
And he best teaches peasants Emperors to be:
23. Who is't can order him what way to take?
Or say, he doth the Righteous path forsake?
24. Forget not, Sir, to have a rev'rend thought
Of him who this rare frame hath wrought;
25. This Frame which men are born to look upon,
And which they see
Though ne'r so far they be,
For still they're near to some part of th'Creation:
26. He's so transcendentally great
That Metaphysick's but a cheat,
Which doth so vainly of his Essence treat;
And such is his Eternity,
That we no shore can ever see
'Twixt which the Ocean thereof should beat:
27. Humid Molecula's which we call Rain
Upon the parched Earth he pour's;
Vapors drawn up drop down again,
And turn to showr's;
28. Show'rs, which down from th' hollow heaven drill
As from the head of some vast Still,
And mans beloved Earth with moisture fill:
29. I wonder who'll declare
Whence 'tis the clouds so great a breadth should bear,
Whence 'tis they make such noises in the aire:
31. These testifie how Just is He,
How well he deals with him, and thee, and me;
These help the Earth to yield us sustenance:
32. These he is us'd to interpose 'twixt us
And yonder Sun the source of Light,
So that the Sun's no longer bright
By these Opacities eclipsed thus:
33. As with a less or greater noise they move,
The tempest doth or less or greater prove;
The Signe doth with the Signify'd agree;
Quick-sighted beasts th'ascending Vapor see
And thence fore-tell what kind of show'r 'tis like to be.
1. HEreat my heart within me strangely stirr'd;
With trembling struck
A leap it took
Down from the Second Ventr'cle to the Third:
2. Hark, hark,
The Thund'rer speaks;
Mark, how he rattles, mark;
When his mouth opens, what a noise he makes!
3. A noise, which under the whole heav'n he sends;
His Light'ning sees where Nature ends:
4. That goes before, his Thunder follows;
His Excellency loudly hollows;
Then weep the clouds and hardly cease,
When once he has discharg'd the warning piece:
5. You hear the Thunders rumbling noise,
That Thunder's but his ordinary voice;
His Atchievements are so great,
Our Fancy to them is not adequate:
6. Sometimes he gives command unto the Snow,
Go, thou harmless Met'or, go,
Take up thy quarters now below;
Thy myr'ads of pure flakes display
Which rather Whitenesses appear than White,
Those Ends of Light,
Those minutes of a super-added day;
Particles of that wooll whose greater flocks
Silver the Summer-Equinox;
There six stupendous branches show
Which in such equal Length and Number grow,
That they who into Natures works inquire
Their var'ous figure may admire,
And wonder more at me who made them so
Sometimes again
He gives command unto the Rain,
Go Drops, ye gentle ones and small,
On such and such sown Acres fall
And with your moisture feed
The usefully corrupting seed,
And help it to grow tall;
Sometimes he gives the mighty Show'rs a call,
Go Drops of great bulk and strength,
Dark such a peoples aire, and then at length
Beat down their standing Corn and spoil it all:
7. When Artists go to work, he makes 'um stay,
At his command
Numness attacques their active hand;
That so while they
Keeping a ted'ous Holy-day
Of their Act'ons cannot vaunt,
His Actions alone may be predominant:
8. He sends Brute-animals home to their cell,
Thither they go, and there they idly dwell:
10. He breaths forth frost,
And then the Waters former breadth is lost:
11. He uses swelling Clouds to drain
By squeezing out their rain;
Smooth-painted ones he scatters all about,
And so the cur'ous Bow goes out:
12. Round go they at his decree,
And so fulfill
Th' Eternal will,
And order things as he would have 'um be:
13. As 't pleases him about they 're hurl'd,
Either his people to annoy
Or to increase their joy,
Or else in common Love to all the world:
14. You, Job, attend; sit to 't, and ruminate
Upon Gods wondrous works which I relate:
15. Canst thou the time designe
When at his beck the Clouds in order join,
And some above their fellows shine?
16. Come, little-knowing Ʋzzite, come,
Confess thy Ignorance,
Thou know'st not how the Clouds above thee dance
In such an aequilibrium;
Thou canst not to a sight attain
Of the Atchievements of the Deity,
Which doth so all things know, and all things see,
That nothing doth for thee to know, or see remain:
17. Thou canst not tell
How borrow'd wooll should warm thy back so well;
Thou canst not find
How the rude Southern wind
Should make the te [...]ming Earth to swell:
18. Prithee wer't thou the mighty Workman's mate
When he the heav'n did excavate,
That immense, admirable Glass
So rarely cast,
Fixed so fast,
That it for polish't Steel may rather pass:
19. Pray will you help us make our Speech,
And how we must pronounce it teach;
We know not how our words to place,
Darkness within hides all their outward grace:
20. I cannot speak, and therefore will be mute;
No Messenger to heav'n shall journies make,
And there relate I my Defence will make;
Seeing to talk were a devouring Gulf to shoot:
21. Look but on yonder Cloud,
Which now Laveers against the Sun;
See how the Rayes into it run,
How fast they run, how thick they crowd,
Themselves there-in to shrowd:
When Arts here-after shall have crost the Sea,
And Greece in Wisdom shall instructed be,
A Superstit'ous Socrates
Consid'ring these
May worship 'um in stead of Goddesses;
But vulgar people do not care
To mark their mot'ons through the aire
Their var'ous postures in that Element;
How strangely into curls they flow,
How through them the wind doth blow,
Carrying off with it then Excrement:
22. Out of the North
God sendeth forth
A sure though unseen Scavenger,
Who shall take order that the Air be clear,
Yet let the Aire ne'r so serene appear,
He himself's far more serene,
And with such Majesty is seen,
As m [...]y at once raise our Delight and Fear:
23. Let Staffs, and Bows, and Astro-labes be try'd;
Let the Three-corner'd brass be rectify'd;
Let streaks of Light be spun into a thred;
Reason into a bead be thickened;
Ninety Infinities drawn on the Limb;
Still all's too short to take the heighth of him:
Our feeble sight
Can't view his Light,
Nor can his Altitude
By any Art of Man be shew'd:
He is not Mighty, he is Might,
He is not Righteous, but Right'ousness;
So strong as on Great Sinners to do right,
So Just as not the Small ones to oppress:
24. To such, to such a Deity
Each honest soul due homage trembling payes;
He slights the wombs of Policy
And temples crown'd with well-deserved Bayes.
38, 39, 40, 41.
1. THus he; and then a sudden storm arose,
And out of th' whirlwind God to Job reply'd,
2. What is the mans designe,
The thing he clearly should define
In obscure not'ons thus to hide?
Why does the fool still talk more than he knows?
3. Come, for a dispute prepare,
Shew how Rat'onal you are,
And answer to the Quest'on I propose:
4. Where were't Atome-thou? rehearse;
What pore contained thee,
When I gave order to a point to be
The Basis of the Universe?
I wisdom had, and shew'd the same
In forming this so glor'ous frame,
Thou by telling how shew thine;
5. Who was 't did thus indeed [...]?
What Mason used plummet here or line?
6. What's this huge building founded on?
Who was it laid the corner-stone?
If thou art able to divine, divine:
7. Who was it first bade things to be,
When the Spheres had their Harmony,
And many Morning-stars in consort joyn'd,
When th'Heav'nly-high-born Family
Into one shout its var'ous joys combin'd?
8. Pray satisfie me who was he
Who first of all the uncheck't Sea
Up in its caverns pent?
Who was 't an Order sent
Unto the waves only thus far to come,
When they sought for themselves a vent
And brake from their old home
As if some new-made warry Element
Issu'd out of Natures womb?
9. I did an Atmosphere provide
To cloath as 'twere my fluid creature round,
Which when the night the same doth hide
Now in its darker colour'd swadling bands is bound;
10. I dug the waters room to tumble in;
Their title to the space they hold
Being as strong as old
By my decrees and with them did begin;
I plac't smooth sands, and craggy shores
To be in stead of bars and doors;
11. I gave command,
Sea, here arrive, and here arrived stand,
Thy tenth and proudest wave
Shall no farther passage have,
I'll let it dash against, but not o'r flow this strand
12. Hast thou since thy being born
Unto the dawning Morn
Its way to the Horizon shew'd?
Hast thou injoyn'd the Sun
His diurnal race to run,
And rise at such or such an Amplitude?
13. His light scarce ends where Nature ends,
And its dominion o'r the World extends;
It makes the sky so clear,
Dark works soon with their Authors disappear:
14. What the seal is to the clay
To the Creat'on is the Day,
When that about the aire doth flow
The sev'ral parts their figures show,
The Orbs their blue, the Fields their green display:
15. Those wretches with whose will the Sun ne'r shone
They'd have no light, they shall have none;
Their day shall yield to the incroaching shade,
And their puissant arm drop from their shoulder-blade:
16. Hast thou ever been
Where th' Ocean doth in bubbles rise?
Hast thou so much salt-water seen
That thy discoveries.
To draw a perfect Chart suffice?
17. Did ever Fate
Shew thee her iron grate?
Or didst thou of that place a view e'r take
Through which she doth such frequent sallies make?
18. Did e'r thy Mathematicks try
How far Nature walks in dry?
If thou hast found the Earths extent,
Come, publish thy Experiment;
If thou dost want a pupil, here am I:
19, 20. Direct me where the Day doth dwell,
And shew me whereabouts is Nights dark cell;
Alas! thou dost not know, thou canst not tell;
Hast thou by thee
A draught of its Ichnography?
Hast thou an Itinerary
Where-in a passenger may read
What paths, what turnings thereunto do lead?
21. Know'st thou where Light and its Privat'on be
As one that did them in their cradles see,
And comest something near Eternity?
22. Didst e'r survey my treasuries of Snow,
Or the Exchequer where my Hail doth grow?
23. These I reserve against those bloody days
When Wars harsh notes drown Peace's gentler sways,
When private fact'ons publick tumults raise,
When showers of darts eclipse those Midday-rays
Which glitt'ring Armour help't to blaze,
When here the Sword, and there the Engine slays,
And then this my Artillery from Heaven plays;
24. How parts the old night from the infant day?
How comes the dawning light to climb the skies?
How is't it finds so readily its way
While the East-wind doth Cosmically rise?
25. Who taught the water into drops to grow,
And the fields so neatly wash?
Who added Mot'on to that flash
Which still accompanies the thund'ring blow;
26. That so the heav'n may send down show'rs
Upon that wild and barren ground
Where no inhabitant is found
And whereupon no mortal water poures;
27. That so the thirsty earth may drink,
And th' drops which down into her sink
May be again returned herbs and flow'rs?
28. Whom doth the rain its Father call?
From whose loins is't the Dew doth fall?
29. In whose close matrix did the Ice e'r grow?
To whom doth Frost its generation owe?
30. The Sea consistent now, fluid before,
How cur'ously it is enamell'd o're!
31. Look where the Sev'n bright Sisters are
From your Aldebaran not far;
Can you any hindrance bring
Unto their shine
As that they sha'nt make fine
Their Lady Spring,
Nor teach the airy Choristers to sing?
Yonder's Orion glitters in the sky,
His Girdle's hung with Frost, and Snow, and Hail;
Canst thou that Girdle e'r unty
That these may all asunder fly,
And so the Winter they compose may fail?
32. Have you such pow'r or th'Southern hemisphear
As to make Mazzaroth appear,
And usher in the hot part of the year?
Do you remember him to take his turn,
And with the burning Sun to burn?
Ev'ry one knows the rich-imbossed Wain,
Hard by Arcturus may be seen as plain
Betwixt the logs of the renowned Swain;
Thy sons were all at once extinct,
His sons yet re'lly never winkt;
Canst thou sons and fire so drive
That while they hasten to look on
Summer sooner may be gone,
And its successor Harvest sooner thrive?
33. Hast thou the true, true Systeme of the Wo [...]d?
Know'st thou how the Planets dance,
Now retreat and then advance,
Hither and thither but in method hurl'd?
Canst solve their mot'ons and not fly to Chance?
Do'st thou dispence
To Intersect'on-lines,
To Horoscopes and Signes,
To Opposit'ons, Quartiles, Trines,
Their less or gre [...]ter Influence?
34. Will the Clouds with thy breath disso [...]ve?
Will they fall
When thou do it c [...]ll,
And in a sudden deluge thee involve?
35. Will Light'ning at thy beck appear,
And to thy Summons answer Here?
36. Who gave the soul its Faculties?
Who made the He [...]rt
A Bank of Art?
Who bade that lump of flesh be wise?
37, 38. Wheres's he that can such skill attain
As that he can the clouds enumerate?
When showers the looser dust coagulate
And with their moist that's soft abate,
Where's he that can heav'ns sluces shut again
Ere those vast bottles let fall all their rain?
39. Suppose the Lions meat grow scant,
Wilt thou go catch his prey he can't o'retake?
Suppose his cubs their us'al morsels want,
Wilt thou for them provis'on make?
40. Close they lie within their den,
But when the prey is once in ken
They that are Couchant now, will soon be Rampant then:
41. Who is it feeds the Raven? who:
His young ones when they're hungry cry;
But, satisfie me, why
Unto the Deity;
Up and down for food they fly,
Ev'ry hole and corner try
Something that's eatable to spy,
But what's that Instinct moves 'um so to do?
1. ARe you the cunning man that knows
When the Wild-goats young will fall,
Whilst the rock we barren call
In a sense now fruitful grows,
Since the wild brood to it its as wild cradle owes?
Or are you he whose Calculat'on finds
When th' infant-calves must drop down from the hinds?
2. Can you true reck'ning keep
From the first time the Sal'ent point doth leap
Till the eyes, the keel, the brain
And ev'ry part perfect'on gain,
And out into this light the fetus creep,
And tell the dams what hour shall end their pain?
3. They when their time approacheth bend
And forth at once their burdens and their sorrows send,
4. Their young-ones have not long been born,
But quickly left forlorn
Away they hie
And feed upon loose ears of corn
Which scatter'd o'r the country lie;
Healthy, comely, strong they are,
And thrive on their ex-temp're fare;
The old-one when she did them bear
She had her pangs, her grief, her care,
But now ne r to return again they're fled
And trouble her no more in being bred:
5. See the wild Asses liberty,
Who gave it him but I?
I sent him out to feed, and he is gone,
Gone, and ha's no shackles on:
6. There where thy scent can nothing find,
There where thy skill can nothing carve,
Where there is nought to reap, and nought to grind,
But thou must pine away and starve,
Where thou canst never keep thy self alive
There doth this creature feed, and live, and thrive:
There where nought has e'r been sown,
And less than nought has grown,
In those vast wildnesses where light scarce shone,
There lives this braying Monk alone
Who and his fellows me for their Great Founder owne:
7. Far from the City and its dust he flies,
No Lorldly drivers o'r him Tyrannize;
8. The mountain's his, he traverseth the ground,
Food for the Ranger doth therein abound;
No herb therein doth rise,
But he the same espies,
No corner but into 't he pries,
No walks escape his feet, no herbs his eyes:
9. Will the brave Unicorn
Unto thy crib be sworn?
Won't he thee and thy service scorn?
10. Will he be ty'd
Thy seed in softer earth to hide?
Will he e'r endure to hale
Thy massy harrow o'r the plowed vale?
11. Thou wilt not think him fit for all his strength
Either to sow or re [...]p one length;
12. Nor trust him to bring home thy corn
And therewith thy c [...]p [...]c'ous barn adorn:
13. Spre [...]d'st thou those wings upon the Peacocks b [...]ck?
Or didst thou the Ostrich fletch?
14. That simple wretch
Which doth so due discret'on lack
She lays her eggs in the hot sand to warm,
15. Forgetting that they're there expos'd to harm,
Which there the wild beasts feet may crush, their teeth may crack;
16. Within her Storgick mot'ons no more stir
Than if the steel she's thought to eat
Did turn indeed to meat,
Which meat must turn at last to her;
Her bowels yearn as little tw'ards her young
As if from thence they had not sprung;
Her Labour-p in
Is all in vain,
So little care of what she bears is t'ane;
16. Since God to her doth not impart
An understanding heart,
Nor foldeth cur'ously enough her brain;
18. But then from hence
She has some recompence,
In that her streng [...]h so gre [...]t appears,
That when the Warr'or mounts his Palfrey's back
She nothing of his height doth lack
When aloft herself she rears;
Let horse and man
Do what they can
She none of these your Artific'al Centaures fears:
19. Mad'st thou the Horse unc [...]p ble of ch [...]ck?
Did'st thou h [...]ng thunderbol [...]s about his [...]eck?
20. Will he shun like a Grashopper thy sight?
Canst thou those terror breathing nostrils fright?
21. His play-fellow luxur'ant Earth he stri [...]es,
And tumbles in the vallies too and fro
Seeming his own strength to know,
And then his next sport is to charge the Pikes:
22. No otherwise doth he know [...]ear
Than we those things we mean to jeer;
Swords cannot stop him in his full career:
23. In vain the quiver rattles in the field,
In vain against him shine the Spear and Shield,
These may o'recome his eye, ne'r make his heart to yield:
24. Such is his fierceness, such his rage,
As if in jest his hunger to asswage
He'd make but just one morsel of the Earth;
The Trumpets mart'al threat'ning voice
To him 's no mart'al threat'ning noise,
It seems too musical, too full of mirth;
25. He answers the Tantara ra
With a re-ecchoing Ha, ha;
And noses Skirmishes afar;
When the Commanders hollow,
And the commanded Leg'ons follow,
He understands the language of the Men of War:
26. Do'st thou the Hawk inspire
And teach her her swift flight to take,
To spread her wings and Southward make
Toward the Middle Zone's refreshing fire?
27. Doth th' Eagle mount
On thy account,
Mount so high
As if she 'd fly
To that part of the Starry sky
Where we her glitt'ring mate descry,
And there with him make a new Gemini?
Dost thou direct her on the cliffs to lie
And plant her feather'd nursery
There whither thou canst reach neither with hand nor eye?
28. The rock so steep
That thither no Terrestr'als creep,
This is her house, her cit [...]del,
Here the Royal fowl doth dwell
Here she her Court doth keep;
29. No sooner has any poor bird
In the Aires vast oc'an stirr'd,
But hence she kenns it with her piercing eyes,
Hence she sets out and makes it lawful prize;
30. Then home again she goes
And there her young ones shows
First to dare dip their bill
In the blood which she doth spill,
Then sip, then sup, then drink thereof their fill;
A sure retainer unto those
Who make 't their trade and bus'ness to be kill'd and kill.
1. FƲrther he pleas'd to go, and said;
2. Suppose an Earthen vessel not afraid
To strive with him who the frail thing hath made,
Suppose that man with God should take the list
Am I so ignorant, alas!
That I must be informed of the case
By my contentious Antagonists?
Answer, who e'r thou art, audacious Soul,
That darest thy Creator thus controll:
3. The man of Pat'ence made reply,
4. I answer thee!
How can that be?
My Oratory is as bad as I;
As I have liv'd, just so I speak,
And therefore will not silence break,
But rather, having nought to say,
Knowing nor Elocutions inte [...]t,
Nor what 's by comely Gestures meant,
One of my own instead of all invent,
Whilst thus my hand upon my mouth I lay;
5. I blurted out an answer once before,
But I'll not do as I have done,
And now a new Exordium is begun,
But here will I leave off, and prate no more:
6. With that into these words the whirlwind broke,
Or rather God that in the whirlwind spoke;
7. Come, buckle to 't, and play thy part,
I by a Question or two
My skill will shew,
Thou by thy Answers shew thy art;
8. What? wilt thou undertake
What I shall order void to make?
Wilt thou my Right'ousness dethrone,
And then set up a new one of thy own?
9. Canst thou destroy as God destroys?
Or canst thou imitate his thund'ring noise?
Hast thou an arm so long?
Hast thou a voice so strong?
10. Array thy self with glory round,
With triple diadems be crown'd,
Such lovely looks put on and such a grace
As to deserve the name of Boniface;
11. Let thy anger burn and glow,
And all about the world its fire-balls throw;
Let Princes tremble at thy checks,
And trample thou upon Imperial necks;
The lofty ones do thou abase,
12. Those that with pride pufft up do fill much place
Contract into their own and lesser space,
Do thou the Spoilers spoil,
13. In deep dug dungeons make 'um sure,
Teach 'um for silver iron to endure,
With dirt their fine and stately count'nance soil;
14. And then my self will do thee right,
I'll trumpet forth thy might,
I to the world will openly aver
Job, pow'rful Job's his own deliverer:
15. Behemoth thy fellow-creature see,
The oxe doth feed on grass, and so doth he;
16. His loins a mine of iron prove,
He on his navel lays the stress,
Of all his force and heaviness,
As mighty Engines on their center move:
17. When he doth wag his tail and fawn
A mighty Cedar seems to shake,
The sinews of his stones such figures make
As tangled skeins of wyre not thinly drawn,
18. All his flat bones are fl [...]kes of brass,
His oblong ones for iron ones may pass,
19. The clearest Hieroglyphick he
Of his Creators boundless power
And the Almighty One in Three
That built this fleshy tower,
When he built it did think fit
To leave a secret passage into it,
Which should be known
And accessable to none
But to himself and to his sword alone:
20. The hills which happy beasts as theirs do claim,
(Happy because themselves are not the game,)
Where-in they play,
And safely may,
For Tyrant-hunters in the same
No pits do dig, no gins do frame,
All in these not more high than fruitful grounds
Fodder for Behemoth and them abounds;
21. Among the reeds at night he lies,
Where the trees whose pleasant shade
The setting Sun so long hath made
To cover him may now suffice;
22. The trees are m [...]de his canopy,
And if you look
Along the brook
His willow-woven curtains there you see:
23. To quench his thirst down he doth rivers take,
And will not run
When he has done
The owners of the ground to shun,
But half another draught of Jordan make;
24. His eye first drinks it up,
Then he himself begins to sup
Till he have supt it all away,
Nor can snares his passage stay,
For with his useful snout
He digs himself a safe and certain passage out.
1. VVIlt thou to Sea, thou silly man,
And angle for Leviathan?
Wilt thou designe
To catch him with a casting-line?
2. Will he with a bait be took?
Wilt thou delight
To see him bite,
And then strike through his jaws thy hook?
3. Will he a petit'on make,
And beg of thee for pity's sake,
And with a Pray Sir his long silence break?
4. Will he require
Thou shouldst him hire
To serve thee for a certain time?
5. Or will he choose
As Sparrows use
Up thy beck'ning hand to climb?
Will he be pris'ner in a cage,
And with his chearful folly
Thy doting Melancholy
And thy young daughters childish grief asswage?
6. Will your cunning Merchants joine
And what of him is sweet
Turn that to meat,
And what is otherwise to coin?
7. Canst thou with javelins tipt with steel
Fill his back and belly full?
Canst thou take spears which others quickly feel
And there-with pierce this fishes scull?
8. Rather forbear, since he's above your match,
And no new stratagems against him hatch;
The other bout
You had the rout,
And all the power you brought was broke;
Therefore in time give o're,
Hold up your hand no more
Unless therewith to g'him a gentle stroak:
9. Hope the victory to gain
Fixes her Anchors in his sides in vain;
His looks alone, his very fight
The confidentest Combatants affright;
10. There 's none that dare so much as try his rage,
There's none dare with Leviathan ingage;
How mighty then and terrible am I,
Who stockt him with such terribility?
11. What he is or e'r can be
He stands ingaged for't to me,
Though I to others do not so;
He owes me all who nothing owe,
Who Landlord am all earth, all heaven o're,
And therefore cannot run on score:
12. His members, and the strength those members have
I will describe who one and t' other gave;
Nor will I spare
His rarest beauty to declare,
Or to set out those Symmetries
Wherein that beauty lies:
13. Where are the men so bravely bold
That they dare his back bestride,
And rein him in so long till they behold
What kind of stuff his nakedness doth hide?
14. Where 's he th [...]t will such valour shew
As to un-hasp the casement of his eye,
Or make his mouths vast portal open fly,
And so expose those more than tusks to view?
15. If on his scales an eye he chance to cast,
How the proud fish it self doth please!
Art never sealed any thing so fast
As Nature sealeth these;
16. They 're riveted so close together,
Having betwixt them such a little space,
Gross Earthy bodies through them cannot pass,
Nor Airy atomes neither;
17. Any external force sufficient
To drive these hither,
Send those thither,
Contrary unto Natures first intent,
They neither do nor shall they find
Till at the great approaching day
All things else as well as they
Shall so dissolve as ne'r to be again rejoyn'd:
18. His neezings make the air so bright
As if the purgings of his head were Light;
And when he openeth his eyes
Two Suns at once seem to arise:
19. Perchance you have been told
Of Dragons never us'd to sle [...]p,
And therefore fondly thought to keep
Orchards whose Apples are of Gold;
How coals out of their nostrils fly,
How their breath o'recasts the sky;
Fables of them in him are History;
If he but breathe
20. Some caldron seems
While it doth seethe
To rarifie whole Oc'ans into streams,
21. The Fume which from his mouth he sends
Is Met'oriz'd by its own heat,
Though mariners which on their poop do see't
Shall ne'r know any good that it portends:
22. Strength in his thick neck doth dwell
As in her royal citadel,
And that which others mourn at he likes well;
His clods of flesh so fast are ty'd
As one from t' other ne'r to slide;
24. A rock supplies him in the place of heart,
25. And mighty ones when he approaches smart;
Those that to yield to him refuse
He doth so wound, he doth so bruise,
That for to wash away the putrid stuff
The water that he swims in 's scarce enough:
26. The trusty blade
Which ever at him made
Returning doth to shivers fall;
From his unhurt unpierced side
Long darts and longer javelins glide,
As feeble rays do from a w [...]ll;
27. What we count straw he iron counts.
Brass to no more than rotten wood amounts;
28. The barbed arrow he will meet,
Those sling-stones too
With scorn he ll view,
The force whereof in time a boy shall shew
By laying therewith a huge Gyant at his feet:
29. Whizzing darts he dares to court;
If you draw near
And brandish your death-threat'ning spear,
As fencers do, you'll only make him sport;
30. Pieces of iron, heaps of stones,
Edged, pointed, sharp'ned ones,
They are as smooth as he will e'r desire,
And down with him they go into the mire:
31. What it may be
That swells the Sea
By nice observers is not yet descry'd,
I tell y', he makes it boile, and that s the Tide;
The Oc'an he moves arises higher,
As water seething o'r the fire;
And when it with his sperm o'reflows,
It like a pot of ointment shows:
32. Where-e'r he swims there a new way is shown,
And all along that way
The Sea doth look so grey
As if with its own Rag-wort 't were o'regrown:
33. Nothing like him
In th' Sea doth swim,
Nothing like him the Earth doth bear,
Who wants that Epidemick Passion Fear;
34. Along the streets let the proud Peacock stalk,
Let the look't-on Lion walk,
Let the stately Pers'an Bride
Nothing of her glory hide,
Leviathan will go beyond them all in pride.
XLII.
1. 'TIs true, replyed Job, 'tis true,
2. There's nothing I can think but thou canst do;
There's no design, no secret plot,
Which thy Great Eye beholdeth not;
3. Oh how ridiculous is he
Who although ignorant he be,
Yet will strange not'ons and hard words devise,
That so the vulgar may account him wise?
How bravely I have talk't it all this while!
How rich my matter, and how high my stile!
All I have uttered alas!
I understood not what it was;
I ment'on'd matters in my cur'ous speech
Which never came within my Judgments reach;
4. But I have done, oh thou All-knowing One,
Be thou now pleas'd to take the Chair alone;
And let my doubts be satisfy'd from thence,
For I desire Zetetick to commence:
5. Thy Fountain-Glory fills my open eye,
Of which I heretofore did only hear:
Reflexion brought thee then unto mine ear,
I do thee now Directly soy:
6. When Heav'n and Time began their round
Thou call'dst, and at the pow'rful sound
Out of the dust in Paradise
I in my Great-great-grandsire had my rise;
And now that thou again do'st call,
And do'st appear
In glory here,
Into my dust again I fall;
Shame forces me
At sight of thee
Ashes both to put on and be:
7. Thus Job was lesson'd by the Deity,
And thus to his great Master answer'd he
Then God with Eliph [...]z begun,
I'm angry with thee (thou bold Temanite)
And with this Shuhite, that Naamathite;
Your dealing with your neighbour was not right,
You have into too bitter language run,
You have not spoke so well of me as he has done,
8. Sev'n Rams and seven Bullocks therefore take,
And all upon my Altar lay,
But get the Sinner Job to pray,
He the burnt beasts a Sacrifice must make;
He shall intercede for you,
Three for one mans sake I'll spare,
Else if your selves still surlily ye bear,
I'll punish this your present sin and former too:
9. They did as they from heav'n were taught,
Their Bullocks and their Rams they brought,
And Job their pardon soon attain'd;
10. Who whilst he prayed for his friends
God turn'd the tide, and made him full amends;
What he had lost was but the half of what he gain'd
11. And then came all that were to him of ki [...]
And all his old acquaintance in,
And down with him to dinner sate;
Their table-talk was to debate
The strangeness of this turn in his estate;
How little lately, how much now he had;
They shew'd themselves for his Afflictions sad,
And for his Restaurat'on as glad;
It was indeed unheard of misery
Into which he had bean cast,
But it was gone, but it was past,
Thus did they urge and try to be
Far better Comforters than were the other three.
Nothing for Job was thought too dear;
They all for presents Coins did bear,
And Golden Pendants to adorn [...]is ear:
12. Thus the grievous flood was o'r,
Which much improv'd the ground
That it so long had drown'd,
Thus Job again with all things did abound,
Heav'n adding to his former store,
To his Sev'n thousand Sheep Sev'n thousand more,
His Camels from Three— to Six thousand grew,
For ev'ry Two he could Four Oxen shew,
And then She-Asses twice as before as before:
13. Sev'n other hopeful Sons sprung from his bed;
And Three more Daughters in the others stead;
So fair that from their faces
Greek Painte [...]-poets drew their Graces;
14. The first appear'd so bright
Her Father for her lustre call'd her Light;
The next so sweet and delicate
He pleased Cass'a her to nominate;
The youngest was well known to Fame
By bearing Beauty's Cornu-cop'a in her name:
15. So illustr'ously they shone
As'a all Three for Par gons did owne;
How to put down the Argent day,
How to baffle Verdant May
They gave example unto all, but took from none;
And Job, when Lands to's Children he assign'd,
Had their Relat'on to him in his mind,
But their ignobler Sex forgot;
So each according to their lot
Females as well as Males possess'ons got:
16. Now, now doth Job in state and glory sit
Monopolizing bliss,
The Ʋniverse is his,
H'has Gold enough at least to purchase it;
Gold, with their sev'ral portions in which
Fourth-generat'on heirs are growing rich;
And whilst the moving Source of heat
Sev'n-score times doth North-ward climb
And to the South as oft retreat
It always finds him in his prime:
No sitting on the dunghill now,
For potsheards now no more he seeks;
No briny showres water his blubber'd cheeks,
No cares inlarge the furrows of his brow:
Of grief there is no Cause nor Signe,
None all his family through-out repine;
Only his Grand-childs Grand-child cries
That piece of him which in the cradle lies;
17. And now decrepit Age doth throw
Ʋpon his happy head her welcome Snow,
With which he kindly melts away at last, and dies.
FINIS.