" HOW long, " said Job, " will you with bitter words
Thus wound my soul, your tongues more sharp than swords?
Ten times have you aspersions on me thrown;
Yourselves as strangers without blushing shown.
If I have sinn'd, my sins with me remain,
And I alone the punishment sustain.
It is in human cruelty in you
Thus to insult, and his reproach pursue
Whom God's own Hand hath cast unto the ground,
And in a labyrinth of sorrow wound.
Unheard are my complaints, my cries the wind
Drives through the air, my wrongs no judgment find.
God, with besieging troops, prevents my flight,
And folds my paths in shades more dark than night,
Hath stripp'd me of my glory, my renown
Eclips'd, and from my temples torn my crown.
On ev'ry side destroy'd, trod under foot,
I, as a plant, am pull'd up by the root.
His indignation like a furnace glows,
Who as a foe at me His lightning throws.
All His assembled plagues at once devour,
And round about my tents encamp their pow'r.
My mother's sons desert me; left alone
By my familiars, by my friends unknown.
My kindred fail me; these alone depend
On fortune's smiles: the wretched finds no friend.
Those of my family their master slight;
Grown despicable in my handmaids' sight.
I of my churlish servants am unheard,
My suff'rings nor intreaties they regard.
My wife neglects me, though desir'd to take
Some pity on me for our children's sake.
By idle boys and idiots vilified,
Who me and my calamities deride.
My intimates far from my sight remove,
Those whom I favour'd most, ungrateful prove.
My skin cleaves to my bones; of this remains
No part entire, but what my teeth contains.
O my hard-hearted friends! take some remorse
Of him whom God hath made a living corse.
Will you with God in my afflictions join?
Will't not suffice that I in torments pine?
O that the words I speak were registred,
Writ in a book, for ever to be read!
Or that the tenor of my just complaint
Were sculpt with steel on rocks of adamant!
For my Redeemer lives; I know He shall
Descend to earth, and man to judgment call.
Though worms devour me, though I turn to mould,
Yet in my flesh I shall His face behold.
I from my marble monument shall rise
Again entire, and see Him with these eyes;
Though stern diseases now consume my reins,
And drink the blood out of my shrivell'd veins.
'Twere better said, Why should we persecute
Our friend, whose cause is solid at the root?
O fear the sword, for punishments succeed
Our trespasses, and cruelty must bleed. "