Then thus to answer Job Eliphaz sought,
And lessons sage from earth and heaven he brought.
If we should commune with thee, wilt thou hear?
And will it grieve thy spirit, if we seek
To answer thee? For who can long forbear
In listening to thy words, their thoughts to speak?
Behold, how long a teacher thou hast been
Of many an one less wise, in days gone by—
The trembling hands were wont on thee to lean,
And ne'er in vain, in thy prosperity.
Thy words like lew refresh'd the sinking heart—
Thy succour hath the feeble knees upheld;
And ever it hath been they generous part,
The weak to strengthen, and the helpless shield,
But now we see thee fainting in the hour
When thine own life is touch'd by pain and woe,
And fails thy vaunted faith beneath the power
Of Him who, chastening, lays thy comforts low.
Where now hath fled thine ancient godly fear?
And all th' uprightness of thy former ways?
Where do the confidence and hope appear,
Which cloth'd thy spirit in its brighter days?
Remember now, if thou canst call to mind,
When hath the innocent been left to fall
And perish in the way? And canst thou find
One righteous soul cut off beyond recall?
The men that in iniquity do plough,
(Even as my very eyes have late beheld,)
And who in wickedness their seed do sow,
Shall likewise reap, as they have sown and till'd.
For they shall perish by God's awful blast,
And by His nostril's breath of fire, consume—
Broken shall be the lion's teeth at last—
The roaring lion's fierceness meet its doom.
Th' old lion's strength shall fail for lack of prey,
And his young whelps lie scattered far and wide;—
So sinketh the Destroyer in the day
When vengeance strikes, to smite him in his pride.
To me hath been disclosed a secret thing,
And somewhat of the same hath reached mine ear,
When visions of the night strange thoughts do bring,
And voices from the spirit-world we hear.
'Twas when on men had fallen slumbers deep,
A Presence, not of earth, before me came,—
And fear possess'd my senses, though in sleep;—
My hair stood up, and terror shook my frame.
It pass'd before my face, and then was still—
Mine eyes beheld it, yet no shape was there;
But through that silence deep, a voice did fill
With solemn sound, the hush'd and listening air.
"Before his Maker—God, shall man be just?
"More pure than He shall mortal man appear?
"Behold! His servants He refus'd to trust,
"Nor e'en from folly held His angels clear.
"Then how much less in man shall He confide,
"Whose clay-built dwellings on the dust he rears?
"Frail as the moth, he sinks ere even-tide,
"And none regardeth when he disappears.
"His boasted excellence hath with him fled;
"His wisdom lasts not to his dying day:"—
Such were the words that warning spirit said
Again I gaz'd—and it had pass'd away.