PATIENTIA VICTRIX or The Book of job in Lyric verse London printed for Ric: G'amon against Exeter house in the S'trand An? 1661.   engraved title page   

PATIENTIA VICTRIX: OR, THE BOOK OF JOB, In LYRIC Verse.  
By ARTHUR BRETT.  
Clarior è tenebris.—  
— Depressa resurgit.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. in Frontisp. 
LONDON, Printed for Richard Gammon, over against Excester-House in the Strand, 1661.   

Reverendo Viro JOHANNI WALL, S S. Theologiae Doctori, & Aedis CHRISTI Oxon. Praebendario.  
MItto ad te (Vir Reverende) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Poematii versionem Lyrico-Anglicanam; id ut facerem quae me potissimùm commouêrunt paucis si vacaverit accipias; Conatibus meis Metricis jam tum primis, trepidulis, lucem & compita non expertis ut Janum spectarent atque Vertumnum extitisti author; audere ipsos, in ●ublicum se dare, censorculum quemvis si non contemhere saltem negligere fecisti non improbanda; Quod igitur Tentata via sit, etc. quòd ex Oblivionis specu fortassis emerserim, tibi debeo acceptum referre, & refero; siquidem illi per quem tota messis crescit primitias non obtulisse religio est: Deinde prodiêrunt non ita pridem Londini Bib. Poliglotta VI Tomis comprehensa, nec non & Criticorum SS. volumina IX. quae duo opera si eruditionis Theologicae Thesauri 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Templique nostri Jachin & Boaz hoc soeculo non audiverint, Pascitur in vivis livor.— Criticos ij ediderunt qui è typis stanneis circulos argenteos conflare amant, Bibliorum impressionem viri tum in rep. tum in Ecclesiâ illustres collatis sumptibus adjuverunt; horum tu numerum foelicissimè claudis; Ego verò sic existimo, nullam posse cujusvis libri Biblici a●t Ecphrasin, aut Paraphrasin, aut Metaphrasin proelum subire, quae non horum alicui jure optimo Danda, Dicanda, & Consecranda sit; ex his autem omnibus te primum occurrisse mihi, eandem scilicet Aedem Celeberrimam in quâ tu emines incolenti, non erit cur mirêris: Recipe igitur in clientelam foetum hunc nostrum, inque erudito sinu fove; metuit sibi male Uzae Dominus ne potuerit— ignem meruisse secundum Ut malè descriptus,— nè ipsi Sabaeos Chaldaeosque Lectorculi severiores praestent; Tu Magno Toleratori interposito Patrocinii tui umbone subveni, extrema nisi subveneris bis passuro: Non me latet esse quamplurimos qui (Saeculum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confundentes) solos Pseudo- Chaldaeos, solos Sabaos imaginarios Heroi nostro vim contulisse, ipsiúsque Jobi & Nomen fictitium fuisse & Personam merè Dramaticam contendunt; Verùm cùm in initio Libri tum Verbum Substantivum tum Pronomen Demonstrativum non sine emphasi quadam usurpentur (quod in Parabolis & narrationibus lusoriis non fit) imò in commate illo prooemiali bis repetantur, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isch hajah— vehajah haisch hahú, ut videatur Scriptor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 velle hujusmodi dubitationibus occurrere, dicendo, Extitit autem Ille Vir, Ille ipse, inquam; cúmque pronuntiet Deus Opt. Max. Ezech. 14.20. Licet Noachus, Daniel, & Job in eâ essent, liberarent tantùm animas suas; adeóque apertè significet Jobum aequè versatum fuisse in vivis ac Noachum aut Danielem, homines plusquam Pyrrhonicè incredulos nisi ad solem culminantem statuerint coecutire Historiam istam inter honestiores Fabulas numerare quî possint non intelligo; Facturúsque operae pretium fum si tempora tua tantisper morer dum nonnihil etiam de Loco in quo habitavit hic nostes, nonnihil etiam de Tempore quo vixit hîc adjiciam: Locum (Terram Uz) investiganti mihi si extraneos in auxilium voco frustrà sum; ●●us Heylinius nost●as dubio procul rem confecit; fuítque nodus tanto vindice non indignus: istum Asiae tractum, qui primùm ●edar, deinde Arabia Desenta audiit, hodie Beriara dicitur, decantatissimae huic Tragicom oediae schenam praebuisse sequentia evincunt: Tres tantùm regiones hanc appellationem sortitae in Sacro Codice occur●unt; quarum prima (sic d. ab Uzo fil. Arami, Gen. 10.23.) ad Boream & Damascum jacuit; ad Boream, inquam, à Judaea, etsi non ab integrâ Palestinâ; in Judaeâ autem jam Palestinae parte tantùm & à caeteris 10 tribubus avulsâ versatum fuisse hujúsce Historiae concinnatorem ex infrà dicendis de Tempore editionis colligetur; Verum enim verò Terram UZ patient● Jobo consciam ab hâc Judaeâ ad Orientem positam Scriptura docet: Deinde, quis hominum qui modò 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non fuerit, animura facilè induxerit ut credat Chaldeas Euphratis accolas, & Sabaeos F●oelicis Arabiae incolas poenè ad fontes Jordani idque per praerupta viarum praedandi causâ excurrisse regeretur (opinon) non Mortalium C●neos sed triste Caco-daemonum agmen huc penetrâsse, cui curiofissimè alato nullum longum est iter, nulli montes impervii; At proderes se & malitiam suam hâc ratione Dux gregis Satanas non minùs ac si vestigia sulphurea post se relinqueret; certo certiùs noluit vaferrimus ille Agyrta dum hominem indueret veterem exuere Serpencem, & per imprudentiam aliquid admittere quod Uzitis suspicionem creare possit; cùm latrones Syros aut sicarios Trans-jordanenses aequè facilè simulâsset, & sub eorum specie meliùs latuisset: proinde in hâc regione Jobus ipsum sedulò quaerentibus Non Est Inventus; pereúntque Chartae Geographicae Pinedaea-Adrichomianae: Alia erat regio Uz apud Idumaeos, (cujus meminit Jerem. Threns 4.21. Laetare, oh filia Ed●m, quae habitas in terra Uz,) sic d. ab Uzo fil. Dishani è posteris Esau; hoec autem sita fuit à Judaea versus Austrum, neque Syros Chaldaeosque valdè vicinos habuit; adeóque quae contra illam alteram allata sunt, contra hanc etiam si repetuntur faciunt: Restat Tertia hujus nominis regiuncula in Arabia Deserta fita, haec ea est de quâ quaeritur; quam sic d. ab Uzo fil. Nachoris fratris Abrahami, Gen. 22.21. dudum observavit D. Hieronymus, & argumentum inde duxit quo Terram Uz non procul à Charrâ celebri Mesopotamiae urbe probaret jacuisse; Deinde, in Arabia Deserta regio erat (teste Geographorum principe (cui nomen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 autem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 idem est ac Uz, sicut & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 idem quod Buz (uti Drusius Drusiac●s notat;) erant etiam ibidem populi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, licet ea vox corruptè in exemplaribus ferè omnibus legatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: Ptol. Geogr. lib. 5. cap. 19 jam verò facile erat Chaldaeis Sabaeísque in armenta Jobi hîc loci dispalata incurrere, cùm illi juxtà erant versùs Euphratem, horum terram ab Arab. Desertâ pauculi tantum montes disterminârunt; nec obstat quòd Saba perillustre illud emporium ad Meridiem & poenè Maris Rubri ostia in Longitudine sc. gr. 73. in Latitudine Boreali gr. tantùm 16 plus minus sita fuerit, siquidem erat ea multorum populorum caput, uíxque alios imperii sui limites Sepenttrionales quàm quibus ipsa Foelix Arabia coercebatur agnovit; unde factum ut quae verba 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vattipol Shebo nos vertimus vulgariter Et irrueruerunt Sabaei, Targum vertat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unepalath bithkeph Lilith malcath Zemargad, Et repente irruit Lilith regina Smargad; fuit autem Smargad secundum nonnullos urbs, secundum alios provincia Sabaeorum; Quanquam his omissis Sabam (si voluero) in ipsâ Arabiâ Des. inveniam, indice Ptolomaeo; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (inquit ille lib. & cap. praedictis) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Deinde, in hâc Des. Arabiâ locantur à Ptolomaeo Suah & Teman Oppida, è quibus venêrunt Eliphaz & Bildad ad vicini dolorem mitigandum; sequitur enim loco citato 
— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   
De Loco hactenus; De Tempore, quo haec omnia quae de Jobo traduntur acciderint, quot Chronologi tot ferè sententiae; nonnulli eum post Davidem, alii ante & Davidem & etiam Mosem vixisse autumant, alii Davide antiquiorem sed Mosi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faciunt; qui post Davidem existimant claruisse supponere videntur ipsum suos scripsisse Commentarios, quod ut supponatur non est necesse; contexi enim potuit haec Historia Iudaeis Babylonem ductis aut cito ducendis, ut ut is de quo narratur multis ante saeculis obiisset; qui medium locant inter Mosem & Davidem hosce nodos expediant oportebit, priusquam suum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ingeminent; Primò, Si homo piissimus, S.S. Spiritu afflatus, Deóque (sit verbo venia) familiari usus in scalâ Chronologicâ rectè ab iis collocetur, quid fiet de dicto illo apud cordatos Rabbinos receptissimum, Post Mosem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hassekinah Spiritûs S. super quopiam in Gentibus non subsedit? 2 do, Quae causa assignari potest cur in tot tantísque colloquiis Religiosis quae jobus cum amicis, imò cum Deo habuit, nulla fiat de Lege mentio aut Prophetis, nisi quòd Lex nondum per Mosen promulgata erat, Prophetae nondum nascerentur? 3● ᵒ, Unde Jobus more suo sacra faciens, & holocausta incendens non modò non Censuram sed etiam Encomium mereretur, si post Mosem vixerit? cùm postquam Moses è vivis excesserat soli Aaroni & Aarone prognatis sacra tractare licuit: His atque id genus aliis argumentis victi, nec non & nominis similitudini nimium tribuentes nonnulli Jobum ieundem fuisse ac Jobabum de quo Gen. 36.33.) & regnâsse in Idumaea credunt, factâque propter plagam acceptam contractione partem nominis non minimam amisisse; Verùm haec sententia non militat, nam neque in Iduma● versatus est hic cujus patientiam suspicimus laudamúsque (ut supra ostensum est,) neque omnis nominis abbreviatio summam aliquam secuta est: miseriam; è lite●is Tetragrammato● con●icientibus siqua exciderat damnum ingens ea res dedecúsque in misellum hominem indicavit redundâsse, caeterarum eadem rationon fuit; Insuper, si ideò passais esset Uzita nominis decrementum quòd fuis omnibus spoliaretur, tum Corporis tum Fortunae bona recuperanti ●●den pustinum postliminiò rediisset: Rectiùs igitur auguratus est Philo Judaus, qui ipsum circa annum M. C. 2220um vi●isse, ●●korémque duxisse Dinam Jacobi filiam credidit, nobis idem credendum propinavit; Rectissime fortassis Sulpitaus Seve●●●, qui (Hist. Eccles. lib. ●.) tunc temporis cùm apud Jethronem Moses diversabat●● Is●●● isse Jobum, jacuisse, & denuò resto●uisse tradit: Uter horum fide dignior● Phil●● an Severus, ulteriùs disquirere essat M●o●●tat● Dei resistere, qui videtur saec●●●m Jo●● de industriâ celatum voluisse ut intelligamus tempus Tolerantiae exerendae destinatum certum ac fixum non esse, fed in omne aevum se porrigere, deberíque nobilissimae Virtutum magnificam eam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Patientiae Aeternae. Tandem aliquid Corollarii loco dicendum est breviter de Tempore quo haec Historia scriptis mandata sit; & laeta nobis hâc in re crepuscula faciunt Criticorum conjecturae, meridiem nec pollicentur quidem; ipsissimus annus in quo exaratus est Liber iste omnes & singulos aeque latet ac finis propter quem exararetur; siquidem existimant nonnulli eò spectare haec omnia ut afflictissimis Judaeis inque captivitatem abductis animus firmaretur, alii (inter quos Atlas ille Litterarum Batavus in Gallia,) ut allicerentur posteri Esau ad verum Dei cultum retinendum, alii aliter; id modò certum est, serò admodum scriptam fuisse hanc Historiam, quippe cui vocum Hebraicarum Novus fere Orbis inferatur ante Davidis & Solomonis tempora planè Incognitus; nonnulla vocabula partim Symaca, partim Ismaelitica invenias; novi etiam flores Oratorii occurrunt, quibus Stellarum, Avium, Pisciúmque nomina inscribuntur; unde proclivis est inferentia, Librum non antequum verba exotica insolitaeque dicendi formulae per Idioma Sanctum se diffunderent & quasi Civitate Dei donarentur; adeóque serò editum: Ad haec, multas habet Liber iste è Psalmis, Proverbiis ac Ecclesiaste citatas sententias. De Authore (ea epistolam claudet annotutiuncula) constat; S. Spiritum cum fuisse Codex ipse (quisquis fuit ille 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qui exaravit) abundè loquitur; Codex ipse suâ luce, suâ sese Majestate prodit, quem, si dormitasset ille: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, & Libros Metricos de Canone excidisse permifisset, tamen hominem modò retinentes interpretaremur fuisse divinum: String●t rostra Codurcus, & sagacissimè odoratur, quasi ipsi Amanuensis jamjam subolere●et; incidit autem in Isaiam Prophetam; illius pugillaribus usum existimat S tum. Sp. homo in palaestrâ Criticâ versatissimus, ideóque existimat quia 1 mo, Temporis ratio non repugnat; 2 do, Eadem rerum verborúmque copia, eadem sublimitas, similis character, permulta etiam plan● eadem vocabula, eaedem passim & phrases, quae in Prophetiâ Isaiae occurrere deprehenduntur, in hoc libro occurrunt; 3 io, Duo libri hujusce verba priora 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isch hajah si conjunctim sumantur conficiunt Isaiah; moris autem fuit Scriptoribus antiquis Ori●●allbus operis sui initio nomen suum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intexere; quòd si quis his ità se habentibus de Amanuensi adhuc dubitaverit, nec illi ulteriùs dubitare pet nos licebit. Quamquam quid ego tibi ista memoro. Tu omnia (V. R.) mihi enarrabis; statue igitur aliquid, & litem dirime: Haec interim sunt quae hîc loci dicta volui, eo s● consilio, ne Sacer ille Liber (quem Anglicano-Me●icam fecimus,) veritate Historiae parum adstructâ, Odyssei nescio cui aut Aenoic● cedat, nimísque Poeticus videatur; id ubi innuerim, ad Arabis nostri Patientiam transeo, tuam libero.  
Dab. Ox. prid. Kal. Ap. An. Aerae X 1. 1661. Tibi Devotissimus ART. BRETT.   

THE PREFACE TO THE READER.  
I Am not so sensible that these ensuing lines come short of the anciently admired and now happily reviving Pindaric strain, as I am sure it must be allowed me by all serious and judicious Readers, that does much more of the Original height of this Sacred Poem: By what may be gathered from the writings of some Fathers, and the ghesses of many modern, calm Critics it plainly appears (let Jo. Scaliger be as angry as he will) that this History fell from the holy Pen man thereof in Verse; and therefore how proper 'tis that it should be thus rendered, I need not contend: As for the kind of Verse here pitched upon, how suitable that is in this case, he who shall but consider what sort of Verse the Hebr●w runs in, 
Alsted. Encyclopoed l. 26. c. 13.  which is Metrum solo syllabarum numero constans, citrà similem Terminationem, and withal the nature of this wherein there is In genere Lyrico multimoda & incerta compositio respectu tum Colorum tum Stropharum, 
Id. lib. eod. cap. 14.  will abundantly satisfy himself: For my own particular, if it be asked why I would venture upon this incomparable strain, and how I dared so much as to attempt the transcribing of so Divine a Copy, the same Answer will serve for both Interrogatories, though I had rather it should be applied to the last, viZ. That Imitation seems to be nothing else but Admiration so well employed, and so far improved as to deserve the epithet of Industrious.  
Concerning the truth of this History of Job, the Place where, and Time when he lived, I have spoken already in a more proper Dialect; and therefore shall only add here, that, if any thing in this or other Scripture-relations seem absurd or improbable, the reason thereof is not because of any real absurdity or fiction in the relation itself, but of our either mistaking the sense of the place, or being ignorant of some material passage, which we missing of may not presently perceive the consistency of the rest one with another: Thus some think it ridiculously said in the 42. chap. of this book, ver. 10. The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before, because in the 13. v. his Children are found to be but just as many as he had at the first; when as (alas!) the Holy Ghost doth in those words tacitly condemn the Sadduces and Psychopannychists, by esteeming the House, , etc. which were once consumed utterly perished, but reckoning the deceased Sons and Daughters among the living; and Job had at the same time twice ten Children (as well as twice seven thousand Sheep, twice three thousand Camels, etc.) though not all in the same world existent: Thus likewise Naamah is looked upon by some as too far from the land of Uz for Zophar to come from thence to visit Job, as b●ing situated in the South part of the tribe of Judah; whenas indeed it is not necessary that should be the town from whence Zophar came, but there might have been another of that name as near Job's habitation as we have elsewhere found there was a Shuah, and a Teman, though our Geographer has not been so kind as to direct us to it as well as to the other two.  
The Book itself (here made Verse) is well known to consist partly in a brief Narrative of Job's Ruin and Restauration, partly in a large discourse which the Deity entered into with him, and a larger which he maintained with his four Friends; in the latter whereof the design of his Visitants on the one side was to baffle him into a self condemnation, and his on the other side to stand upon his defence, and make good what he held, viz. That we cannot truly judge of a man by his outward condition: And in this his opinion the World has found him seconded by Heaven itself confuting his Opponents to their faces, and also by all Nations in all ages, as it would be easy to show; To instance only in the Romans, among them— Careat successibus opto, etc. was as good sense as Latin before their Language was corrupted; and they still express themselves to the same effect in modern Italian thus, Villano non è chi ni villa stà, ma villano è chi villainy fà. I need not with Pineda or Sanctius state the Question, and formally dispute, Whether Job was an Absolute Prince or no, since, whatsoever quality he was of whom Providence in those days singled out to be successively the Subject of the extremest misfortune and greatest prosperity, we are sure that part hath in this Age been acted by a Mighty Monarch; against whom there have risen up such as by their actions surely meant to prove the Sabaean plunderers unskilful in their own art, and the Chaldaean robbers conscionable men; whose stately Palaces have been thrown down by the violence of a blasting Vote from out of a thin, desolate, and Desert House; whose goods, and every thing in which he might justly delight or glory, have been destroyed by the help of that Artificial fire, which, though the Grand enemy of mankind were not in every piece of iron that vented it, yet some are resolved to believe he first found out in the shape of a Germane Monk; who, in short, has been a most notable example to demonstrate (as it were) that to Heaven's Favourites Loss is Gain, and that Patience is a Crowning virtue; for his Friends are double the number they were at the first, seeing those who not many years ago were his (because his Father's) Enemies, have kindly faced about, and been successful practitioners in Loyalty; how much his Treasures are increased, let his Exchequer speak; and how his Territories shall be more and more enlarged, I leave to future Victories, and the year 1666. to declare; And so content myself at present with what I find written of this our famous Sufferer in the more habitable part of Arabia the D●sert: That never too much adored piece which sets forth his Life and Death (I mean so much of either as the Sacred Records acquaint us with) hath often been Translated into English, but with what very great success. I am not here to determine; It would well become men of abilities in this way to let themselves be provoked to undertake the the task, and perform what others only endeavour, that so by degrees this excellent History may appear in such an English dress as it deserves: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. (I confess) hath been, is, and will be too well grounded a Proverb to the end of the world; And 'tis true,  

Sheph. Cal. Octob. lin. 61. — Moecenae long ago is dead,  
And great Augustus is clad in clay,  
And all the Worthies lie ywrapt in lead, etc.  
However the late Prince of English Poets hath not in that his just complaint given us his friends, or other his successors so great a wound, but the present Emperor brings as broad a plaster, where he sets forth the small and therefore noble Fortunes of this 
His hireless Science, 
Condib. l. 2. cant. 5. stan. ult.  and of all alone  
The Liberal,— the rest each State  
In pension treats, but this depends on none;  
Whose worth they rev'rendly forbear to rate.  Poesy then must have the honour to be (Vertue-like) its own reward; neither will there be wanting those who being truly enamoured on her will embrace her without a dowry: Such as these may be pleased to be hereby excited to employ their Time and Parts on a Theme sufficiently worthy of both, at least they may receive no small delight from the perusal of what was my last-moneths Recreations.   

PATIENTIA VICTRIX; OR, The BOOK of JOB: In LYRIC Verse.  

I.  

1. IN that famed Quarter of the world, the East,  
Where light expiring in th' Atlantic Main  
So gloriously revives again,  
The Uzzites a large tract of ground possessed,  
And here lived 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 adored, this he avoided still:   

2. The God whom he adored  
Ten Children did to him afford;  
seven of 'em were to wield the sword,  
Three were to sit at home and spin,  
And work in silk the victories those seven should win.   

3. For every lusty lad  
A thousand Sheep he had,  
For every maid  
About his house as many Camels strayed,  
His grounds five hundred yoke  
Of Oxen broke,  
Wherein as many Female asses brayed;  
He had m'ny a spat'ous mead  
Wherein 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 blow;  
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 maintained  
That the Surname of Most Magnificent he gained.   

4. His young men in their turns Sympos'arches 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 every one  
Had took and given a collation,  
Job ordered a Parasceuë,  
And on the foll'ing day  
By light just rising offered  
A Holocaust for every head;  
And, every time he fired, said;  
Oh Thou who heaven, and earth, and sea hast made,  
If such or such an one have done amiss,  
If he have bowed 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 renewed their feast,  
He acted both the Prince and Priest:   

6. Now when the solemn time drew near  
For those blessed Spirits who above remained,  
And what they had been born withal retained  
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 shown forth his Makers Might  
Where-of himself a part did seem;  
Another Anthems did indite,  
And made that Spring of Health his theme  
Where-of himself was one poor stream;  
Mich'el gazed,  
●●r'el blazed,  
Gabriel gave a Victor's sho●t,  
Raphael joyful acclamat'ons raised,  
The other Angels lay his throne about,  
And their Almighty Sovereign praised:  
Seraphims the Service led,  
Holy, holy Majesty  
Was the substance of their cry,  
Cherubims loudly answered:  
Domin'ons with their nature did dispense,  
And would be no Domin'ons now;  
Powers their power did disavow;  
Principalities did bow;  
Virtues resigned their influence;  
Thrones were ambit'ous to do reverence:  
All came to own 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 abode;  
Where last of all I was I have forgot,  
But come in general from yonder spot:   

8. There's one cried up, Us gave him birth,  
(Quoth the high Majesty of heaven 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 honour on his holy life I'll 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 replied,  
From Mount Seir's top I have his lands descried;  
I have observed his dwelling towers,  
I have surveyed his pleasure-bowr's,  
And I have counted his devot'on-hours;  
Well may he serve his God and holy be,  
What servant e'er such wages had as he?  
So rich an income's a good salary:   

10. So well improved a Stock! so sweet a Soil!  
It seemed another Paradise to me,  
Which I was thinking how to spoil;  
But 'tis not spoilt, 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 altar now your course a while,  
Cease on your Favourite to smile;  
His  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 uttered 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 gained,   

13. When not long after that, Job's eldest son  
His hospitality begun,  
And's brothers and his sisters entertained:  
He on his near relations spent  
The double port'ons Heaven had sent;  
They lovingly sit down, and did not fear  
To fall to their untasted cheer,  
For fatal figs were yet unknown,  
Nor did they send away their souls  
E'er 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 tried,  
For in came one and cried,   

14. Sir, We were ploughing up a piece of land,  
And so your Oxen were employed;  
The Asses not far off did stand,  
And what the close allowed enjoyed;   

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 plundered, and your servants slew;  
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 scaped to you to run,  
To signify what they have done:  
Thus having said, aside he stepped,   

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 heaven a hell;  
And having burned  
Your flocks of Sheep,  
And those you sent those flocks to keep,  
Up to its proper place again returned;  
I only scap't the greedy flame,  
To live to let you know the same:   

17. His tale was scarcely finished yet,  
When another in did get,  
He seemed doubly wet,  
First with tears and then with sweat;  
Ill news! (cried he) your Camels, Sir, are ta'en,  
Three troops came scouring o'er the plain,  
And having seized the beasts went back again;  
Your neighbours of Assyria they were,  
(If all are neighbours that live near)  
They seemed that way the prize to bear;  
We fought 'em, 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 rushed, 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 quaffed 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 ruin were encompassed round;  
Who having no way left to fly,  
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 rend his robe,  
His decent locks he laid by,  
Where formerly they grew  
There did he ashes strew,  
Acquitting thus the angry Deity;  
Which, while his body on the earth did lie,  
Aloft his spirit soared,  
And in humility adored;   

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 traitorous thoughts against his Maker and his King.    

II.  

1. A Second time the Angels did appear  
‛ Forc their dread Sovereign,  
And in their train  
The long-since banished 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 allowed  
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 answered then, he answered now,  
The Center-globe I have been rambling o'er,  
Cross the seas, along their shore,  
Where trav'llers were I made one more,  
And whither Seamen bore I hore,  
In short I come into this world from yonder lower:   

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 Constancy;  
He's not from Me 's old Master to be won,  
Though I to satisfy thy lust  
Have been towards him (I'd almost said) unjust,  
And he o'rewhelmd with misery be quite undone:   

4. Overwhelmed (quoth the Enemy)  
With misery!  
This seems not misery to be,  
His goods, his men, his children are not he;  
When was e'er such folly shown  
As for one not to let his beasts be ta'en.  
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  
(Replied the Deity)  
Thy rage upon his body satisfy;  
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 show  
What angry Fate can do,  
Where-of h'had leave to be the Instrument,  
He entered Job at every poor,  
All o'er his body nasty boils he spread,  
He covered 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 venom 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 cursed  
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 judgement as in body weak;  
I know you will confess  
We be to express  
Our Thankfulness  
For that estate which Heaven has sent,  
And, are we not to be content  
When it calls in the sums 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 alarmed 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 cheer up their friend:   

12. Who, as they did before 'em look  
And notice of the forlorn 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 disfigured was his face,  
That it extorted from 'em 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 sat down;   

13. seven times arose the unregarded light,  
seven times it yielded to the silent night,  
While they that silent night did imitate,  
His grief by words not seeking to abate,  
For they despaired e'er to assuage  
His Melancholy rage,  
It new was grown s'immeasurably great.    

III.  

1. JOb at length his silence broke,   

2. And thus he spoke  
Cursing the time of his nativity,   

3. That day, oh that unlucky day (quoth he)  
Wherein her son my mother bore!  
Oh, may it be a day no more;  
And oh! that fatal night  
Wherein the Plastic power 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 stained with spots astonishingly dark,  
And may Death set thereon her dismal mark;  
If the light should dare to rise,  
 all-beclowded ne'er reach humane eyes;  
If ever day was justly called 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 'em take no pleasant walk,  
Let 'em have no cheerful talk,  
But banish all Sociability:   

8. You who your misfortunes rue,  
And Tragedies out of true Story frame,  
You who 'gainst Time declaim,  
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 'em (as some have fond thought they do)  
Beams emit of a sable hue;  
Let heaven 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 Tropic be,  
And thou at sight thereof must backward run:   

10. This I desire, this I'll have done,  
'Cause that day hindered not my father's wife  
From travelling with me her son,  
Nor me from entering into so sad a life:   

11. Why was I safely hither hurled?  
Why went I not, as to this world  
Out of the belly of my mother,  
So out of this into another?   

12. woe worth the time I had my nurses hug;  
woe worth the time I had my mother's dug;  
Had one ne'er set me on her knee,  
Or t'other never suckled me,   

13. I had been quiet now, and found e'er 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'er to have been waked 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 styled Wise, there one styled Great,  
Who made the day, yet cared 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,  
Prepared 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 it 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'er 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 prisoners cast,  
There find their Liberty at last;  
There they are no more oppressed,  
No ruffling Jailor there disturbs their rest;   

19 There worthless Peasants be,  
And there be men of Dignity,  
There Servants from their Master's free  
Enjoy an Age of Jubilee:   

20. Why doth the Light arise  
And look at one that's plunged in misery?  
Why do they breathe at all  
With whom to sighs to breath,  
Who do their restless souls to heaven bequeath,  
Their bodies to the earth beneath,  
Whose spirits 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 designed  
Is to prepare themselves a grave;   

22. Whose life has in't this only joy,  
That death that life is coming to destroy:   

23. Why dost 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'er get hence:   

24. With cruel groans my fast I break,  
Tears my morning's draught I make;  
So do I roar,  
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 aimed, and has not missed:   

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 ourselves, but needs must speak:   

3. Thou helpedst the weaker head to understand,  
Thou helpd'st to work the weaker hand;   

4. Into the dying man of soul bereavest,  
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 righteousness:   

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 plough vice, they that sow sin,  
The fruits there-of at harvest gathered in,  
And answerable to the seed the crop has been:   

9 But breathed 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 vigorous 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'll communicate what I have found,  
I found it though I know not where,  
It gently brushed my ear  
Like to some Echoes 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 locked 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. It's mot'on seemed 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 form in the air,  
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 used 'em to rebel;  
God would not trust them who he knew  
Would much weakness show,  
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 seize;  
O'er 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 'em all  
When thou dost call  
Will free thee from the torturing gout?  
Which save thy tooth from being taken out?  
Which will the stone within thee break?  
Which cause thy head no more to ache?  
Which cause thy Palsie-arm no more to shake?   

2. Their healing power can't be so strong  
But men more powerful are themselves to wrong;  
Angers flame burns up their hearts,  
And Envy's canker eats away their inward parts:   

3. Myself a fool have often seen,  
By fool a wicked man I mean,  
I've seen him surely fixed at rest,  
Friends, wife, children, meat,  
, goods, estate, and seat,  
He had of every thing the best,  
And him that heaven blessed I also blest;  
But soon that best was turned to worst,  
His sap soon dried,  
His root soon died,  
And him that heaven cursed I also cursed:   

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 pressed out of breathe,  
In the gates built to keep out death  
Their ruin 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 householdstuff,  
In comes a villain bold and strong enough,  
And the poor orphans of their goods bereaves:   

6. Thistles (I know) not looked to sprout,  
Briers from untilled 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 chief earth,  
To give the sons of Adam birth,  
It hath no weight and so ascends;  
But that wherewith he's pleased to try mankind  
'Tis very ponderous, we find,  
And unto us as to its centre tends:   

8. You cannot know  
By weal or woe  
Whether a man be just or no;  
Therefore unto a higher Court I fly,  
His Verdict shall be passed 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 bower  
It's proper shower,  
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 therewithal the lowest spoke ascends.  
And therewithal the highest downward tends:   

12. He gulls State-Artists in such sort,  
That they of their designs come short;   

13. The cur'ous threads of Policy they spin  
Prove halters for to hang them in;  
The wisest plot of every peevish soul  
Sent out from Reason's Capitol,  
From thence as from a precipice doth headlong roll:   

14. Twelve at Midday 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 'em find:   

15. 'Twas their intent  
To seize 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 chastised!  
Such chastisements are not to to be despised;   

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 assailed by seven miseries,  
seven times invulnerable thou shalt be:   

20. Thou shalt not food for famine be;  
The sword when drawn shall not be sheathed in thee;   

21. No, thou shalt be secure,  
And ne'er endure  
The lashes of a cruel jeer;  
Nor shall Destruct'on ever make thee fear:   

22. No thoughts of ruin shall disturb thy ease,  
No thoughts of famine spoil thy feasts;  
Bears, tigers, 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 diversely compounded now,  
Shall make a covenant, 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 rend:   

24. Thou and they shall both possess  
The selfsame happiness;  
And there shall only be this difference.  
They of their fortune han't a sense,  
But thou reflecting on thy peace  
Shalt make the same increase;  
I, thou shalt see  
Thy palace furnished 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 every thing but height   

26. Thou thyself 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 ,  
And therefore underwrite 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 weighed,  
And what I suffer in the balance laid!   

3. The sand of th' sea put in th' contrary scale  
While this sunk down aloft would rise;  
And therefore doth my empiric fail,  
For to set forth such grief no words suffice:   

4. Poisoned darts from Heaven 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 Ox low  
Where he finds fodder grow?   

6. Didst ever care to eat  
Insipid meat  
Wherein no borrowed 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 show the utmost of his spite!  
'Twould be some comfort that I knew the same;  
Then I'd defy 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 composed of flint?  
Or has my flesh brass mixed in't?   

13. Am I so silly in your sight  
As that to help myself 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,  
Methinks 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 enclose  
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 wont channel gone,  
Themselves have lost the tide,  
So faintingly they glide,  
And are so strangely dried  
As if they'd suffered an annihilation:   

19 The Temanites with thirst and mot'on burned  
Thitherward for refreshment turned,  
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 desired,  
But like so many fools retired;  
Brimful 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,  
Own me in this my misery:   

22. Did I bear for my Motto, Give?  
Did the rewards I got  
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;  
Show me wherein I ever did offend:   

25. Oh the great power of Rhet'rick! oh its force  
But oh the vanity of your discourse!   

26. Does your spleen itself 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 entreat,  
Lest at the Grand Sess'ons time  
At the Almighty's bar this prove your crime  
That you dared thus to take his Judgement 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 world's 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 Flower turns only to the setting Sun;  
Hirelings in that sweet hour delight  
Wherein their work's rewarded because done;   

3. They wait and wait, I wait no less,  
While Time attends heavens traveler through the Signs,  
Days into weeks, weeks into months 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 myself I hid,  
Whose every feather proves a wing  
And sloth instead of ease new motion bring,  
Hither there-on I fly, thither I spring,  
Forward I jerk and back again I fling;  
While through twelve glasses Time away doth slide,  
For every 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  
Served 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 :   

6. The shuttle moves not o'er the loom  
Faster than my short days ne'er 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 dost into nothing look:   

9 The clouds that once are rarified  
In the air no more shall ride,  
No more so re-condense as to be spied;  
And he who once has died,  
Who once in's grave has lain  
No Resurrection shall gain,  
Shall ne'er shake off that Earth which doth his body hid:   

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. Prince's 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 repined,  
And what to do have mused as oft,  
My silks (thought I) and downs are soft,  
The ease I can't elsewhere 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 fly  
As my beholding fancy terrify;  
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 own 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 only thing I hate,  
The only 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 placed so high,  
Even 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 hid 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 transgressed indeed;  
What shall I do? how shall I plead?  
Oh thou the Universal Cause  
Both Procreative and Conservative,  
By whom we were at first, and still do live:  
Hark, hark,  
Methinks I hear the whizzing dart;  
It tends directly to my heart;  
Ah! wherefore makest 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 night's 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 intent you at this rate to speak?  
How long for words shall tempests from you fly?   

3. Does Heaven the course of Justice break,  
And cease to be a Court of Equity?   

4. If your jov'al girls and boys  
That sat 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 Virtue and Prosperity,  
This should as well as that thy Inmate be:   

7. Thy stock, though at the first 'twere ne'er so small,  
Ere very many years be o'er  
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 Father's 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 mire is found;  
The flag won't grow except in moorish ground;   

12. Which when it 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'er 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 shan't 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 nicknames 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 righteous Deity  
Will never Virtue's friends despise;  
Those that are Virtues enemy's  
He will as little patronise:   

21. If thou art once truly his  
He from his service will thee not dismiss,  
Until 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 Epinition:   

22. Who malice towards thee express  
They shall shortly blush all o'er,  
The palaces 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 show  
Myself at God's 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 foolhardy foes  
Did him in battle e'er oppose,  
And not with disadvantage leave the field?   

5. He teaches Mountain's motion,  
Though no Soul Sensitive that motion guides;  
They're soon dismounted when he chides,  
And down into the filling Valleys gone:   

6. Out of her place (now Planet-) Earth he shakes;  
At his approach her very Basis quakes:   

7. If he forbidden no Sun can rise,  
If he forbidden no spangles deck the skies;   

8. 'Tis he, 'tis only he  
That wrought the spreading Azure Canopy,  
He only can tread water in the Sea:   

9 He placed that Lamp betwixt the Bawters' thighs;  
He bade the Starry Giant rise  
He made the glorious Seven;  
And he adorned those stately Galleries  
Of the Antarctic Heaven:   

10. His works we cannot fathom they're so great;  
We can'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 men's goods to take away,  
Who can withstand his rude design?  
Who dare rise up and say  
Why meddlest thou with what is none of thine?   

13. If (fur'ous once) he will be fur'ous still,  
Self-saviours' must soon submit,  
And rid of their Ambitious fit  
Confess 'twas wind not substance did their bottles fill:   

14. Much less may I pretend myself to purge,  
And studied 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 prayed, and he had smiled,  
Yet should I not have Faith e'er to believe  
He did me with a smile receive,  
But rather thinks some dream had me beguiled:   

17. My vessel's in Afflict'ons' tempest broke;  
And causelessly 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 Power,  
In doing Justice so exact  
That I even tremble at that hour  
When I must own 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 lie:   

21. Can I to full perfect'on rise,  
I'd not myself too highly prize,  
I would myself my own so useless life despise:   

22. 'Tis a sad truth, but such as I'll 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 ware,  
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'er a Judge can see  
How to do Equity,  
For why, he hoodwinks and he muffles 'em;  
If he's Existent any where it must be he:   

25. The flying Post is by my days out flown,  
Let him ride ne'er so fast  
They make more haste;  
But of them all there's ne'er 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  
Rendesvouzed 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 myself in melting snow,  
Though ne'er 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  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 join 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'er s the shame,  
What e'r's the blame,  
I am resolved to word the same,  
And keep proport'on to my Agony;   

2. I'll even unto my Judge, and make request  
That he'd not yet sentence pass,  
I'll ask what misdemeanour 'twas  
Which stirred him up with me thus to contest:   

3. Is't fitting thou shouldst 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 measured 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 needest to observe my failings thus?   

7. Of my Integrity thou dost not doubt,  
Thou knowst 'tis for no sin of mine  
I fall into those hands of thine  
Out of which they that once fall in shall ne'er get out.   

8 Nature seems to be thy Art,  
One of whose Masterpieces 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 reduced 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 fortified,  
With these thou hast my parts together tied:   

12. Alive thou keep'st me, dost me favour show;  
Thou look'st to me, and I'm well looked to:   

13. All this thou thinkest 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 will't me of my rudeness tell,  
And ne'er 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 han't I confidence my head to show:  
I don't 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 fly  
As too too well thy fury testify:  
The Springtide there-of rises high;  
God fights against me with variety:   

18. Was it for this that I was born?  
Was it for this my mother's womb was torn?  
Was it for this she underwent such pain,  
And groaned some hours, and then rejoiced again,  
That I myself all my life long might mourn?  
Oh that I but once had cried!  
Oh that I in my Nurse's arms had died!   

19 Oh that I had ne'er been seen!  
Then I had been and yet not been,  
I head found a bur'al in my mother Earth  
As soon as t'other e'er 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 darksome 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, Shan't we all these words with words requite?  
Shan't we, quoth he, this prating fool indite?   

3. What? shall your Auditors dispense  
With Falsehood backed 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 hid?   

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 heaven would move,  
And thee in these thy Reasonings disprove!   

6. Oh that he would his Wisdom show  
In its every 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 Earth's 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 won't 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 yesternight  
This morning's Reformat'on right;  
And no uncleanness in thy lodging lies;   

15. Thou shalt show 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 controlled:   

16. For thou shalt former misery forget;  
In new Joys Oc'an that absorped shall be;  
As any petty Rivulet  
Is in th'adjoining vast Arab'an Sea:   

17. The glorious Sun when Culminant  
Shall much of thy splendour want,  
And when he riseth and first visits us,  
Himself shall look like thy Parelius:   

18. Confidence always is secure,  
And thou shalt on just grounds be confident,  
Walls thou shalt build, but not thyself immure,  
Building them not for Strength but Ornament:  
They'll only 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 bedfellow;  
Thou shalt no Alarm 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 espy,  
But Ruin they shall see too nigh,  
And have this only comfort left, They can but die.    

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 endued a soul as you;  
Who could not tell all this 've said was true?   

4. Just persons have Heaven open to their cry,  
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 laughingstock:   

5. A man that's under God's afflicting hand  
People will slight  
As Seamen do th' Directing Light  
When in a dark tempest'ous night  
They find themselves arrived safe on Land:   

6. Thiefs live in stately Palaces  
And those which heaven seemed to scale  
God cannot choose 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;   

9 Who of all these doth not well understand  
The World was made by that Almighty hand   

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'er,  
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 sign 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 gulled, 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 sat:   

19 He seizeth on and plunders mighty Kings;  
And o'er 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 enlightened air  
Where Death sits Queen in her eternal shades:   

23. His blessing makes the Nat'ons multiply,  
Anon he cuts 'em off as fast;  
He gives 'em 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 ceased,  
The Man turns Beast,  
He takes from him who the World's sceptre swa  
And, where there's no Inhabitant  
But Wildness, Solitude, and Want,  
Where passengers ne'er come because they can't,  
Thither he sends him out to graze:   

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 myself have seen, I've heard it too;  
If I know aught, I know all this is true:   

2. I understand as much as you can do,  
'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;  
Feign would I urge to him one argument:  
But you! you're even Practitioners in lies,  
Mere Conscience-quacks whom no body will prise:  
Would 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 deal now with him appear  
As men do men you your Creator jeer;  
This seems Officiousness, but 'tis a flout:   

10. He'll 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 conjoined:   

13. Silence a while, Sirs, and give way to me;  
For I must speak what e'er the issue be:   

14. What makes me mad-man-like my flesh to gnaw?  
What makes me ready on myself to draw?   

15. Well, though in running thither I'm undone,  
Into my Maker's arms I'll run  
But it shall well appear that I am pure;   

16. Down into his bosom I will lie secure,  
Who can't the sight of hypocrites endure:   

17. My Manifesto hear attentively,  
And whether what I says to th' purpose try;   

18. Ready to plead with any here stand I,  
I'm sure myself fully to justify;   

19 Send me out some disputing enemy,  
For if I've none to plead withal I die:   

20. And grant me (God) this double courtesy,  
And from thy presence I no more will fly;   

21. Let not thy rod for ever on me lie,  
And done't thou fright me to eternity;  
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 misdemeanours 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 Aspenleaf the Lists?  
Is the dry stubble worthy of thy chase?   

26. For thou preparest against my a long black bill;  
That is not past which I thought passed;  
A note of my youth-sins thou hast,  
Which on my conscience thou urgest still:   

27. Fast in the stocks myself I feel,  
And thou thy Spies where e'er I go dost lay;  
My feet are locked in heavy 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. Whoever he be that's of a woman born,  
If his Lands be well survay'd  
He'll find 'em bearing nought but thorn,  
He'll find his Lease but for few years is made;   

2. Like Flowers 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 it:   

5. Frail Man! his time is set, alas;  
Thou knowst 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;  
 Death, when's work is done, the hireling seize:   

7. The Tree, whose branches this days Axe doth pair,  
May again to morrow bear,  
May a new bark to morrow wear,  
And get fresh boughs, and put on other hair:   

8. Though underground 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 breathed his last?   

11. The Sea is qnaffed up by the Sun,  
And Floods dried up no longer run;   

12, So is it with Man, so down he lies,  
No more to wake; no more to rise,  
Till at the day of Doom  
The shriveled heavens consume,  
Then he may chance to rub, and open 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 high,  
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 will't thy-self array,  
And (this grim vizard being laid aside)  
Thy native colours will't no longer hid;  
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 scattered parts unite?  
Strong Hope and never wearied Constancy  
Shall carry me through every 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 will't 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, than 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 every 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 wherein poor Man doth trust:   

20. Thou strikest and away goes he  
Disposed of to Eternity;  
His eyes grow dark, his cheeks grow pale,  
Those diamonds wink, these Roses fail,  
And he thus metomorphised down doth fly:   

21. He doth not see  
The Infamy  
Which his posterity incurs,  
Nor hears he of the Honour which they gain;  
No, but his Sense endures its proper pain,  
His Understanding hers.    

XV.  

1. THe Noble Temanite replies,   

2. This is not handsome (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 carest 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 heaven to greet  
Now speaks not aught  
But what is nought  
Thy Tongue has proved of late an arrant Cheat:   

6. I would thee willingly acquit,  
But thou by talking thus wilt not permit,  
Thou thy own Dirge dost sing,  
No witness need against thee rise,  
It will abundantly suffice  
Thyself against thyself to bring:   

7. Why, Joh! art thou the Protoplast?  
Or (prithee say)  
Wert thou moulded out of clay  
E'er this ruff superficiesed ball was cast?   

8. Has heaven 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 knowst thou that we ne'er knew?  
What dost perceive that we perceive not too?   

10. The reverend White upon our heads appears;  
Thy father, lived he, would want of our years:   

11. We'd have you only own your fault,  
And upon true Contrit'ons feet  
Step and fetch Comfort from the Mercy-seat;  
And is this Comfort proffered ye worth naught?  
Have you in Divinity  
More skill than we?  
And can you even into God's closet 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 righteous Abel to conceive?   

15. His greatest Saints God dares not trust;  
They and the Heaven they're heirs unto  
Are both impure as to his view,  
Who in his Saints sees vice, in th' heavenly Spangles rust;   

16. Much filthy'r 's Man who quaffs Iniquity   

17. As doth Leviathan the Sea:   

17. Hearken, and I shall let you understand  
(What I myself 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'er encroached 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 tyrannize;   

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 every 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-bossed Shields and Coats of Mail:   

27. Large level valleys of Fat smooth his face,  
Mountains thereof his pampered 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'er long will rubbish be:   

29. His bags, when most, they shall be quickly told,  
In their enjoyment he shall not grow old;  
HE 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 breathe  
Below the Centre, 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 'em move,  
But ne'er their branches into green improve:   

33. Look on the Sinner as a Vine,  
His raw grapes make but sour wine;  
Look on him as an Olive-tree,  
His flower 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 shan't 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 caused 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 thundering Preachers rave,  
I've heard 'em vent upon this head their rage;  
Is this the comfort I shall have?  
You give worse words than e'er they gave,  
And you increase the grief you should assuage:   

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'd you another story tell,  
Every syllable I'd say  
Should be a powerful spell  
To drive your evil melancholy spirit away:   

6. Ah me! I can't attain the rest I seek  
Though ne'er so much I speak,  
Nor doth my sorrow cease  
Though ne'er so long I hold my peace;   

7 Ah! weary, weary; ah! my spirirs fail,  
Thou drawest them out, and they exhale;  
I am left all alone,  
Thou frightest away my friends, and they are flown:   

8. Thou, Cruel—, with thy heavy plough  
Hast drawn these wrinkles on my brow;  
Each hollow in my withered 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,  
Showing 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 joints he hath asunder took  
Which lately had such Symmetry,  
HE 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 showers of shot,  
Whole woods of crooked yew beset me round;  
The parts wherein my life lay bound  
Are loosely scatter d on the ground;  
Here one, and there another rain 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 enraged bestows,  
And makes my body one continued wound:   

15. Sackcloth upon my flesh I bind  
And ashes spread  
Upon that head  
Which with a double White of Age and Glory shined:   

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 robbed a town,  
And having robbed it, burned it down,  
My hands at such a fire to warm;  
My Orphan-gormandizing throat  
With an unsanctified note  
The holy Temple never yet profaned;  
With my infected sheep  
Offered because it would not keep  
The holy'r Altar never yet was stained:   

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 Abel's speech,  
That it may cry, and crying heaven reach:   

19 I'm righteous in heaven's eye,  
The stars 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 heavenly towers 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'er to return again  
Unto my dungeon from whence I'm ta'en.   

1. MY breath doth stink, my strength's decayed,  
The Sexton also my last bed hath made;   

2. Death bends her bow, and Jeerers too let fly,  
Methinks 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 'em be so wise,  
Thou wilt them not such honour deign  
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'er they find out one their eyes shall ache:   

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 Tabret 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 therewith;  
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 vigour through them ran  
Had a shadow of their own,  
Now that that Vigor's gone  
Seem but the shadow of other man:   

9 The righteous soul, that pure and cleanly Dove,  
On in his milky path shall move;  
And the Arm that ne'er 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 wherein so fast you ride  
Of that City leadeth wide  
Where Wisdom doth her choicest treasures hid:   

11. My glass is run,  
My work not done;  
Death my deep designs 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 lengthened 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 divers Day,  
We all at length shall have in th' dust the selfsame 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 outrageous  
To tear himself in pieces thus:  
Shall Righteousness 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 fly  
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 straits shall run  
Struggle he ne'er so strong therein to stick,  
And most unfortunately Politic  
Shall be by his own wit undone:   

8. He shall by his own traitorous feet be led  
Where snares are set,  
A crafty net  
Where e'er 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 Death's bitter cup he first shall taste:   

14. Hope from his Court away shall high,  
Or if it tarry there  
Hope itself shall turn to Fear,  
And he shall die  
The slave of Crowned Cruelty;   

15. Despair, Hell's Envoy, shall abate his bliss,  
And with sulphur'ous streams from that Abyss  
Annoyed the Palace which is none of his;  
Which from a better man he keeps,  
And therefore therein never sound sleeps;  
When slumber scarce has closed 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 Master's room;  
His feigned fears His real Majesty,  
And sees him just approach, and thinks him nigh;  
Though he (alas!) through foreign lands doth fly,  
And with what heaven sends content  
Sweetly endures a twelve years' banishment,  
Doth customs, men, and neighbouring realms descry,  
Making a virtue 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 choked below,  
His branch so pruned as ne'er to grow;   

17. What was his name no verse shall show,  
Nor any marble keep his deeds alive;   

18. He shall Being's eat with speed  
And Light by which he should those Being's see,  
And only have the company  
Of Darkness and Nonentity;   

19 None shall the Father in the Children read,  
Nephew or Niece he shall have none  
No brother's daughter nor no sister's 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  
Astonished e'en ran mad,  
And these shall be in full as great a fright:   

21. They who fly away apace  
From that which gave 'em feet,  
Who though a Deity they meet  
In every field, in every street,  
Yet they're resolved 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 yourselves like strangers towards me:   

4. What if Het'rodox I be!  
On me lies that Het'rodoxiety:   

5. But since int' other men's 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,  
HE has catched me in his net, and I am caught:   

7. I show 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 eclypsed my glorious rays,  
And robbed 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 withered tree:   

11. His Anger 'gainst me glows,  
And he still reckons me among his foes?   

12. He musters up his Regiments;  
His pioners 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 join d,  
Any of them I cannot find;  
Such as with me their Friendship-loves combined,  
I'm out of sight with them and out of mind:   

15. My Inmates and Maidservants on me stare  
As on some stranger in an Antic dress,  
Some of whom discreetly guess  
I'm dropped 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 sneaked out of some threadbare Isle,  
A fifth dare swear I'm 'scaped 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 every 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 endure,  
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 abused by every brat;  
I cannot rise but I'm their chat:   

19 My bosom friends cannot abide my sight;  
My love is recompensed with slight:   

20. My flesh, my skin, my bone  
Cling all together but disorderly,  
Some of my teeth alone  
Are to their covering as they ought to be:   

21. See, Sirs, what I have undergone,  
And show me some compassion,  
For God, I'm sure, has shown me none   

22. Why d'ye on your distressed neighbour play  
Having unhandsomely presumed  
T'entitle God to what you do and say?  
My flesh long since is all consumed  
And you would make my soul too pine away:   

23. Oh that my words, which now will prove vain,  
Were by a ready writer ta'en  
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 hanselled with my Threnody!   

24. Oh that this were in brass ingravened,  
And wrought even in the rock there to be read  
In well-set Characters of lasting lead▪   

25. For on my saviur I rely  
A Second Person in a Trinity,  
I have his Pass'on in my eye,  
I ken the top of Calvary,  
Hither (methinks) I hear him cry,  
Eli, Eli, Lamaschabactany!  
I hear him give one groan, and die;  
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 seize,  
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 clothed 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 blossom 〈◊〉  
The heavenly seed within 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 Rhetoric engage,  
This forces me in haste to take the stage,  
Replied the Naamathite,   

3. If I perceived not how you put me to't  
I had been mute,  
I had not sought your satire to confute,  
But now I must retort, so deep you by't:   

4. 've often sure of this been told,  
For 'tis as true as heaven and earth are old;   

5. Hypocrites, I suppose, you know  
Let 'em make ne'er so gay a show  
Their triumphs are but pageantries,  
As soon as e'er '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 enjoyed 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 banished 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 seize:   

11. The youthful Sinner's punished 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 roll,   

13. Though he fall to and do not spare,  
Though he chew the cud (as 'twere)  
Being loath 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 used on Gold to dine, on Silver sup,  
But both upon his stomach lie,  
He must refund 'em by and by,  
God makes him disimbogue and cast 'em 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'er enjoy or this or that:   

18. He shall restore all he hath got,  
One crumb there-of he swallows not;  
He shall Restitut'on make,  
And making Restitut'on break,  
For all his gain  
He by cozening did obtain,  
And so nothing shall remain  
Wherein he full delight may take:   

19 Because he has the poor oppressed,  
And what another built possessed,   

20. His purse shall so quite empty be of g●in  
As his wide paunch shall be brimful 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 designed 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 closet seemeth Darknesses black ●eat,  
He melts away with unblown heat;  
And they that in his tabernacle are  
Shall far the worse for being there:   

27. In the Stars there shall be writ,  
Though not his Fate, his sin that causeth it;  
Burst clouds above ●gainst him shall declaim,  
Earthquakes bene'th shall thunder out his shame;  
Heaven itself shall then tell tales,  
And Earth's large hollow vales  
Shall echo 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 returned, 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 Satirical:   

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 settled 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 power 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 every 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;  
Death's feeble dart  
Brings but one moment's 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'd use their goods aright but can it;  
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  
Choked by that oil wherewith it should be fed!  
How oft they into ruin fall!  
On them God no reward bestow;  
But sorrows and afflict'ons throws,  
For here his Justice is Vindictive all:   

18. They be like the tossed and tumbled leaves  
Which every blast of rest bereaves;  
They're like the chaff which from the winnowed corn  
By every puff away is born:   

19, 20. Of every wicked word and deed  
Record is in heaven ta'en  
To be in time produced again  
To th' pain of Speakers and of Actor's 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 kill grief, and of Despair  
Such as Almighty fury doth prepare  
He shall be forced to drink up,  
And they shall pledge him in the selfsame 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'er to be God's Counsellor,  
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 even Judges to his bar:   

23. One goes off robust'ously,  
And doth without anxiety,  
Without or care or torment die,  
Falling without a Metaphor asleep;   

24. His bones, his breasts  
No drought infests,  
Blood through these disguised in white doth creep,  
And those well marrowed 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 has 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 devilish thoughts within you rise,  
I know what lies  
Against me you devise,  
And how malic'ously you Syllogise;   

28. Your argument is this,  
The man whose palace 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;   

29. Ask any Traveller that, passes by,  
He'll prove it t'ye unansw'rably,   

30. That there's a day, a rec●●●ng day  
When sinners still consumed 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 righteousness 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 heart, 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 appealed;   

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 show thee thy Life-misdeed?   

5. Are not thy Vice's 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 mother's son;  
From him whose rags could scarcely be put on  
Thou snatchedst them and made him yet more bare:   

7. Thou ne'er didst fetch  
Water for the thirsty wretch,  
The hungry soul thou hast not fed;  
But when they cried  
Hast barbarously denied  
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 country was his farm:   

9 Widows for thee could not enjoy their own;  
Orphans little better fared,  
With whom to lose but limbs was to be spared;   

10. Therefore where-ever thou go'st there lies a snare,  
And wheresoe'er thou stayest there terrors are;   

11. Into a dark abyss thou'rt thrown,  
And with a flood of misery o'rflown:   

12. Doth not God sit enthroned on high  
In heaven whose every star  
Is from our earth so far  
That Parallaxes can't its height 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 confined,  
And there he has his work assigned  
To be some nobler Orbs Intelligence,  
But never or to move or see from-thence:   

15. Hast thou observed paths of Impiety  
Which, if Records are true,  
Of old vile Caitiffs used to   

16. Whom Time scarce brings unto our memory,  
(His  was sooner on them than his eye)  
Whose palace rotten with the blood they shed  
And yielded to that undermining Sea of Red;   

17. When God arproacht, they entertained 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 righteous God's proceed 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 turned to dust,  
This is not impaired by rust,  
Loses by fire what scap't the plundering enemy:   

21. Keep up the trade 'twixt Heaven and Earth,  
That intercourse increaseth mirth;  
And, while thy soul ascending thither  
Returneth richly laden hither,  
There shall be no spiritual poverty nor dearth:   

22. In every 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 loser 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 Joys Ocean shall 〈◊〉,  
And thou shalt have a full, full view of Him   

27. Thou needest not fear,  
He will thee hear;  
Find thou a tongue, he will find an ear;  
And thou thy justly taken oaths shalt keep;   

28. Whatsoever thou dost intent  
Shan't fail to have a prosperous end;  
To follow thee, and light to lend  
The very Sun shall from th' Ecliptic leap:   

29. Thy scale shall mount as other scales do sink;  
God rights him whom men abuse,  
God honours him who honour doth refuse,  
Thus thou with thyself shalt noise,  
Thus thou shalt have suffic'ent cause to think:   

30. The harmless he delivers from the grave,  
The sufferings of one Royal Job  
●ix a great Canton of the tottering globe,  
And just now-drowning Lands 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 myself 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 far,  
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 discerned by humane eye:   

10. Thus being on every side  
He can't but know  
Which way and how there-in I go,  
Only he'll have me tried,  
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 show;   

12. What he enjoined I have accounted Good,  
My life's the transcript of his words,  
What Nature for our sustenance affords  
Can 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:   

15. 'Tis this my trouble doth create,  
This styles me Job the most unfortunate;  
When of his powerful power 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 hurled  
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 blessed days begin we may call His?   

2. Some men their ant'ent bounds won't keep,  
But throw the common stakes away,  
Enter their neighbour's grounds, and seize his sheep,  
Which dressed unto their table they convey:   

3. Into their field the Orphan's Ass is drawn,  
In their stall stands the Widow's Ox a pawn:   

4. Poor Footmen leave the road to them that ride,  
And seek some hole which will them kindly hid:   

5. Just like wild Asses in the woods they stray,  
Like them in every thing but ease,  
For they ne'er 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 clothed they of their  bereave,  
And whom they naked find they naked leave,  
And will not take 'em in to bed,  
But let 'em lie in th' cold uncovered:   

8. They make 'em when it reins apace  
Those showers with their bodies intercept  
Which heaven 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 men's whole estates in pledges take;   

10. Tottered they make 'em 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 shan't 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 heaven 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 balk  
Their enlightened Conscience.  
And with its reproofs dispense,  
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 men's 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 every 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'er them drawn  
Than be or'taken by the dawn;  
If any neighbour chance to spy  
That neighbour has a Cockatrice's kill eye:   

18. They're borne away by the swift tide of Sin,  
They're of the cursed Family;  
The Vineyard-road ne'er wanteth company,  
And you shall never find 'em 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'er the monsters bore;  
The worm shall seize on them for meat  
And find them sweet,  
And they shall be remembered no more;  
Trees quickly broken show their rottenness,  
And Vice not holding shall betray itself 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 'em know their lives are none of theirs:   

23. Thus is he of Felicity possessed,  
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 show 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 fixed and shaking Fear stand by;  
There War ne'er yielded yet to Peace,  
For what gins not cannot cease:   

3. Can any Numerat'on tell  
The Myr'ads which his colours bear?  
Or can Geometry declare  
Where his enlivening 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 every 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 Earthworm 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'er relies on you and speeds?  
How have you e'er the helpless saved 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 patronised Verity,  
Biased 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 Centre of the world espy;  
The place where sinful mortals fry,  
Where souls still dying never die,  
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 treadest 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 Air  
Bodies more heavy than itself should bear:   

9 Bold Artists with their Optic tubes alone  
Intent to see their Maker's 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 bond the overflowing light:   

11. If the stars twinkle, 'tis this causes it,  
They're taken with a trembling fit;  
heavens 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 Heaven's frame,  
And by his wisdom he adorned the same;  
He rounded and he gilded every Sphere,  
There he fixed 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 looked over,  
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 roar  
We cannot comprehend, and therefore must adore,   

1. HEre having stopped a while, As sure, quoth he,  
As the Immortal God is God,  
Whose deal 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 Righteousness  
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 pleased in me to breathe;   

4. That Air which I so pure into me draw  
Shan't doubly, whilst returned, be defiled  
By immixed Fumes and naughty Phrases too;  
My Auditors shan't be beguiled  
By my relating any thing untrue:   

5. Far be it from me I should you justify  
Who to unjustify 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 resolved to stick unto it,  
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 cruelest I can think upon is this,  
May he obtain the Swearers heaven, the Drunkard's 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 called in he must repaid?   

9 Then, when he s just in sight of's grave,  
He ll seek commerce with Heaven, 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 it 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  as if as cheap as clay;   

17. Silver and  prepare he may;  
But one shall prove the righteous people's prey,  
The other be of use unto the Just:   

18. Observe the Palace 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'er to re-open, close and shut:   

20. Terrors about him make a tempest round,  
But one shall prove the righteous people's prey,  
Wherein he's overwhelmed, he sinks, he 's drowned;  
See his frail vessel on a Dead Sea ride,  
Hurried away by th' fury of the tide:   

21. While he on his Deathbed lies  
Horrible winds arise,  
And bear away this loathsome prize;  
Massy trees dance about, and point at him  
When he gins to die;  
Oaks, Elms, and Pines had learned before to swim,  
Now they attempt the air and fly;  
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  
Wherein such Malefactors burn:  
Thus to the shades the Tyrant goes,  
A Hurricane 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 destroyed;  
Fain he would, but can it 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 Macrocosm a Mine  
Which with its rivulets of Silver seems  
To ape the Microcosms purple streams;  
And somewhere Artists Gold refine:   

2. These force Iron from the place  
Where it ingend' read 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 Death's shady cave:   

4. Those Miners when their Mine is made  
And they go down into it,  
Their passage by a flood is stayed  
Through which for m'ny an age no foot  
Had been observed to wade;  
And which dries by and by away,  
And doth them or their work no longer stay:   

5. Earth's surface doth recruit our Butt'ry-store,  
Her bowels send our Chimneys coals;   

6. There lurk Saphires in their holes  
There grows the yellow oar:   

7. There is a path which escapes the Praetors eyes,  
Which never any fowl yet saw,   

8. Which has no print of any Lion's paw,  
Or of a bigger or a lesser size:   

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 shows 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,  
IT enter 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 it,  
Onyx and Saphyre's nothing to it:   

17. Low will be Golds and Crystals rate,  
Crystal will be but common glass,  
Gold but for common dirt will pass;  
Nay, you shan't ha' it  
Though you would give for't houses full of plate:   

18. Coral may blush and pearls look pale,  
This may be vexed, that ashamed  
Because with her not to be named;  
Rubies as worthless must to Wisdom vail:   

19 Th' Ethiop'an Topaz to her doth not shine,  
Nor will she be compared to th' Golden mine:   

20. Come then, Philosopher, and show 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 reached their cell:   

23. God fully knows  
Wither she goes,  
And where she grows;   

24. For Earth to him its secrets shows,  
And all things under Heaven 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 'em keep the measure he assigned:   

26. And when he ordained how Rain the Earth should wash,  
How Thunder crack, how  flash,  
When he did her and all things frame,   

27. He looked through and through the same,  
He pleased to study that which he had made  
And gave report there-of, and said,   

28. Herein Understanding 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 replied,   

2. Oh that Time's tide  
Might backward flow,  
And I might no more sorrow know  
Than I did twelve and twelvescore moons ago,  
When God still interposed 'twixt me and woe;   

3. When of his servant careful he  
Held out of heaven a candle unto me;  
With whose fair beams my face was rayed,  
And with whose aid  
I feared no shade,  
But could through Oceans of Darkness wade;   

4. When yet not down 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 Heaven into my tent;  
When my children round me went,  
I being Centre, they Circumference;   

6. When I had so rich a soil  
I trod on butter as I went it round;  
And, as if every day I had been crowned,  
The very rocks were found  
To run continually with oil;   

7. When I went through the town to th' Judgment-seat,  
And road in state along the street;   

8. For then the young that did me meet  
Stole privately away;  
Up also risen the grey  
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 failed  
As if within their mouths it were nailed:   

11. Who e'er my story heard applauded me;  
Passengers seeing me cried This is he:   

12. For I holp Innocency against might,  
And righted Orphans whom none else would right:   

13. They whom I saved in their extremity  
Thanked God first for the life He gave,  
And then they thanked 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 studied (Fatherlike) the poor man's cause,  
To find what I for him might say;   

17. I broke the persecutors cruel jaws,  
And snatched from thence the bleeding prey:   

18. Then thus myself I blest,  
Here in my nest,  
Here I until my glass be done shall rest;  
Which glass of mine will not be done  
Till Nature's stock of sand be through it run:   

19 My root, as by the waterside I grew,  
I did far and wide diffuse;  
The breath of Heaven condensed into dew  
Did itself '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 approved,  
All heard with silence whatsoever I moved:   

22. My words once spoke were ne'er opposed by theirs,  
They dropped so sweetly from my mouth into their ears:   

23. They longed for them as earnestly  
As the parched fields do for rain,  
And as, when they be again adry,  
They long in harvest time to drink again:   

24. If being pleasant for a while  
On any I bestowed 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  looks were Light,  
Whose very dawn none of 'em all would slight:   

25. In every serious affair  
I took the chair,  
And was Lord Paramount in th' Field;  
I was looked 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'er allow 'em place  
Among those curs I keep to guard my flock:   

2. For how could such e'er stand a man in stead  
Whose strength, though they still breathed, 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 cliffs, Art dug 'em caves,  
The Rock too an unusull monument  
Lent the yet-living wretches graves:  
They lay along the hedges side  
And there for Alms they cried;  
The nettles did the couchant vermin hid:   

8. The foolish Two's that joined to give 'em birth  
Very little understood;  
They were mere muck-worms, sons of earth,  
Sons of earth! said I? they were not so good:   

9 These, these men's sons make me their melody,  
When they want one to jeer they think on me:   

13. They loathe me, and they run from me apace,  
And every tagrag spiteth in my face:   

11. For God the reins out of my hand hath took,  
My happiness and power is ceased,  
And now the Multitude that heady beast  
The late coercive bridle off hath shaken:   

12. The 'pprentices soon armed  
Trip up the heels of Government;  
And they new ways invent  
How I may be farther harmed:   

13. They spoil the path where I should go,  
And to procure my woe  
They of Auxiliaries have no need,  
They're able of themselves to do the deed:   

14. (Surely) Dead Seas break in upon my soul,  
Floods of corroding waters on me roll;   

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,  
Even 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 immoderate heat  
My pulse so high doth beat  
That all my other members take no rest:   

18. 'Tis a disease that's strong enough  
To slain the very  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 preferred:   

21. Thy Being, for aught I understand,  
's but one continued Act of Tyranny;  
And thy strong, resistless hand  
Has set itself 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 air:   

23. The life Thou gavest me I'm sure to lose;  
Thou'lt bring me to the Gen'ral Rendezvouz:   

24. Thou, whose Tutelary power  
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 watery eye  
On people plunged into distress?  
Did not I pity them no less  
Whom I beheld reduced to Poverty?   

26. Yet when I look to have all things serene  
There's no Serenity will be seen;  
Myself 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 boiled 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 Rays to make me cry;  
As soon as the Assembly met  
Presently up stood I,  
And entertained them with my Tragedy:   

29. Certain strange creatures in the Desert are,  
They're plated o re with scales,  
've long and bearded tails,  
Their bulk huge massy wings can hardly bear;  
You may in them the Image spy  
Of heavens 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  
Ashamed 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, control;  
Why should any Spec'es than  
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 huddled lie  
Of a jet brow, a di'mond eye,  
A ruby lip and cheek;  
Into that room  
Where candles come  
Must not heaven but dimly shine?  
Will not the Carnal Love extinguish the Divine?   

3. And then when that doth once expire  
Is there not kindled straight 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 practised 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 fond glanced,  
After it my heart hath danced,  
And if my ravished hands have lost their purity;   

8. Then let my enemy's  cut what I sow,  
And let his sword my children's children mow:   

9 If I have doted on some comely lass,  
And watched when she by the next door did pass;   

10. Then let my wise a strumpet be,  
And so dishonour both herself 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 damnify my Candle-tenements:   

13. If I to do my servants right refused,  
If I my man because my man abused,  
Or wronged 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 form him has form me:   

16. If I have gulled th' afflicted ones,  
Lessened their goods, increased their groans;  
If I the widows did neglect,  
And made them long but all in vain expect;   

17. If by myself in state I dined  
While Orphans at my door with hunger pined;  
If all on my own gut I spent  
And to the poor not crumbs 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'er scorned to be:   

19 If surlily I bid poor folks be gone  
When they begged something to put on;  
If these eyes could e'er behold  
Sad wretches starve with cold;   

20. If I did never care  
My sheep to shear  
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 assailed  
Whom help in their deceased father failed  
When I the works and upper ground possessed;   

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 righteous Heaven was;  
I saw destruct'on against Tyrant's 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'er 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 buried 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 gazed too much upon the face in her;   

27. Had I been into vanity trepanned,  
Had my mouth idolised my thrifty hand;   

28. Had this been so, God might have done with me  
As Judges with convicted persons do;  
I had denied his Deity,  
Owning myself for one, and there cannot be two:   

29. If in's distress my foe I jeered,  
If at his fall I domineered,  
Then— 30. But his ruin was against my will,  
I neither did nor wished him ill;  
Such projects I still let alone  
Whereby mad Politicians are known  
Other men's souls to curse and wound their own:   

31. My servants ne'er had cause to cry,  
Oh for some vict'als that would satisfy!  
Oh for a bit of what our Master eats!  
His savoury dishes, his substant'al sweets!  
We can't live on these empty meats;   

32. Strangers that chanceed to come that way  
Never had cause to say  
Oh might we but within doors lie!  
Here cold o'ercomes our vitals, and we die;  
Lodgings to them I did afford,  
I was free of bed and board:   

33. If I confessed not of my own accord,  
But dodged and cried 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 within;   

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 myself would help to fill;  
I would new matter of indictment bring,  
I'd show him where aside I stepped,  
What laws I have, what laws I have not kept,  
And I would reverence him e'en 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 aught  
By cutting of the owner's 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 persuade 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 aught denies, none ought evalidates,  
Yet they'd deny him his Integrity:   

4. Thus long stayed 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 grey,  
And therefore what I thought I feared to say;   

7. Old Age (quoth I) and long Experience,  
They, they shall talk in Justice's defence;   

8. But if myself I rightly prise  
My soul too has her noble Faculties;  
Knowledge descends, and he is wise,  
Who utters what is whispered from the skies:   

9 Wit doth not always upon power attend,  
And Age and Judgement are not always Twins,  
But sometimes one comes to its end  
When the other but gins:   

10. This reason to myself I gave  
Why I should dare your best attent'on crave,  
And show you what opinions I have:   

11. I long your Answers did expect,  
I heard and conned your Argument;  
I waited whilst you o'er the Topics went  
To find out something which you might object:   

12. I looked to have what you should speak  
Stound this conceited Saint,  
But found your Answers faint,  
And your Convictives very weak:   

13. So that you have no cause, you see,  
To boast '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 ant against him prejudiced  
For his taunting Ironies,  
And therefore will not such retorts devise  
As you incensed by his cutting jeers devised:   

15, 16. They looked on one another o'er and o'er  
Surprised with strange stupidity,  
I looked 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 sense, full to the brim,  
I have a Prompter in my breast  
'Tis he my matter doth suggest,  
And I, whatever it is, must follow him:   

19 Spirit'ous wine too close in bottles penned  
The temper of my soul doth represent,  
As that its earthen, this its fleshly pr'son doth rend:   

20. I'll out with what I cannot hold,  
And for my easement will make bold:   

21. I don't desire to compliment, not I;  
Nor shall my tongue relate for true  
(As your Sycophants will do)  
What in my heart I know to be a lie,  
Or any man's small merits magnify;   

22. Should I Panegyrics 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 Nature's 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. God's Spirit 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 thyself into a way,  
Hold up thy face, and boldly do it:   

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 yourself 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 my o'er and o'er, you'll find in me no spot;  
The Child unborn less harmless is,  
And for Iniquity, I know it not;   

10. Where I ne'er 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 missed:   

12. Sir, under favour, 'tis a lie,  
And what I say I'll justify,  
That God is far superior to thee;   

13. What ails thee to keep such a do?  
He will no Reason of is proceed show,  
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'en;  
Men though awake asleep they seem;   

15. And therefore in some vision or dream  
He makes 'em make as 'twere when they should sleep;  
Then he at their bedside 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 bedrid 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 discerned as it has been;  
And so his till-now-latent bones are seen  
And represent him a mere Sceleton:   

22. His soul draws nigh  
To the devouring grave,  
And he a prey doth lie  
To those who no man's life will save:   

23. Then if there come a Malachy,  
An Orthodox Divine,  
One worth nine hundred ninety nine;  
For while so many uselessly stand by,  
And to the sad dark wretch no light supply,  
This one doth gloriously shine,  
And shows him how himself to justify;   

24. And so th' Eternal Word is heard to say,  
Throw not his soul into the pit,  
Stay, recall, deliver it,  
Myself will to myself its ransom pay:   

25. His withered flesh  
Shall be as fresh  
As when he was but five month's 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 Judge's 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 in my Act'ons? what great gain?  
Whilst the poor Penitent doth thus complain,  
heavens hollow Arch re-ecchoes back Great Gain:   

28. He once was to have been  
A brand where damned spirits are  
Eternal Love doth change the scene,  
And shows him heaven and makes him there a star:   

29. This course with man God often takes,  
And a Prince of a prisoner makes,   

30. Bringing him from the dung'on to the Throne,  
From Darkness to Lights Beatific 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 justify;   

33. If thou hast not, attend, and cease to prate;  
I have some knowledge to communicate.   

1. FVrther he urged, 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 defined,  
Let us consider every kind  
Which therofs commonly assigned,  
And what is found to be the best  
Let's hold to that, and flight the rest;  
Let us among ourselves agree  
What that which we will own for Good shallbe:   

5. Our friend here, Job is ma●●●er●,  
And needs will his own righteousness assert;  
God (cries he) has done me wrong;   

6. I will no● wrong myself too by a lie,  
By fearing my own deeds to justify;  
I ne'er deserved this, not I,  
Yet I'm undone without recovery,  
This is the impious burden of his imp'ous song:   

7. Did e'er 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 men's Act'ons shall requite,  
Their work shall be the measure of their pay,  
They shall find several Inns at night  
According as they ride a several 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 he 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 distempered 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 reckon 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 it 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' Diadem,  
And Princes but to Peasant's 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 will descry  
As in the shade by night they lie,  
Be that shade ne'er so thick, be that night ne'er 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 shan't to any other Judge appeal:   

24. He'll take Commanders, be they ne'er 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 'em off by night  
Off they are turned and away they go:   

26 They like condemned malefactors die  
Public Examples as it were,  
Acting their own Tragedy  
Upon the World's wide Amphi-theatre:   

27. For they from him Apostatised,  
And all his holy ways despised:   

28. They did their fellows (too) too much despise,  
Men of their make, though not so richly lined;  
Who b'ng oppressed send up to heaven their cries,  
Up get those cries to heaven, and there admittance find:   

29. When he Wars tumults doth assuage,  
Who can alarm and disturb the town?  
And when he flings away in rage  
Who can endure his frown?  
Who dares with an incensed God engage,  
When he a person fills with discontent,  
Or when he breeds a Nat'ons' dissettlement?   

30. For both oftentimes doth he,  
Lest some dissembling General  
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 Creator's feet,  
And there adore, and thus him greet,  
What thou inflictedst (Lord) I kindly bore,  
For I had sinned, 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 signify:   

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'er baffled us,  
And grows towards his Creator more than Impudent.   

1. ELihu further goes, and pleads,   

2. Are you in earnest then?  
Must the Almighty yield to men?  
Thinkest 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'er the better for it;  
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 crew;   

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 it;  
He's unconcerned 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 it 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 inquires  
Who fills with joy the vessels that he made,  
Who when his darlings down to sleep are laid  
Turns their bedchambers into quires;  
Who in the silent night makes us to sing;   

11. Who gives us such a noble soul,  
That on our Judgements feet, and Fancy 's wing  
W' outrun the swiftest beast, w' outfly the swiftest fowl.   

12. Ah me! how the enslaved 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'er so high,  
It shall not reach th' Almighty's eye;  
No notice shall thereof by him be ta'en,  
No, it shall be itself, it shall be vain:   

14. Thy deeds, thou criest,  
How just soever they have been,  
Yet are they not so much as seen;  
Nay, but they are, they are, thou liest;  
He doth behold, he doth approve be sure,  
And thou, were unbelief away,  
Did not that thy reas'nings' sway,  
Mightst 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 moved indeed,  
But what 'tis from them doth proceed  
Thou seemest to take little heed;  
The 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 Master's cause;   

3. I'll 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 itself my prompter is:   

5. How large and absolute is God's command!  
Yet is it not attended with disdain;  
Notice by him of every one is ta ne,  
Who has both a strong head and hand:   

6. He'll have no Malefactors death deferred;  
He'll have all honest men be fully heard:   

7. The righteous by him are owned, and owned,  
They are the Nobles, they're the only Peers,  
So settled in the State they have no fears  
Of being e'er dethroned:   

8. But then again when once his favour fails,  
And they prove only fit to people Jails,  
When they are laid in hold  
Shackled with pains  
As common prisoners are with chains,   

9 Then of their former deeds they're told,  
And shown wherein 've been too free,  
Wherein 've taken too much liberty:   

10. Their lately Adder-ear  
Quickly wide open doth appear  
Unto Afflict'ons' charm,  
By which when once admonished they begin  
To leave their heav'n-provoking sin,  
And cease to do their neighbour's 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 'em e'en 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 snatched away;  
As the unclean die, so die they:   

15. He saves the poor in their distress;  
'Tis in design he doth oppress,  
That so his Counsel they may heed  
And follow'ng it be freed,   

16. He has helped 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 righteousness do swerve,  
All those your Actions deserve,  
And Justice now doth justly seize 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:   

●●. Wish not among those Millions to lie  
Who'd sent by night to endless woe or rest,   

21. Such imp'ous thoughts detest  
Which to thy breast  
Some evil spirits suggest  
Making thee wish rather outright to die  
Than live and suffer farther misery:   

22. Be it 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 reverend 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'er 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;  
Vapours drawn up drop down again,  
And turn to showrs;   

28. Showers, which down from th' hollow heaven drill  
As from the head of some vast Still,  
And man's 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 air:   

30. Through these His light on us doth glance,  
Who hides with waves the bottom of the sea;   

31. These testify 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 used 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 Sign doth with the Signified agree;  
Quicksighted beasts th'ascending Vapour see  
And thence foretell what kind of shower 'tis like to be.   

1. HEreat my heart within me strangely stirred;  
With trembling struck  
A leap it took  
Down from the Second Ventr'cle to the Third:   

2. Hark, hark,  
The thunderer speaks;  
Mark, how he rattles, mark;  
When his mouth opens, what a noise he makes!   

3. A noise, which under the whole heaven he sends;  
His  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 discharged the warning piece:   

5. You hear the Thunder's rumbling noise,  
That Thunder's but his ordinary voice;  
His Achievements 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 superadded day;  
Particles of that wool whose greater flocks  
Silver the Summer-Equinox;  
There six stupendous branches show  
Which in such equal Length and Number grow,  
That they who into Nature's 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 Showers a call,  
Go Drops of great bulk and strength,  
Dark such a people's air, and then at length  
Beat down their standing Corn and spoil it all:   

7. When Artists go to work, he makes 'em stay,  
At his command  
Numbness attacques their active hand;  
That so while they  
Keeping a ted'ous Holiday  
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:   

9 From his South point the Whirlwind rowls,  
His freezing Guards send cold;   

10. He breathes forth frost,  
And then the Waters former breadth is lost:   

11. He uses swelling Clouds to drain  
By squeezing out their rain;  
Smooth-painted one's he scatters all about,  
And so the cur'ous Bow goes out:   

12. Round go they at his decree,  
And so fulfil  
Th' Eternal will,  
And order things as he would have 'em be:   

13. As it pleases him about they be hurled,  
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 it, and ruminate  
Upon God's wondrous works which I relate:   

15. Canst thou the time design  
When at his beck the Clouds in order join,  
And some above their fellows shine?   

16. Come, little-knowing Vzzite, come,  
Confess thy Ignorance,  
Thou knowst not how the Clouds above thee dance  
In such an aequilibrium;  
Thou canst not to a sight attain  
Of the Achievements 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 borrowed wool 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 were't thou the mighty Workman's mate  
When he the heaven did excavate,  
That immense, admirable Glass  
So rarely cast,  
Fixed so fast,  
That it for polished 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 heaven shall journeys 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 Rays into it run,  
How fast they run, how thick they crowd,  
Themselves there-in to shroud:  
When Arts hereafter shall have crossed the Sea,  
And Greece in Wisdom shall instructed be,  
A Superstit'ous Socrates  
Considering these  
May worship 'em in stead of Goddesses;  
But vulgar people do not care  
To mark their mot'ons through the air  
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 Air ne'er 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 Astrolabes be tried;  
Let the Three-cornered brass be rectified;  
Let streaks of Light be spun into a thread;  
Reason into a bead be thickened;  
Ninety Infinities drawn on the Limb;  
Still all's too short to take the height of him:  
Our feeble sight  
Can't view his Light,  
Nor can his Altitude  
By any Art of Man be showed:  
He is not Mighty, he is Might,  
He is not Righteous, but righteousness;  
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 pays;  
He slights the wombs of Policy  
And temples crowned 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 replied,   

2. What is the man's design,  
The thing he clearly should define  
In obscure not'ons thus to hid?  
Why does the fool still talk more than he knows?   

3. Come, for a dispute prepare,  
Show how Rat'onal you are,  
And answer to the Quest'on I propose:   

4. Where were't Atome-thou? rehearse;  
What poor contained thee,  
When I gave order to a point to be  
The Basis of the Universe?  
I wisdom had, and showed the same  
In forming this so glorious frame,  
Thou by telling how show thine;   

5. Who was it did thus indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉?  
What Mason used plummet here or line?   

6. What's this huge building founded on?  
Who was it laid the cornerstone?  
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 joined,  
When th'heavenly-high-born Family  
Into one shout its var'ous joys combined?   

8. Pray satisfy me who was he  
Who first of all the unchecked Sea  
Up in its caverns penned?  
Who was it 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 marry Element  
Issued out of Nature's womb?   

9 I did an Atmosphere provide  
To  as 'twere my fluid creature round,  
Which when the night the same doth hid  
Now in its darker coloured swaddling bands is bound;   

10. I dug the water's 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 placed 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'er flow this strand   

12. Hast thou since thy being born  
Unto the dawning Morn  
Its way to the Horizon showed?  
Hast thou enjoined 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'er 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 air doth flow  
The several parts their figures show,  
The Orbs their blue, the Fields their green display:   

15. Those wretches with whose will the Sun ne'er shone  
They'd have no light, they shall have none;  
Their day shall yield to the encroaching 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  
Show thee her iron grate?  
Or didst thou of that place a view e'er take  
Through which she doth such frequent sallies make?   

18. Did e'er thy Mathematics try  
How far Nature walks in dry?  
If thou hast found the Earth's extent,  
Come, publish thy Experiment;  
If thou dost want a pupil, here am I:   

19, 20. Direct me where the Day doth dwell,  
And show me whereabouts is Night's dark cell;  
Alas! thou dost not know, thou canst not tell;  
Hast thou by thee  
A draught of its Ichnography?  
Hast thou an Itinerary  
Wherein a passenger may read  
What paths, what turn thereunto do lead?   

21. knowst 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'er 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 public tumults raise,  
When showers of darts eclipse those Midday-rays  
Which glittering Armour helped 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 thundering blow;   

26. That so the heaven may send down showers  
Upon that wild and barren ground  
Where no inhabitant is found  
And whereupon no mortal water pours;   

27. That so the thirsty earth may drink,  
And th' drops which down into her sink  
May be again returned herbs and flowers?   

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'er grow?  
To whom doth Frost its generation owe?   

30. The Sea consistent now, fluid before,  
How cur'ously it is enamell'd o'er!   

31. Look where the seven bright Sisters are  
From your Aldebaran not far;  
Can you any hindrance bring  
Unto their shine  
As that they shan't 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'er untie  
That these may all asunder fly,  
And so the Winter they compose may fail?   

32. Have you such power or th'Southern hemisphere  
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?  
Every 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 winked;  
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?  
knowst thou how the Planets dance,  
Now retreat and then advance,  
Hither and thither but in method hurled?  
Canst solve their mot'ons and not fly to Chance?  
Dost thou dispense  
To Intersect'on-lines,  
To Horoscopes and Signs,  
To Opposit'ons, Quartiles, Trines,  
Their less or gre●ter Influence?   

34. Will the Clouds with thy breath dissolve?  
Will they fall  
When thou do it c●ll,  
And in a sudden deluge thee involve?   

35. Will  at thy beck appear,  
And to thy Summons answer Here?   

36. Who gave the soul its Faculties?  
Who made the Heart  
A Bank of Art?  
Who bade that lump of flesh be wise?   

37, 38. Wheres' he that can such skill attain  
As that he can the clouds enumerate?  
When showers the loser dust coagulate  
And with their moist that's soft abate,  
Where's he that can heaven's sluices shut again  
E'er those vast bottles let fall all their rain?   

39 Suppose the Lion's meat grow scant,  
Wilt thou go catch his prey he can't o'ertake?  
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, satisfy me, why  
Unto the Deity;  
Up and down for food they fly,  
Every hole and corner try  
Something that's eatable to spy,  
But what's that Instinct moves 'em 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 reckoning keep  
From the first time the Sal'ent point doth leap  
Till the eyes, the keel, the brain  
And every 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 high  
And feed upon lose ears of corn  
Which scattered o'er 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 Ass' liberty,  
Who gave it him but I?  
I sent him out to feed, and he is gone,  
Gone, and has 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 thyself alive  
There doth this creature feed, and live, and thrive:  
There where nought has e'er 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 own:   

7. Far from the City and its dust he flies,  
No Lorldly drivers o'er 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 it 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 tied  
Thy seed in softer earth to hid?  
Will he e'er endure to hale  
Thy massy harrow o'er the ploughed 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. Spread'st thou those wings upon the Peacock's 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 exposed 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 taken;   

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 recompense,  
In that her strength 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 Centaur's fears:   

19 Mad'st thou the Horse uncapable of ch●ck?  
Didst thou h●ng thunderbolts about his ●eck?   

20. Will he shun like a Grasshopper thy sight?  
Canst thou those terror breathing nostrils fright?   

21. His playfellow luxur'ant Earth he stri●es,  
And tumbles in the valleys 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'ercome his eye, ne'er make his heart to yield:   

24. Such is his fierceness, such his rage,  
As if in jest his hunger to assuage  
He'd make but just one morsel of the Earth;  
The Trumpets mart'al threatening voice  
To him 's no mart'al threatening 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. Dost 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 glittering mate descry,  
And there with him make a new Gemini?  
Dost thou direct her on the cliffs to lie  
And plant her feathered 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 citadel,  
Here the Royal fowl doth dwell  
Here she her Court doth keep;   

29. No sooner has any poor bird  
In the Airs vast oc'an stirred,  
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 it their trade and business to be killed and kill.   

1. FVrther he pleased 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'er thou art, audacious Soul,  
That darest thy Creator thus control:   

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 lived, 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 it, and play thy part,  
I by a Question or two  
My skill will show,  
Thou by thy Answers show thy art;   

8. What? wilt thou undertake  
What I shall order void to make?  
Wilt thou my righteousness dethrone,  
And then set up a new one of thy own?   

9 Canst thou destroy as God destroys?  
Or canst thou imitate his thundering noise?  
Hast thou an arm so long?  
Hast thou a voice so strong?   

10. Array thyself with glory round,  
With triple diadems be crowned,  
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 puffed up do fill much place  
Contract into their own and lesser space,  
Do thou the Spoilers spoil,   

13. In deep dug dungeons make 'em sure,  
Teach 'em for silver iron to endure,  
With dirt their fine and stately countenance soil;   

14. And then myself will do thee right,  
I'll trumpet forth thy might,  
I to the world will openly aver  
Job, powerful Job 's his own deliverer:   

15. Behemoth thy fellow-creature see,  
The ox 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 centre 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 wire not thinly drawn,   

18. All his flat bones are flakes of brass,  
His oblong ones for iron one's may pass,   

19 The clearest Hieroglyphic he  
Of his Creator's 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,)  
Wherein 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 gins to sup  
Till he have supped it all away,  
Nor can snares his passage stay,  
For with his useful snout  
He digs himself a safe and certain passage out.   

1. Will't thou to Sea, thou silly man,  
And angle for Leviathan?  
Wilt thou design  
To catch him with a casting-line?   

2. Will he with a bait be took?  
Wilt thou delight  
To see him by't,  
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 beckoning hand to climb?  
Will he be prisoner in a cage,  
And with his cheerful folly  
Thy doting Melancholy  
And thy young daughters childish grief assuage?   

6. Will your cunning Merchants join  
And what of him is sweet  
Turn that to meat,  
And what is otherwise to coin?   

7. Canst thou with javelins tipped with steel  
Fill his back and belly full?  
Canst thou take spears which others quickly feel  
And therewith 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'er,  
Hold up your hand no more  
Unless therewith to g'him a gentle stroke:   

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 engage;  
How mighty then and terrible am I,  
Who stocked him with such terribility?   

11. What he is or e'er can be  
He stands engaged for't to me,  
Though I to others do not so;  
He owes me all who nothing own,  
Who Landlord am all earth, all heaven o'er,  
And therefore cannot run on score:   

12. His members, and the strength those members have  
I will describe who one and the 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 hid?   

14. Where 's he th●t will such valour show  
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 itself doth please!  
Art never sealed any thing so fast  
As Nature sealeth these;   

16. They be riveted so close together,  
Having betwixt them such a little space,  
Gross Earthy bodies through them cannot pass,  
Nor Airy atoms neither;   

17. Any external force sufficient  
To drive these hither,  
Send those thither,  
Contrary unto Nature's 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'er to be again rejoined:   

18. His sneezings make the air so bright  
As if the purge 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 used to sle●p,  
And therefore fond 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 rarify whole Oc'ans into streams,   

21. The Fume which from his mouth he sends  
Is Met'orized by its own heat,  
Though mariners which on their poop do see't  
Shall ne'er 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 tied  
As one from the other ne'er 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 show  
By laying therewith a huge Giant 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'er 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 descried,  
I tell ye, he makes it boil, and that s the Tide;  
The Oc'an he moves arises higher,  
As water seething o'er the fire;  
And when it with his sperm overflows,  
It like a pot of ointment shows:   

32. where-ever 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 it were o'ergrown:   

33. Nothing like him  
In th' Sea doth swim,  
Nothing like him the Earth doth bear,  
Who wants that Epidemic 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 hid,  
Leviathan will go beyond them all in pride.    

XLII.  

1. 'TIs true, replied 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 talked 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'oned matters in my cur'ous speech  
Which never came within my Judgements reach;   

4. But I have done, oh thou All-knowing One,  
Be thou now pleased to take the Chair alone;  
And let my doubts be satisfied from thence,  
For I desire Zetetick to commence:   

5. Thy Fountain-Glory fills my open eye,  
Of which I heretofore did only hear:  
Reflection brought thee then unto mine ear,  
I do thee now Directly soy:   

6. When Heaven and Time began their round  
Thou called'st, and at the powerful sound  
Out of the dust in Paradise  
I in my Great-great-grandsire had my rise;  
And now that thou again dost call,  
And dost 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 lessoned by the Deity,  
And thus to his great Master answered 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. seven Rams and seven Bullocks therefore take,  
And all upon my Altar lay,  
But get the Sinner Job to pray,  
He the  beasts a Sacrifice must make;  
He shall intercede for you,  
Three for one man's sake I'll spare,  
Else if yourselves still surlily ye bear,  
I'll punish this your present sin and former too:   

9 They did as they from heaven were taught,  
Their Bullocks and their Rams they brought,  
And Job their pardon soon attained;   

10. Who whilst he prayed for his friends  
God turned the tide, and made him full amends;  
What he had lost was but the half of what he gained   

11. And then came all that were to him of ki●  
And all his old acquaintance in,  
And down with him to dinner sat;  
Their table-talk was to debate  
The strangeness of this turn in his estate;  
How little lately, how much now he had;  
They showed 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'er,  
Which much improved the ground  
That it so long had drowned,  
Thus Job again with all things did abound,  
Heaven adding to his former store,  
To his seven thousand Sheep seven thousand more,  
His Camels from Three— to Six thousand grew,  
For every Two he could Four Oxen show,  
And then She-Asses twice as before as before:   

13. seven 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 appeared so bright  
Her Father for her lustre called 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 own;  
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 assigned,  
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  
Monopolising bliss,  
The Universe is his,  
H'has Gold enough at least to purchase it;  
Gold, with their several portions in which  
Fourth-generat'on heirs are growing rich;  
And whilst the moving Source of heat  
Sev'n-score times doth Northward climb  
And to the South as oft retreat  
It always finds him in his prime:  
No sitting on the dunghill now,  
For potsherds now no more he seeks;  
No briny showers water his blubbered cheeks,  
No cares enlarge the furrows of his brow:  
Of grief there is no Cause nor Sign,  
None all his family throughout repine;  
Only his Grand-childs' Grandchild cries  
That piece of him which in the cradle lies;   

17. And now decrepit Age doth throw  
Upon his happy head her welcome Snow,  
With which he kindly melts away at last, and dies.    
FINIS.