Classic Poem

Why are the punishments by God decreed
To wicked men and their rebellious seed,
Since times to come are present in His sight,
Conceal'd from those who in His laws delight?
Some slily marks remove from bord'ring lands,
Feed on the flocks they purchase; with strange hands
The orphan's only ass they drive away,
And make the widow's mortgag'd ox their prey.
Who force the frighted poor to turn aside,
Whom milder rocks in their dark caverns hide.
Like asses in the desert they their toil
With day renew, and rise betimes for spoil.
The barren wilderness presents them food
To feed themselves and their adult'rate brood.
Their sicklers reap the corn another sows;
They drink the blood which from stol'n clusters flows.
The poor, by them disrobed, naked lie,
Veil'd with no other cov'ring but the sky.
Expos'd to stiff'ning frosts and drenching show'rs,
Which thicken'd air from her black bosom pours;
To torrents which from cloudy mountains spring,
And to the hanging cliffs for shelter cling.
They from their mothers' breasts poor orphans rend,
Nor without gages to the needy lend.
For want of clothes they force them starve with cold;
From hungry reapers they their sheaves withhold.
Those faint for thirst who in their vintage toil,
And from the juicy olive press pure oil.
Oppressed cities groan; the wounded cry
To heav'n for vengeance; yet in peace they die.
Others, that truth oppose, despise the way
Of her prescriptions, and in darkness stray;
Stern murderers, that rise before the light
To kill the innocent, and rob at night.
Unclean adulterers, whose longing eyes
Wait for the twilight, enter in disguise,
And say, who sees us? Thieves who daily mark
Those houses which they plunder in the dark.
These strangers are to light; the morning rays
By them are hated as their last of days;
The agonies of death are on them, when
They are but known, or spoken of by men;
And yet they perish by Jehovah's curse,
And fail like roaring floods that have no source.
Unlike the gen'rous vine, which cut, abounds
With budding gems, and prospers in her wounds.
As scorching heat the mountain snow devours,
As thirsty earth drinks up the falling show'rs,
Ev'n so the grave's insatiable jaws
Those rebels swallow who infringe His laws.
The wombs that bare, their burthens shall forget,
And greedy worms their flesh with pleasure eat.
No tongue or pen shall mention their renown;
But lie like trees by sudden storms cast down.
The barren they more miserable make,
And from the widow all her comfort take.
The mighty fall in their seditions strife;
When once they rise who can secure his life?
Though they be resolute and confident,
Yet are Jehovah's eyes upon them bent.
But O, how short their glory! rais'd to fall,
Lost in the ashes of their funeral.
For they as others die; like ears of corn
By lightning blasted, or with sickles shorn.
Who doubts these contraries? Who will dispute
Against me, and my instances confute? "