Classic Poem

Then Job: " How long wilt thou thus vex mine ears!
You all are miserable comforters.
Shall this vain wind of words, ah! never end?
Why Eliphaz should'st thou afflict thy friend?
Were you so lost in grief, would I thus speak?
Such bruised hearts with harsh invectives break?
Would I accumulate your miseries
With scorn, and draw new rivers from your eyes?
O no, my language should your passions calm,
My words should drop into your wounds like balm.
But, O, my frantic sorrow finds no ease!
Complaints nor silence can their pangs appease!
Thou, Lord, hast my perplexed soul depress'd,
Bereft of all the comforts she possess'd;
My face thus furrow'd with untimely age,
My pale and meagre looks profess Thy rage.
Whose ministers, like cunning foes, surprise,
Tear with their teeth, transfix me with their eyes;
Against my peace combine; at once assail,
With open mouths, and impudently rail.
God hath deliver'd me into their jaws
Who hunt for spoil, and make their swords their laws.
Long sail'd I on smooth seas, by fore-winds borne;
Now bulg'd on rocks, and by His tempests torn.
He by the neck hath hal'd, in pieces cut,
And set me as a mark on ev'ry butt.
His archers circle me; my reins they wound,
And, ruthless, shed my gall upon the ground.
Behold! He ruins upon ruins heaps,
And on me like a furious giant leaps.
For thus with sackcloth I invest my woe,
And dust upon my clouded forehead throw.
My cheeks are gutter'd with my fretting tears,
And on my falling eye-lids death appears.
Yet is my heart upright, my pray'rs sincere,
My guiltless life from your aspersions clear.
Reveal, O earth, the blood that I have spilt,
Nor hear me, heav'n, if I be soil'd with guilt.
My conscience knows her own integrity,
And that all-seeing Pow'r enthron'd on high.
Yet you traduce me in my miseries,
But I to God erect my weeping eyes.
Would I before Him might my cause defend,
And argue as a mortal with his friend!
Since I ere long that precipice must tread,
Whence none return, that leads unto the dead.