Classic Poem

Thus Job. Then Bildad of Suita said:
" Vain man, how long wilt thou thy God upbraid?
And like the roaring of a furious wind
Thus vent the wild distemper of thy mind?
Can He pervert His judgments? shall He swerve
From His own justice, and thy passions serve?
If He thy sons for their rebellion slew,
Death was the wages to their merit due.
O wouldst thou seek unto the Lord betimes,
With fervent prayer, and abstinence from crimes,
Nor with new follies spot thy innocence,
Then would He always watch in thy defence;
The house that harbour'd so much virtue, bless
With fruitful peace, and crown thee with success.
Then would He centuple thy former store,
And make thee far more happy than before.
Search thou the records of antiquity,
And on our ancestors reflect thine eye;
For we, alas! are but of yesterday,
Know nothing, and like shadows fleet away.
Thou in those mirrors shalt the truth behold,
Whose tongues unerring oracles unfold.
Can bulrushes but by the river grow?
Can flags there flourish where no waters flow?
Yet they when green, when yet untouch'd, of all
That clothe the spring, first hang their heads, and fall.
So double-hearted hypocrites, so they
Who God forget, shall in their prime decay.
Their airy hopes as brittle as the thin
And subtle webs which toiling spiders spin.
Their houses, full of wealth and riot. shall
Deceive their trust, and crush them in their fall.
Though like a cedar, by the river fed,
He to the sun his ample branches spread,
His top surrounds with clouds, deep in the flood
Bathes his firm roots, ev'n of himself a wood,
And from his height a night-like shadow throw
Upon the marble palaces below;
Yet shall the axe of justice hew him down,
And level with the root his lofty crown.
No eye shall his out-raz'd impression view,
Nor mortal know where such a glory grew.
Those seeming goods, whereof the wicked vaunt,
Thus fade, while others on their ruins plant.
God never will the innocent forsake,
Nor sinful souls to his protection take.
Cleanse thou thy heart; then in thy ample breast
Joy shall triumph, and smiles thy cheeks invest.
He will thy foes with silent shame confound,
And their proud structures level with the ground. "