Job, Chapter 4

Temanian Eliphas made this reply:
O Friend, be it no breach of Love, that I
With silence dare not justifie a wrong:
For who in such a Cause can curb his Tongue?
Wilt thou, that wert to pietie a guide,
That others hast with patience fortifide:
Confirm'd the Strong, given sinewes to the Weake:
Now in the change of Fortune faint, and breake
Into offences? aggravate thy harmes,
Forsake thy strength, and cast away thy armes?
Is this thy Piety, thy Confidence,
Thy hope, and Life untainted with offence?
Consult with former Ages: Have they knowne
The guiltlesse perish, or the Iust ore 'throwne?
But those who plow with vice, and mischiefe throw
Into the furrowes; reape the Seed they sow.
God shall destroy them with his Nostrils breath:
And send them weeping to the caves of Death.
For he the raging Lyonesse confounds;
The roaring Lyon with his javelin wounds:
Scatters their Whelps; their grinders breakes: so they,
With the old Hunter, starve for want of Prey.
Now when the Night her sable wings had spred;
And sleepe his Deaw on pensive Mortals shed:
When Visions in their aiery shapes appeare;
A Voice, not humane, whispered in mine eare.
My knees each other struck; the frighted blood
Fled to my heart; my haire like bristles stood.
An Angel then appear'd before my sight:
Yet could no shape discerne; so great a light
He threw about him: forthwith, silence brake;
And thus to me, intranc'd with wonder, spake:
Shall mortall Man, that is but borne to die;
Compare in Iustice, and Integritie,
With him who made him? he who must descend
Againe to Earth, and in Corruption end?
His Angels were imperfect in his sight,
Although indu'd with Intellectuall Light;
Whom he accus'd of folly: much more they,
Who dwell in houses, built of brittle clay;
Which have their weake foundations in the dust:
The food of wormes, and Times devouring Rust.
They to the Evening from the Sunnes uprise,
Are exercis'd with change of Miseries:
Then, unregarded, set in endlesse Night;
Nor ever shall review the Morning light.
Thus all their Glories vanish with their breath:
They, and their Wisedomes, vanquished by Death.