Job, Chapter 14

Ah! few, and full of Sorrow, are the Dayes
Of Man from Woman sprung: His Life decayes,
Like that fraile flower which with the Sunnes uprise
Her bud unfolds; and with the Evening Dies.
He like an emptie Shadow glides away:
And all his Life is but a Winters Day.
Wilt thou thine Eye upon a vapour bend?
Or with so weake an opposite contend?
Who can a pure and Christall Current bring,
From such a muddy, and polluted Spring?
Oh, since his Dayes are numbred; since thou hast
Prescrib'd him bounds that are not to be past:
A little with his punishment dispence:
Till he have serv'd his time, and part from hence.
A tree, though hewne with axes to the ground,
Renew's his growth, and springs from his greene wound:
Although his root waxe old, his fivers dry;
Although the saplesse bole begin to dye;
Yet will at sent of Water freshly sprout:
And like a plant thrust his young Branches out.
But Man, when once cut downe; when his pale ghost
Fleets into aire; he is for ever lost.
As Meteors vanish, which the Seas exhale;
As Torrents in the drouth of Summer faile:
So perisht Man from Death shall never rise;
But sleepe in silent Shades with seal'd-up Eyes:
While the Caelestiall Orbes in order roule,
And turne their flames about the stedfast Pole.
Oh that thou would'st conceale me in the Grave;
Immure with marble in that secret Cave,
Vntill the Tempest of thy wrath were past!
A time prefix, and thinke of me at last!
Can man recover his departed Breath?
I will expect untill my change in Death;
And answer at thy call: Thou wilt renew
What thou hast ruin'd, and my feares subdue.
But now thou tell'st my Steps, mark'st when I erre:
Nor wilt the vengeance due to Sinne deferre.
Thou in a Bag hast my Transgressions seal'd:
And only by their Punishments reveal'd.
As Mountaines, tost by Earth-quakes, downe are throwne;
Rocks torne up by the roots: as hardest Stone
The softly-falling drops of water weare;
As Inundations all before them beare;
And leave the Earth abandoned: so shall
The aspiring hopes of Man to nothing fall.
Thy wrath prevailes against him every Day;
Whom with a changed Face thou send'st away:
Then knowes not if his Sonnes to honour rise;
Or struggle with their strong necessities.
But here his wasting Flesh with anguish burnes:
And his perturbed Soule within him mournes.