Job, Chapter 38

Then from a Globe of curling Clouds, which brake
Into a radiant flame, Jehova spake:
What Mortall thus through ignorance profanes
My darkned counsels? of his God complaines?
Come, buckle on thy Armor: let us end
This controverse; since thou wilt needs contend.
Tell, if thou canst; where wert thou when I made
The food-full Earth, and her foundation laid?
Who those exact dimensions did designe?
Who on her superficies stretch'd his Line?
Or fixt as Centre to the world? upon
What Basis built? who laid the Corner Stone?
Where wert thou when the Stars my prayses sung?
When Heaven with shouts of joyfull Angels rung?
Or who shut up the seas with Dores; when they,
As from the tortur'd womb, inforc'd their way?
By me invested with a veile of Clouds:
And swadled, as new-borne, in sable shrouds.
For these a receptacle I design'd:
And with inviolable Barres confind.
Then said: thus farre your Empire shall extend;
Nor shall your prouder waves these bounds transcend.
Hast thou appointed where the Moone should rise,
And with her purple light adorne the skies?
Scor'd out the bounded Suns obliquer wayes;
That he on all might spread his equall rayes?
And by the cleare extension of his Light,
Chase from the Earth the impious Sonnes of Night?
Whose Beames the various formes of things display;
Like multitudes of Figures wrought in Clay:
By which the Beautie of the Earth appeares;
The divers-colour'd Mantle which she weares:
Conceal'd offendors by their lustre found;
Attached, and in Deaths darke prison bound.
Say, hast thou div'd into the Deep's below?
And trod those bottome sands where fountaines flow?
Or boldly broken-up the Seales of Hell,
And seene the Shadowes which in Darknesse dwell?
Tell if thou canst, how farre the Earth extends?
Hast thou discover'd her remotest ends?
Beheld the Chambers of the springing Light?
Or travel'd through the Regions of the Night?
To their abodes canst thou reveale the way?
And their alternate rule to men display?
Wer't thou then borne? hast thou these secrets knowne
Through length of time? art thou so aged growne?
Hast thou survay'd the Magazines of Snow?
Seene where the melting drops to haile-stones grow?
With these I punish: these the weapons are,
By me prepar'd against the Day of warre.
Why breakes the Lightning from the troubled skies,
While Easterne winds in horrid Tempests rise?
Who Deluges from Heaven in Torrents powres?
Or gives a passage to the roaring Showres?
That they on Deserts un-inhabited
By Mortals, may their fruitfull moysture shed?
Hence vegetives receive their fragrant birth:
And cloth the naked Bosome of the Earth.
What, hath the Raine a Father? tell me who
Begot the shining Drops of Morning Dew?
Whose wombe produc'd the glassie Ice? who bred
The hoary frosts that fall on winters head?
The waters then in Christall are conceal'd:
And the smooth visage of the Sea congeal'd.
Canst thou the pleasant influence restraine,
Of Pleiades, which bathes the Spring with raine?
Or boisterous Orions chaines unbind,
Who drawes along the bitter Easterne wind?
In Summer, scorching Mazaroth display?
Or teach Arcturus, and his Sonnes, their way?
Canst thou the Motions of the Heavens direct?
Or make their vertue on the Earth reflect?
Will the condensed Clouds, at thy command,
Descend in Shoures upon the thirsty Land?
Or in their roaring strife asunder part,
And at thy Foes their fearefull Lightning dart?
With wisedome who renownes the Nobler parts?
Who understanding gives to humane Hearts?
Whose wisedome cleares the Saphirs of the skies?
Or who the swelling Clouds in Bladders ties?
To mollifie the stubborne clods with raine;
And scattered Dust incorporate againe.