? what great discoveries made?
Who knoweth not such things as ye have told?
Despised am I by those who call'd me friend
In prosperous days. Like a dim, waning lamp
About to be extinguished am I held
By the dull minds of those who dwell at ease.
Weak reasoners that ye are, ye have essay'd
To speak for God. Suppose ye He doth need
Such advocacy? whose creative hand
Holdeth the soul of every living thing,
And breath of all mankind?
He breaketh down,
And who can build again? Princes and kings
Are nothing in his sight. Disrobed of power
Ceaseless they wander and He heedeth not.
Those whom the world have worship'd seem as fools.
He lifteth up the nations at His will,
Or sweeps them with his lightest breath away
Like noteless atoms.
Silence is for you
The truest wisdom. Creatures that ye count
Inferior to yourselves, who in thin air
Spread the light wing, or thro' the waters glide,
Or roam the earth, might teach if ye would hear
And be instructed by them.
Hold your peace!
Even tho' He slay me I will trust in Him
For He is my salvation, He alone;
At whose dread throne no hypocrite shall dare
To stand, or answer.
Man, of woman born
Is of few days, and full of misery.
Forth like a flower he comes, and is cut down,
He fleeth like a shadow. What is man
That God regardeth him? The forest tree
Fell'd by the woodman may have hope to live
And sprout again, and thro' the blessed touch
Of waters at the root put forth new buds
And tender branches like a plant. But man
Shorn of his strength, doth waste away and die,
He giveth up the ghost and where is he?
As slides the mountain from its heaving base
Hurling its masses o'er the startled vale,
As the rent rock resumes its place no more,
As the departed waters leave no trace
Save the groov'd channels where they held their course
Among the fissur'd stones, his form of dust
With its chang'd countenance, is sent away
And all the honors that he sought to leave
Behind him to his sons, avail him not."
He ceas'd and Eliphaz rejoin'd,
"A man
Of wisdom dealeth not in empty words
That like the east wind stirs the unsettled sands
To profitless revolt. Thou dost decry
Our speech and proudly justify thyself
Before thy God. He to whose searching eye
Heavens' pure immaculate ether seems unclean.
Ask of tradition, ask the white hair'd men
Much older than thy father, since to us
Th