JT-55-THOUGHTS ON THE 39TH CHAPTER OF JOB.

THOUGHTS ON THE 39TH CHAPTER OF JOB.

In wind and storm the dreadful God descends,
And speaks to Job, while Job with awe attends
His sonorous words, like ten-fold thunders sound,
Shrill thro’ the air, and shake the smould’ring ground.
Presumpt’ous Job, to speak against thy God,
To murmur at my sore avenging rod.

Gird up thy loins, before my presence stand,
And answer, if thou canst, when I demand;
Look round the earth, then view the spacious sky,
What boundless wonders fill the roving eye!
No chance directed, but the works divine,
That form’d the globe, and made the planets shine.
Thou can’st not know, till I reveal to you,
How first wide nature’s fields arose to view,
Trace up effects, search out the latent cause:
The first is found by universal laws,
This is the source whence all creation came,
Jehovah self-existent, God the name.

I spoke, chaotic darkness fed away,
And light effulgent form’d the coming day,
I laid creation’s first foundation stone,
And rear’d the temple by my strength alone,
I roll’d confusion, and disorder far,
And hush’d forever the chaotic war,
The air I parted from the solid earth,
And fire and water form’d the living birth;
With compass vast I scrib’d all ample round,
And formed the measure of the rising ground.
I stretch afar the Equinoctial line,
The Orient light forever there to shine;
I pois’d the earth in atmospheric air,
And bade it roll within its orbit there.
From West to East I bade it fly along,
And to this motion day and night belong;
I fix’d its axis in the steady poles--
As it revolves and round its circuit rolls,
The seasons turn, to change the earth’s green robe,
And bear their balmy sweets around the globe!
I furrow’d deep, and cleft its ample side,
And there the waters roll their rapid tide.
I rent her bowels--scoop’d a dreadful steep,
Where scaly monsters swim the wond’rous deep;
I clos’d the dark recess from mortal sight,
And hid her wonders in eternal night;
Tho’ she may toss her waves immensely high,
And lash the summit of the lofty sky;
The furious winds may on her bosom blow,
But she can never pass her bounds below;
Her raging billows die at my command,
And spend their fury on the reeking sand;
Thus far thy flowing tide may come, I said,
And here thy proudest waves be ever staid.

I now demand of thee, and canst thou tell,
Who caused the day, and where the light doth dwell?
Who gave command for morning light to spring,
And fly abroad on universal wing?
To gild the horrors of the western skies,
Thence Ebon darkness from her chamber flies,
Where stop the cheering beams of rosy light,
That rend the curtains of the sable night?
The adoring savage sees the blazing flood,
And flies the vengeance of his guilt and blood;
East thou researched the bottom of the main?
Or known the place where Leviathans reign?
Did thy adventurous foot traverse the path
That leads to all her dismal mates of death?
Canst thou declare why she remains so low,
While thousand rivers in her bosom flow?
Is it her center or her bed that sinks?
That keeps her even with the flowing brinks?
Canst thou declare these strange phenomena,
And tell where all her rivers flow away?

The human heart contains the crimson flood
Where circulate a thousand streams of blood;
In the left side I placed the ventricle,
And marked the route, the great canal,
Where flows the blood received in thousand tubes,
To all extremes the current thus protrudes.
At the extremes of this constructed frame,
I placed the valves to play their constant game,
The arteries, hence, like copious rivers flow,
Receive their portion from the distant toe,
And pour the torrent in the trembling heart.
The living current glides thro’ every heart,
The heart receives, the heart conveys away
The thousand strains that thro’ the system play.

So I have placed in ocean’s secret bed,
A thousand channels which are ever fed,
With copious torrents from the mother main,
Which fill forever every distant vein.
Those secret streams convey the tide away,
And burst their passage into open day.
This is the source whence all the rivers flow,
Or cooling brooks that glide the earth below;
The springs replenish from the distant main,
And find a passage, and return again!
Hast thou beheld the horrors of the gates?
Where ghastly death with his pale trophies waits!
Canst thou inform where his dread spoils are laid
In lands Elysian, or Tartarian shade?
Where groan the wicked who despised their God?
Where stay the righteous--in what blest abode?
Has this fell monster swept them all away,
And laid them level in a tomb of clay?
Have kings and beggars here together met?
Do slaves and tyrants with each other set?
Do they promiscuous in sad silence sleep
Where none rejoice, and all forget to weep?
Do they pass on and leave their first abodes,
And rise and glow, and live in other modes?
And transmutated in a thousand forms,
Do they exist in fish, or beasts, or worms?
The sceptic mind would feign believe it true,
But truth divine I’ll now reveal to you.

Tho’ death may conquer in a thousand fields,
And strip the soldier of his boasted shields;
Tho’ he may sweep the wide extended earth,
Of every grade, and every different birth,
And sate his sable mansions with the slain,
I’ll conquer him, and let the righteous reign!
Poor coward man too oft regrets to die,
Unknown, untaught where he’s destined to fly;
Great death leads forth the righteous to repose,
Where they forget this warring world of woes.
They seem to slumber till they bear the sound:
"Arise ye nations underneath the ground!"
’Tis then they’ll mount on high celestial wing,
And say: "O! death, where is thy boasted sting?"
Not so the wicked--when they close their eyes,
In hopeless sorrow, and despairing cries,
Death’s gloomy shade redoubles all their pains,
Their souls are anguished where grim darkness reigns;
Their conscious guilt awakes their troubled souls,
And points them where the fiercer anguish rolls.

Their dreams are frightful in their dark abode,
They fear the stroke of some avenging rod;
And when they hear the last day’s trumpet sound,
They’ll burst the barriers of their gloom profound,
The conscious guilt in which they left the world,
When they behold the Prince of Grace unfurled,
Shall fast increase in that terrific hour,
As he displays his justice and his power.

I’ll summon death from his triumphal car,
And raise his conquered millions from afar;
The trembling monster shall no longer boast,
His blood and carnage, and his numerous host.
I’ll blot his memory from the book of fame,
To cease forever in eternal shame;
I then will reign thro’ all the realms abroad,
And shining millions own me for their God.

Hast thou traversed the surface of the globe,
Or seen the beauties of her verdant robe?
Hast thou beheld her far sequestered shade,
Where howling horrors and thick gloom pervade?
Didst thou ascend the mountain’s lofty brow,
To view the landscape interspersed below?
Who formed the hills, or hast the mountains drawn,
And stretch’d the margin of the flowery lawn?
Who reared the rocks, projected far in air?
No human foot can ever venture there!
Hast thou beheld the wondrous way
To the fair chambers of effulgent day?
Where are the floods of ever-flowing light,
That blaze resplendence on the raptured sight?