Part 13 (1/2)

IV

Would it had yearned for light but found none, Nor beheld the eye-lids of the morning dawn!

For it closed not the door of my mother's womb, Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

V

Why died I not straight from the womb?

Why, having come out of the belly, did I not expire?

Why did the knees meet me?

And why the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, that I might suck?

VI

For then should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept and now had been at rest, With the kings and counsellors of the earth, Who built desolate places for themselves.

VII

Or with princes, once rich in gold, Who filled their houses with silver, I should be as being not, as an hidden untimely birth, Like infants which never saw the light!

VIII

There the wicked cease from troubling, And there the weary be at rest; There the prisoners repose together, Nor hear the taskmaster's voice.

IX

Why gives he light to the afflicted, And life unto the bitter in soul, Who yearn for death, but it cometh not, And dig for it more than for buried treasures?

X

Hail to the man who hath found a grave!

Then only hath G.o.d ”hedged him in.”[197]

For sighing is become my bread, And my crying is unto me as water.

XI

For the thing I dreaded cometh upon me, And that I trembled at befalleth me.

I am not in safety, neither have I rest; Nor quiet, but trouble cometh alway.

XII

ELIPHAZ:

Lo, thou hast instructed many, Thy words have upholden him that was stumbling.

Now hath thine own turn come, And thou thyself art worried and troubled.

XIII

Was not the fear of G.o.d thy confidence?

And the uprightness of thy ways thy hope?

Bethink, I pray thee, who ever perished guiltless?