Classic Poem

T EMANIAN Eliphas made this reply:
" O friend! be it no breach of love that I
With silence dare not justify a wrong;
For who in such a cause can curb his tongue?
Wilt thou, that wert to piety a guide,
That others hast with patience fortified,
Confirm'd the strong, giv'n sinews to the weak,
Now in the change of fortune faint, and break
Into offences; aggravate thy harms,
Forsake thy strength, and cast away thy arms?
Is this thy piety, thy confidence,
Thy hope, and life untainted with offence?
Consult with former ages. Have they known
The guiltless perish, or the just o'erthrown?
But those who plough with vice, and mischief throw
Into the furrows, reap the seed they sow.
God shall destroy them with His nostrils' breath,
And send them weeping to the caves of death.
For He the raging lioness confounds,
The roaring lion with His jav'lin wounds,
Scatters their whelps, their grinders breaks; so they,
With the old hunter, starve for want of prey.
Now when the night her sable wings had spread,
And sleep his dew on pensive mortals shed,
When visions in their airy shapes appear,
A voice, not human, whisper'd in mine ear.
My knees each other struck, the frighted blood
Fled to my heart, my hair like bristles stood.
An angel then appear'd before my sight;
Yet could no shape discern, so great a light
He threw about him; forthwith silence brake,
And thus to me, entranc'd with wonder, spake:
" Shall mortal man, that is but born to die,
Compare in justice and integrity
With Him Who made him; he who must descend
Again to earth, and in corruption end?
His angels were imperfect in His sight,
Although endued with intellectual light;
Whom He accus'd of folly; much more they
Who dwell in houses built of brittle clay,
Which have their weak foundations in the dust,
The food of worms, and time's devouring rust.
They to the ev'ning from the sun's uprise
Are exercis'd with change of miseries;
Then, unregarded, set in endless night,
Nor ever shall review the morning light.
Thus all their glories vanish with their breath,
They, and their wisdoms, vanquished by death." "