My fears return, my sorrows sore I dread,
My griefs forebode, my brightest hopes are fled:
To stay thy hand, thou wilt not hence consent,
I know thou wilt not hold me innocent.
Adjudged as wicked, though I seek the right,
I'm held as guilty in thy holy sight;

My innocence will I not hence maintain,

For why should I contend with thee, in vain ?
Because I'm weak, and thou art clothed with might,

I yield to power, and not because 'tis right.

For if I wash myself, in melted snow,

And, cleansed with soap, my hands, in whiteness, show;
No proofs of innocence wilt thou admit,
Nor once from sin my guilty soul acquit;
But, surely then, wilt thou, in anger, pitch,
And plunge me headlong, in the miry ditch.
My clothes offensive, and abhorred again,
Shall show me forth the most despised of men.
The mighty contest with myself, and thee,
Is most unequal, now I clearly see;
For thou art surely not a man, as I,

That unto thee, in words, should I reply;
Or seek a trial, awed to silence dumb,
Or both together into judgment come.

No hope remains to cheer my dark despair,
No daysman stands between the parties there;
To act as umpire, bound with sacred oath,
To lay his hands upon the tongues of both;

Define the law, the evidence compare,

Restrain the pleadings, and the right declare.
Afflicted sore, and crushed beneath his hand,
On equal terms, I do not with him stand;
But let him take his dreadful rod away,
Let not his fear, my broken soul, dismay;
Then I would speak, and fear of him forego,
But now, alas! with me, it is not so.

My stricken soul is weary of my life,

Cut off from hope, and vexed with pain, and strife.
I'll give myself to unrestrained complaint,
And words of bitterness my grief shall paint.
To God I'll say: do not condemn, but show,
The mighty cause why thou contendest so.
Is it delightful that thou shouldst oppress,
And torture man, with unrelieved distress?
That thou shouldst wantonly, in wrath despise,
The work thy hands, in wisdom, did devise?
And yet, upon the wicked's counsel shine,
With approbation always so divine ?
Hast thou the eyes of mortal flesh, to scan,
The imperfections of thy creature man?
To see his faults, as sinful man doth see,
And watch his ways, with cruel jealousy?
The days of man, are also they thy days?
Are all thy years like his imperfect ways?
That thou inquirest after all my sin,

And searchest strictly what my crimes have been?

Thou knowest I am not a wicked man,
And no iniquity did ever plan;

And there is none so pow'rful in the land,

That he can rescue from thy mighty hand.

With wond'rous pains, thy hands have wrought me out,
And fashioned me together, round about;
And yet thou dost this curious frame destroy,
That did the wisdom of thy mind employ.
Remember, now, I earnestly do pray,
That thou hast made me like the signet clay.
Wilt thou reduce me back to dust again?
And try me more than thou dost other men?
Hast thou not poured me out, as milky chyle,
To flow through lacteals, and ducts awhile;
Then curdled me, and thrown me down, like cheese,
In bones, and organs, as thy skill did please?
With bones and sinews thou hast fenced me round,
With flesh, and skin, and downy raiment bound.

Both life, and favor have been granted me,
With care my spirit's been preserved by thee.
These things, concealed from mortal eyes apart,
Are hid profoundly, in thy secret heart.
With thee, I know, is the mysterious plan,
The birth, the growth, the destiny of man.
Upright, afflicted, yet perplexed with doubt,
I cannot find this mighty myst'ry out.
For if I sin, thou always markest me,
And sparest not, from mine iniquity.

If I be wicked, as my trials show,

These woes, unnumbered, justly o'er me flow;

If I be righteous, yet afflicted dread,
Confounded sore, I cannot lift my head.
In either case, perplexities arise,

And dire confusion aggravates my cries.
Behold the sorrows, now my soul doth share,
And see the grief that fills me with despair.
For lo! it magnifieth more, and more,

And pangs, unuttered, through my soul doth pour.
As roaring lions, hungry, wild, and fierce,

With claws, and teeth, their captured prey do pierce ;
And when the spark of ebbing life hath fled,
Tear up, at leisure, and devour the dead;
So thou, O, God! with sorrow's poisoned dart,
Dost pierce me sore through ev'ry vital part.
Thou turnest on me fiercer than before,
And tearest marv'llously the victim more.
Thy plagues against me thou dost oft renew,
As witnesses to prove my vileness true.
Thine indignation on me doth increase,
Nor fiercer torments, in succession, cease.
As oft in war, recruits successive go,
To meet the bold, and oft defiant foe;
Or when the battle rageth hot, and fierce,
And bullets fly, and cruel bayonets pierce ;
Fresh levies rush, the flying foe to rout,
Inspired by vict'ry, and the battle-shout;

So war and changes are against me brought,
And dreadful battles in succession fought.
Affliction's army now my soul surrounds,
And fresh battalions multiply my wounds.
But why hast thou reserved this wretched doom?
Or why produced me from my mother's womb?
Oh! that I then had given up the ghost,

And none had seen me, or the woes I boast.

I should have been, as if I had not been,
And never known the bitter curse of sin ;
But carried gently to an infant's tomb,
In peaceful slumber from my mother's womb.
Oh! God, are not my days of sorrow few?
Then cease to vex me, with afflictions new.
Let me alone, and quietly forsake,

That I may yet some little comfort take;

Before I go whence I shall not return,

Where suns, and stars, extinguished, cease to burn; Beyond the realm of ev'ry sighing breath,

A land of darkness, and the shade of death;

A place of darkness, dense with blackness grown,

As black as darkness when it reigns alone;
To shades of death, with dire confusion round,
Where all the light is darkness most profound.