Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, JOB, CHAPTER 3, PARAPHRASED, by ROBERT FERGUSSON


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JOB, CHAPTER 3, PARAPHRASED, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Perish the fatal day when I was born
Last Line: New trouble came, new darkness, new controul.
Alternate Author Name(s): Ferguson, Robert
Subject(s): Job (bible)


Perish the fatal day when I was born,
The night with dreary darkness be forlorn;
The loathed, hateful, and lamented night
When Job, 'twas told, had first perceiv'd the light;
Let it be dark, nor let the God on high
Regard it with the favour of his eye;
Let blackest darkness and death's awful shade
Stain it, and make the trembling earth afraid;
Be it not join'd unto the varying year,
Nor to the fleeting months in swift career.
Lo! Let the night in solitude's dismay
Be dumb to joy, and waste in gloom away;
On it may twilight stars be never known;
Light let it wish for, Lord! but give it none;
Curse it let them who curse the passing day,
And to the voice of mourning raise the lay;
Nor ever be the face of dawning seen
To ope its lustre on th' enamel'd green;
Because it seal'd not up my mother's womb,
Nor hid from me the sorrows doom'd to come.
Why have I not from mother's womb expir'd?
My life resign'd when life was first requir'd?
Why did supporting knees prevent my death,
Or suckling breasts sustain my infant breath?
For now my soul with quiet had been blest,
With kings and counsellors of earth at rest,
Who bade the house of desolation rise,
And awful ruin strike tyrannic eyes,
Or with the princes unto whom were told
Rich store of silver and corrupting gold;
Or, as untimely birth, I had not been,
Like infant who the light hath never seen;
For there the wicked from their trouble cease,
And there the weary find their lasting peace;
There the poor prisoners together rest,
Nor by the hand of injury opprest;
The small and great together mingl'd are,
And free the servant from his master there;
Say, Wherefore has an over-bounteous heaven
Light to the comfortless and wretched given?
Why should the troubl'd and oppress'd in soul
Fret over restless life's unsettled bowl,
Who long for death, who lists not to their pray'r,
And dig as for the treasures hid afar;
Who with excess of joy are blest and glad,
Rejoic'd when in the tomb of silence laid?
Why then is grateful light bestow'd on man,
Whose life is darkness, all his days a span?
For ere the morn return'd my sighing came,
My mourning pour'd out as the mountain stream;
Wild visag'd fear, with sorrow-mingled eye,
And wan destruction piteous stared me nigh;
For though nor rest nor safety blest my soul,
New trouble came, new darkness, new controul.




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