A Godly Ballad of the Just Man Job.
Wherein his great patience he doth declare,
His plagues and his miseries, and yet did not despair.
The Tune is, The Merchant.
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WAlking all alone,
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No not long agone,
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I heard one wail and weep;
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alas he said,
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I am laid
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In sorrow strong and deep,
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To hear him cry,
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I did reply,
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and privily abode,
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there did I find,
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in secret mind.
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the just and patient Job.
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His woful pain
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Did me constrain,
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by force to wail and moan,
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God did him prove,
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how he did love,
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the living Lord alone.
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In heaviness,
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He did express,
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these words with bitter tears,
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alas poor man,
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wretched I am,
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in care myself out-wares.
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This mortal life,
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Is but a strife,
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a battel great and strong,
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my years also,
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to wast and go,
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and not continue long.
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The day wherein,
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I did begin
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to move and stir my breath,
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would God I had,
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an exchange made,
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and turned unto death.
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So should not I
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In misery,
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be wrapped as I am,
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the time and day,
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well curse I may,
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when to this world I came.
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For my faults past,
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I am out-cast,
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and of all men abhord,
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O that I might,
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once stand in sight,
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to reason with the Lord.
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I should then know,
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Why he doth show
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this extream cruelty,
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upon his flesh,
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which is but grass,
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and born is for to dye.
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From top to toe,
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I feel with woe,
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that sorrow is my meat,
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put to exile,
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with Botch and Boyl,
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and dung-hill is my seat.
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My Kinsfolk talk
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And by me walk,
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wondring at my fall,
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they count my state,
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unfortunate,
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and so forsake me all.
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My children five,
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Which were alive,
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they all be quite destroyd,
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the Plague fell
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on my Cattel,
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with all that I enjoyd.
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Should I for them
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My God Blaspheme,
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and his good gifts despise,
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that will I not,
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but take my lot,
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giving his name the praise.
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They were not mine,
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But for a time,
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I know well it is so,
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God gave them me,
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why should not he,
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again take them me fro.
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Thus having said,
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Full still I staid,
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his end for to behold,
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I there did see,
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his felicity,
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increasing manifold.
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I know well then,
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How patient men,
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should not suffer in vain,
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but shall be sure,
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to have pleasure,
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rewarded for their pain.
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