How long shall he traverse the surface of the earth? how long shall he not loose his girdle and his belt? His brothers stood at a distance to gloat over him in his distress, and all his friends broke their covenant. With willful hand they shed his blood, and how could they have thought to cover it on a rock? But when God saw his strength was spent, He appointed thy right hand, O my lord, to shelter and to cover him. In his misty night thou didst shine as a star, and he beheld the light of companionship in the gloom of exile. His feet had slipped, but when he saw thy dwelling-place, they stood up firmly as in strongholds and on rocks. He came to the midst of the garden, and through thy sweet words his soul was made secure on fields of ease. Thou art honey to the palate, sunlight to the eye of him that looks, and myrrh unto the nostril of him that smells. Thou art the foundation of kindness, glory’s pillar, and art the plank and bar of the abode of truth. Ere thou hadst knowledge to cry: ‘My father’, and ‘My mother’, thy Maker caused thee to delight in the fear of God. Thou hast prudent counsels, wherewith thou annoyest thine enemies and gladdenest the souls of thy friends. With the breath of thy mouth thou makest the foolish wise, and with thy pen’s fluid washest off the blood of time’s ignorance. Thou art like a cedar that grew high in wisdom’s garden, so that the other shoots set forth their meditations unto thee. They are like an airy dream, like flying chaff, but thou renewest thy strength, and buddest by the glorious waters. Thy hand built for thee dominion with hewn stones, while other rulers plastered it with vanity. Thou art generous like thy fathers, and how pleasant it is to eat the second growth with grace, when the first is gone! Thou turnest thy right hand’s rivers as a honey stream, and makest them flow into the mouths of them that ask. Thou softenest thy generous heart toward the needy, but hardenest it like flint[109] against thy wealth. Thy soul urges thee to make the indigent rich, so that thou causest the name of poor to be forgotten. The sorrow-stricken man cheers up, on seeing thee: his wish is granted, when he calls thee by thy name. Fain would I speak more of thee, but tempestuous is the sea of exile—who shall make its waves subside? I long to see the image of thy features in my dream, if only my pain allowed me to sleep! Thou art a garden of delights, but closed are its openings, that I should not smell the myrrh thereof. Time is thy slave, and yet it sends against me, day by day, the indignation and wrath of men. Hadst thou rebuked it, thou wouldest have pacified its wrath and its fierce anger, and it would have ceased to vex me.