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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace.
What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to
be exercised in it.
He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the
world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God
maketh from the beginning to the end.
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O who was that fiery poet, at every time competent in morose yet sublime
utterance? O who, that spoke two at a time, about human vagaries? Ah! who
indeed, that from time to time, mentioned a condition that would make living
miserable, yet memorable; that made too, time after time, a marvelous
contrast by opposing, time and time again, one theme to another, be it
a mode, a fate, a matter, an attitude, or a state, like:
the sick and those in great shape;
the weak and them that are in power;
that made of the heart and that made of the mind;
degenerate megalomania and an empathetic attitude;
in bitter inevitable doom and in certain hope;
too mean, too kind;
too beautiful, too plain;
the ingrate, the thankful;
manhood, womanhood;
the dead, the alive;
the awake, the asleep;
vexation, rest;
the premeditation, the afterthought;
the indiscriminate hate, the indiscriminate love?
Oh, who was this great breath-taking poet and man? It was the enigmatic
Ecclesiastes!
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