Impetuous of this life: let thy command

• Direct my courfe, and bring me safe to land.

If, while this weary'd flesh draws fleeting breath, Not fatisfy'd with life, afraid of death,

It haply be thy will that I should know

• Glimpfe of delight, or pause from anxious woe; • From now, from inftant now, great Sire! difpel • The clouds that prefs my foul; from now reveal • A gracious beam of light; from now inspire

&

My tongue to fing, my hand to touch the lyre;
• My open'd thought to joyous profpects raise,
And for thy mercy let me fing thy praife:
Or, if thy will ordains I ftill fhall wait

• Some new hereafter, and a future ftate,

Permit me ftrength my weight of woe to bear,
And raise my mind fuperior to my care.

Let me, howe'er unable to explain

The fecret labyrinths of thy ways to man,

• With humble zeal confefs thy awful pow'r ;
• Still weeping hope, and wond'ring still adore:
So in my conqueft be thy might declar'd,

And for thy juftice be thy name rever'd.'
My pray'r fcarce ended, a ftupendous gloom
Darkens the air; loud thunder fhakes the dome:
To the beginning miracle fucceed

An awful filence and religious dread.

Sudden breaks forth a more than common day;
The facred wood, which on the altar lay,

Untouch'd, unlighted glows

Ambrofial odour, fuch as never flows

From Arab's gum or the Sabæan rose,
Does round the air evolving scents diffuse:
The holy ground is wet with heav'nly dews.
Celeftial mufick (fuch Jeffides' lyre,

Such Miriam's timbrel, would in vain require)

}

Strikes

Strikes to my thought thro' my admiring ear,
With extafy too fine, and pleasure hard to bear:
And, lo! what fees my ravish'd eye! what feels
My wond'ring foul! an op'ning cloud reveals
An heav'nly form embody'd, and array'd
With robes of light, I heard. The angel faid:
Cease, Man, of woman born, to hope relief,
From daily trouble and continu'd grief.

Thy hope of joy deliver to the wind;

Supprefs thy paffions, and prepare thy mind. • Free and familiar with misfortune grow; Be us'd to forrow, and inur'd to woe.

By weak'ning toil and hoary age o'ercome, See thy decrease, and haften to thy tomb. Leave to thy children tumult, ftrife, and war, • Portions of toil, and legacies of care: • Send the fucceffive ills thro' ages down,

And let each weeping father tell his son,

• That, deeper ftruck, and more distinctly griev'd,
• He must augment the forrows he receiv'd.

• The child, to whose success thy hope is bound,
Ere thou art scarce interr'd, or he is crown'd,
To luft of arbitrary fway inclin'd,

⚫ (That cursed poison to the prince's mind!)
• Shall from thy dictates and his duty rove,

And lofe his great defence, his people's love; Ill-counfell'd, vanquish'd, fugitive, disgrac'd, • Shall mourn the fame of Jacob's strength effac'd; • Shall figh the king diminish'd, and the crown With leffen'd rays defcending to his fon;

Shall fee the wreaths his grandfire knew to reap,
By active toil and military sweat,

Pining incline their fickly leaves, and shed

• Their falling honours from his giddy head;

By arms or pray'r unable to affuage

• Domestick horror; and inteftine rage R

Shall from the victor and the vanquish'd fear, • From Ifrael's arrow, and from Judah's fpear;

• Shall caft his weary'd limbs on Jordan's flood,

By brothers arms disturb'd, and ftain'd with kindred blood.

• Hence lab'ring years shall weep their deftin'd race,

Charg'd with ill omens, fully'd with difgrace.

Time, by neceffity compell'd, fhall go

• Thro' scenes of war, and epochas of woe:
• The empire, leffen'd in a parted stream,
• Shall lofe it's course-

Indulge thy tears: the heathen fhall blaspheme;
Judah fhall fall, opprefs'd by grief and fhame,
And men fhall from her ruins know her fame.

New Egypts yet, and fecond bonds remain;

· A harsher Pharaoh, and a heavier chain.

Again, obedient to a dire command,

Thy captive fons fhall leave the Promis'd Land;
Their name more low, their fervitude more vile,

• Shall on Euphrates' bank renew the grief of Nile.
These pointed fpires that wound the ambient sky,
(Inglorious change!) shall in deftruction lie

Low, levell'd with the duft; their heights unknown,
Or measur'd by their ruin. Yonder throne,

For lafting glory built, defign'd the feat
. Of kings for ever bless'd, for ever great,
Remov'd by the invader's barb'rous hand,
• Shall grace his triumph in a foreign land.
The tyrant fhall demand yon facred load

• Of gold and veffels fet apart to God;

Then, by vile hands to common use debas'd,

Shall fend them flowing round his drunken fealt,
With facrilegious taunt, and impious jeft.

Twice fourteen ages fhall their way compleat;
Empires by various turns fhall rife and fet:
While thy abandon'd tribes shall only know
• A diff'rent master, and a change of woe ;

}

• With

With downcaft eye-lids, and with looks aghaft, • Shall dread the future, or bewail the past. • Afflicted Ifrael fhall fit weeping down, Faft by the streams where Babel's waters run; Their harps upon the neighb'ring willows hung, Nor joyous hymn encouraging their tongue, Nor chearful dance their feet; with toil opprefs'd, • Their weary'd limbs aspiring but to reft. • In the reflective stream the fighing bride, Viewing her charms impair'd, abash'd shall hide Her penfive head; and in her languid face The bridegroom fhall foresee his fickly race; • While pond'rous fetters vex their close embrace. • With irksome anguish then your priests shall mourn Their long-neglected feafts defpair'd return, And fad oblivion of their folemn days:

• Thenceforth their voices they shall only raife, Louder to weep. By day, your frighted feers • Shall call for fountains to exprefs their tears,

And wish their eyes were floods: by night, from dreams • Of opening gulphs, black ftorms, and raging flames, Starting amaz'd, fhall to the people fhew

• Emblems of heav'nly wrath, and mystick types of woe.

The captives, as their tyrant fhall require

That they should breathe the fong, and touch the lyre,

Shall fay, "Can Jacob's fervile race rejoice,

"Untun'd the mufick, and difus'd the voice?

"What can we play?" they fhall difcourfe; "how fing
"In foreign lands, and to a barb'rous king?

"We and our fathers, from our childhood bred
"To watch the cruel victor's eye, to dread
"The arbitrary lash, to bend, to grieve,
66 (Out-caft of mortal race!) can we conceive
"Image of aught delightful, soft, or gay?
"Alas! when we have toil'd the longfome day,

R 2

}

"The

"The fulleft blifs our hearts afpire to know,
"Is but fome interval from active woe;
"In broken rest and startling fleep to mourn,
"Till morn the tyrant and the fcourge return.
"Bred up in grief, can pleasure be our theme?
"Our endless anguish does not Nature claim?
"Reason and forrow are to us the fame.
"Alas! with wild amazement we require
"If idle Folly was not Pleasure's fire?
"Madnefs, we fancy, gave an ill-tim❜d birth
"To grinning Laughter and to frantick Mirth."
This is the feries of perpetual woe,

Which thou, alas! and thine, are born to know.
• Illuftrious wretch! repine not, nor reply;
• View not what Heav'n ordains with Reason's eye;
Too bright the object is, the distance is too high.
The man who would refolve the work of Fate,
May limit number, and make crooked straight:
Stop thy enquiry, then, and curb thy fenfe,
Nor let duft argue with Omnipotence.
'Tis God who must difpofe; and man sustain,

Born to endure, forbidden to complain :

Thy fum of life must his decrees fulfil ;

• What derogates from his command, is ill,

And that alone is good which centres in his will.

Yet that thy lab'ring fenfes may not droop,

Loft to delight, and deftitute of hope;

• Remark what I, God's meffenger, aver,

From him who neither can deceive nor err.

The land, at length redeem'd, fhall cease to mourn;

• Shall from her fad captivity return.

Sion fhall raife her long-dejected head,

And in her courts the law again be read.

Again the glorious Temple fhall arise,

And with new luftre pierce the neighb'ring fkies.

}

}

The