Winds, ye shall bear his name aloud

Through the ethereal blue,

For when his chariot is a cloud,
He makes his wheels of you.

Thunder and hail, and fires and storms,
The troops of his command,
Appear in all your dreadful forms,
And speak his awful hand.

Shout to the Lord, ye surging seas,

In your eternal roar;

Let wave to wave resound his praise,
And shore reply to shore:

While monsters, sporting on the flood,
In scaly silver shine,

Speak terribly their Maker-God,

And lash the foaming brine.

But gentler things shall tune his name To softer notes than these,

Young zephyrs breathing o'er the stream, Or whispering through the trees.

Wave your tall heads, ye lofty pines,
To him that bid you grow,
Sweet clusters bend their fruitful vines
On every thankful bough.

Let the shrill birds his honour raise,
And climb the morning sky;

While grov❜ling beasts attempt his praise
In hoarser harmony.

Thus while the meaner creatures sing,
Ye mortals take the sound,
Echo the glories of your King
Through all the nations round.

THE LAW GIVEN AT SINAI.

ARM thee with thunder, heavenly muse,
And keep th' expecting world in awe;
Oft hast thou sung in gentler mood
The melting mercies of thy God;
Now give thy fiercest fires a loose,
And sound his dreadful law;
To Israel first the words were spoke,
To Israel freed from Egypt's yoke :
Inhuman bondage! The hard galling load
Over-press'd their feeble souls,

Bent their knees to senseless bulls,
And broke their faith to God.

Now had they pass'd the Arabian bay,

And march'd within the cleaving sea;

The rising waves stood guardians of their wond'rous way,

But fell with most impetuous force,

On the pursuing swarms,

And buried Egypt all in arms,

Blending in wat'ry death the rider and his horse:

O'er struggling Pharaoh roll'd the mighty tide,
And sav'd the labours of a pyramid.

I

Apis and Ore in vain he cries,

And all his horned Gods beside,
He swallows fate with swimming eyes,
And curs'd the Hebrews as he died.

Ah! foolish Israel to comply
With Memphian idolatry!

And bow to brutes, (a stupid slave,)
To idols impotent to save!

Behold thy God, the Sovereign of the sky,
Has wrought salvation in the deep,
Has bound thy foes in iron sleep,
And raised thine honours high;
His grace forgives thy follies past,
Behold he comes in majesty,

And Sinai's top proclaims his law:
Prepare to meet thy God in haste;
But keep an awful distance still:
Let Moses round the sacred hill
The circling limits draw.

Hark! the loud echoes of the trumpet roar,
And call the trembling armies near;
Slow and unwilling they appear,

Rails kept them from the mount before,

Now from the rails their fear:

'Twas the same herald, and the trump the same

Which shall be blown by high command,

Shall bid the wheels of nature stand,

And heav'n's eternal will proclaim,

That time shall be no more.

Horus or Orus, son of Osiris and Isis, one of the Egyp tian Deities.

Thus while the labouring angel swell'd the sound,
And rent the skies, and shook the ground,

Up rose th' Almighty; round his sapphire seat
Adoring thrones in order fell;

The lesser powers at distance dwell,

And cast their glories down successive at his feet:
Gabriel the Great prepares his way,

Lift up your heads, eternal doors, he cries;
Th' eternal doors his word obey,

Open and shoot celestial day

Upon the lower skies.

Heav'n's mighty pillows bow'd their head,

As their Creator bid,

And down Jehovah rode from the superior sphere,
A thousand guards before, and myriads in the rear.

His chariot was a pitchy cloud,

The wheels beset with burning gems:
The winds in harness with the flames
Flew o'er th' ethereal road:
Down through his magazines he past
Of hail, and ice, and fleecy snow;
Swift roll'd the triumph, and as fast
Did hail, and ice, in melted rivers flow,
The day was mingled with the night,
His feet on solid darkness trod,

His radiant eyes proclaim'd the God,

And scatter'd dreadful light;

He breath'd, and sulphur ran, a fiery stream:

He spoke, and (tho' with unknown speed he came), Chid the slow tempest, and the lagging flame.

Sinai receiv'd his glorious flight; With axle red, and glowing wheel Did the wing'd chariot light,

And rising smoke obscur'd the burning hill.

Lo, it mounts in curling waves, Lo, the gloomy pride out-braves The stately pyramids of fire;

The pyramids to heav'n aspire,

And mix with stars, but see their gloomy offspring higher.

So have you seen ungrateful ivy grow

Round the tall oak that six score years has stood,

And proudly shoot a leaf or two

Above its kind supporter's utmost bough,
And glory there to stand the loftiest of the wood.

Fresh horrors seize the camp, despair

And dying groans torment the air,

And shrieks, and swoons, and deaths were there;
The bellowing thunder, and the lightning's blaze
Spread through the host a wild amaze;
Darkness on every soul, paleness on every face:
Confus'd and dismal were the cries,
Let Moses speak, or Israel dies:
Moses the spreading terror feels,
No more the man of God conceals
His shivering and surprise:

Yet, with recovering mind commands

Silence and deep attention thro' the Hebrew bands.
Hark! from the centre of the flame,

All arm'd and feather'd with the same,
Majestic sounds break through the smoky cloud
Sent from the all-creating tongue,

A flight of cherubs guard the words along, And bear their fiery law to the retreating crowd.

"I am the Lord: "Tis I proclaim
That glorious and that fearful name,
Thy God and King: "Twas I that broke
Thy bondage, and th' Egyptian yoke;
Mine is the right to speak my will,
And thine the duty to fulfil.