From Arab's gum, or the Sabæan rose,
Does round the air evolving scents diffuse :
The holy ground is wet with heavenly dews :
Celeftial mufic (fuch Jeffides' lyre,
Such Miriam's timbrel, would in vain require)
Strikes to my thought through my admiring ear,
With ecftacy too fine, and pleasure hard to bear.
And lo! what fees my ravish'd eye? what feels
My wondering foul? An opening cloud reveals.
An heavenly form embody'd, and árray'd
With robes of light. I heard. The Angel faid:
Ceafe, man of woman born, to hope relief,
From daily trouble and continued 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 weakening 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 through ages down;
And let each weeping father tell his son,
That, deeper ftruck, and more distinctly griev❜d,
He muft augment the forrows he receiv'd.
The child, to whofe fuccefs thy hope is bound, 735 Ere thou art fcarce interr'd, or he is crown'd, To luft of arbitrary fway inclin'd
(That curfed poifon to the prince's mind!)
Shall from thy dictate and his duty tove,
And lofe his great defence, his people's love;
Ill-counsel'd, vanquish'd, fugitive, disgrac'd,
Shall mourn the fame of Jacob's ftrength 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 fhed
Their falling honours from his giddy head ;
By arms or prayer unable to afswage
Domestic horror; and inteftine rage
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 brother's arms difturb'd, and ftain'd with kindredblood.
Hence labouring years shall weep their deftin'd race, Charg'd with ill omens, fully'd with difgrace.
Time, by neceflity compell'd, fhall go
Through fcenes of war, and epochas of woe.
The empire, leffen'd in a parted stream,
Indulge thy tears: the Heathen fhall blafpheme:
Judah fhall fall, opprefs'd by grief and shame;
And men fhall from her ruins know her fame.
New Egypts yet and second bonds remain,
A harfher Pharaoh, and a heavier chain.
Again, obedient to a dire command,
Thy captive fons shall 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, 77@
(Inglorious change !) fhall in deftruction lie
Low, level'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 bleft, for ever great,
Remov'd by the invader's barbarous 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 feast,
With facrilegious taunt, and impious jest.
Twice fourteen ages fhall their way complete;
Empires by various turns fhall rife and fet;
While thy abandon'd tribes shall only know
A different mafter, and a change of woe,
With down-caft eye-lids, and with looks aghast,
Shall dread the future, or bewail the past.
Afflicted Ifrael fhall fit weeping down,
Fast by the streams where Babel's waters run;
Their harps upon the neighbouring willows hung,
Nor joyous hymn encouraging their tongue,
Nor chearful dance their feet; with toil opprefs'd,
Their weary'd limbs aspiring but to rest.
In the reflective stream the fighing bride,
Viewing her charms impair'd, abafh'd, fhall hide
Her penfive head; and in her languid face
The bridegroom shall foresee his fickly race;
While ponderous fetters vex their close embrace.
With irkfome anguish then your priests shall mourn 800
Their long-neglected feafts defpair'd return,
And fad oblivion of their folemn days.
Thenceforth their voices they fhall only raise,
Louder to weep. By day, your frighted feers
Shall call for fountains to exprefs their tears,
And with their eyes were floods; by night, from
dreams
Of opening gulphs, black storms, and raging flames, Starting amaz'd, shall to the people fhew
Emblems of heavenly wrath, and mystic 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 shall difcourfe), how fing
In foreign lands, and to a barbarous king?
We and our fathers, from our childhood bred
To watch the cruel victor's eye, to dread
The arbitrary lafh, to bend, to grieve,
(Out-caft of mortal race!) can we conceive
Image of aught delightful, foft, or gay?
Alas! when we have toil'd the longfome day,
The fullest bliss our hearts aspire to know
Is but fome interval from active woe,
In broken reft and startling fleep to mourn,
Till morn, the tyrant, and the fcourge, return.
in grief, can pleasure be our theme?
Our endless anguish does not nature claim?
Reafon 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 frantic mirth.
This is the series of perpetual woe,
Which thou, alas! and thine, are born to know.
Illuftrious wretch! repine not, nor reply:
View not what Heaven 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 fense;
Nor let duft argue with Omnipotence.
'Tis GOD who must dispose; and man fustain,
Born to endure, forbidden to complain.
Thy fum of life muft his decrees fulfil;
What derogates from his command, is ill;
And that alone is good which centres in his will.
Yet, that thy labouring 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, shall cease to mourn,
Shall from her fad captivity return.
Sion fhall raise her long-dejected head;
And in her courts the law again be read.
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