Ambrofial odour, such as never flows
From Arab's gum, or the Sabæan rose,
Does round the air evolving scents diffuse :
The holy ground is wet with heavenly dews:
Celestial mufic (such Jeffides' lyre,
Such Miriam's timbrel, would in vain require)
Strikes to my thought through my admiring ear, 715
With ecftacy too fine, and pleasure hard to bear.
And lo! what fees my ravish'd eye? what feels
My wond'ring foul? An opening cloud reveals
An heavenly form, embody'd, and array'd
With robes of light. I heard. The angel faid: 720
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 hasten 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 fon,
That deeper ftruck, and more distinctly griev'd,
He must augment the forrows he receiv'd.
The child, to whofe fuccefs thy hope is bound, 735 Ere thou art scarce interr'd, or he is crown'd,
To luft of arbitrary sway inclin'd
(That curfed poison to the prince's mind!)
Shall from thy dictates and his duty rove,
And lofe his great defence, his people's love;
Ill-counfel'd, vanquish'd, fugitive, difgrac'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 745
By active toil and military fweat,
Pining, incline their fickly leaves, and shed
Their falling honours from his giddy head;
By arms or prayer unable to affuage
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 disturb'd, and stain'd with kindredblood.
Hence labouring years fhall weep their deftin'd race, Charg'd with ill omens, fully'd with disgrace.
Time, by neceffity compell'd, fhall go
Through fcenes of war, and epochas of woe.
The empire, leffen'd in a parted ftream,
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 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.
Thefe pointed fpires, that wound the ambient fky,770
(Inglorious change!) fhall 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 seat
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 ufe debas'd,
Shall fend them flowing round his drunken feast,
With facrilegious taunt, and impious jeft.
Twice fourteen ages fhall their way complete ;
Empires by various turns fhall rise and set;
While thy abandon'd tribes fhall only know
A different mafter, and a change of woe,
With down-caft eye-lids, and with looks aghaft,
Shall dread the future, or bewail the past.
Afflicted Ifrael fhall fit weeping down,
Faft by the ftreams where Babel's waters run;
Their harps upon the neighbouring willows hung,
Nor joyous hymn encouraging their tongue,
Nor cheerful dance their feet; with toil opprefs'd,
Their weary'd limbs afpiring but to reft.
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 irksome anguish then your priefts fhall 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 ftorms, and raging flames,
Starting amaz'd, fhall to the people fhew
Emblems of heavenly wrath, and myftic types of woe.
The captives, as their tyrant fhall require 810
That they fhould breathe the fong, and touch the lyre,
Shall fay can Jacob's fervile race rejoice,
Untun'd the musick, and difus'd the voice?
What can we play (they fhall 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 lash, 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 langfome day,
The fulleft blifs our hearts afpire to know
Is but fome interval from active woe,
In broken rest and startling sleep to mourn,
Till morn, the tyrant, and the scourge, return.
Bred up 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?
Madness, 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:
835
View not what Heaven ordains with Reason's eye.
Too bright the object is; the distance is too high.
The man, who would resolve the work of fate,
May limit number, and make crooked straight:
Stop thy inquiry then, and curb thy sense,
Nor let duft argue with Omnipotence.
'Tis God who muft difpofe, and man fuftain, 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 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 shall raise her long-dejected head,
And in her courts the law again be read.
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