With such a horrid clang
As on mount Sinai rang,

While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake;
The aged Earth aghast,
With terror of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the centre shake;
When at the world's last session,
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his

throne.

And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is,

But now begins; for from this happy day, .
Th’old Dragon under ground
In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far casts his usurped sway,
And wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.
The oracles are dumb,
No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
The lonely mountains o'er,
And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament,
From baunted spring and dale
Edg'd with poplar pale,

The parting Genius is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses torn,
The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets

mourn.

In consecrated earth
And on the holy hearth,

The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint,
In urns and altars round,
A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint ; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar pow'r foregoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baälim
Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice batter'd god of Palestine;
And mooned Ashtaroth,
Heav'n's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;
The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn,
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammus

mourn.

And sullen Moloch fled,
Hath left in shadows dread,

His burning idol all of blackest hue;
In vain with cymbals' ring
They call the grisly king,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste.

Nor is Osiris' seen
In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling the unshow'r'd grass with lowings loud :
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest,

Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark, The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

He feels from Juda's land
The dreaded Infant's hand,

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor all the gods beside,
Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe to shew his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.

So when the Sun in bed,
Curtain'd with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale
Troop to th’infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave,
And the yellow-skirted Fayes
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd

maze.

But see the Virgin blest,
Hath laid her Babe to rest,

Time is our tedious song should here have ending :
Heav'n's youngest teemed star
Hath fix'd her polish'd car

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnest angels sit in order serviceable.

A PRAYER,

IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH.

(BURNS.)

O Thou unknown, Almighty cause,

Of all my hope and fear! In whose dread presence, ere an hour,

Perhaps I must appear!

If I have wander'd in those paths

Of life I ought to shun;
As something, loudly, in my breast,

Remonstrates I have done ;

Thou know'st that thou hast formed me

With passions wild and strong; And list’ning to their witching voice

Has often led me wrong.

Where human weakness has come short,

Or frailty stept aside, Do thou, All-Good! for such thou art,

In shades of darkness hide.

Where with intention I have err'd,

No other plea I have, But, Thou art good : and goodness still

Delighteth to forgive.

N

STANZAS ON THE SAME OCCASION.

[BURNS.)

Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?

Have I so found it full of pleasing charms ? Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between :

Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms: Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?

Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode ?
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;

I tremble to approach an angry God,
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.

Fain would I say, ' Forgive my foul offence!'

Fain promise never more to disobey;
But, should my Author health again dispense,

· Again I might desert fair virtue's way; Again in folly's path might go astray;

Again exalt the brute and sink the man; Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,

Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan? Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran!

0 Thou, great Governor of all below!
If I
may dare a

lifted

eye to Thee, Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,

Or still the tumult of the raging sea : With that controlling power assist ev'n me,

Those headlong furious passions to confine; For all unfit I feel my powers to be,

To rule their torrent in th' allowed line ; 0, aid me with thy help, Omnipotence divine !