With us repent, and on our hearts

Thy choiceft graces shed,

And shower from thy celeftial throne
Thy bleffings on our head.

Oh! may thy mercy crown us here,

And come without delay;

Then our whole courfe of life will feem

One glad triumphant day.

Now the bleft years of joy restore,
For thofe of grief and strife,
And with one plcafant drop allay
This bitter draught of life.

Thy wonders to the world display,
Thy fervants to adorn,

That may delight their future fons,
And children yet unborn;

Thy beams of majesty diffuse,
With them thy great commands,

And bid profperity attend

The labours of our hands.

The 139th PSALM paraphrased in Miltonick

Verfe.

Dread Jehovah! thy all-piercing eyes Explore the motions of this mortal frame, This tenement of duft: Thy ftretching fight Surveys th' harmonious principles, that move

In beauteous rank and order, to inform
This cafk, and animated mafs of clay.
Nor are the profpects of thy wondrous fight
To this terreftrial part of man confin'd;
But fhoot into his foul, and there difcern
The first materials of unfashion'd thought,
Yet dim and undigested, till the mind,
Big with the tender images, expands,
And, fwelling, labours with th' ideal birth.
Where-e'er I move, thy cares pursue my feet
Attendant. When I drink the dews of fleep,
Stretch'd on my downy bed, and there enjoy
A fweet forgetfulness of all my toils,
Unfeen, thy fovereign prefence guards my fleep,
Wafts all the terrors of my dreams away,
Sooths all my foul, and foftens my repose.
Before conception can employ the tongue,
And mould the ductile images to found;
Before imagination ftands difplay'd,.
Thine eye the future eloquence can read,

Yet unarray'd with speech. Thou, mighty Lord!
Haft moulded man from his congenial duft,
And spoke him into being; while the clay,
Beneath thy forming hand, leap'd forth, inspir'd,
And ftarted into life: through every part,
At thy command, the wheels of motion play'd.
But fuch exalted knowledge leaves below
And drops poor man from its fuperior sphere.
In vain, with reafon's ballaft, would he try
To ftem th' unfathomable depth; his bark
O'er-fets, and founders in the vast abyss.

Then whither fhall the rapid fancy run,
Though in its full career, to speed my flight
From thy unbounded presence? which, alone,
Fills all the regions and extended space
Beyond the bounds of nature! Whither, Lord!
Shall my unrein'd imagination rove,

To leave behind thy fpirit, and out-fly

Its influence, which, with brooding wings, out-fpread
Hatch'd unfledg'd nature from the dark profound.
If mounted on my towering thoughts I climb
Into the heaven of heavens; I there behold
The blaze of thy unclouded majesty !

In the pure empyrean thee I view,

High thron'd above all height, thy radiant shrine,
Throng'd with the proftrate feraphs, who receive
Beatitude paft utterance! If I plunge

Down to the gloom of Tartarus profound,
There too I find thee, in the lowest bounds
Of Erebus, and read thee, in the fcenes
Of complicated wrath: I fee thee clad
In all the majefty of darkness there.

If, on the ruddy morning's purple wings
Up-born, with indefatigable course,

I feek the glowing borders of the East,

Where the bright fun, emergent from the deeps,
With his first glories gilds the fparkling feas,
And trembles o'er the waves; ev'n there, thy hand
Shall through the watery defert guide my course,
And o'er the broken furges pave my way,
While on the dreadful whirles I hang fecure,

And mock the warring ocean. If, with hopes,
As fond as falfe, the darkness I expect

To hide, and wrap nie in its mantling fhade,
Vain were the thought: for thy unbounded ken
Darts through the thickening gloom, and pries through all
The palpable obfcure. Before thy eyes,

The vanquish'd night throws off her dusky shrowd,
And kindles into day: the fhade, and light,

To man ftill various, but the fame to thee.

On thee, is all the structure of my frame Dependant. Lock'd within the filent womb, Sleeping I lay, and ripening to my birth;

Yet, Lord, thy out-ftretch'd arin preferv'd me there 3
Before I mov'd to entity, and trod

The verge of being. To thy hallow'd name
I'll pay due honours: for thy mighty hand

Built this corporeal fabrick, when it laid
The ground-work of existence. Hence, I read
The wonders of thy art. This frame I view
With terror and delight; and, wrapt in both,
I startle at myself. My bones, unform'd
As yet, nor hardening from the viscous parts,
But blended with th' unanimated mass,
Thy eye diftinctly view'd; and, while I lay
Within the earth, imperfect, nor perceiv'd
The firft faint dawn of life, with eafe furvey'd
The vital glimmerings of the active feeds,
Just kindling to existence; and beheld
My fubftance scarce material. In thy book,
Was the fair model of this ftructure drawn,

7

Where

Where every part, in juft connection join'd,
Compos'd and perfected th' harmonious piece,
Ere the dim speck of being learn'd to stretch
Its ductile form, or entity had known
To range and wanton in an ampler space.

How dear, how rooted in my inmost soul,
Are all thy counfels, and the various ways
Of thy eternal providence! The sum
So boundless and immenfe, it leaves behind
The low account of numbers; and out-flies
All that imagination e're conceiv'd,

Lefs numerous are the fands that crowd the fhores,
The barriers of the ocean. When I rife

From my foft bed, and fofter joys of sleep,
I rife to thee. Yet lo! the impious flight
Thy mighty wonders. Shall the fons of vice
Elude the vengeance of thy wrathful hand,
And mock thy lingering thunder, which with-holds
Its forky terrors from their guilty heads?

Thou great tremendous God!-Avaunt, and fly,
All ye who thirst for blood.-For, fwoln with pride,
Each haughty wretch blafphemes thy facred name,
And bellows his reproaches to affront

Thy glorious Majefty. Thy foes I hate
Worfe than my own, O Lord! Explore my foul,
See if a flaw or ftain of fin infects

My guilty thoughts. Then, lead me in the way
That guides my feet to thy own heaven and thee.

PSALM