Can never mifs' Their way to everlasting bliss : But from a world of misery and care Where joy in full perfection flows, ΟΝ ΤΗ Ε GENERAL CONFLAGRATION, AND ENSUING JUDGEMENT. A PINDARIC ESSAY. "Effe quoque in fatis, reminifcitur, affore tempus "Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia cæli "Ardeat, & mundi moles operofa laborat." OVID. Met. N O W the black days of universal doom, Which wondrous prophecies foretold, are come : What ftrong convulfions, what ftupendous woe, Muft finking nature undergo; Amidst the dreadful wreck, and final overthrow! With fearful groans, and hideous cries, Unable to fupport the weight Or of the prefent, or approaching miferies. Her guilty offspring raving with despair, Those dismal harbingers of dire events! Loud thunders roar, and darting lightnings fly Through the dark concave of the troubled sky ; The fiery ravage is begun, the end is nigh. See how the glaring meteors blaze! Like baleful torches, O they come, To light diffolving Nature to her tomb! And, scattering round their peftilential rays, Strike the affrighted nations with a wild amaze. Vaft fleets of flame, and globes of fire, By an impetuous wind are driven Through all the regions of the inferior heaven; Till, hid in fulphurous fmoke, they feemingly expire. Sad and amazing 'tis to fee, What mad confufion rages over all This fcorching ball.! No country is exempt, no nation free, But each partakes the epidemic mifery. What difmal havoc of mankind is made By wars, and peftilence, and dearth, Through the whole mournful earth? Which with a murdering fury they invade, Forfook by Providence, and all propitious aid! Whilft fiends, let loofe, their utmost rage employ, Distracted mortals from their cities fly, And others, raving with their woe, (For hunger, thirst, despair, they undergo) Blafpheme and curfe the Power they should adore: The trembling Alps abfcond their aged heads Which from their bellowing caverns broke, The mafly rivers of those secret chains, Is overwhelm'd with the fame burft of woe. No No fhowers defcend from the malignant sky, The little rivulets no more To larger ftreams their tribute pay, Which, with a strange unusual roar, Forfakes those ancient bounds it would have pass'd before : And to the monftrous deep in vain retire: But belching fubterraneous fires, The fun, by sympathy, concern'd Like a huge mass of black corrupted blood; The larger planets, which once shone so bright, And ruinous lumber of the sky. Amidft Amidft this dreadful hurricane of woes, (For fire, confusion, horror, and despair, Upon expiring nature seize : For now the 'll in few minutes know All that had human breath, arise, To hear your laft, unalterable doom. At this the ghaftly tyrant, who had sway'd No longer could his sceptre hold; But gave up all, and was himself a captive made. And now from mortal, grow immortal men. Which can collect wherever cast The smallest atoms, and that shape restore That through ftrange accidents and numerous changes paft! See how the joyful angels fly То |