ASKING LEAVE TO SING.

YET,

ET, mighty God, indulge my tongue,
Nor let thy thunders roar,

Whilft the young notes and venturous fong
To worlds of glory foar.

If thou my daring flight forbid,
The Mufe folds-up her wings;
Or at thy word her flender reed
Attempts almighty things.

Her flender reed, infpir'd by thee,
Bids a new Eden grow,

With blooming life on every tree,
And spreads a Heaven below.

She mocks the trumpet's loud alarms,
Fill'd with thy dreadful breath:
And calls th' angelic hosts to arms,
To give the nations death.

But when the taftes her Saviour's love,

And feels the rapture ftrong,

Scarce the divinest harp above

Aims at a sweeter fong.

DIVINE JUDGMENTS.

OT from the duft my forrows fpring,

NOT

Nor drop my comforts from the lower skies!
Let all the baneful planets fhed

Their mingled curfes on my head,

How vain their curfes, if th' Eternal King

Look through the clouds and blefs me with his eyes!
Creatures with all their boafted fway

Are but his flaves, and must obey;
They wait their orders from above,
And execute his word, the vengeance, or the love.

'Tis by a warrant from his hand

The gentler gales are bound to fleep:
The North wind blufters, and affumes command
Over the defert and the deep;

Old Boreas with his freezing powers

Turns the earth iron, makes the ocean glafs,
Arrefts the dancing rivulets as they pafs,

And chains them movelefs to their fhores;

The grazing ox lows to the gelid skies,

Walks o'er the marble meads with withering eyes, Walks o'er the folid lakes, fnuffs up the wind, and dies.

Fly to the polar world, my fong,

And mourn the pilgrims there, (a wretched throng!)
Seiz'd and bound in rigid chains,

A troop of statues on the Ruffian plains,
And life ftands frozen in the purple veins.

Atheist, forbear; no more blafpheme :

God

God has a thousand terrors in his name,

A thousand armies at command,
Waiting the fignal of his hand,

And magazines of froft, and magazines of flame.
Drefs thee in fteel to meet his wrath;

His fharp artillery from the North

Shall pierce thee to the foul, and shake thy mortal frame. Sublime on Winter's rugged wings

He rides in arms along the sky,
And scatters fate on fwains and kings;

And flocks and herds, and nations die ;
While impious lips, profanely bold,
Grow pale; and, quivering at his dreadful cold,
Give their own blafphemies the lie.

The mischiefs that infeft the earth,
When the hot dog-ftar fires the realms on high,
Drought and disease, and cruel dearth,

Are but the flashes of a wrathful eye
From the incens'd Divinity.

In vain our parching palates thirst,

For vital food in vain we cry,

And pant for vital breath;

The verdant fields are burnt to duft,
The Sun has drunk the channels dry,

And all the air is death.

Ye fcourges of our Maker's rod,

'Tis at his dread command, at his imperial nod,

You deal your various plagues abroad.

5

Hail,

Hail, whirlwinds, hurricanes, and floods,

That all the leafy ftandards ftrip,

And bear down with a mighty sweep

The riches of the fields, and honours of the woods;

Storms, that ravage o'er the deep,

And bury millions in the waves;

Earthquakes, that in midnight sleep

Turn cities into heaps, and make our beds our graves; While you difpenfe your mortal harms,

'Tis the Creator's voice that founds your

loud alarms,

When guilt with louder cries provokes a God to arms.

O for a meflage from above

To bear my spirits up!

Some pledge of my Creator's love

To calm my terrors and support my hope!
Let waves and thunders mix and roar,
Be thou my God, and the whole world is mine:
While thou art Sovereign, I'm fecure;

I fhall be rich till thou art poor;

For all I fear, and all I wish, Heaven, Earth, and Hell are thine.

EARTH AND HEAVEN.

HAST thou not feen, impatient boy?

Haft thou not read the folemn truth,

That grey experience writes for giddy youth
On every mortal joy?

Pleafure

Pleasure must be dafh'd with pain:

And yet, with heedlefs hafte,

The thirsty boy repeats the taste,

Nor hearkens to defpair, but tries the bowl again. The rills of pleafure never run fincere :

(Earth has no unpolluted spring)

From the curs'd foil fome dangerous taint they bear; So rofes grow on thorns, and honey wears a fting.

In vain we feek a Heaven below the sky;

The world has falfe, but flattering, charms:

Its diftant joys fhow big in our esteem,
But leffen still as they draw near the eye;

In our embrace the vifions die,

And when we grafp the airy forms,
We lose the pleafing dream.

Earth, with her fcenes of gay delight,
1s but a landskip rudely drawn,
With glaring colours, and falfe light;
Distance commends it to the fight,

For fools to gaze upon;

But bring the naufeous daubing nigh,
Coarfe and confus'd the hideous figures lie,
Diffolve the pleasure, and offend the eye.

Look up, my foul, pant tow'rd th' eternal hills;
Thofe Heavens are fairer than they feem ;
There pleasures all fincere glide on in crystal rills,
There not a dreg of guilt defiles,

Nor grief disturbs the stream,