HANNAH.

NOW crouds move off, retiring trumpets found, On echoes dying in their last rebound;

The notes of fancy feem no longer strong,
But fweetening clofes fit a private fong.

So when the ftorms. forfake the fea's command,
To break their forces in the winding land,
No more their blasts tumultuous rage proclaim,
But fweep in murmurs o'er a murmuring stream

Then feck the fubject, and its song be mine,
Whose numbers, mixt in facred story, shine:
Go, brightly-working thought, prepar'd to fly,
Above the page on hovering pinions lye,
And beat with stronger force, to make thee rise
Where beauteous Hannah meets the fearching eyes.
There frame a town, and fix a tent with cords,
The town be Shiloh call'd, the tent the Lord's..
Carv'd pillars, filleted with filver, rear,
To close the curtains in an outward fquare,
But those within it, which the porch uphold,
Be finely wrought, and overlaid with gold.
Here Eli comes to take the refting-feat,
Slow moving forward with a reverend gait:
Sacred in office, venerably fage,

And venerably great in filver'd age.
Here Hannah comes, a melancholy wife,
Reproach'd for barren in the marriage-life;

Like fummer mornings fhe to fight appears,
Bedew'd and fhining in the midst of tears.
Her heart in bitterness of grief fhe bow'd,
And thus her wishes to the Lord fhe vow'd:
If thou thine handmaid with compaffion fee,
If I, my God! am not forgot by thee;
If in mine offspring thou prolong my line,
The child I wish for all his days be thine;
His life devoted, in thy courte be led,
And not a razor come upon his head.

So, from receffes of her inmoft foul,
Through moving lips her ftill devotion ftole
As filent waters glide through parted trees,
Whose branches tremble with a rifing breeze,
The words were loft because her heart was low,
But free defire had taught the mouth to go;
This Eli mark'd, and, with a voice fevere,
While yet fhe multiply'd her thoughits in prayer,
How long shall wine, he cries, diftract thy breast?
Be gone, and lay the drunken fit by reft.

Ah! fays the mourner, count not this for fin,
It is not wine, but grief, that works within ;
The spirit of thy wretched hand-maid know,
Her prayer 's complaint, and her condition woe.
Then fpake the facred prieft, in peace depart,
And with thy comfort God fulfil thine heart!
His bleffing thus pronounc'd with awful sound,
The votary bending leaves the folemn ground,
She feems confirm'd the Lord has heard her cries,
And chearful hope the tears of trouble dries,

And makes her alter'd eyes irradiate roll, With joy that dawns in thought upon the foul.

Now let the town, and tent, and court remain, And leap the time till Hannah comes again. As painted profpects skip along the green, From hills to mountains eminently feen, And leave their intervals that fink below, In deep retreat, and unexprefs'd to show.

Behold! fhe comes (but not as once the came, To grieve, to figh, and teach her eyes to stream); Content adorns her with a lively face,

An open look, and fimiling kind of grace;
Her little Samuel in her arms fhe bears,
The wish of long defire, and child of prayers;
And as the facrifice fhe brought begun,
To reverend Eli she presents her son.

Here, cries the mother, here my Lord may fee
The woman come, who pray'd in grief by thee
The child I fued for, God in bounty gave;
And what he granted, let him now receive.

But still the votary feels her temper move,
With all the tender violence of love,
That still enjoys the gift, and inly burns
To fearch for larger, or for more returns.
Then, fill'd with bleffings which allure to praise
And rais'd by joy to foul-enchanting lays,
Thus thanks the Lord, beneficently kind,
In fweet effufions of the grateful mind:
My lifting heart, with more than common heat,
Sends up its thanks to God on every beat,

My glory, rais'd above the reach of fcorn,
To God exalts its highly-planted horn;
My mouth enlarg'd, mine enemies defies,
And finds in God's falvation full replies.
Oh, bright in holy beauty's power divine,
There's none whose glory can compare with thine!
None share thine honours, nay, there's none befide,.
No rock on which thy creatures can confide.

Ye proud in spirits, who your gift adore,

Unlearn the faults, and speak with pride no more;
No more your words in arrogance be shown,
Nor call the works of Providence your own,
Since he that rules us infinitely knows,
And, as he wills, his acts of power difpofe..

The ftrong, whose finewy forces arch'd the bow,
Have seen it shatter'd by the conquering foe;
The weak have felt their nerves more firmly brace,
And new-fprung vigour in the limbs encrease.
The Full, whom vary'd tastes of plenty fed,
Have let their labour out to gain their bread.
The Poor, that languifh'd in a starving state,
Content and full, have ceas'd to beg their meat..
The Barren Womb, no longer barren now,
(Oh, be my thanks accepted with my vow!)
In pleasure wonders at a mother's pain,
And fees her offspring, and conceives again;
While the that glory'd in her numerous heirs,
Now broke by feebleness, no longer bears.

Such turns their rifing from the Lord derive, The Lord that kills, the Lord that makes alive

He brings by fickness down to gaping graves,
And, by reftoring health, from fickness faves
He makes the Poor by keeping back his store,
And makes the Rich by bleffing men with more ;.
He finking hearts with bitter grief annoys,
Or lifts them bounding with enliven'd joys.
He takes the Beggar from his humble clay,
From off the dunghill where despis'd he lay,
To mix with Princes in a rank fupreme,
Fill thrones of honour, and inherit fame:
For all the pillars of exalted state,
So nobly firm fo beautifully great,

Whofe various orders bear the rounded ball,
Which would without them to confufion fall,
All are the Lord's, at his difpofure stand,
And prop the govern'd world at his command.
His mercy, ftill more wonderfully sweet,
Shall guard the righteous, and uphold their feet,
While, through the darknefs of the wicked foul,
Amazement, dread, and desperation roll;
While envy stops their tongues, and hopless grief,
That fees their fears, but not their fears relief.
And they their ftrength as unavailing view,
Since none fall trust in that and safety too.
The foes of Ifrael, for his Ifrael's fake,

God will to pieces in his anger break;
His bolts of thunder, from an open'd sky,
Shall on their heads, with force unerring, fly.
His voice fhall call, and all the world fhall hear,
And all for fentence at his feat appear.

But