So fares a traitor to an earthly crown;
While death fits threatening in his prince's frown,
His heart's difmay'd; and now his fears command,
To change his native for a distant land:
Swift orders fly, the king's fevere decree
Stands in the channel, and locks up the fea;
The port he feeks, obedient to her lord,
Hurls back the rebel to his lifted fword.
: But why this idle toil to paint that day?
This time elaborately thrown away?
Words all in vain pant after the diftrefs,
The height of eloquence would make it less;
Heavens! how the good man trembles !-
And is there a Laft Day? and must there come A fure, a fix'd, inexorable doom?
Ambition fwell, and, thy proud fails to show,
Take all the winds that Vanity can blow;
Wealth on a golden mountain blazing stand,
And reach an India forth in either hand;
Spread all thy purple clufters, tempting vine,
And thou, more dreaded foe, bright beauty, shine;
Shine all; in all your charms together rife;
That all, in all your charms, I may despise,
While I mount upward on a strong defire,
Borne, like Elijah, in a car of fire.
In hopes of glory to be quite involv'd!
To fmile at death! to long to be diffolv'd!
From our decays a pleafure to receive!
And kindle into tranfport at a grave!
What equals this? And shall the victor now
Boaft the proud laurels on his loaded brow?
Religion! Oh thou cherub, heavenly bright!
Oh joys unmix'd, and fathomlefs delight!
Thou, Thou art all; nor find I in the whole
Creation aught, but God and my own foul.
For ever then, my foul, thy God adore,
Nor let the brute creation praise him more.
Shall things inanimate my conduct blame,
And flush my conscious cheek with spreading fhame? 235
They all for him purfue, or quit, their end;
The mounting flames their burning power fufpend;
In folid heaps th' unfrozen billows stand,
To reft and filence aw'd by his command:
Nay, the dire monsters that infeft the flood,
By nature dreadful, and athirst for blood,
His will can calm, their favage tempers bind,
And turn to mild protectors of mankind.
Did not the prophet this great truth maintain
In the deep chambers of the gloomy main;
When darkness round him all her horrors spread,
And the loud ocean bellow'd o'er his head?
When now the thunder roars, the lightening flics, And all the warring winds tumultuous rife; When now the foaming furges, toft on high, Disclose the fands beneath, and touch the sky; When death draws near, the mariners aghaft Look back with terror on their actions paft; Their courage fickens into deep dismay, Their hearts; through fear and anguish, melt away; 255
Nor tears, nor prayers, the tempeft can appease ;
Now they devote their treasure to the feas;
Unload their shatter'd barque, though richly fraught,
And think the hopes of life are cheaply bought
With gems and gold; but oh, the storm so high! 260
Nor gems nor gold the hopes of life can buy.
The trembling prophet then, themselves to save,
They headlong plunge into the briny wave;
Down he defcends, and, booming o'er his head,
The billows close; he 's number'd with the dead. 265
(Hear, O ye juft! attend, ye virtuous few!
And the bright paths of piety pursue)
Lo! the great Ruler of the world, from high,
Looks fmiling down with a propitious eye,
Covers his fervant with his gracious hand,
And bids tempeftuous nature silent stand;
Commands the peaceful waters to give place,
Or kindly fold him in a soft embrace:
He bridles-in the monsters of the deep:
The bridled monsters awful distance keep:
Forget their hunger, while they view their prey;
And guiltless gaze, and round the stranger play.
But still arife new wonders; nature's Lord
Sends forth into the deep his powerful word,
And calls the great leviathan: the great
Leviathan attends in all his ftate;
Exults for joy, and, with a mighty bound,
Makes the fea shake, and heav'n and earth refound;
Blackens the waters with the rifing fand,
And drives vaft billows to the distant land.
As yawns an earthquake, when imprifon'd air
Struggles for vent, and lays the centre bare,
The whale expands his jaws enormous size;
The prophet views the cavern with furprize;
Measures his monstrous teeth, afar descry'd,
And rolls his wondering eyes from fide to fide:
Then takes poffeffion of the fpacious feat,
And fails fecure within the dark retreat.
Now is he pleas'd the northern blast to hear, And hangs on liquid mountains, void of fear; Or falls immers'd into the depths below; Where the dead filent waters never flow; To the foundations of the hills convey'd, Dwells in the fhelving mountain's dreadful fhade : Where plummet never reach'd, he draws his breath, 300 And glides ferenely through the paths of death.
Two wondrous days and nights through coral groves, Through labyrinths of rocks and fands, he roves : When the third morning with its level rays The mountains gilds, and on the billows plays, It fees the king of waters rife, and pour His facred gueft un-injur'd on the fhore: A type of that great bleffing, which the Mufe In her next labour ardently purfues.
- Εκ γαίης ἐλπίζομεν ἐ; φάΘ ἐλθεῖν Λείψαν ἀποιχομένων· ἐπίσω δὲ Θεοὶ τελέθονται.
We hope, that the departed will rife again. "from the duft after which, like the gods, "they will be immortal."
OW Man awakes, and from his filent bed,
Nwhere he has kept for ages, lifts his head,
Shakes off the lumber of ten thousand years,
And on the borders of new worlds appears.
Whate'er the bold, the rafh, adventure coft,
In wide Eternity I dare be loft.
The Mufe is wont in narrow bounds to fing,
To teach the fwain, or celebrate the king.
I grafp the whole, no more to parts confin'd,
I lift my voice, and fing to human kind:
I fing to men and angels; angels join,
While fuch the theme, their facred fongs with mine.
Again the trumpet's intermitted found
Rolls the wide circuit of creation round,
An univerfal concourfe to prepare
Of all that ever breath'd the vital air:
In fome wide ficld, which active whirlwinds fweep,
Drive cities, forests, mountains, to the deep,
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