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Yet fhall Jehovah's fervants ftand fecure,
His mercy fix'd, eternal fhall endure;

On them her ever-healing rays fhall shine;

More mild, and bright, and fure, O fun! than thine.

At length, the long-expected prince behold,
The laft good king; in ancient days foretold,
When Bethel's altar fpoke his future fame,
Rent to its bafe, at good Jofiah's name.
Bleft, happy prince! o'er whofe lamented urn,
In plaintive fong, all Judah's daughters mourn;
For whom fad Sion's fofteft forrow flows,
And Jeremiah pours his fweet melodious woes.

But now fall'n Sion, once the fair and great,
Sits deep in duft, abandon'd, defolate;
Bleeds her fad heart, and ever ftream her eyes,
And anguish tears her with convulfive fighs.
The mournful captive spreads her hands in vain,
Her hands, that rankle with the fervile chain;
Till he, Great Chief! § in Heav'n's appointed time,
Leads back her children to their native clime.
Fair Liberty revives with all her joys,
And bids her envy'd walls fecurely rife.
And thou, great hallow'd dome, in ruin fpread,
Again hall lift fublime thy facred head.
But ah! with weeping eyes, the ancients view
A faint refemblance of the old in you.
No more th' effulgent glory of thy God
Speaks awful anfwers from the mystic cloud:
No more thine altars blaze with fire divine,
Aud Heav'n has left thy folitary shrine.

? Zorobabel.

Yet, in thy courts hereafter fhalt thou fee

Prefence immediate of the Deity,

[thee. The Light himself reveal'd, the God confefs'd in

And now at length the fated term of years

The world's defire have brought, and lo! the God ap

pears.

The Heav'nly Babe the Virgin Mother bears,
And her fond looks confefs the parent's cares;
The pleafing burden on her breasts she lays,
Hangs o'er his charms, and with a smile furveys.
The Infant fmiles, to her fond bofom prest,
And wantons fportive on the mother's breast.
A radiant glory speaks him all Divine,

And in the Child the beams of Godhead fhine.
But now, alas! far other views difclofe
The blackest comprehenfive fcene of woes.
See where man's voluntary facrifice

Bows his meek head, and God eternal dies!
Fixt to the crofs his healing arms are bound,
While copious mercy ftreams from ev'ry wound.
Mark the blood-drops that life-exhaufting roll,
And the ftrong pang that rends the ftubborn foul
As all Death's tortures, with fevere delay,
Exult and riot in the nobleft prey:

And canst thou, ftupid man, those forrows fee,
Nor fhare the anguish which he bears for thee
Thy fin, for which his facred flesh is torn,
Points ev'ry nail, and sharpens ev'ry thorn;
Canft thou? while nature fimarts in ev'ry wound,
And each pang cleaves the fympathetic ground!
Lo! the black fun, his chariot backward driv'p,
Blots out the day, and perishes from heav'n:

Earth, trembling from her entrails, bears á part,
And the rent rock upbraids man's ftubborn heart.

The yawning grave reveals his gloomy reign,
And the cold clay-clad dead start into life again.

And thou, O Tomb, once more fhalt wide display
Thy fatiate jaws, and give up all thy prey.
Thou, groaning Earth, fhalt heave, abforpt in flame,
As the last pangs convulfe thy lab'ring frame;
When the fame God, unfhrouded fhalt thou fee,
Wrapt in full blaze of pow'r and majesty,

Ride on the clouds; whilft, as his chariot flies,
The bright effufion ftreams through all the skies.
Then fhall the proud diffolving mountains glow,
And yielding rocks in fiery rivers flow:

The molten deluge round the globe fhall roar,
And all man's arts and labour be no more.
Then fhall the fplendors of th' enliven'd glass
Sink undiftinguish'd in the burning mafs.
And O! till earth, and feas, and heav'n decay,
Ne'er may that fair creation fade away;

May winds and ftorms thofe beauteous colours fpare,
Still may they bloom as permanent as fair;
All the vain rage of wafting time repel,

And His tribunal fee, whofe crofs they paint fo well!

T. WARTON.

THE HAMLET.

WRITTEN IN WHICHWOOD FOREST,

THE hinds how blest, who ne’er beguil’d
To quit their hamlet's hawthorn-wild;
Nor haunt the crow'd, nor tempt the main,
For fplendid care and guilty gain!

When morning's twilight-tinctur'd beam Strikes their low thatch with flanting gleam, They rove abroad in æther blue,

To dip the fithe in fragrant dew:

The theaf to bind, the beech to fell,
That nodding fhades a craggy dell,

Midft gloomy glades, in warbles clear,
Wild Nature's fweeten notes they hear :
On green untrodden banks they view
The hyacinth's neglected hue:

In their lone haunts, and woodland rounds,
They fpy the fquirrel's airy bounds:
And ftartle from her afhen spray,
Across the glen, the fcreaming jay:
Each native charm their fteps explore
Of Solitude's fequefter'd ftore.

For them the moon, with cloudlefs ray, Mounts, to illume their homeward way:

Their weary fpirits to relieve,

The meadows incenfe breathe at eve:
No riot mars the fimple fare

That o'er a glimmering hearth they share :
But when the curfeu's meafur'd roar
Duly, the darkening vallies o'er,

Has echoed from the diftant town,
They with no beds of cygnet-down,
No trophied canopy to clofe

Their drooping eyes in quick repose.

Their little fons, who spread the bloom Of health around the clay-built room, Or through the primros'd coppice ftray, Or gambol in the new-mown hay; Or quaintly braid the cowflip twine, Or drive afield the tardy kine; Or haften from the fultry hill

To loiter at the shady rill;

Or climb the tall pine's gloomy creft
To rob the raven's ancient neft.

Their humble porch with honied flowers The curling woodbine's fhade embowers: From the trim garden's thymy mound Their bees in bufy fwarms refound: Nor fell Difeafe, before his time, Haftes to confume life's golden prime: But when their temples long have wore The filver crown of treffes hoar; As ftudious ftill calm peace to keep, Beneath a flowery turf they fleep.

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