There go, affay, and at thy fole command, Turn rocks to oceans, and the feas to fand. Bid the keen lightning scath the ætherial plain, Let thunder whifper, and the comet rain :
Bid SINAI's mafs from off its base remove; Bid angels envy, and bid demons love: Awake the tempeft, or compose the wind: Make turtles favage, or the favage kind. Speak meteors cool, or frozen arctics warm; Divert the whirlwind, or direct the storm. Calm the loud din of wrath's infernal rage; Make wisdom folly, or its fcorners fage. Let death be life, their life the dead retrieve; Make darkness fhine, and infidels believe. Again ftand forth, invert creation's powers; Make time eternal, and then count its hours. Let worlds unborn atteft thy fovereign word; And know thee MAKER, as they call thee LORD. To fum the whole, and confummate the plan; Go try the reins, and search the heart of man. Deprav'd its bent, corrupted every thought, Is nought it should, and all that it should not. Go watch its movements, and its mazy wile, Its artful meannefs, and its selfish guile. Its fordid avarice, or ambitious flame, The guft of flattery and the luft of fame. Its love of all that ftains the human breast, Sinks man to brute, and makes his name a jeft. Its hate, revenge, concupifcence, or spleen, The zeft of pride and quinteffence of fin. P 2
![[ocr errors]](https://books.google.ee/books/content?id=FV0CAAAAQAAJ&hl=et&output=html_text&pg=PA227&img=1&zoom=3&q=%22Where+heaves+the+turf+in+many+a+mould%27ring+heap,+Each+in+his+narrow+cell+for+ever+laid,+The+rude+forefathers%22&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U3qRn9HrXlRyOkTruNi36Iww_hx5A&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=713,775,8,8)
Fountain of death! whence iffues all in ore, That foils a dunghill, or torments a throne. The penal woe of want's bewilder'd care, The tyrant's horror, or the traytor's fear. The lash of conscience, and the trembling dread, Who crush the living, or defraud the dead. Deprive the orphan, or despise the poor, And thrust the stranger from the pathless door. Who dance, caroufe---debauch'd their vernal prime, The waste of mercy, and the waste of time. Lay up in ftore, against its period come, The dreadful harveft of a death-bed doom!
There---go---begin---its complex windings trace, Restrain its fury, and its pride abafe. Deep in the duft before thee let it lie,
Hang on thy hand, and watch the fpeaking eye. Next, purge its drofs from lucre's filth refin'd, Transform its paffions, and its ardor bind. Command its motions, and fubdue its will, Arreft the ftars, and bid the fun ftand ftill. Till then be mute; nor rafh presume to arraign Unerring wifdom, or its acts restrain.
As tho' thy skill could mark where she had stray'd, Should stand corrected, or be disobey'd. As error's forin had duped her vagrant eye, Impos'd its own, and made her stamp a lye. This right; this wrong; now fhake the reptile rod; While worms, abandon'd, criminate their GOD. Judge him unwife, unrighteous, or unjuft, Tho' winds his chariots, and the stars as duft:
His paths myfterious, and his face unfeen, E'en angels ideots, and the heavens unclean!
Turn then thine eyes on wifdom's fairer plan, To frailty fuited, and defign'd for man. To teach him wifdom, and in that to know His fall how deep, his wretchedness how low! To fave from ruin, as she makes him wife, And hide deftruction from the stranger's eyes. REDEMPTION'S fcheme; myfterious, yet benign; Where equal grace and equal glory fhine. Where all is mild, compaffionate, and free, Its burthen, light; its bondage, LIBERTY. Where mercy's bowels with compaffion roll, And more than move with pity to the foul.. For this her patience, and her meek delay, Her firm refolve; her aim to turn away The impending fword from off the victim's head, Mark'd by its point, and counted as for dead. For this in heaven ten thousand ardors rise, Form here our hope, and there its paradise. Point to the CROSS from whence falvation flows; A GOD incarnate, and in HIM repofe !
Hail, GOLGOTH', hail! and hail, thou CALVARY! All hail the CROSS, and hail its mystery! Hail HIM who fuffer'd, and by suffering freed A convict world, whom juftice doom'd to bleed ! Evictive faith! the fum of things unfeen, GOD's high attest and evidence to men ; Medium of fight that chears the fullen breast, Turns doubt to vifion and despair to rest. P 3
Conveys remiffion, and its feal confirms, While grateful love the conscious bosom warms. Compaffion's hand dries up the falling tear, Forbids confufion, and precludes his fear.. With trembling joy the convert hides his face, And gives the glory where he found the grace. Demonftrate this (where-e'er it deigns to fall) "That man is nothing, and that THOU art ALL!”
Thus from THYSELF, and from thy will proceeds Whate'er protects us, or whatever feeds: From thee, the fountain, all our bleffings come, The martyr's laurel, or th' apoftate's doom.
All things that life, all things that death infpire; The first averfion, and the last defire,
"O let me die, the fon of Peor faid,
(And as he spake he bow'd his hoary head) "O let me die, the righteous death divine; "My hope with ISRAEL, and his end be mine !"
Yet once again---from THY all fovereign boon, E'en they yet live, whofe lives affront thy throne. Who fpurn thy being, or its power defy, Shock their own fenfe, and give that sense the lye. Bafe to difpute, what reafon might impart, Truth to the head, and terror to the heart. Whofe impious breafts, ingrate, difdain to know, From whence their beings, or their bleffings flow: Tho' from thy hand, alike on all bestow'd The partial evil, or the impartial good.
No difference here; alike on each; on all Thy funs arife, thy fhowers prolific fall.
![[ocr errors][ocr errors]](https://books.google.ee/books/content?id=FV0CAAAAQAAJ&hl=et&output=html_text&pg=PA231&img=1&zoom=3&q=%22Where+heaves+the+turf+in+many+a+mould%27ring+heap,+Each+in+his+narrow+cell+for+ever+laid,+The+rude+forefathers%22&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U1hq3KV3Vq5HNt2n5_Ml99NfsNbtg&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=123,549,13,600)
COMPLAINT! be mute---the future must decide Great wisdom's plan, and each his fate divide. Difference immenfe! immenfe their different lot, Who ferv'd their GOD, from theirs who ferv'd him not! In that last day, when justice ends the ftrife, Marks these for ruin, and feals those to life! Mean time, as weigh'd in heaven's eternal scales, Now vengeance triumphs, and now love prevails. Each poifing each preserves the balance still, Shews the defign, and executes her will.
The threat'ning bolt, that glowing in her hand (Redden'd with wrath) appalls a guilty land. The heart-felt panic that pervades the whole (Electric stroke that shocks the double pole) War's baleful thunders, bellowing their alarms, The clang of clarions, and the clash of arms. Plague, earthquake, famine, peftilence, and pain, That speak his juftice, and his laws maintain. Engines of wrath, and magazines of ire, A fecond deluge, or Gomorrah's fire; (Fierce as it burns, and fiercer ftill to feel) From Ætna's fummit to the lowest hell, Are but the fhades of her vindictive doom, Prophetic preludes of yet worse to come!
But heaven relents; repeals her own decree, And nature shouts her rescued destiny.
Who fmote her fons, now bids their terrors cease; And with a world's, reftores Britannia's peace. Whose hope reviv'd for future bleffings fues, And every morn her every
fuit renews.
P 4
« EelmineJätka » |