Page images
PDF
EPUB

And o'er my head

The Conqueror spread

The banner of his love.

Then why, my heart, sunk down so low?
Why do my eyes dissolve and flow,
And hopeless nature mourn?

Review, my soul, those pleasing days,
Read his unalterable grace
Through the displeasure of his face,
And wait a kind return.

A father's love may raise a frown,
To chide the child, or prove the son,
But love will ne'er destroy;

The hour of darkness is but short,

Faith be thy life, and patience thy support:
The morning brings the joy.

[blocks in formation]

Nor from the dust my sorrows spring, Nor drop my comforts from the lower skies: Let all the baneful planets shed

Their mingled curses on my head;

How vain their curses, if th' Eternal King Look through the clouds, and bless me with his eyes! Creatures with all their boasted sway,

Are but his slaves, 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 sleep;
The north-wind blusters, and assumes command
Over the desert and the deep;

Old Boreas, with his freezing powers,
Turns the earth iron, makes the ocean glass,
Arrests the dancing riv'lets as they pass,

And chains them moveless to the shores;

The grazing ox lows to the gelid skies,

Walks o'er the marble meads with withering eyes,

Walks o'er the solid lakes, snuffs up the wind, and dies.

Fly to the polar world, my sun,

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

A troop of statues on the Russian plains,
And life stands frozen in the purple veins.
Atheist, forbear, no more blaspheme;
God has a thousand terrors in his name,
A thousand armies at command,
Waiting the signal of his hand,

And magazines of frost, and magazines of flame.
Dress thee in steel to meet his wrath;

His sharp artillery from the north

Shall pierce thee to thy soul, and shake thy mortal frame. Sublime on winter's rugged wings,

He rides in arms along the sky,

And scatters fate on swains 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 blasphemies the lie.

The mischiefs that infest the earth,

When the hot dog-star fires the realms on high,
Drought, and disease, and cruel dearth,

Are but the flashes of a wrathful eye,

From the incensed 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 dust,

Ye

The sun has drunk all channels dry,
And all the air is death.

scourges of our Maker's rod,

'Tis at his dread command, at his imperial nod, You deal your various plagues abroad.

Hail, whirlwinds, hurricanes and floods,
That all the leafy standards strip,

And bear down, with a mighty sweep,

The riches of the fields, and honors 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 disperse your mortal harms,

"Tis the Creator's voice that sounds your loud alarms,
When guilt with louder cries provokes a God to arms.
Oh! for a message from above,
To bear my spirit 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 secure ;

I shall be rich till Thou art poor;

For all I fear and all I wish, heaven, earth, and hell, are thine.

[blocks in formation]

SOFTLY the tuneful shepherd leads
The Hebrew flocks to flowery meads,
He marks their path with notes divine,
While fountains spring with oil and wine.

Rivers of peace attend his song,
And draw their milky train along :
He jars; and lo! the flints are broke,
But honey issues from the rock.

When kindling with victorious fire,
He shakes his lance across the lyre;
The lyre resounds unknown alarms,
And sets the thunderer in arms.
Behold the God! the Almighty King,
Rides on a tempest's glorious wing;

His ensigns lighten round the sky,
And moving legions sound on high.

Ten thousand cherubs wait his course,
Chariots of fire, and flaming horse:
Earth trembles; and her mountains flow
At his approach, like melting snow.

But who those frowns of earth can draw,
That strike heaven, earth, and hell, with awe ?
Red lightning from his eyelids broke,
His voice was thunder, hail, and smoke.

He spake! the cleaving waters fled,
And stars beheld the ocean's bed:
While the great Master strikes his lyre,
You see the affrighted floods retire.

In heaps th' affrighted billows stand,
Waiting the changes of his hand ;
He leads his Israel through the sea,
And watery mountains guard their way.
Turning his hand with sovereign sweep,
He drowns all Egypt in the deep;
Then guides the tribes, a glorious band,
Through deserts to the promised land.
Here camps with wide-embattled force,
Here gates and bulwarks stop their course;
He storms the mounds, the bulwark falls:
The harp lies strewed with ruined walls.

See his broad sword flies o'er the strings,
And mows down nations with their kings:
From every chord his bolts are hurled,
vengeance smites the rebel world.

And

Lo! the great poet shifts the scene,
And shows the face of God serene,
Truth, meekness, peace, salvation ride,
With guards of justice at his side.

[blocks in formation]

I'm borne aloft, and leave the crowd,
I sail upon a morning cloud,

Skirted with dawning gold:
Mine eyes beneath the opening day
Command the globe with wide survey,
Where ants in busy millions play,

And try and heave the mould.

"Are these the things" (my passion cried) "That we call men? Are these allied To the fair worlds of light?

They have rased out their Maker's name, Graven on their minds with pointed flame, In strokes divinely bright.

"Wretches! they hate their native skies; If an ethereal thought arise,

Or spark of virtue shine,

With cruel force they damp its plumes,
Choke the young fire with sensual fumes,
With business, lust, or wine.

"Lo! how they throng with panting breath
The broad descending road,
That leads unerring down to death,

Nor miss the dark abode."

Thus while I drop a tear or two
On the wild herd, a noble few
Dare to stray upward, and pursue
The unbeaten way to God.
I meet Myrtillo mounting high,

I know his candid soul afar;
Here Dorylis and Thyrsis fly,
Each like a rising star;
Charin I see, and Fidea there,
I see them help each other's flight,

And bless them as they go:

They soar beyond my laboring sight,

« PreviousContinue »