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CVII.

THE last loud trumpet's wondrous sound
Shall through the rending tombs rebound,
And wake the nations under ground.

Nature and death shall with surprise,
Behold the pale offenders rise,

And view the Judge with conscious eyes.

Then shall with universal dread,
The sacred, mystic book be read,
To try the living and the dead.

The Judge ascends his awful throne:
He makes each secret sin be known,
And all with shame confess their own.

O then! what interest shall I make,
With whom shall I my refuge take,
When the most just have cause to quake?

Thou mighty, formidable king,
Thou mercy's unexhausted spring,
Some comfortable pity bring!

Forget not what my ransom cost,
Nor let my dear-bought soul be lost,
In storms of guilty terror tost.

CVIII.

THOU who for me didst feel such pain,
Whose precious blood the cross did stain,
Let not those agonies be vain!

Thou whom avenging powers obey,
Cancel my debt (too great to pay)
Before the last accounting day.

Surrounded with amazing fears,
Whose weight my soul with anguish bears,
I sigh, I weep, accept my tears.

Thou who wert moved with Mary's grief,
And, by absolving of the thief

Hast given me hope, now give relief.

Reject not my unworthy prayer;
Preserve me from that dangerous snare,
Which death and gaping hell prepare.

Give my exalted soul a place,
Among thy chosen right-hand race,
The sons of God and heirs of grace.

Prostrate my contrite heart I rend,
My God, my father, and my friend,
Do not forsake me in my end.

CIX.

SWEET the moments, rich in blessing,
Which before the cross I spend ;
Life, and health, and peace, possessing
From the sinner's dying friend.
Here I'll sit for ever viewing

Mercy's streams in streams of blood,
Precious drops my soul bedewing
Plead and claim my peace with God.
Love and grief my heart dividing,
Gazing here I'd spend my breath;
Constant still in faith abiding,
Life deriving from his death :
Lord, in ceaseless contemplation,
Fix my heart and eyes on thine,
Till I taste thy whole salvation,
Where unveil'd thy glories shine!

SCOTT.

CX.

WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide, in smoke and flame.
By day along the astonish'd lands,
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night Arabia's crimson'd sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.

And trump

Then rose the choral hymn of praise,
and timbrel answered keen;
And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone;

Our fathers would not know thy ways,
And thou hast left them to their own.

But present still, though now unseen,
When brightly shines the prosperous day ;
Be thoughts of thee a cloudy screen,
To temper the deceitful ray.

And Oh! when stoops on Judah's path,
In shade and storm, the frequent night:
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!

Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,
And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn.
But Thou hast said, the blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize:
A contrite heart, a humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice.

CXI.

AND is there care in heaven? and is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base
That may compassion of their evils move?

There is; else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts. But oh! the exceeding grace
Of highest God! that loves his creatures so,
And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels he sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe.

How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
To come to succour us, that succour want?
How oft do they, with golden pinions, cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivants
Against foul fiends to aid us militant?

They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant;
And all for love, and nothing for reward:

Oh! why should heavenly God to man have such regard!

STEELE.

CXII.

AH! why should this immortal mind,
Enslav'd by sense, be thus confin'd,

And never, never rise?

Why, thus amus'd with empty toys,
And sooth'd with visionary joys,
Forget her native skies?

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