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Who sat upon the awful chair

Of mighty Moses, in long scarlet clad,
The good to cherish, and chastise the bad,
Now sit in the corrupted air,

In silent melancholy, and in sad despair!

See how their murder'd children round them lie!
Ah, dismal scene! hark how they cry!
"Woe! woe! one beam of mercy give,
Good Heaven! alas, for we would live!
Be pitiful, and suffer us to die!"

Thus they lament, thus beg for ease;
While in their feeble aged arms they hold
The bodies of their offspring, stiff and cold,
To guard them from the ravenous savages:
Till their increasing sorrows Death persuade
(For Dea h must sure with p ty see
The horrid desolation he has made)
To put a period to all their misery.
Thy wretched daughters that survive,
Are by the heathen kept alive,
Only to gratify their lust,

And then be mix'd with common dust.

Oh! insupportable, stupendous woe!

What shall we do? ah! whither shall we go?

Down to the grave, down to those happy shades

below,

Where all our brave progenitors are blest With endless triumph and eternal rest.

But who, without a flood of tears, can see
Thy mournful, sad catastrophe ?
Who can behold thy glorious temple lie
In ashes, and not be in pain to die?
Unhappy, dear Jerusalem! thy woes
Have rais'd my griefs to such a vast excess,

Their mighty weight no mortal knows,
Thought cannot comprehend, or words express,
Nor can they possibly, while I survive, be less.
Good Heaven had been extremely kind,
If it had struck me dead, or struck me blind,
Before this cursed time, this worst of days.
Is Death quite tir'd? are all his arrows spent?
If not, why then so many dull delays?
Quick, quick, let the obliging dart be sent !
Nay, at me only let ten thousand fly,
Whoe'er shall wretchedly survive; that I
May, happily, be sure to die.
Yet still we live, live in excess of pain!
Our friends and relatives are slain!
Nothing but ruins round us see,

Nothing but desolation, woe, and misery!

Nay, while we thus, with bleeding hearts, complain,

Our enemies without prepare

Their direful engines to pursue the war;

And you may slavishly preserve your breath,

Or seek for freedom in the arms of Death.

Thus then resolve; nor tremble at the thought:
Can glory be too dearly bought?

Since the Almighty wisdom has decreed,
That we, and all our progeny, should bleed,
It shall be after such a noble way,
Succeeding ages will with wonder view

What brave Despair compell'd us to!
No, we will ne'er survive another day!

Bring then your wives, your children, all
That's valuable, good, or dear,
With ready hands, and place them here;
They shall unite in one vast funeral.

I know your courages are truly brave,
And dare do any thing but ill :
Who would an aged father save,
That he may live in chains and be a slave,
Or for remorseless enemies to kill?

Let your bold hands then give the fatal blow:
For, what at any other time would be
The dire efect of rage and cruelty,

Is mercy, tenderness, and pity, now!
This then perform'd, we 'll to the battle fly,
And there, amidst our slaughter'd foes, expire.
If 't is revenge and glory you desire,
Now you may have them, if you dare but die!
Nay, more, ev'n freedom and eternity!

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SINCE We can die but once, and after death
Our state no alteration knows;
But, when we have resign'd our breath,
Th' immortal spirit goes

To endless joys, or everlasting woes:
Wise is the man who labours to secure

That mighty and important stake;
And, by all methods, strives to make
His passage safe, and his reception sure.
Merely to die, no man of reason fears;
For certainly we must,

As we are born, return to dust: "T is the last point of many lingering years: But whither then we go,

Whither, we fain would know;

But human understanding cannot show.

This makes us tremble, and creates
Strange apprehensions in the mind;
Fills it with restless doubts, and wild debates,
Concerning what we, living, cannot find.

Noue know what Death is, but the dead;
Therefore we all, by nature, dying dread,
As a strange, doubtful way, we know not how to
tread.

When to the margin of the grave we come,
And scarce have one black, painful hour to live;
No hopes, no prospect of a kind reprieve,
To stop our speedy passage to the tomb;

How moving, and how mournful, is the sight!
How wondrous pitiful, how wondrous sad!
Where then is refuge, where is comfort, to be had
In the dark minutes of the dreadful night,
To cheer our drooping souls for their amazing flight?!
Feeble and languishing in bed we lie,
Despairing to recover, void of rest;
Wishing for Death, and yet afraid to die:
Terrors and doubts distract our breast,

With mighty agonies and mighty pains opprest.

Our face is moisten'd with a clammy sweat; Faint and irregular the pulses beat;

The blood unactive grows,
And thickens as it flows,

Depriv'd of all its vigour, all its vital heat.
Our dying eyes roll heavily about,
Their light just going out;

And for some kind assistance call:

But pity, useless pity 's all

Our weeping friends can give,

Or we receive;

Our sons, who, in their tender years, Were objects of our cares, and of our fears, Come trembling to our bed, and, kneeling, cry, "Bless us, O father! now before you die;

Though their desires are great, their powers are Bless us, and be you bless'd to all eternity."

small,

The tongue 's unable to declare

The pains and griefs, the miseries we bear;
How insupportable our torments are.
Music no more delights our deafening ears,
Restores our joys, or dissipates our fears;
But all is melancholy, all is sad,
In robes of deepest mourning clad;
For, every faculty, and every sense,
Partakes the woe of this dire exigence.

Then we are sensible too late,
'Tis no advantage to be rich or great:
For, all the fulsome pride and pageantry of state
No consolation brings.

Riches and honours then are useless things,
Tasteless, or bitter, all;

And, like the book which the apostle eat,

To the ill-judging palate sweet,
But turn at last to nauseousness and gall.
Nothing will then our drooping spirits cheer,
But the remembrance of good actions past.
Virtue 's a joy that will for ever last,

And makes pale Death less terrible appear; Takes out his baneful sting, and palliates our fear. In the dark anti-chamber of the grave

What would we give (ev'n all we have, All that our care and industry have gain'd, All that our policy, our fraud, our art, obtain'd) Could we recall those fatal hours again, Which we consum'd in senseless vanities, Ambitious follies, or luxurious ease!

For then they urge our terrours, and increase our pain.

Our friends and relatives stand weeping by,
Dissolv'd in tears, to see us die,

And plunge into the deep abyss of wide eternity.
In vain they mourn, in vain they grieve:
Their sorrows cannot ours relieve.

They pity our deplorable estate:

But what, alas! can pity do

To soften the decrces of Fate? Besides, the sentence is irrevocable too.

All their endeavours to preserve our breath,

Though they do unsuccessful prove,
Show us how much, how tenderly, they love,
But cannot cut off the entail of Death.
Mournful they look, and crowd about our bed:
One, with officious haste,

Brings us a cordial we want sense to taste;
Another softly raises up our head;

This wipes away the sweat; that, sighing, cries, "See what convulsions, what strong agonies, Both soul and body undergo!

His pains no intermission know;

For every gasp of air he draws, returns in sighs."
Each would his kind assistance lend,

To save his dear relation, or his dearer friend;
But still in vain with Destiny they all contend.

Our father, pale with grief and watching grown, Takes our cold hand in his, and cries, "Adieu! Adieu, my child! now I must follow you:"

Then weeps, and gently lays it down

Our friend, whom equal to ourselves we love,
Compassionate and kind,

Cries, "Will you leave me here behind?
Without me fly to the bless'd seats above?
Without me, did I say? Ah, no!
Without thy friend thou canst not go:
For, though thou leav'st me groveling here below,
My soul with thee shall upward fly,
And bear thy spirit company,

Through the bright passage of the yielding sky. Ev'n Death, that parts thee from thyself, shall be Incapable to separate

(For 'tis not in the power of Fate)

My friend, my best, my dearest friend, and me: But since it must be so, farewell;

For ever? No; for we shall meet again,

And live like gods, though now we die like

men,

In the eternal regions, where just spirits dwell."

The soul, unable longer to maintain The fruitless and unequal strife, Finding her weak endeavours vain, To keep the counterscarp of life, By slow degrees retires towards the heart, And fortifies that little fort With all its kind artilleries of art; Botanic legions guarding every port. But Death, whose arms no mortal can repel, A formal siege disdains to lay; Summons his fierce battalions to the fray, And in a minute storms the feeble citadel. Sometimes we may capitulate, and he Pretends to make a solid peace; But 'tis all shani, all artifice, That we may negligent and careless be: For, if his armies are withdrawn to-day, And we believe no danger near, But all is peaceable, and all is clear: His troops return some unsuspected way; While in the soft embrace of Sleep we lie, The secret murderers stab us, and we die.

Since our first parents' fall,
Inevitable death descends on all;

A portion none of human race can miss
But that which makes it sweet or bitter, is
The fears of misery, or certain hopes of bliss.
l'or, when th' impenitent and wicked die,
Loaded with crimes and infamy,
If any sense at that sad time remains,
They feel amazing terrours, mighty pains;
The earnest of that vast, stupendous woe,
Which they to all eternity must undergo,
Confin'd in Hell with everlasting chains.

Infernal spirits hover in the air,
Like ravenous wolves to seize upon the prey,
And hurry the departed souls away
To the dark receptacles of Despair:

Where they must dwell till that tremendous

day,

When the loud trump shall call them to appear, Before a Judge most terrible, and most severe;

By whose just sentence they must go To everlasting pains, and endless woe.

But the good man, whose soul is pure,
Unspotted, regular, and free

From all the ugly stains of lust and villany,

Of mercy and of pardon sure,

Looks through the darkness of the gloomy night:
And sees the dawning of a glorious day;
Sees crowds of angels ready to convey

His soul whene'er she takes her flight
To the surprising mansions of immortal light.
Then the celestial guards around him stand;
Nor suffer the black demons of the air
T'oppose his passage to the promis'd land,
Or terrify his thoughts with wild despair;
But all is calm within, and all without is fair.
His prayers, his charity, his virtues, press
To plead for mercy when he wants it most;
Not one of all the happy number 's lost:

And those bright advocates ne'er want success,
But when the soul 's releas'd from dull mortality,
She passes up in triumph through the sky;
Where she 's united to a glorious throng
Of angels; who, with a celestial song,
Congratulate her conquest as she flies along.

If therefore all must quit the stage,
When, or how sqon, we cannot know;
But, late or early, we are sure to go;

In the fresh bloom of youth, or wither'd age;
We cannot take too sedulous a care,
In this important, grand affair:

For as we die, we must remain;
Hereafter all our hopes are vain,

To make our peace with Heaven, or to return again.
The Heathen, who no better understood

Than what the light of Nature taught, declar'd,
No future misery could be prepar'd

For the sincere, the merciful, the good;

But, if there was a state of rest,
They should with the same happiness be blest,
As the immortal gods, if gods there were, possest.
We have the promise of th' eternal Truth,
Those who live well, and pious paths pursue,
To man, and to their Maker, true,
Let them expire in age, or youth,
Can never miss

Their way to everlasting bliss:
But from a world of misery and care
To mansions of eternal ease repair;

Where joy in full perfection flows,
And in an endless circle moves,
Through the vast round of beatific love,
Which no cessation knows.

ON THE

GENERAL CONFLAGRATION,
AND ENSUING JUDGMENT.

A PINDARIC ESSAY.

Esse quoque in fatis, reminiscitur, affore tempus
Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia cœli
Ardeat, et mundi moles operosa laborat.

Ovid. Met.

Now the black days of universal doom,
Which wondrous prophecies foretold, are come:
What strong convulsions, what stupendous woe,
Must sinking Nature undergo;

Amidst the dreadful wreck, and final overthrow!

Methinks I hear her, conscious of her fate,
With fearful groans, and hideous cries,
Fill the presaging skies;
Unable to support the weight
Or of the present, or approaching miseries.
Methinks I hear her summon all
Her guilty offspring raving with despair,
And trembling, cry aloud, "Prepare,
Ye sublunary powers, t' attend my funeral!"

See, see the tragical portents,
Those dismal harbingers of dire events!
Loud thunders roar, and darting lightnings fly
Through the dark concave of the troubled sky;
The fiery ravage is begun, the end is nigh.
See how the glaring meteors blaze!

Like baleful torches, O they come,

To light dissolving Nature to her tomb!
And, scattering round their pestilential rays,
Strike the affrighted nations with a wild amaze.
Vast sheets of flame, and globes of fire,
By an impetuous wind are driven
Through all the regions of th' inferior Heaven;
Till, hid in sulphurous smoke, they seemingly
expire.

Sad and amazing 'tis to see
What mad confusion rages over all

This scorching ball!

No country is exempt, no nation free,
But each partakes the epidemic misery.
What dismal havoc of mankind is made
By wars, and pestilence, and dearth,

Through the whole mournful Earth?
Which with a murdering fury they invade,

Forsook by Providence, and all propitious aid!
Whilst fiends let loose, their utmost rage employ,
To ruin all things here below;
Their malice and revenge no limits know,
But, in the universal tumult, all destroy.

Distracted mortals from their cities fly,
For safety to their champaign ground.
But there no safety can be found;
The vengeance of an angry Deity,

With unrelenting fury, does enclose them round:
And whilst for mercy some aloud implore
The God they ridicul'd before;

And others, raving with their woe,

(For hunger, thirst, despair, they undergo)
Blaspheme and curse the Power they should adore
The Earth, parch'd up with drought, her jaws extends,
And opening wide a dreadful tomb,
The howling multitude at once descends
Together all into her burning womb.

The trembling Alps abscond their aged heads
In mighty pillars of infernal smoke,

Which from their bellowing caverns broke,
And suffocates whole nations where it spreads.
Sometimes the fire within divides

The massy rivers of those secret chains,
Which hold together their prodigious sides,
And hurls the shatter'd rocks o'er all the plains&
While towns and cities, every thing below,
Is overwhelm'd with the same burst of woe.

No showers descend from the malignant sky,
To cool the burning of the thirsty field;
The trees no leaves, no grass the meadows, yield,
But all is barren, all is dry.

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The little rivulets no more

To larger streams their tribute pay,
Nor to the ebbing ocean they;
Which, with a strange unusual roar,

Forsakes those ancient bounds it would have pass'd before:

And to the monstrous deep in vain retire:
For even the deep itself is not secure,

But belching subterraneous fires,
Increases still the scalding calenture,

Which neither earth, nor air, nor water, can endure.

The Sun, by sympathy, concern'd
At those convulsions, pangs, and agonies,
Which on the whole creation seize,
Is to substantial darkness turn'd.

The neighbouring Moon, as if a purple flood
O'erflow'd her tottering orb, appears
Like a huge mass of black corrupted blood;
For she herself a dissolution fears.

The larger planets, which once shone so bright,
With the reflected rays of borrow'd light,
Shook from their centre, without motion lie,
Unwieldy globes of solid night,
And ruinous lumber of the sky.

Amidst this dreadful hurricane of woes,
(For fire, confusion, horrour, and despair,
Fill every region of the tortur'd Earth and air)
The great archangel his loud trumpet blows;
At whose amazing sound fresh agonies

Upon expiring Nature seize :

For now she 'll in few minutes know The ultimate event and fate of all below. "Awake, ye dead, awake," he cries;

(For all must come)

"All that had human breath, arise, To hear your last, unalterable doom."

At this the ghastly tyrant, who had sway'd
So many thousand ages uncontroll'd,

No longer could his sceptre hold;

But gave up all, and was himself a captive made.
The scatter'd particles of human clay,
Which in the silent grave's dark chambers lay,
Resume their pristine forms again,

And now from mortal, grow immortal men.
Stupendous energy of sacred Power,

Which can collect whatever cast

The smallest atoms, and that shape restore Which they had worn so many years before, That through strange accidents and numerous changes past!

See how the joyful angels fly
From every quarter of the sky,
To gather and to convoy all
The pious sons of human race,
To one capacious place,

Above the confines of this flaming ball.

See with what tenderness and love they bear
Those righteous souls through the tumultuous air;
Whilst the ungodly stand below,

Raging with shame, confusion, and despair,
Amidst the burning overthrow,
Expecting fiercer torment, and acuter woe.
Round them infernal spirits howling fly;

"O horrour, curses, tortures, chains!" they cry, And roar aloud with execrable blasphemy.

Hark how the daring sons of Infamy,

Who once dissolv'd in Pleasure's lap,
And laugh'd at this tremendous day,

To rocks and mountains now to hide them cry;
But rocks and mountains all in ashes lie.

Their shame 's so mighty, and so strong their fear,
That, rather than appear

Before a God incens'd, they would be hurl'd
Amongst the burning ruins of the world,
And lie conceal'd, if possible, for ever there.
Time was they would not own a Deity,
Nor after death a future state;

But now, by sad experience, find, too late,
There is, and terrible to that degree,

That rather than behold his face, they 'd cease to be.
And sure 't is better, if Heaven would give consent,
To have no being; but they must remain,
For ever, and for ever be in pain.

O inexpressible, stupendous punishment,
Which cannot be endur'd, yet must be underwent!

But now the eastern skies expanding wide,
The glorious Judge omnipotent descends,
And to the sublunary world his passage bends;
Where, cloth'd with human nature, he did once re-
Round him the bright ethereal armies fly, [side,
And loud triumphant hallelujahs sing,
With songs of praise, and hymns of victory,
To their celestial king;

"All glory, power, dominion, majesty,
Now, and for everlasting ages, be

To the Essential One, and Co-eternal Three.
Perish that world, as 'tis decreed,

Which saw the God incarnate bleed!
Perish by thy almighty vengeance those
Who durst thy person, or thy laws expose;

The cursed refuge of mankind, and Hell's proud seed.
Now to the unbelieving nations show,
Thou art a God from all eternity;

Not titular, or but by office so;

And let them the mysterious union see

Of human nature with the Deity."

With mighty transports, yet with awful fears,
The good behold this glorious sight!
Their God in all his majesty appears,
Ineffable, amazing bright,

And seated on a throne of everlasting light.
Round the tribunal, next to the Most High,
In sacred discipline and order, stand
The peers and princes of the sky,
As they excel in glory or command.
Upon the right hand that illustrious crowd,
In the white bosom of a shining cloud,
Whose souls abhorring all ignoble crimes,
Did, with a steady course, pursue
His holy precepts in the worst of times, [could do.
Maugre what Earth or Hell, what man or devils
And now that God they did to death adore,
For whom such torments and such pains they
bore,

Returns to place them on those thrones above,
Where, undisturb'd, uncloy'd, they will possess
Divine, substantial happiness,
Unbounded as his power, and lasting as his love.

"Go, bring," the Judge impartial, frowning, cries, "Those rebel sons, who did my laws despise; Whom neither threats nor promises could moves Not all my sufferings, nor all my love, To save themselves from everlasting miseries."

At this ten millions of archangels flew
Swifter than lightning, or the swiftest thought,
And less than in an instant brought
The wretched, curs'd, infernal, crew;
Who with distorted aspects come,
To hear their sad, intolerable doom.

And shall for ever live

"Alas!" they cry, "one beam of mercy show, Thou all-forgiving Deity!

To pardon crimes, is natural to thee:
Crush us to nothing, or suspend our woe,
But if it cannot, cannot be,

And we must go into a gulf of fire,

(For who can with Omnipotence contend ?) Grant, for thou art a God, it may at last expire,

And all our tortures have an end. Eternal burnings, O, we cannot bear! Though now our bodies too immortal are, Let them be pungent to the last degree: And let our pains innumerable be; But let them not extend to all eternity!"

Lo, now there does no place remain
For penitence and tears, but all
Must by their actions stand or fall:
To hope for pity, is in vain;

The die is cast, and not to be recall'd again.
Two mighty books are by two angels brought:
In this, impartially recorded, stands
The law of Nature, and divine commands:
In that, each action, word, and thought,
Whate'er was said in secret, or in secret wrought.
Then first the virtuous and the good,
Who all the fury of temptation stood,

And bravely pass'd through ignominy, chains, and

blood,

Attended by their guardian angels, come To the tremendous bar of final doom. In vain the grand accuser, railing, brings A long indictment of enormous things, Whose guilt wip'd off by penitential tears, And their Redeemer's blood and agonies, No more to their astonishment appears, But in the secret womb of dark Oblivion lies.

"Come, now, my friends," he cries, "ye sons of Grace,

Partakers once of all my wrongs and shame,
Despis'd and hated for my name;
Come to your Saviour's and your God's embrace;
Ascend, and those bright diadems possess,
For you by my eternal Father made,
Ere the foundation of the world was laid;
And that surprising happiness,

Immense as my own Godhead, and will ne'er be less.
For when I languishing in prison lay,
Naked, and starv'd almost for want of bread,
You did your kindly visits pay,
Both cloth'd my body, and my hunger fed.
Weary'd with sickness, or oppress'd with grief,
Your hand was always ready to supply:
Whene'er I wanted, you were always by,
To share my sorrows, or to give relief.
In all distress so tender was your love,
I could no anxious trouble bear;
No black misfortune, or vexatious care,
But you were still impatient to remove,

And mourn'd your charitable hand should unsuc

cessful prove:

All this you did, though not to me In person, yet to mine in misery:

In all the glories that a God can give, Or a created being 's able to receive."

At this the architects divine on high Innumerable thrones of glory raise, On which they, in appointed order, place The human coheirs of eternity,

And with united hymns the God incarnate praise: "O holy, holy, holy, Lord,

Eternal God, Almighty One,

Be Thon for ever, and be Thou alone,
By all thy creatures, constantly ador'd!
Ineffable, co-equal Three,

Who from non-entity gave birth

To angels and to men, to Heaven and to Earth
Yet always wast Thyself, and wilt for ever be.
But for thy mercy, we had ne'er possest
These thrones, and this immense felicity;
Could ne'er have been so infinitely blest!
Therefore all glory, power, dominion, majesty,
To Thee, O Lamb of God, to Thee,
For ever, longer than for ever, be!"

Then the incarnate Godhead turns his face
To those upon the left, and cries,
(Almighty vengeance flashing in his eyes)
"Ye impious, unbelieving race,
To those eternal torments go,
Prepar'd for those rebellious sons of light,
In burning darkness and in flaming night,
Which shall no limit or cessation know,
But always are extreme, and always will be so."
The final sentence past, a dreadful cloud
Enclosing all the miserable crowd,

A mighty hurricane of thunder rose,
And hurl'd them all into a lake of fire,
Which never, never, never can expire;
The vast abyss of endless woes:

Whilst with their God the righteous mount on

high,

In glorious triumph passing through the sky, To joys immense, and everlasting ecstasy.

REASON:

A POEM.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1700.

UNHAPPY man! who, through successive years,
From early youth to life's last childhood errs:
No sooner born but proves a foe to truth;
For infant Reason is o'erpower'd in youth.
The cheats of sense will half our learning share;
And pre-conceptions all our knowledge are.
Reason, 'tis true, should over sense preside:
Correct our notions, and our judgments guide;
But false opinions, rooted in the mind,
Hoodwink the soul, and keep our reason blind.
Reason's a taper, which but faintly burns;
A languid flame, that glows, and dies by turns:
We see 't a little while, and but a little way;
We travel by its light, as men by day:
But quickly dying, it forsakes us soon,
Like morning-stars, that never stay till noon.
The soul can scarce above the body rise;
And all we see is with corporeal eyes.
Life now does scarce one glimpse of light display;
We mourn in darkness, and despair of day;

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