ASKING LEAVE TO SING. YET, mighty God, indulge my tongue, Nor let thy thunders roar, Whilst the young notes and venturous song To worlds of glory soar. If thou my daring flight forbid, Her slender reed, inspired by thee, She mocks the trumpet's loud alarms, But when she tastes her Saviour's love, DIVINE JUDGMENTS. NOT 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 the eternal King 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 rivulets as they pass, And chains them moveless to their 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 song, And mourn the pilgrims there, (a wretched throng!) Seized and bound in rigid chains, A troop of statues on the Russian plains, Atheist, forbear; no more blaspheme: 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 the soul, and shake thy mor. tal frame. Sublime on winter's rugged wings He rides in arms along the sky, And flocks, and herds, and nations die; Grow pale; and, quivering at his dreadful cold, 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 incens'd 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, The sun has drunk the channels dry, And all the air is death. Ye 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, And bear down with a mighty sweep The riches of the fields and honours 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 dispense your mortal harms, 'Tis the Creator's voice that sounds your loud alarms, When guilt, with louder cries, provokes a God to arms. O for a message from above To bear my spirits up; Some pledge of my Creator's love Let waves and thunders mix and roar, I shall be rich till thou art poor; For all I fear, and all I wish, heaven, earth, and hell are thine. EARTH AND HEAVEN. HAST thou not seen, impatient boy, Hast thou not read the solemn truth 'Pleasure must be dash'd with pain?' The thirsty boy repeats the taste, Nor hearkens to despair, but tries the bowl again. The rills of pleasure never run sincere; Earth has no unpolluted spring; From the curs'd soil some dangerous taint they bear; So roses grow on thorns, and honey wears a sting. In vain we seek a heaven below the sky; Earth, with her scenes of gay delight, |