How did his wondrous skill array
Your fields in charming green;
A thousand herbs his art display,
A thousand flowers between.

Tall oaks for future navies grow,
Fair Albion's best defence,
While corn and vines rejoice below,
Those luxuries of sense.

The bleating flocks his pasture feeds,
And herds of larger size,

That bellow through the Lindian meads,
His bounteous hand supplies.

PART IV.

WE see the Thames caress the shores, He guides her silver flood;

While angry Severn swells and roars, Yet hears her ruler God.

The rolling mountains of the deep
Observe his strong command;
His breath can raise the billows steep,
Or sink them to the sand.

Amidst thy watery kingdoms, Lord,
The finny nations play,

And scaly monsters, at thy word,

Rush through the northern sea.

PART V.

THY glories blaze all nature round,
And strike the gazing sight,

Through skies, and seas, and solid ground,
With terror and delight.

Infinite strength, and equal skill,

Shine through the worlds abroad,
Our souls with vast amazement fill,
And speak the builder God.

But the sweet beauties of thy grace
Our softer passions move;

Pity divine in Jesus' face

We see, adore, and love.

GOD'S ABSOLUTE DOMINION.

LORD, when my thoughtful soul surveys
Fire, air and earth, and stars and seas,
I call them all thy slaves;
Commission'd by my Father's will,
Poisons shall cure, or balms shall kill;
Vernal suns, or zephyr's breath,
May burn or blast the plants to death
That sharp December saves.

What can winds or planets boast
But a precarious power?

The sun is all in darkness lost,

Frost shall be fire, and fire be frost,
When he appoints the hour.

Lo, the Norwegians, near the polar sky,
Chafe their frozen limbs with snow;
Their frozen limbs awake and glow;

The vital flame, touch'd with a strange supply,
Rekindles, for the God of life is nigh;

He bids the vital blood in wonted circles flow. Cold steel, expos'd to northern air,

Drinks the meridian fury of the midnight Bear, And burns the unwary stranger there.

Enquire, my soul, of ancient fame,

Look back two thousand years,

and see

The Assyrian prince transform'd a brute,
For boasting to be absolute.

Once to his court the God of Israel came,
A king more absolute than he.

I see the furnace blaze with rage
Sevenfold I see amidst the flame
Three Hebrews of immortal name:

They move, they walk across the burning stage
Unhurt, and fearless, while the tyrant stood
A statue; fear congeal'd his blood;
Nor did the raging element dare
Attempt their garments or their hair;

It knew the Lord of nature there.

Nature, compell'd by a superior cause, Now breaks her own eternal laws, Now seems to break them, and obeys Her sovereign King in different ways. Father, how bright thy glories shine! How broad thy kingdom, how divine! Nature, and miracle, and fate, and chance, are thine.

Hence from my heart, ye idols, flee,
Ye sounding names of vanity:
No more my lips shall sacrifice

To chance and nature, tales and lies:
Creatures without a God can yield me no supplies.
What is the sun, or what the shade,
Or frosts, or flames, to kill or save?

His favour is my life, his lips pronounce me dead;
And as his awful dictates bid,
Earth is my mother, or my grave.

CONDESCENDING GRACE.

IN IMITATION OF PSALM CXIV.

WHEN the Eternal bows the skies,
To visit earthly things,

With scorn divine he turns his eyes

From towers of haughty kings;

Rides on a cloud disdainful by

A sultan or a czar,

Laughs at the worms that rise so high,
Or frowns them from afar.

He bids his awful chariot roll
Far downward from the skies,

To visit every humble soul,
With pleasure in his eyes.

Why should the Lord, that reigns above, Disdain so lofty kings?

Say, Lord, and why such looks of love

Upon such worthless things?

Mortals, be dumb; what creature dares

Dispute his awful will?

Ask no account of his affairs,

But tremble and be still.

Just like his nature is his grace,

All sovereign, and all free;

Great God, how searchless are thy ways!

How deep thy judgments be!