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Than e'er was thought by man! far other stars!
Stars animate, that govern these of fire;
Far other sun!-A sun, O how unlike
The babe at Bethlem, How unlike the man
That groan'd on Calvary-Yet HE it is;
That man of sorrows! O how chang'd! what pomp!
In grandeur terrible, all heav'n descends:
A swift archangel, with his golden wing,
As blots and clouds, that darken and disgrace
The scene divine, sweeps stars and suns aside.
And now, all dross remov'd, heaven's own pure day,
Full on the confines of our ether, flames :
While, (dreadful contrast!) far, how far beneath!
Hell, bursting, belches forth her blazing seas,
And storms sulphureous; her voracious jaws
Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey.

At midnight, when mankind is wrapp'd in peace, And worldly fancy feeds on golden dreams, Man, starting from his couch, shall sleep no more! The day is broke, which never more shall close! Above, around, beneath, amazement all! Terror and glory join'd in their extremes ! Our God in grandeur, and our world on fire! All nature struggling in the pangs of death! Dost thou not hear her ? dost thou not deplore Her strong convulsions, and her final groan? Where are we now? Ah me! the ground is gone On which we stood! Lorenzo! while thou mayst, Provide more firm support, or sink for ever! Where? how? from whence? vain hope! it is too late! Where, where, for shelter, shall the guilty fly, When consternation turns the good man pale !

Great day! for which all other days were made;
For which earth rose from chaos; man from earth;
And an eternity, the date of gods,

Descended on poor earth-created man!
Great day of dread, decision, and despair!
At thought of thee, each sublunary wish
Lets go its eager grasp, and drops the world;
And catches at each reed of hope in heav'n.
Already is begun the grand assize,

In us, in all; deputed conscience scales
The dread tribunal, and forestalls our doom;
Forestalls; and, by forestalling, proves it sure.

Why on himself should man void judgment pass :
Is idle nature laughing at her sons?

Who conscience sent, her sentence will support,
And God above assert that God in man.
Thrice happy they, that enter now the court
Heav'n opens in their bosoms; but how rare!
Ah me! that magnanimity, how rare!

What hero, like the man who stands himself?
Who dares to meet his naked heart alone;
Who hears intrepid the full charge it brings,
Resolv'd to silence future murmurs there?
The coward flies; and, flying, is undone.
Shall man alone, whose fate, whose final fate,
Hangs on that hour, exclude it from his thought?
I think of nothing else; I see! I feel it!
All nature, like an earthquake, trembling round!
I see the Judge enthron'd! the flaming guard!
The volume open'd! open'd ev'ry heart!
A sun-beam pointing out each secret thought!
No patron! intercessor none! now past
The sweet, the clement, mediatorial hour!
For guilt no plea! to pain, no pause! no bound!
Inexorable, all! and all extreme!

Nor man alone; the foe of God and man,
From his dark den, blaspheming, drags his chain,
And rears his brazen front, with thunder scarr'd.
Like meteors in a stormy sky, how roll

His baleful eyes! he curses whom he dreads;
And deems it the first moment of his fall.

YOUNG

CHAPTER IV.

PATHETIC PIECES.

SECTION 1.

Hymn to Humanity.

PARENT of virtue, if thine ear

Attend not now to sorrow's cry;

If now the pity-streaming tear

Should haply on thy cheek be dry;

Indulge my votive strain, O sweet Humanity!
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Come, ever welcome to my breast,
A tender, but a cheerful guest!
Nor always in the gloomy cell
Of life-consuming sorrow dwell;
For sorrow, long indulg'd and slow,
Is to Humanity a foe;

And grief, that makes the heart its prey,
Wears sensibility away.

Then comes, sweet nymph, instead of thee
The gloomy fiend Stupidity.

0 may that fiend be banish'd far,
Though passions hold perpetual war!
Nor ever let me cease to know
The pulse that throbs at joy or wo.
Nor let my vacant cheek be dry,
When sorrow fills a brother's eye;
Nor may the tear that frequent flows
From private or from social woes,
E'er make this pleasing sense depart:
Ye cares, O harden not my heart!
If the fair star of fortune smile,
Let not its flatt'ring pow'r beguile;
Nor, borne along the fav'ring tide,
My full sails swell with bloating pride,
Let me from wealth but hope content,
Rememb'ring still it was but lent;
To modest merit spread my store,
Unbar my hospitable door;
Nor feed, for pomp, an idle train,
While want unpitied pines in vain.
If Heav'n, in ev'ry purpose wise,
The envied lot of wealth denies ;
If doom'd to drag life's painful load
Through poverty's uneven road,
And, for the due bread of the day,
Destin'd to toil as well as pray;
To thee, Humanity, still true,
I'll wish the good I cannot do ;
And give the wretch, that passes by,
A soothing word—a tear-a sigh.
Howe'er exalted, or deprest,
Be ever mine the feeling breast.
From me remove the stagnant mind
Of languid indolence, reclin'd;

The soul that one long sabbath keeps,

And through the sun's whole circle sleeps;
Dull peace, that dwells in folly's eye,
And self-attending vanity,

Alike the foolish and the vain
Are strangers to the sense humane.
O for that sympathetic glow
Which taught the holy tear to flow,
When the prophetic eye survey'd
Sion in future ashes laid;

Or, rais'd to heav'n, implored the bread
That thousands in the desert fed!
Or, when the heart o'er friendship's grave
Sigh'd-and forgot its pow'r to save—
O for that sympathetic glow,

Which taught the holy tear to flow!
It comes it fills my lab'ring breast,
I feel my beating heart opprest.
Oh! hear that lonely widow's wail!
See her dim eye; her aspect pale!
To Heav'n she turns in deep despair;
Her infants wonder at her pray'r,
And, mingling tears, they know not why,
Lift up their little hands, and cry.
O Lord! their moving sorrows see!
Support them, sweet Humanity!
Life, fill'd with grief's distressful train,
For ever asks the tear humane.
Behold in yon unconscious grove
The victims of ill-fated love!
Heard you that agonizing throe?
Sure this is not romantic wo!
The golden day of joy is o'er;
And now they part-to meet no more.
Assist them, hearts from anguish free!
Assist them, sweet Humanity!

Parent of virtue, if thine ear

Attend not now to sorrow's cry;

If now the pity-streaming tear

Should haply on thy cheek be dry,

Indulge my votive strain, O sweet Humanity!

LANGHORNE.

SECTION II.

A night-piece on death.

By the blue taper's trembling light,
No more I waste the wakeful night,
Intent with endless view to pore
The schoolmen and the sages o'er :
Their books from wisdom widely stray,
Or point at best the longest way.
I'll seek a readier path, and go
Where wisdom's surely taught below.
How deep yon azure dies the sky!
Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie,
While thro' their ranks in silver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide.
The slumb'ring breeze forgets to breathe,
The lake is smooth and clear beneath,
Where once again the spangled show
Descends to meet our eyes below.
The grounds which on the right aspire,
In dimness from the view retire :
The left présents a place of graves,
Whose wall the silent water laves.
That steeple guides thy doubtful sight
Among the livid gleams of night;
There pass with melancholy state,
By all the solemn heaps of fate,
And think, as softly-sad you tread
Above the venerable dead,

"Time was, like thee, they life possest, And time shall be, that thou shalt rest."

Those graves with bending osier bound, That nameless heave the crumbled ground, Quick to the glancing thought disclose Where toil and poverty repose.

The flat smooth stones that bear a name,
The chisel's slender help to fame;
(Which, ere our set of friends decay,
Their frequent steps may wear away ;)
A middle race of mortals own,
Men, half ambitious, all unknown.

The marble tombs that rise on high,
Whose dead in vaulted arches lie,

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