V E R S E S

TO THE

A U T H O R.

NC

own.

OW let the Atheist tremble; Thou alone

Canst bid his conscious heart the Godhead own.
Whom shalt thou not reform? O thou hast seen,
How God descends to judge the souls of men.
Thou heard'st the sentence how the guilty mourn,
Driv'n out from God, and never to return.

Yet more, behold ten thousand thunders fall,
And sudden vengeance wrap the flaming ball :
When nature sunk, when every bolt was hurld,
Thou saw'st the boundless ruins of the world.

When guilty Sodom felt the burning rain,
And sulphur fell on the devoted plain;
The patriarch thus, the fiery tempest past,
With pious horror view'd the desart waste;
The restless smoke still wav'd its curls around,
For ever rising from the glowing ground.

But tell me, oh! what heav'nly pleasure tell,
To think so greatly, and describe so well!
How wast thou pleas’d the wond'rous theme to try,
And find the thought of man could rise so high?

Beyond

B 2

BAYERISCHE

STAATS
BIBLIOTHEK
MUENCHEN

Beyond this world the labour to pursue,
And
open

all ETERNITY to view ?
But thou art best delighted to rehearse
Heav'n's holy dictates in exalted verse :
O thou hast power the harden'd heart warm,
To grieve, to raise, to terrify, to charm;
To fix the soul on God; to teach the mind
To know the dignity of human-kind;
By stricter rules well-govern'd life to fcan,
And practise o'er the angel in the man.

Magd. Coll.

Oxon.

T. WARTON,

TO

To a LADY, with the LAST DAY.

H

MADAM,

ERE, sacred truths, in lofty numbers told,

The prospect of a future state unfold :
The realms of night to mortal view display,
And the glad regions of eternal day.
This daring author fcorns, by vulgar ways
Of guilty wit, to merit worthless praise.
Full of her glorious theme, his tow'ring muse,
With gen'rous zeal, a nobler fame pursues:
Religion's cause her ravith'd heart inspires,
And with a thousand bright ideas fires ;
Transports her quick, impatient, piercing eye,
O’er the strait limits of mortality,
To boundless orbs, and bids her fearless soar,
Where only Milton gain'd renown before ;
Where various scenes alternately excite
Amazement, picy, terror, and delight.

Thus did the muses fing in early times,
Ere skill'd to flatter vice, and varnish crimes :
Their lyres were tun'd to Virtue's sons alone,
And the chaste poet, and the priest, were one.

forgetful of their infant state,
They footh the wanton pleasures of the great:
And from the press, and the licentious stage,
With luscious poison taint the thoughtless age;
Deceitful charms attract our wond'ring eyes,
And specious ruin unsuspected lies.

But now,