Spread all thy purple clusters, tempting vine,
And thou, more dreaded foe, bright beauty, fhine;
Shine all; in all your charms together rife;
That all, in all your charms, I may despise,
While I mount upward on a strong defire,
Borne, like Elijah, in a car of fire.
In hopes of glory to be quite involv'd!
To smile at death! to long to be diffolv'd!
From our decays a pleasure to receive!
And kindle into transport at a grave !
What equals this? And shall the victor now
Boaft the proud laurels on his loaded brow?
Religion! Oh thou cherub, heav'nly bright!
Oh joys unmix'd, and fathomlefs delight!
'Thou, Thou art all; nor find I in the whole
Creation aught, but God and my own soul.
For ever then, my foul, thy God adore,
Nor let the brute creation praise him more.
Shall things inanimate my conduct blame,
And flush my conscious cheek with spreading fhame ?
They all for him purfue, or quit, their end;
The mounting flames their burning pow'r suspend;
In folid heaps th' unfrozen billows stand,
To reft and filence aw'd by his command:
Nay, the dire monsters that infest the flood,
By nature dreadful, and athirst for blood,
His will can calm, their favage tempers bind,
And turn to mild protectors of mankind.
Did not the prophet this great truth maintain
In the deep chambers of the gloomy main;
When darkness round him all her horrors spread,
And the loud ocean bellow'd o'er his head?
When now the thunder roars, the light'ning flies,
And all the warring winds tumultuous rise;
When now the foaming furges, toft on high,
Disclose the fands beneath, and touch the sky;
When death draws near, the mariners aghaft,
Look back with terror on their actions past;
Their courage fickens into deep dismay,
Their hearts, through fear and anguish, melt away;
Nor tears, nor pray'rs, the tempeft can appease;
Now they devote their treasure to the seas;
Unload their shatter'd barque, tho' richly fraught,
And think the hopes of life are cheaply bought
With gems and gold; but oh, the storm so high!
Nor gems nor gold the hopes of life can buy.
The trembling prophet then, themselves to fave,
They headlong plunge into the briny wave;
Down he defcends, and, booming o'er his head,
The billows close; he's number'd with the dead.
(Hear, O ye juft! attend, ye virtuous few!
And the bright paths of piety pursue)
Lo! the great Ruler of the world, from high,
Looks fmiling down with a propitious eye,
Covers his fervant with his gracious hand,
And bids tempeftuous nature filent stand;
Commands the peaceful waters to give place,
Or kindly fold him in a soft embrace :
He bridles in the monsters of the deep:
The bridled monfters awful distance keep :
Forget their hunger, while they view their prey;
And guiltless gaze, and round the ftranger play.
But ftill arife new wonders; nature's Lord
Sends forth into the deep his pow'rful word,
And calls the great leviathan: the great
Leviathan attends in all his ftate;
Exults for joy, and, with a mighty bound,
Makes the sea shake, and heav'n and earth refound;
Blackens the waters with the rifing fand,
And drives vaft billows to the diftant land.
As yawns an earthquake, when imprison'd air
Struggles for vent, and lays the centre bare,
The whale expands his jaws enormous fize;
The prophet views the cavern with furprize;
Measures his monftrous teeth, afar descry'd,
And rolls his wond'ring eyes from fide to fide:
Then takes poffeffion of the spacious feat,
And fails fecure within the dark retreat
Now is he pleas'd the northern blast to hear,
And hangs on liquid mountains, void of fear;
Or falls immers❜d into the depths below,
Where the dead filent waters never flow;
To the foundations of the hills convey'd,
Dwells in the fhelving mountain's dreadful fhade:
Where plummet never reach'd, he draws his breath,
And glides ferenely thro' the paths of death.
Two wond'rous days and nights thro' coral groves,
Thro' labyrinths of rocks and fands, he roves:
When the third morning with its level rays
The mountains gilds, and on the billows plays,
It fees the king of waters rise and pour
His facred guest uninjur'd on the fhore:
A type of that great bleffing, which the mufe
In her next labour ardently pursues.
Ἐκ γαίης ἐλπίζομεν ἐς φάθ ἐλθεῖν. Λείψαν ἀποιχομένων· ἐπίσω δὲ Θεοὶ τελέθονται.
We hope, that the departed will rife again from the duft after which, like the gods, they will be immortal.
OW Man awakes, and from his filent bed,
Where he has slept for ages, lifts his head;
Shakes off the flumber of ten thousand years,
And on the borders of new worlds appears.
Whate'er the bold, the rash, adventure coft,
In wide ETERNITY I dare be loft.
The mufe is wont in narrow bounds to fing,
To teach the fain, or celebrate the king.
I grasp the whole, no more to parts confin'd,
I lift my voice, and fing to human kind :
C 2
I fing to men and angels; angels join,
While fuch the theme, their facred fongs with mine.
Again the trumpet's intermitted found
Rolls the wide circuit of creation round,
An univerfal concourse to prepare
Of all that ever breath'd the vital air:
In some wide field, which active whirlwinds sweep,
Drive cities, forefts, mountains, to the deep,
To smooth and lengthen out th' unbounded space,
And spread an area for all human race.
Now monuments prove faithful to their truft,
And render back their long committed dust.
Now charnels rattle; scatter'd limbs, and all
The various bones, obfequious to the call,
Self-mov'd, advance; the neck perhaps to meet
The distant head; the diftant legs the feet.
Dreadful to view, fee through the dusky sky
Fragments of bodies in confufion fly,
To distant regions journeying, there to claim
Deserted members, and compleat the frame.
When the world bow'd to Rome's almighty sword,
Rome bow'd to POMPEY, and confefs'd her lord.
Yet one day loft, this deity below
Became the fcorn and pity of his foe.
His blood a traitor's facrifice was made,
And smok'd indignant on a ruffian's blade.
No trumpet's found, no gasping army's yell,
Bid, with due horror, his great foul farewel.
Obfcure his fall! all welt'ring in his gore,
His trunk was caft to perish on the shore !
While JULIUS frown'd the bloody monster dead,
Who brought the world in his great rival's head.
This fever'd head and trunk shall join once more,
Tho' realms now rife between, and oceans roar.
|