Swaggered in midst of heaven, grew black and dark,
Unclouded, uneclipsed. The Stars fell down
Tumbling from off their towers like drunken men,
Or seemed to fall; and glimmered now, and now
Sprang out in sudden blaze and dimmed again,
As lamp of foolish virgins lacking oil.

The heavens, this moment, looked serene; the next,
Glowed like an oven with God's displeasure hot.
Nor less below was intimation given,

Of some disaster great and ultimate,

The tree that bloomed, or hung with clustering fruit Untouched by visible calamity

Of frost or tempest, died and came again.

The flower and herb fell down as sick; then rose
And fell again. The fowls of every hue,
Crowding together, sailed on weary wing;
And, hovering, oft they seemed about to light;
Then soared, as if they thought the earth unsafe.
The cattle looked with meaning face on man.

Dogs howled, and seemed to see more than their masters,
And there were sights that none had seen before;
And hollow, strange, unprecedented sounds,
And earnest whisperings, ran along the hills,
At dead of night; and long, deep, endless sighs,
Came from the dreary vale; and from the waste
Came horrid shrieks, and fierce, unearthly groans,
The wail of evil spirits, that now felt
The hour of vengeance near at hand.

POLLOK.

THE LAST DAY.

HE Lord will come! the earth shall quake,
The hills their fixed seat forsake;

And, withering, from the vault of night

The stars withdraw their feeble light.

The Lord will come! but not the same
As once in lowly form he came,

A silent Lamb to slaughter led,

The bruised, the suffering, and the dead.

The Lord will come! a dreadful form,
With wreath of flame and robe of storm,
On cherub wings, and wings of wind,
Anointed Judge of human kind!

Can this be He who wont to stray
A pilgrim on the world's highway;
By power oppressed and mocked by pride?
O God! is this the crucified?

Go, tyrants! to the rocks complain!
Go, seek the mountains cleft in vain!
But faith, victorious o'er the tomb,
Shall sing for joy-The Lord is come!

HIEBER.

TIIE LAST DAY.

HUS came the day, the Harp again began,
The day that many thought would never come,

That all the wicked wished should never come,

That all the righteous had expected long;

Day greatly feared, and yet too little feared

By him who feared it most; day laughed at much

By the profane, the trembling day of all

Who laughed; day when all shadows passed, all dreams;

When substance, when reality commenced;

Last day of lying, final day of all

Deceit, all knavery, all quackish phrase;
Ender of all disputing, of all mirth
Ungodly, of all loud and boasting speech;

Judge of all judgments, Judge of every judge,

Adjuster of all causes, rights and wrongs;
Day oft appealed to, and appealed to oft
By those who saw its dawn with saddest heart;
Day most magnificent in fancy's range,

Whence she returned, confounded, trembling, pale,
With overmuch of glory faint and blind;
Day most important held, prepared for most,
By every rational, wise, and holy man;
Day of eternal gain, for worldly loss;
Day of eternal loss, for worldly gain;
Great day of terror, vengeance, woe, despair;
Revealer of all secrets, thoughts, desires;
Rein-trying, heart-investigating day,
That stood between Eternity and Time,
Reviewed all past, determined all to come,
And bound all destinies for evermore!
Believing day of unbelief; great day,
That set in proper light the affairs of earth,
And justified the government Divine!

Great day!-what can we more? what should we more?

Great triumph-day of God's incarnate Son!

Great day of glory to the Almighty God!
Day! whence the everlasting years begin
Their date, new era in Eternity,

And oft referred to in the song of heaven!

Thus stood the apostate, thus the ransomed stood,

Those held by justice fast, and these by love,
Reading the fiery scutcheonry, that blazed
On high, upon the great celestial bow;
66 As ye have sown so shall ye reap this day,
All read, all understood, and all believed,
Convinced of judgment, righteousness, and sin.

POLLOK.

THE LAST DAY.

VEN thus amid thy pride and luxury,

O Earth! shall that last coming burst on thee,
The secret coming of the Son of Man.

When all the cherub-thronging clouds shall shine,
Irradiate with his bright advancing sign;

When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan,
Sweeping, like chaff, thy wealth and pomp away:
Still to the noontide of that nightless day,
Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain.
Along the busy mart and crowded street,
The buyer and the seller still shall meet,
And marriage feasts begin their jocund strain:
Still to the pouring out the Cup of woe;
Till Earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro,
And mountains molten by his burning feet,

And Heaven his presence own, all red with furnace heat.

The hundred-gated Cities then,

The Towers and Temples named of men

Eternal, and the Thrones of Kings;

The gilded summer Palaces,

The courtly bowers of love and ease,

Where still the Bird of Pleasure sings;
Ask ye the destiny of them?

Go-gaze on fallen Jerusalem!

Yea, mighiter names are in the fatal roll;

'Gainst earth and heaven God's standard is unfurled;

The skies are shrivelled like a burning scroll,

And one vast, common doom ensepulchres the world. Oh, who shall then survive?

Oh, who shall stand and live?

When all that hath been is no more:

When for the round earth hung in air,

With all its constellations fair,

In the sky's azure canopy;

When for the breathing Earth, and sparkling Sea,
Is but a fiery deluge without shore,
Heaving along the abyss profound and dark,
A fiery deluge, and without an Ark.

Lord of all power, when thou art there alone
On thy eternal fiery-wheeléd throne,
That in its high meridian noon

Needs not the perished sun nor moon:

When thou art there in thy presiding state, Wide-sceptred Monarch o'er the realm of doom: When from the sea depths, from earth's darkest womb, The dead of all the ages round thee wait; And when the tribes of wickedness are strewn, Like forest leaves in the autumn of thine ire, Faithful and True! thou still wilt save thine own! The Saints shall dwell within the unharming fire; Each white robe spotless, blooming every palm, Each safe as we, by thy still fountain's side, So shall the Church, thy bright and mystic Bride, Sit on the stormy gulf a halcyon bird of calm. Yes, mid yon angry and destroying signs, O'er us the rainbow of thy mercy shines, We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam Almighty to revenge, Almightiest to redeem!

MILMAN.

THE LAST DAY.

ARK! from the deep of heaven, a trumpet sound
Thunders the dizzy universe around,

From north to south, from east to west it rolls,

A blast that summons all created souls:
The dead awaken from their dismal sleep:
The sea has heard it; coiling up with dread,
Myriads of mortals flash from out their bed!
The graves fly open, and, with awful strife,
The dust of ages startles into life!