The' Almighty voice bid ancient night

Her endless realm resign,

And lo! ten thousand globes of light

In fields of azure shine.

Now wisdom with superior sway
Guides the vast moving frame,
Whilst all the ranks of being pay
Deep reverence to his Name.

He spake; the sun obedient stood,
And held the falling day :

Old Jordan backward drives his flood,
And disappoints the sea.

Lord of the armies of the sky,
He marshals all the stars;
Red comets lift their banners high,
And wide proclaim his wars.

Chain'd to his throne a volume lies,
With all the fates of men,
With every angel's form and size
Drawn by the' Eternal Pen.

His Providence unfolds the book, And makes his counsels shine : Each opening leaf, and every stroke, Fulfils some deep design.

Here he exalts neglected worms
To sceptres and a crown;
Anon the following page he turns,

And treads the monarch down.

Not Gabriel asks the reason why,
Nor GOD the reason gives;
Nor dares the favourite angel pry
Between the folded leaves.

My God, I never long'd to see
My fate with curious eyes,
What gloomy lines are writ for me,
Or what bright scenes shall rise.

In thy fair book of life and grace
May I but find my name,
Recorded in some humble place
Beneath my Lord, the Lamb!

DIVINE JUDGMENTS.

NoT from the dust my sorrows spring,
Nor drop my comforts from the lower skies;
Let all the baneful planets shed

Their mingled curses on my head,
How vain their curses, if the' Eternal King
Look through the clouds, and bless me with his eyes.
Creatures with all their boasted sway

Are but his slaves, and must obey;

They wait their orders from above,

And execute his word, the vengeance, or the love.

'Tis by a warrant from his hand

The gentler gales are bound to sleep :

The north-wind blusters, and assumes command Over the desert and the deep;

Old Boreas with his freezing pow'rs
Turns the earth iron, makes the ocean glass,
Arrests the dancing rivulets as they pass,

And chains them moveless to their shores;
The grazing ox lows to the gelid skies,

Walks o'er the marble meads with withering eyes, Walks o'er the solid lakes, snuffs up the wind, and dies.

Fly to the polar world, my song,
And mourn the pilgrims there, (a wretched throng!)
Seiz'd and bound iu rigid chains,

A troop of statues on the Russian plains,
And life stands frozen in the purple veins.
Atheist, forbear! no more blaspheme:
GOD has a thousand terrors in his name,
A thousand armies at command,
Waiting the signal of his hand,

And magazines of frost, and magazines of flame.
Dress thee in steel to meet his wrath;

His sharp artillery from the north

[frame.

Shall pierce thee to the soul, and shake thy mortal Sublime on Winter's rugged wings

He rides in arms along the sky,

And scatters fate on swains and kings;
And flocks and herds, and nations die;
While impious lips, profanely bold,

Grow pale; and, quivering at his dreadful cold,
Give their own blasphemies the lie.

The mischiefs that infest the earth, When the hot dog-star fires the realms on high, Drought and disease, and cruel dearth,

Are but the flashes of a wrathful eye

From the incens'd Divinity.

In vain our parching palates thirst, For vital food in vain we cry,

And pant for vital breath;

The verdant fields are burnt to dust,
The sun has drunk the channels dry,
And all the air is death:

Ye scourges of our Maker's rod,
'Tis at his dread command, at his imperial nod,
You deal your various plagues abroad.

Hail! whirlwinds, hurricanes, and floods,
That all the leafy standards strip,

And bear down with a mighty sweep
The riches of the fields, and honours of the woods;
Storms, that ravage o'er the deep,

And bury millions in the waves ;
Earthquakes, that in midnight sleep

Turn cities into heaps, and make our beds our graves ;
While you dispense your mortal harms,

'Tis the Creator's voice that sounds your loud alarms, When guilt with louder cries provokes a God to

arms.

O for a message from above

To bear my spirits up!

Some pledge of my Creator's love
To calm my terrors and support my hope!
Let waves and thunders mix and roar,
Be thou my God, and the whole world is mine:
While thou art Sovereign, I'm secure :

I shall be rich till thou art poor;

For all I fear, and all I wish, Heaven, earth, and hell, are thine.

EARTH AND HEAVEN.

HAST thou not seen, impatient boy,
Hast thou not read the solemn truth,
That grey experience writes for giddy youth
On every mortal joy;

'Pleasure must be dash'd with pain?'
And yet with heedless haste

The thirsty boy repeats the taste;

Nor hearkens to despair, but tries the bowl again. The rills of pleasure never run sincere ;

(Earth has no unpolluted spring)

From the curs'd soil some dangerous taint they bear; So roses grow on thorns, and honey wears a sting.

In vain we seek a Heaven below the sky;

The world has false, but flattering charms :
Its distant joys show big in our esteem,
But lessen still as they draw near the eye;
In our embrace the visions die,

And when we grasp the airy forms

We lose the pleasing dream.

Earth with her scenes of gay delight
Is but a landscape rudely drawn,
With glaring colours, and false light;
Distance commends it to the sight,
For fools to gaze upon;

But bring the nauseous daubing nigh,
Coarse and confus'd the hideous figures lie,
Dissolve the pleasure, and offend the eye.

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