Then straight embracing with the love of dread;
Or homage to Diviner Majesty ;

Of Presence puissant admonished.

IV. 1. To Him reply the Lightnings-Here are we :
The Snow, the Hail, the Rain, do call him Sire;
And the Dew saith-Thou hast begotten me.

Frost by his breath is given, and coals of Fire
Are kindled in his wrath. The heavens were bowed,
And he came down, pavilioned in his ire;

"On Cherubim and Seraphim he rode
Most royally, and on the" expanded "wings
Of mighty winds came flying all abroad."

He touched the Cities and they smoked, like things
Of smouldering conflagration. Ere man's eye
Regained its vision, or his shudderings

Subsided; lo, the flame had rolled from high
Over them like a furnace;-citadels,

And their indwellers. Roared the liquid sky,

Dissolved into a sulphur flood, like hell's,
In stormy undulation, wild and deep;

And o'er th' appalling chasm the void calm dwells;

A smoking desart, and a soldered heap;
An undigested wreck, an ashy waste ;
Field of the rank bitumen none may reap,

Plants bearing fruit of cinder none may taste,
And that salt Monument of Unbelief,

Stanced on the blasted scite, and not misplaced.

IV. 2. Eternal and Almighty-Best and Chief!
Jehovah! the Omnifick! the clouds are

Thy chariot-winds thy steeds. The bounteous Sheaf

Of Harvest is thy gift. Enthroned afar,
Spirits thine Angels, and thy Ministers
Thou makest flames of fire.

The sea as if with doors.

'Twas thou didst bar

The universe

Of creatures and of things exists in thee;
And all good gifts are thine-to Man who errs,

The Seraph that adores, the Beast whose knee
Unto the rising of the Sun is bowed :
Pervading yet remote Divinity,

Whose Glory dwells in Column and in Cloud.

A

PART THE SECOND.

HADES.

"I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.

I beheld, and lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.

I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down, at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.

For thus hath the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.

For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it."

:

JEREMIAH iv. 23-28.