A noontide shadow, and a midnight dream; Select from vulgar herds, with garlands gay,
Are emblems which, with semblance apt, proclaim A hundred bulls ascend the sacred way.
Our earthly course: bui, O my soul! so fast The artful youth proceed to form the choir;
Must lise run off, and death for ever last?

They breathe the flute, or strike the vocal wire.
This dark opinion, sure, is too confin'd: The maids in comely order next advance;
Else whence this hope, and terror of the mind ? They beat the timbrel, and instruct the dance.
Does something still, and somewhere, yet remain, Follows the chosen tribe from Levi sprung,
Reward or punishment, delight or pain ?

Chanting, by just return, the holy song.
Say, shall our relics second birth receive? Along the choir in solemn state they past :
Sleep we to wake, and only die to live ?

-The anxious king came last.
When the sad wife has closed her husband's eyes, The sacred hymn perform'd, my promis'd vow
And pierc'd the echoing vault with doleful cries, I paid ; and, bowing at the altar low,
Lies the pale corpse not yet entirely dead,

“Father of Heaven!” I said, “and Judge of The spirit only from the body fled ;

Earth!
The grosser part of heat and motion void, Whose word callid out this universe to birth;
To be by fire, or worm, or time, destroy'd; By whose kind power and influencing care
The Soul, immortal substance, to remain,

The various creatures move, and live, and are ; Conscious of joy, and capable of pain ?

But ceasing once that care, withdrawn that power, And, if her acts have been directed well,

They move, (alas !) and live, and are no more: While with her friendly clay she deign’d to dwell, Omniscient Master, omnipresent King, Shall she with safety reach her pristine seat ? To thee, to thee, my last distress I bring. Find her rest endless, and her bliss complete ?

“ Thou, that canst still the raging of the seas, And, while the buried man we idly mourn, Chain up the winds, and bid the tempests cease! Do angels joy to see his better half return? Redeem my shipwreck'd soul from raging gusts But, if she has deform'd this earthly life

Of cruel passion and deceitful lusts : With murderous rapine, and seditious strife, From storms of rage, and dangerous rocks of pride Amaz'd, repuls'd, and by those angels driven Let thy strong hand this little vessel guide From the ethereal seat, and blissful Heaven, (It was thy hand that made it) through the tide In everlasting darkness must she lie,

Impetuous of this life : let thy command Still more unhappy, that she cannot die?

Direct my course, and bring me safe to land !
Amid two seas, on one small point of land, “ If, while this wearied flesh draws fleeting
Wearied, uncertain, and amaz'd, we stand :

breath,
On either side our thoughts incessant turn; Not satisfied with life, afraid of death,
Forward we dread, and looking back we mourn; It haply be thy will, that I should know
Losing the present in this dubious baste,

Glimpse of delight, or pause from anxious woc! And lost ourselves betwixt the future and the past. From Now, from instant Now, great Sire! dispel

These cruel doubts contending in my breast, The clouds that press my soul; from Now reveal
My reason staggering, and my hopes oppress'd, A gracious beam of light; from Now inspire
“Once more," I said, “ once more I will inquire, My tongue to sing, my hand to touch the lyre;
What is this little, agile, pervious fire,

My open thought to joyous prospects raise,
This fluttering motion, which we call the Mind ? And for thy mercy let me sing thy praise.
How does she act? and where is she confin'd ? Or, if thy will ordains I still shall wait
Have we the power to guide her as we please ? Some new hereafter, and a future state,
Whence then those evils that obstruct our ease ? Permit me strength, my weight of woe to bear,
We happiness pursue; we fly from pain;

And raise my mind superior to my care. Yet the pursuit, and yet the flight, is vain : Let me, howe'er unable to explain And, while poor Nature labors to be blest, The secret labyrinths of thy ways to man, By day with pleasure, and by night with rest, With humble zeal confess thy awful power; Sorne stronger power eludes our sickly will, Still weeping hope, and wondering still adore: Dashing our rising hope with certain ill; So in my conquest be thy might declar'd, And makes us, with reflective trouble, see

And for thy justice be thy name rever'd." That all is destin'd, which we fancy free. [mind, My prayer scarce ended, a stupendous gloom

" That Power superior then, which rules our Darkens the air; loud thunder shakes the dome. Is his decree by human prayer inclin'd ?

To the beginning miracle succeed Will he for sacrifice our sorrows ease?

An awful silence and religious dread.
And can our tears reverse his firm decrees? Sudden breaks forth a more than common day;
Then let Religion aid, where Reason fails : The sacred wood, which on the altar lay,
Throw loads of incense in, to turn the scales; Untouch'd, unlighted, glows-
And let the silent sanctuary show,

Ambrosial odor, such as never flows
What from the babbling schools we may not know, From Arab's gum, or the Sabxan rose,
How man may shun or bear his destin'd part of woe. Does round the air evolving scents diffuse :

What shall amend, or what absolve, our fate? The holy ground is wet with heavenly dews : Annous we hover in a mediale state,

Celestial music (such Jessides' lyre, Betwixt infinity and nothing, bounds,

Such Miriam's timbrel, would in vain require) Or boundless terms, whose doubtful sense confounds. Strikes to my thought through my admiring ear, Inequal thought! whilst all we apprehend With ecstacy too fine, and pleasure hard to bear. Is, that our hopes must rise, our sorrows end, And lo! what sees my ravish'd eye? what feels As our Creator deigns to be our friend."

My wand'ring soul? An opening cloud reveals I said ;-and instant bad the priests prepare

An heavenly form, embodied, and array'd The ritual sacrifice and solemn prayer.

With robes of light. I heard. The angel said :

66

*Cease, man of woman born, to hope relief Afflicted Israel shall sit weeping down, From daily trouble and continued grief;

Fast by the stream where Babel's waters run; Thy hope of joy deliver to the wind,

Their harps upon the neighboring willows hung, Suppress thy passions, and prepare thy mind; Nor joyous hymn encouraging their tongue, Free and familiar with misfortune grow,

Nor cheerful dance their feet; with toil oppressid, Be us'd to sorrow, and inur'd to woe;

Their wearied limbs aspiring but to rest. By weakening toil and hoary age o'ercome, In the reflective stream the sighing bride, See thy decrease, and hasten to thy tomb; Viewing her charms impair'd, abash'd, shall hide Leave to thy children tumult, strife, and war, Her pensive head; and in her languid face Portions of toil, and legacies of care ;

The bridegroom shall foresee his sickly race, Send the successive ills through ages down, While ponderous fetters vex their close embrace. And let each weeping father tell his son,

With irksome anguish then your priests shall mourn That deeper struck, and more distinctly griev'd, Their long-neglected feasts despair'd return, He must augment the sorrows he receiv'd. And sad oblivion of their solemn days.

“The child to whose success thy hope is bound, Thenceforth their voices they sball only raise, Ere thou art scarce interr’d, or he is crown'd, Louder to weep. By day, your frighted seers To lust of arbitrary sway inclin'd,

Shall call for fountains to express their tears, (That cursed poison to the prince's mind!) And wish their eyes were floods; by night, from Shall from thy dictates and his duty rove,

dreams And lose his great defence, his people's love; Of opening gulfs, black storms, and raging flames, Ill-counsellid, vanquish'd, fugitive, disgrac'd, Starting amaz'd, shall to the people show Shall mourn the fame of Jacob's strength effac'd; Emblems of heavenly wrath, and mystic types of woe. Shall sigh the king diminish'd, and the crown The captives, as their tyrant shall require With lessen'd rays descending to his son; That they should breathe the song, and touch the Shall see the wreaths, his grandsire knew to reap

lyre, By active toil and military sweat,

Shall say : Can Jacob's servile race rejoice, Pining, incline their sickly leaves, and shed Untun'd the music, and disus'd the voice ? Their falling honors from his giddy head; What can we play,' (they shall discourse,) · how sing By arms or prayer unable to assuage

In foreign lands, and to a barbarous king ?
Domestic horror and intestine rage,

We and our fathers, from our childhood bred
Shall from the victor and the vanquish'd fear, To watch the cruel victor's eye, to dread
From Israel's arrow, and from Judah's spear; The arbitrary lash, to bend, to grieve,
Shall cast his wearied limbs on Jordan's flood, (Outcast of mortal race!) can we conceive
By brother's arms disturb’d, and stain'd with kin. Image of aught delightful, soft, or gay?
dred blood.

(race, Alas! when we have toil'd the longsome day, “ Hence laboring years shall weep their destin's The fullest bliss our hearts aspire to know Charg'd with ill omens, sullied with disgrace. Is but some interval from active woe, Time, by necessity compell’d, shall go

In broken rest and startling sleep to mourn, Through scenes of war, and epochas of woe. Till morn, the tyrant, and the scourge, return. The empire, lessen'd in a parted stream,

Bred up in grief, can pleasure be our theme? Shall lose its course

Our endless anguish does not Nature claim ?
Indulge thy tears: the Heathen shall blaspheme; Reason and sorrow are to us the same.
Judah shall fall, oppress’d by grief and shame,

#

44

The promis'd seat of empire shall again

The squire, whose good grace was to open the Cover the mountain, and command the plain ;

scene, And, from thy race distinguish'd, one shall spring, Seem'd not in great haste that the show should Greater in act than victor, more than king

begin :
In dignity and power, sent down from heaven, Now fitted the halter, now travers'd the cart,
To succor Earth. To him, to him, 'tis given, And often took leave, but was loth to depart.
Passion, and care, and anguish, to destroy.

Derry down, &c.
Through him, soft peace, and plenitude of joy,
Perpetual o'er the world redeem'd shall flow;

“What frightens you thus, my good son ?" says No more may man inquire, nor angel know.

the priest : ** Now, Solomon! remembering who thou art, • You murder'd, are sorry, and have been confest." Act through thy remnant life the decent part. "O father! my sorrow will scarce save my bacon; Go forth: be strong : with patience and with care