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No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,
Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover'd o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-liv'd sire begun ;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
And the same hand that sow'd shall reap the field.
The swain in barren deserts, with surprise,
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise,
And starts amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear:
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy vallies, once perplex'd with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn;

The leafless shrubs the flow'ring palms succeed,
And od❜rous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,

And boys in flow'ry bands the tyger lead;
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake;
Pleas'd, the green lustre of their scales survey,
And with their forky tongue and pointless sting
shall play:

Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy tow'ring head, and lift thine eyes!
See, a long race thy spacious courts adorn ;
See future sons and daughters, yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on ev'ry side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barb'rous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;

See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabean springs!
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,

And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow;
See heav'n its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor ev'ning Cynthia fill her silver horn,
But lost, dissolv'd in thy superior rays,
Qne tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflow thy courts: the LIGHT Himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and GoD's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fix'd His word, His saving pow'r remains:
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own MESSIAH reigns.

GAY.

A CONTEMPLATION ON NIGHT.

a

WHETHER amid the gloom of night I stray,
Or my glad eyes enjoy revolving day,
Still Nature's various face informs my sense,
Of an all-wise, all-powerful PROVIDENCE.
When the gay Sun first breaks the shades of night,
And strikes the distant eastern hills with light,
Colour returns, the plains their livery wear,
And a bright verdure clothes the smiling year;
The blooming flow'rs with opening beauties glow,
And grazing flocks their milky fleeces show;
The barren cliffs with chalky fronts arise,
And a pure azure arches o'er the skies.
But when the gloomy reign of Night returns,
Stript of her fading pride, all Nature mourns;
The trees no more their wonted verdure boast,
But weep, in dewy tears, their beauty lost...
No distant landscapes draw our curious eyes,"
Wrapt in Night's robe the whole creation lies:

Yet still, even now, while Darkness clothes the land,
We view the traces of the Almighty hand.
Millions of stars in heaven's wide vault appear,
And with new glories hang the boundless sphere:
The silver Moon her western couch forsakes,
And o'er the skies her nightly circle makes;
Her solid globe beats back the sunny rays,
And to the world her borrow'd light repays.

Whether those stars, that twinkling lustre send,
Are suns, and rolling worlds those suns attend,
Man may conjecture and new schemes declare→→
Yet all his systems but conjectures are;
But this we know, that heav'n's eternal King,
Who bid this universe from nothing spring,
Can, at His word, bid num'rous worlds appear,
And rising worlds th' all-powerful WORD shall hear.
When the pure soul is from the body flown,
No more shall Night's alternate reign be known;
The sun no more shall rolling light bestow,
But from the Almighty streams of glory flow.
Oh! may some nobler thought my soul employ,
Than empty, transient, sublunary joy!

The stars shall drop, the sun shall lose his flame,
But Thou, O God! for ever shine the same.

THOMSON.

CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.-Canto ii. Stanza 3.

I CARE not, Fortune, what you me deny :
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shews her brightening
face;

You cannot bar my constant feet to trace

The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve; Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave; Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave,

HYMN, 1. 37.

NATURE, attend! join, every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join, and, ardent, raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness

breathes :

Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms!

Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,

Who shake the astonish'd world, lift high to heaven
Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills,
And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,

Sound his stupendous praise! whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.—
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the summer-ray
Russets the plain, inspiring autumn gleams,
Or winter rises in the blackening east;
Be my tongue mutė, my fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!

Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on the Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to me :
Since God is ever present, ever felt,

;

In the void waste as in the city full
And where He vital breathes there must be joy.
When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,

I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go
Where UNIVERSAL LOVE not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in Him, in light ineffable!

Come then, expressive Silence, muse His praise.

YOUNG.

NIGHT THOUGHTS.-Night 1.

THE bell strikes one. We take no note of time,
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue,
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours:

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.
It is the signal that demands dispatch';

How much is to be done! My hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-On what?-A fathomless abyss;
A dread eternity! how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour.

GOLDSMITH.

THE VILLAGE PREACHER.-Deserted Village.

NEAR Yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.

A man he was, to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;

H

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