Of tyrant Sin;

To which we trophies raise, and wear out all our breath.

In building up the monuments of Death;

We, the choice race, to God and angels kin !

In vain the prophets and apostles come
To call us home,

Home to the promis'd Canaan above,

Which does with nourishing milk and pleafant honey

flow;

And even i' th' way to which we should be fed

With angels' tasteful bread :

But we,

alas the flesh-pots love,

We love the very leeks and fordid roots below.

In vain we judgments feel, and wonders fee!
In vain did God to defcend hither deign;
He was his own ambassador in vain,

Our Mofes and our guide himself to be!

We will not let ourfelves to go,

And with worfe harden'd hearts do our own Pharaohs

Ah! left at last we perish so,

[grow.

Think, ftubborn Man, think of th' Egyptian Prince
(Hard of belief and will, but not so hard as thou);
Think with what dreadful proofs God did convince
The feeble arguments that human power could show ;
Think what plagues attend on thee,

Who Mofes' God doft now refufe, more oft than
Mofes he.

"If from fome god you come" (faid the proud king
With half a fmile and half a frown;
"But what god can to Egypt be unknown?)
"What fign, what powers, what credence, do you bring?”
"Behold his feal! behold his hand !"

Cries Mofes, and cafts down th' all-mighty wand.
Th' all-mighty wand scarce touch'd the earth,
When, with an undiscerned birth,

Th' all-mighty wand a ferpent grew,

And his long half in painted folds behind him drew:
Upwards his threatening tail he threw;
Upwards he caft his threatening head:

He gap'd and hifs'd aloud,

With flaming eyes furvey'd the trembling crowd,
And, like a basilisk, almost look'd th' affembly dead;
Swift fled th' amazed king, the guards before him fled.

Jannes and Jambres ftopp'd their flight,

And with proud words allay'd th' affright.
"The God of flaves," faid they, "how can he be
"More powerful than their masters' deity?”
And down they caft their rods,

And mutter'd fecret founds that charm the fervile gods.
The evil spirits their charms obey,
And in a fubtle cloud they fnatch the rods away,
And ferpents in their place the airy jugglers lay.
Serpents in Egypt's monftrous land

Were ready ftill at hand,

And all at the Old Serpent's first command.

And

And they too gap'd, and they too hifs'd,
And they their threatening tails did twist;
But strait on both the Hebrew-serpent flew,
Broke both their active backs, and both it flew,
And both almost at once devour'd;

So much was over-power'd,
By God's miraculous creation,

His fervant's, Nature's, flightly-wrought and feeble generation!

On the fam'd'bank the prophets food,

Touch'd with their rod, and wounded, all the flood; Flood now no more, but a long vein of putrid blood. The helpless fish were found

In their strange current drown'd:

The herbs and trees wash'd by the mortal tide
About it blush'd and dy'd :

Th' amazed crocodiles made hafte to ground;
From their vaft trunks the dropping gore they fpied,
Thought it their own, and dreadfully aloud they cried,
Nor all thy priests, nor thou

Oh king! could'st ever show

From whence thy wandering Nile begins his courfe-
Of this new Nile thou feeft the facred fource;
And, as 'thy land that does o'erflow,

Take heed left this do fo!

What plague more just could on thy waters fall?
The Hebrew infants' murder ftains them all:

The kind, inftructing punishment enjoy ;

[ftroy.

Whom the red river cannot mend, the Red-fea fhall de

The

The river yet gave one inftruction more ;

And, from the rotting fish and unconcocted gore (Which was but water just before),

A loathsome host was quickly made,

That fcal'd the banks, and with loud noife did all the country' invade.

As Nilus when he quits his facred bed (But like a friend he vifits all the land

With welcome presents in his hand)

So did this Living Tide the fields o'erspread :
In vain th' alarmed country tries

To kill their noifome enemies;

From th' unexhaufted fource ftill new recruits arife.
Nor does the earth these greedy troops fuffice,
The towns and houses they poffefs,

The temples and the palaces,

Nor Pharaoh, nor his gods, they fear;
Both their importune croakings hear.
Unfatiate yet, they mount up higher,
Where never fun-born Frog durft to afpire,
And in the filken beds their flimy members place;
A luxury unknown before to all the watery race!

The water thus her wonders did produce;

But both were to no use;

As yet the forcerers' mimic power ferv'd for excufe. "Try what the earth will do," faid God, and lo! They ftrook the earth a fertile blow,

And

And all the duft did strait to stir begin;

One would have thought some fudden wind 't had been;
But lo! 'twas nimble life was got within!
And all the little fprings did move,

And every duft did an arm'd vermin prove,

Of an unknown and new-created kind,

Such as the magic-gods could neither make nor find. The wretched fhameful Foe allow'd no reft

Either to man or beast.

Not Pharaoh from th' unquiet plague could be,
With all his change of raiments, free;

The devils themselves confefs'd

This was God's hand; and 'twas but just, To punish thus man's pride, to punish dust with duft.

Lo! the third element does his plagues prepare,
And swarming clouds of infects fill the air;
With fullen noife they take their flight,

And march in bodies infinite;

In vain 'tis day above, 'tis still beneath them night.
Of harmful Flies the nations numberless
Compos'd this mighty army's spacious boast;
Of different manners, different languages;
And different habits, too, they wore,

And different arms they bore;

And fome, like Scythians, liv'd on blood,

And fome on green, and fome on flowery food;

And Accaron, the airy prince, led on this various host.

Houses fecure not men, the populous ill

Did all the houses fill: