Unable to support the weight

Or of the prefent, or approaching miferies.
Methinks I hear her fummon all

Her guilty offspring raving with despair,
And trembling, cry aloud, Prepare,

Ye fublunary powers, t' attend my

See, see the tragical portents,

funeral!

Those dismal harbingers of dire events ! Loud thunders roar, and darting lightnings fly Through the dark concave of the troubled sky; The fiery ravage is begun, the end is nigh. See how the glaring meteors blaze! Like baleful torches, O they come, To light diffolving Nature to her tomb! And, fcattering round their peftilential rays, Strike the affrighted nations with a wild amaze. Vaft fheets of flame, and globes of fire, By an impetuous wind are driven

Through all the regions of the inferior heaven; Till, hid in fulphurous fmoke, they feemingly expire.

Sad and amazing 'tis to see, What mad confufion rages over all

This fcorching ball!

No country is exempt, no nation free, But each partakes the epidemic mifery. What dismal havoc of mankind is made By wars, and peftilence, and dearth,

Through the whole mournful earth? Which with a murdering fury they invade, Forfook by Providence, and all propitious aid!

Whilst fiends, let loose, their utmost rage employ,
To ruin all things here below;
Their malice and revenge no limits know,
But, in the universal tumult, all destroy.

Distracted mortals from their cities fly,
For fafety to their champain ground.
But there no fafety can be found;

་

The vengeance of an angry Deity,
With unrelenting fury, does inclose them round:
And whilft for mercy fome aloud implore
The God they ridicul'd before;

And others, raving with their woe,

(For hunger, thirst, defpair, they undergo)

Blafpheme and curse the Power they should adore:
The earth, parch'd up with drought, her jaws extends.
And opening wide a dreadful tomb,
The howling multitude at once defcends
Together all into her burning womb.

The trembling Alps abfcond their aged heads
In mighty pillars of infernal smoke,

Which from their bellowing caverns broke,
And fuffocates whole nations where it fpreads,
Sometimes the fire within divides

The maily rivers of those fecret chains,
Which hold together their prodigious sides,
And hurls the fhatter'd rocks o'er all the plains:
While towns and cities, every thing below,

Is overwhelm'd with the fame burst of woe.

No

No fhowers defcend from the malignant sky,
To cool the burning of the thirsty field;
The trees no leaves, no grass the meadows, yield,

But all is barren, all is dry.

The little rivulets no more

Το larger

ftreams their tribute pay,

Nor to the ebbing ocean they;

Which, with a strange unusual roar,

Forfakes those ancient bounds it would have pass'd

before :

And to the monftrous deep in vain retire :
For ev'n the deep itself is not fecure,

But belching fubterraneous fires,
Increases still the fcalding calenture,

Which neither earth, nor air, nor water, can endure.

At thofe convulfions, pangs, and agonies,
Which on the whole creation feize,

Is to fubftantial darknefs turn'd.
The neighbouring moon, as if a purple flood
O'erflow'd her tottering orb, appears

Like a huge mass of black corrupted blood;
For the herself a diffolution fears.

The larger planets, which once fhone so bright,
With the reflected rays of borrow'd light,
Shook from their centre, without motion lie,
Unwieldy globes of folid night,
And ruinous lumber of the sky.

Amidit

Amidft this dreadful hurricane of woes,

(For fire, confufion, horror, and defpair,
Fill every region of the tortur'd earth and air)
The great archangel his loud trumpet blows;
At whofe amazing found fresh agonies
Upon expiring nature feize :

For now the 'll in few minutes know
The ultimate event and fate of all below.
Awake, ye dead, awake, he cries;
(For all must come)

All that had human breath, arise,

To hear your last, unalterable doom.

At this the ghaftly týrant, who had sway'd
So many thousand ages uncontroll'd,

No longer could his fceptre hold;

But gave up all, and was himself a captive made.
The scatter'd particles of human clay,
Which in the filent grave's dark chambers lay,
Refume their pristine forms again,

And now from mortal, grow immortal men.
Stupendous energy of facred Power,

Which can collect wherever caft

The smallest atoms, and that shape restore
Which they had worn fo many years before,

That through ftrange accidents and numerous changes

paft!

See how the joyful angels fly
From every quarter of the sky,

To

To gather and to convoy all

The pious fons of human race,

To one capacious place,

Above the confines of this flaming ball.

See with what tenderness and love they bear
Those righteous fouls through the tumultuous air;
Whilft the ungodly stand below,
Raging with shame, confufion, and despair,
Amidst the burning overthrow,

Expecting fiercer torment, and acuter woe.
Round them infernal fpirits howling fly;

O horror, curfes, tortures, chains! they cry
And roar aloud with execrable blasphemy.

Hark how the daring fons of infamy
Who once diffolv'd in pleasures lap,

And laugh'd at this tremendous day,

To rocks and mountains now to hide them cry,
But rocks and mountains all in afhes lie.

Their fhame 's fo mighty, and so strong their fear,
That, rather than appear

Before a God incens'd, they would be hurl'd
Amongst the burning ruins of the world,
And lie conceal'd, if poffible, for ever there.
Time was they would not own a Deity,
Nor after death a future ftate;

But now, by fad experience, find, too late,
There is, and terrible to that degree,

That rather than behold his face, they 'd cease to be.