The other was a fell despightful fiend :
Hell holds none worse in baleful bower below: By pride, and wit, and rage, and rancour keen'd; Of man alike, if good or bad, the foe:
With nose up-turn'd, he always made a show As if he smelt some nauseous scent; his eye Was cold, and keen, like blast from boreal snow; And taunts he casten forth most bitterly. Such were the twain that off drove this ungodly fry.
Ev'n so through Brentford town, a town of mud,
An herd of bristly swine is prick'd along:
The filthy beasts, that never chew the cud,
Still grunt, and squeak, and sing their troublous
And oft they plunge themselves the mire among: But aye the ruthless driver goads them on, And aye of barking dogs the bitter throng Makes them renew their unmelodious moan; Ne ever find they rest from their unresting fone.
Ipse pater, mediâ nimborum in nocte, coruscâ
Fulmina molitur dextrâ: quo maxima motu
Terra tremit, fugêre feræ, et mortalia corda
Per gentes humilis stravit pavor.—-
WHILE others sing the fortune of the great,
Empire and arms, and all the pomp of state,
With Britain's hero set their souls on fire,
And grow immortal as his deeds inspire;
I draw a deeper scene; a scene that yields
A louder trumpet, and more dreadful fields:
The world alarm'd, both earth and heaven o'er-
thrown,
And gasping Nature's last tremendous groan;
Death's ancient sceptre broke, the teeming tomb,
The righteous Judge, and man's eternal doom!
"Twixt joy and pain I view the bold design,
And ask my anxious heart if it be mine?
Whatever great or dreadful has been done
Within the sight of conscious stars or sun,
The Duke of Marlborough.
Is far beneath my daring; I look down
On all the splendours of the British crown.
This globe is for my verse a narrow bound :
Attend me, all ye glorious worlds around!
O all ye angels, howsoe'er disjoin’d,
Of every various order, place, and kind,
Hear, and assist a feeble mortal's lays :
'Tis your eternal King I strive to praise.
But chiefly thou, great Ruler! Lord of all! Before whose throne archangels prostrate fall; If at thy nod, from discord and from night, Sprang beauty, and yon sparkling worlds of light— Exalt ev'n me; all inward tumults quell; The clouds and darkness of my mind dispel; To my great subject thou my breast inspire, And raise my labouring soul with equal fire.
Man bear thy brow aloft, view every grace In God's great offspring, beauteous Nature's face. See Spring's gay bloom, see golden Autumn's store, See how Earth smiles, and hear old Ocean roar. Leviathans but heave their cumbrous mail, It makes a tide, and wind-bound navies sail. Here forests rise, the mountain's awful pride; Here rivers measure climes, and worlds divide : There valleys, fraught with gold's resplendent seeds, Hold kings' and kingdoms' fortunes in their beds: There to the skies aspiring hills ascend, And into distant lands their shades extend. View cities, armies, fleets; of fleets the pride, See Europe's law in Albion's channel ride; View the whole earth's vast landscape uncoutined, Or view in Britain all her glories join'd.
Then let the firmament thy wonder raise, Twill raise thy wonder, but transcend thy praise.
How far from east to west? the labouring eye
Can scarce the distant azure bounds descry:
Wide theatre! where tempests play at large,
And God's right hand can all its wrath discharge.
Mark how those radiant lamps inflame the pole,
Call forth the seasons, and the year control.
They shine through time with an unalter'd ray,
See this grand period rise, and that decay :
So vast, this world 's a grain; yet myriads grace,
With golden pomp, the throng'd ethereal space;
So bright, with such a wealth of glory stored
"Twere sin in heathens not to have adored.
How great, how firm, how sacred all appears!
How worthy an immortal round of years!
Yet all must drop, as autumn's sickliest grain,
And earth and firmament be sought in vain ;
The tract forgot where constellations shone,
Or where the Stuarts fill'd an awful throne :
Time shall be slain, all nature be destroy'd,
Nor leave an atom in the mighty void.
Sooner or later, in some future date, (A dreadful secret in the book of fate!) This hour, for aught all human wisdom knows, Or when ten thousand harvests more have rose; When scenes are changed on this revolving earth, Old empires fall, and give new empires birth; While other Bourbons rule in other lands, And (if man's sin forbids not) other Annes ; While the still busy world is treading o'er The paths they trod five thousand years before, Thoughtless as those who now life's mazes run, Of earth dissolved, or an extinguish'd sun ; (Ye sublunary worlds, awake, awake! Ye rulers of the nations, hear and shake!)
Thick clouds of darkness shall arise on day,
In sudden night all earth's dominions lay,
Impetuous winds the scatter'd forests rend,
Eternal mountains, like their cedars, bend;
The valleys yawn, the troubled ocean roar,
And break the bondage of his wonted shore;
A sanguine stain the silver moon o'erspread,
Darkness the circle of the sun invade;
From inmost heaven incessant thunders roll,
And the strong echo bound from pole to pole.
When, lo a mighty trump, one half conceal'd
In clouds, one half to mortal eye reveal❜d,
Shall pour a dreadful note; the piercing call
Shall rattle in the centre of the ball;
The extended circuit of creation shake,
The living die with fear, the dead awake.
O, powerful blast! to which no equal sound
Did e'er the frighted ear of Nature wound,
Though rival clarions have been strain'd on high,
And kindled wars immortal through the sky;
Though God's whole enginery discharged, and all
The rebel angels bellow'd in their fall.
Have angels sinn'd? and shall not man beware?
How shall a son of earth decline the snare?
Not folded arms, and slackness of the mind,
Can promise for the safety of mankind.
None are supinely good; through care and pain,
And various arts, the steep ascent we gain.
This is the scene of combat, not of rest;
Man's is laborious happiness at best :
On this side death his dangers never cease;
His joys are joys of conquest, not of peace.
If then, obsequious to the will of Fate,
And bending to the terms of human state,
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