'Tis not however infolence and noise,
The tempeft of tumultuary joys,
Nor is it yet defpondence and difiay,
Will win her vifits, or engage her stay;
Pray'r only, and the penitential tear,
Can call her fmiling down, and fix her here.
But when a country (one that I could name)
In prostitution finks the fenfe of fhame;
When infamous venality grown bold,
Writes on his bofom, to be let or fold;
When perjury, that heav'n defying vice,
Sells oaths by tale, and at the lowest price,
Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made,
To turn a penny in the way of trade;
When av'rice starves, and never hides his face,
Two or three millions of the human race,
And not a tongue enquires, how, where, or when,
Though confcience will have twinges now and then;
When profanation of the facred cause
In all its parts, times, miniftry and laws,
Befpeaks a land once chriftian, fall'n and loft
In all that wars against that title moft;
What follows next let cities of great name,.
And regions long fince defolate proclaim,
Nineveh, Babylon, and ancient Rome,
Speak to the present times and times to come;
They cry aloud in ev'ry careless ear,
Stop, while ye may, fufpend your mad career;
O learn from our example and our fate,
Learn wisdom and repentance ere too late.
Not only vice difpofes and prepares
The mind that flumbers fweetly in her fnares,
To stoop to tyranny's ufurp'd command,
And bend her polifh'd neck beneath his hand,
(A dire effect, by one of nature's laws
Unchangeably connected with its cause)
But providence himself will intervene
To throw his dark displeasure o'er the scene.
All are his inftruments; each form of war,
What burns at home, or threatens from afar ;
Nature in arms, her elements at ftrife,
The ftorms that overfet the joys of life,
Are but his rods to fcourge a guilty land,
And waste it at the bidding of his hand.
He gives the word, and mutiny soon roars
In all her gates, and shakes her diftant fhores;
The standards of all nations are unfurl'd,
She has one foe, and that one foe, the world.
And if he doom that people with a frown,
And mark them with the feal of wrath prefs'd down,
Obduracy takes place; callous and tough
The reprobated race grows judgment proof:
Earth fhakes beneath them, and heav'n roars above,
But nothing scares them from the course they love;
To the lafcivious pipe and wanton fong
That charm down fear, they frolic it along,
With mad rapidity and unconcern,
Down to the gulph from which is no return.
They trust in navies, and their navies fail,
God's curfe can caft away ten thousand fail;
They truft in armies, and their courage dies,
In wisdom, wealth, in fortune, and in lies
But all they truft in, withers, as it must,
When he commands, in whom they place no trust.
Vengeance at last pours down upon their coast,
A long defpis'd, but now victorious hoft;
Tyranny fends the chain that must abridge
The noble sweep of all their privilege,
Gives liberty the laft, the mortal fhock,
Slips the flave's collar on, and fnaps the lock.
A. Such lofty ftrains embellish what you teach,
Mean you to prophefy, or but to preach?
B. I know the mind that feels indeed the fire
The mufe imparts, and can command the lyre,
Acts with a force, and kindles with a zeal,
Whate'er the theme, that others never feel.
If human woes her foft attention claim,
Atender fympathy pervades the frame,
pours a fenfibility divine
Along the nerve of ev'ry feeling line.
But if a deed not tamely to be borne,
Fire indignation and a fenfe of fcorn,
The ftrings are swept with fuch a power, fo loud,
The ftorm of mufic fhakes th' aftonish'd crowd.
So when remote futurity is brought
Before the keen enquiry of her thought,
A terrible fagacity informs
The poet's heart, he looks to distant storms,
He hears the thunder ere the tempeft low'rs,
And arm'd with ftrength furpaffing human pow'rs,
Seizes events as yet unknown to man,
And darts his foul into the dawning plan.
Hence, in a Roman mouth, the graceful name
Of prophet and of poet was the fame,
Hence British poets too the priesthood shar'd,
And ev'ry hallow'd druid was a bard.
But no prophetic fires to me belong,
I play with fyllables, and sport in song.
A. At Westminster, where little To fet a diftich upon fix and five,
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