Of gratulation and delight her king?
Pours fhe not all her choiceft fruits abroad,
Her sweetest flowers, her aromatic gums,
Difclofing paradife wherever he treads?
She quakes at his approach. Her hollow womb,
Conceiving thunders, through a thousand deeps
And fiery caverns roars beneath his foot.
The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke,
For he has touched them. From the extremeft point
Of elevation down into the abyss
His wrath is bufy, and his frown is felt.
The rocks fall headlong, and the vallies rise,
The rivers die into offenfive pools,
And, charged with putrid verdure, breathe a grofs
And mortal nuisance into all the air.
What folid was, by transformation strange,
Grows fluid; and the fixt and rooted earth,
Tormented into billows, heaves and fwells,
Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl
Sucks down its prey infatiable. Immense
The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs
And agonies of human and of brute
Multitudes, fugitive on every fide,
And fugitive in vain. The sylvan scene
Migrates uplifted; and, with all its foil
Alighting in far diftant fields, finds out
A new poffeffor, and furvives the change.
Ocean has caught the frenzy, and, upwrought
To an enormous and overbearing height,
Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice,
Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore
Refiftlefs. Never fuch a sudden flood,
Upridged fo high, and sent on such a charge,
Poffeffed an inland fcene. Where now the throng,
That preffed the beach, and, hafty to depart,
Looked to the fea for fafety? They are gone,
Gone with the refluent wave into the deep-
A prince with half his people! Ancient towers,
And roofs embattled high, the gloomy fcenes,
Where beauty oft and lettered worth consume
Life in the unproductive shades of death,
Fall prone: the pale inhabitants come forth,
And, happy in their unforeseen release
From all the rigours of reftraint, enjoy
The terrors of the day, that sets them free.
Who then that has thee, would not hold thee fast,
Freedom! whom they that lose thee fo regret,
That even a judgment, making way for thee,
Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy fake.
Such evil fin hath wrought; and fuch a flame Kindled in heaven, that it burns down to earth,
And in the furious inqueft, that it makes
On God's behalf, lays wafte his faireft works.
The very elements, though each be meant
The minifter of man, to ferve his wants,
Confpire against him. With his breath he draws
A plague into his blood; and cannot use
Life's neceffary means, but he must die.
Storms rife to overwhelm him: or, if stormy winds
Rife not, the waters of the deep shall rife,
And, needing none affiftance of the ftorm,
Shall roll themselves afhore, and reach him there.
The earth shall shake him out of all his holds,
Or make his houfe his grave: nor fo content,
Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood,
And drown him in her dry and dufty gulphs.
What then!-were they the wicked above all,
And we the righteous, whofe faft anchored ifle
Moved not, while their's was rocked, like a light skiff,
The fport of every wave? No: none are clear,
And none than we more guilty. But, where all
Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the fhafts
Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose his mark:
May punish, if he please, the lefs, to warn
The more, mal gnant. If he fpared not them,
Tremble and be amazed at thine escape,
Far guiltier England, left he spare not thee!
Happy the man, who fees a God employed
In all the good and ill, that checquer lite!
Refolving all events, with their effects
And manifold refults, into the will
And arbitration wife of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The least of our concerns (fince from the leaft
The greateft oft originate); could chance
Find place in his dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan;
Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The smooth and equal courfe of his affairs.
This truth philofophy, though eagle-eyed
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks;
And, having found his inftrument, forgets,
Or difregards, or, more prefumptuous ftill,
Denies the power, that wields it. God proclaims
His hot difpleasure against foolish men,
That live an atheift life: involves the heaven
In tempefts: quits his grafp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury; bids a plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,
And putrify the breath of blooming health.
He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his fhrivelled lips,
And taints the golden ear.
And defolates a nation at a blaft.
Forth fteps the fpruce philofopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and difcordant springs
And principles; of caufes, how they work
By neceffary laws their fure effects;
Of action and re-action. He has found
The fource of the disease, that nature feels,
And bids the world take heart and banish fear.
Thou fool! will thy discovery of the cause
Sufpend the effect, or heal it? Has not God
Still wrought by means fince firft he made the world?
And did he not of old employ his means
To drown it? What is his creation lefs
Than a capacious refervoir of means
Formed for his ufe, and ready at his will?
Go, dress thine eyes with eye-falve; afk of him,
Or afk of whomfoever he has taught;
And learn, though late, the genuine caufe of all.
England, with all thy faults, I love thee ftillMy country! and, while yet a nook is left, Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime Be fickle, and thy year moft part deformed
With dripping rains, or withered by a froft,
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