O day of confummation! mark fupreme
(If men are wife) of human thought! nor least,
Or in the fight of angels, or their KING!
Angels, whofe radiant circles, height o'er height,
Order o'er order rifing, blaze o'er blaze,
As in a theatre, furround this fcene,
Intent on man, and anxious for his fate.

Angels look out for thee; for thee, their LORD,
To vindicate his glory; and for thee,

Creation univerfal calls aloud,

To difinvolve the moral world, and give
To Nature's renovation brighter charms.

Shall man alone, whofe fate, whofe final fate,
Hangs on that hour, exclude it from his thought?
I think of nothing elfe; I fee! I feel it!
All Nature, like an earthquake, trembling round!
All deities like fummer fwarms, on wing!

All basking in the full meridian blaze!

1 fee the JUDGE enthron'd! the flaming guard!
The volume open'd! open'd ev'ry heart!
A fun-beam pointing out each secret thought!
No patron! interceffor none! Now paft
The fweet, the clement, mediatorial hour!
For guilt no plea! to pain no pause, no bound!
Inexorable all! and all, extreme!

Nor man alone; the foe of God and man,
From his dark den, blafpheming, drags his chain,
And rears his brazen front, with thunder scarr'd;
Receives his fentence, and begins his hell.
All vengeance past, now, feems abundant grace:
Like meteors in a stormy fky, how roll

His baleful eyes! He curfes whom he dreads
And deems it the firft moment of his fall.

s;

'Tis present to my thought!-and yet where is it? Angels can't tell me; angels cannot guess The period; from created beings lock'd In darkness. But the process, and the place, Are lefs obfcure; for thefe may man inquire. Say, thou great close of human hopes and fears!

Great key of hearts! great finisher of fates!

Great end! and great beginning! fay, where art thou? Art thou in time, or in eternity?

Nor in eternity, nor time, I find thee.

Thefe, as two monarchs, on their borders meet,
(Monarchs of all elaps'd, or unarriv'd ;)
As in debate, how best their pow'rs ally'd
May fwell the grandeur, or discharge the wrath,
Of HIM, whom both their monarchies obey.
Time, this vaft fabric for him built, (and doom'd
With him to fall), now bursting o'er his head;
His lamp, the fun, extinguifh'd; from beneath
The frown of hideous darkness, calls his fons
From their long flumber; from earth's heaving womb,
To fecond birth; contemporary throng!
Rous'd at one call, upstarting from one bed,
Prefs'd in one croud, appall'd with one amaze,
He turns them o'er, Eternity! to thee.
Then, (as a king depos'd difdains to live) >
He falls on his own scythe; nor falls alone;
His greatest foe falls with him; Time, and he
Who. murder'd all Time's offspring, Death, expire.
TIME was! ETERNITY now reigns alone!
Awful Eternity! offended queen!

And her refentment to mankind, how just!
With kind intent, foliciting accefs,

How often has the knock'd at human hearts.
Rich to repay their hofpitality,

How often call'd! and with the voice of GOD:
Yet bore repulfe, excluded as a cheat!

A dream! while fouleft foes found welcome there!
A dream, a cheat, now, all things but her smile.
For, lo! her twice ten thousand gates thrown wide,
As thrice from Indus to the frozen pole,
With banners, ftreaming as the comet's blaze,
And clarions, louder than the deep in storms,
Sonorous as immortal breath can blow,
Pour forth their myriads, potentates, and pow'rs,
Of light, of darknefs; in a middle field,

Wide as creation! populous, as wide!
A neutral region! there to mark th' event
Of that great drama, whofe preceding scenes.
Detain'd them clofe fpectators, thro' a length
Of ages, rip'ning to this grand refult;
Ages, as yet unnumber'd, but by GoD;
Who now, pronouncing fentence, vindicates
The rights of virtue, and his own renown.
ETERNITY, the various fentence past,
Affigns the fever'd throng diftinct abodes,
Sulphurious, or ambrofial. What enfues?
The deed predominant! The deed of deeds!
Which makes a hell of hell, a Heav'n of Heav'n.
The Goddess, with determin'd afpect, turns
Her adamantine key's enormous fize
Thro' Destiny's inextricable wards,
Deep-driving ev'ry bolt, on both their fates;
Then, from the chrystal battlements of Heav'n,
Down, down, fhe hurls it thro' the dark profound,
Ten thousand thoufand fathom; there to ruft,
And ne'er unlock her refolution more.
The deep refounds; and hell, thro' all her glooms,
Returns, in groans, the melancholy roar.

O how unlike the chorus of the fkies!

O how unlike those fhouts of joy, that fhake
The whole ethereal! How the concave rings !
Nor ftrange! when deities their voice exalt:
And louder far, than when Creation rofe,
To fee Creation's godlike aim, and end,
So well accomplish'd! fo divinely clos'd!
To fee the mighty Dramatist's last act,
(As meet) in glory rifing o'er the rest.
No fancy'd GoD; a GOD, indeed, defcends,
fo folve all knots; to ftrike the moral home;
To throw full day on darkest fcenes of time;
To clear, commend, exalt, and crown the whole.
Hence, in one peal of loud, eternal praife,
The charm'd fpectators thunder their applaufe;
And the vast void beyond, applaufe refounds.

WHAT THEN AM I?.

Amidft applauding worlds,

And worlds celeftial, is there found on earth,

A peevish, diffonant, rebellious ftring,

Which jars in the grand chorus, and complains?
Censure on thee, LORENZO! I fufpend,
And turn it on myself; how greatly due!
All, all is right, by GoD ordain'd or done.
And who, but GOD, refum'd the friends He gave?
And have I been complaining, then, fo long?
Complaining of His favours, pain, and death?
Who, without Pain's advice, would e'er be good?
Who, without Death, but would be good in vain?
Pain is to fave from pain; all punishment,
To make for peace; and death, to fave from death;
And fecond death, to guard immortal life;
To roufe the carelefs, the prefumptuous awe,
And turn the tide of fouls another way;
By the fame tendernefs divine ordain'd,
That planted Eden, and high-bloom'd for man.
A fairer Eden, endlefs, in the fkies.

Heav'n gives us friends to blefs the present fcene;
Refumes them, to prepare us for the next.
All evils natural are moral goods;

All difcipline, indulgence, on the whole.
None are unhappy; all have caufe to fiile,
But fuch as to themselves that caufe deny.
Our faults are at the bottom of our pains;.
Error, in act, or judgment, is the fource
Of endless fighs; we sin, or we mistake;
And Nature tax, when falfe Opinion ftings.
Let impious grief be banish'd joy indulg'd;
But chiefly then, when grief puts in her claim
Joy from the joyous, frequently betrays,
Oft lives in vanity, and dies in woe.
Joy, amidst ills, corroborates, exalts;
'Tis joy, and conqueft; joy and virtue too.
A noble fortitude in is, delights

Heav'n, earth, ourselves: 'tis duty, glory, peace,

Affliction is the good man's fhining scene;
Prosperity conceals his brightest ray;
As night to ftars, woe luftre gives to man.
Heroes in battle, pilots in the storm,
And virtue in calamities, admire.
The crown of manhood is a winter-joy;
An ever-green, that stands the northern blast,
And bloffoms in the rigor of our fate.

'Tis a prime part of happiness, to know
How much unhappiness must prove our lot;
A part which few poffefs! I'll
life's tax,

pay

Without one rebel murmer, from this hour,
Nor think it mifery to be a man ; :

Who thinks it is shall never be a god.'.
Some ills we wish for, when we wish to live.

What spoke proud Passion? *Wish my being le Prefumptuous! blafphemous! abfurd! and falfe! The triumph of my foul is that I am;

And therefore that I may be-What? LORENZO!
Look inward, and look deep; and deeper ftill;
Unfathomably deep our treasure runs

In golden veins, thro' all eternity!
Ages, and ages, and fucceeding ftill

New ages, where this phantom of an hour,

Which courts, each night, dull flumber for repair,
Shall wake, and wonder, and exult, and praife,
And fly thro' infinite, and all unlock;

And (if deferv'd) by Heav'n's redundant love, .
Made half-adorable itself, adore;

And find, in adoration, endlefs joy!

Where thou, not mafter of a moment here,
Frail as the flow'r, and fleeting as the gale,
May't boast a whole eternity, enrich'd
With all a kind omnipotence can pour.
Since ADAM fell, no mortal, uninfpir'd,.
Has ever yet conceiv'd or ever shall,

Refering to night first.