TO DR. YOUNG.

Now let the atheist tremble; thou alone
Can bid his conscious heart the Godhead own.
Whom shalt thou not reform? O thou hast seen,
How God descends to judge the souls of men.
Thou heard'st the sentence how the guilty mourn,
Driven out from God, and never must return.

Yet more, behold ten thousand thunders fall,
And sudden vengeance wrap the flaming ball:
When Nature sunk, when every bolt was hurl'd,
Thou saw'st the boundless ruins of the world.

When guilty Sodom felt the burning rain,
And sulphur fell on the devoted plain;
The patriarch thus, the fiery tempest past,
With pious horrour view'd the desert waste;
The restless smoke still wav'd its curls around,
For ever rising from the glowing ground.

But tell me, oh! what heavenly pleasure, tell,
To think so greatly, and describe so well!
How wast thou pleas'd the wondrous theme to try,
And find the thought of man could rise so high
Beyond this world the labour to pursue,
And open all ETERNITY to view!

But thou art best delighted to rehearse
Heaven's holy dictates in exalted verse:

O thou hast power the harden'd heart to warm,
To grieve, to raise, to terrify, to charm;
To fix the soul on God; to teach the mind
To know the dignity of human-kind;
By stricter rules well-govern'd life to scan,
And practise o'er the angel in the man.
Magd. Coll.
Oxon.

T. WARTON.

TO A LADY, WITH THE LAST DAY.
MADAM,

HERE, sacred truths, in lofty numbers told,
The prospect of a future state unfold:
The realms of night to mortal view display,
And the glad regions of eternal day.
This daring author scorns, by vulgar ways
Of guilty wit, to merit worthless praise.
Full of her glorious theme, his towering Muse,
With gen'rous zeal, a nobler fame pursues:
Religion's cause her ravish'd heart inspires,
And with a thousand bright ideas fires;
Transports her quick, impatient, piercing eye,
O'er the strait limits of mortality,

To boundless orbs, and bids her fearless soar,
Where only Milton gain'd renown before;

Where various scenes alternately excite
Amazement, pity, terrour, and delight.

Thus did the Muses sing in early times,
Ere skill'd to flatter Vice and varnish crimes:
Their lyres were tun'd to virtuous songs aloue,
And the chaste poet, and the priest, were one.
But now,
forgetful of their infant state,
They sooth the wanton pleasures of the great;
And from the press, and the licentious stage,
With luscious poison taint the thoughtless age;
Deceitful charms attract our wondering eyes,
And specious Ruin unsuspected lies.

So the rich soil of India's blooming shores,
Adorn'd with lavish Nature's choicest stores,
Where serpents lurk, by flowers conceal'd from sight,
Hides fatal danger under gay delight.

These purer thoughts from gross alloys refin'd,
With heavenly raptures elevate the mind:
Not fram'd to raise a giddy short-liv'd joy,
Whose false allurements, while they please, destroy;
But bliss resembling that of saints above,
Sprung from the vision of th' Almighty Love:
Firm, solid bliss, for ever great and new,
The more 't is known, the more admir'd, like you;
Like you, fair nymph, in whom united meet
Endearing sweetness, unaffected wit,
And all the glories of your sparkling race,
While inward virtues heighten every grace.
By these secur'd, you will with pleasure read
"Of future judgment, and the rising dead;
Of time's grand period, Heaven and Earth o'er.
thrown;

And gasping Nature's last tremendous groan."
These, when the stars and Sun shall be no more,
Shall beauty to your ravag'd form restore:
Then shall you shine with an immortal ray,
Improv'd by death, and brighten'd by decay.

TO THE AUTHOR,

T. TRISTAM.

ON HIS LAST DAY AND UNIVERSAL PASSION. AND must it be as thou hast sung, Celestial bard, seraphic Young? Will there no trace, no point be found, Of all this spacious glorious round? Yon lamps of light, must they decay? On Nature's self, Destruction prey? Then Fame, the most immortal thing E'en thou canst hope, is on the wing.

Shall Newton's system be admir'd,
When Time and Motion are expir'd?
Shall souls be curious to explore
Who rul'd an orb that is no more?
Or shall they quote the pictur'd age,
From Pope's and thy corrective page,
When Vice and Virtue lose their name
In deathless joy, or endless shame?
While wears away the grand machine,
The works of Genius shall be seen:
Beyond, what laurels can there be,
For Homer, Horace, Pope, or thee?

Through life we chase, with fond pursuit,
What mocks our hope, like Sodom's frut:
And sure, thy plan was well design'd,
To cure this madness of the mind;
First, beyond time our thoughts to raise;
Then lash our love of transient praise.
In both we own thy doctrine just;

And Fame's a breath, and men are dust.

1736.

J. BANCKS.

THE LAST DAY.

IN THREE BOOKS. Venit summa dies,—VIRG,

BOOK I

Ipse pater, media nimborum in nocte, corusca Fulmina molitur dextra. Quo maxima motu Terra tremit: fugêre feræ, et mortalia corda Per gentes humilis stravit pavor. VIRG.

1

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 antient 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,
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 our Eternal King I strive to praise.

But chiefly thou, great Ruler ! Lord of all! Before whose throne arch-angels prostrate fall; If at thy nod, from discord, and from night, Sprang beauty and yon sparkling worlds of light,

VOL. XILL

1 The duke of Marlborough,

Exalt e'en 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 unconfin'd,
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 stor'd, 'T were sin in Heathens not to have a lor'd.

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!) Bb

This hour, for aught all human wisdom knows,
Or when ten thousand harvests more have rose;
When scenes are chang'd 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 dissolv'd, or an extinguish'd Sun;
(Ye sublunary worlds, awake, awake!
Ye rulers of the nation, 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;
Th' extended circuit of creation shake,
The living die with fear, the dead awake.

Oh 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 discharg'd, 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,
When guilty joys invite us to their arms,
When beautysmiles, or grandeur spreads her charms,
The conscious soul would this great scene display,
Call down th' immortal hosts in dread array,
The trumpet sound, the Christian banner spread,
And raise from silent graves the trembling dead;
Such deep impression would the picture make,
No power on Earth her firm resolve could shake;
Engag'd with angels she would greatly stand,
And look regardless down on sea and land;
Not proffer'd worlds her ardour could restrain,
And Death might shake his threatening lance in vain!
Her certain conquest would endear the fight,
And danger serve but to exalt delight.

Instructed thus to shun the fatal spring,
Whence flows the terrours of that day I sing;
More boldly we our labours may pursue,
And all the dreadful image set to view.

The sparkling eye, the sleek and painted breast,
The burnish'd scale, curl'd train, and rising crest,
All that is lovely in the noxious snake,
Provokes our fear, and bids us flee the brake:
The sting once drawn, his guiltless beauties rise
In pleasing lustre, and detain our eyes;

We view with joy, what once did horrour move,
And strong aversion softens into love.

Say then, my Muse, whom dismal scenes delight,
Frequent at tombs, and in the realms of night;
Say, melancholy maid, if bold to dare
The last extremes of terrour and despair;
Oh say, what change on Earth, what heart in man,
This blackest moment since the world began.

Ah mournful turn! the blissful Earth, who late At leisure on her axle roll'd in state; While thousand golden planets knew no rest, Still onward in their circling journey prest; A grateful change of seasons some to bring, And sweet vicissitude of Fall and Spring: Some through vast oceans to conduct the keel, And some those watery worlds to sink or swell: Around her some their splendours to display, And gild her globe with tributary day: This world so great, of joy the bright abode, Heaven's darling child, and favourite of her God, Now looks an exile from her Father's care, Deliver'd o'er to darkness and despair. No Sun in radiant glory shines on high; No light, but from the terrours of the sky: Fall'n are her mountains, her fam'd rivers lost, And all into a second chaos tost: One universal ruin spreads abroad; Nothing is safe beneath the throne of God.

Such, Earth, thy fate: what then canst thou afford

To comfort and support thy guilty lord?
Man, haughty lord of all beneath the Moon,
How must be bend his soul's ambition down?
Prostrate, the reptile own, and disavow
His boasted stature, and assuming brow?
Claim kindred with the clay, and curse his form,
That speaks distinction from his sister worm?
What dreadful pangs the trembling heart invade!
Lord, why dost thou forsake whom thou hast made?
Who can sustain thy anger? Who can stand
Beneath the terrours of thy lifted hand?
It flies the reach of thought: Oh save me, Power
Of powers supreme, in that tremendous hour!
Thou who beneath the frown of Fate hast stood,
And in thy dreadful agony sweat blood;
Thou, who for me, through every throbbing vein,
Hast felt the keenest edge of mortal pain;
Whom Death led captive through the realms below,
And taught those horrid mysteries of woe;
Defend me, O my God! Oh save me, Power
Of

powers supreme, in that tremendous hour!
From east to west they fly, from pole to line,
Imploring shelter from the wrath divine;
Beg flames to wrap, or whelming seas to sweep,
Or rocks to yawn, compassionately deep:
Seas cast the monster forth to meet his doom,
And rocks but prison up for wrath to come.

So fares a traitor to an earthly crown;
While Death sits threatening in his prince's frown,
His heart's dismay'd; and now his fears command
To change his native for a distant land:
Swift orders fly, the king's severe decree
Stands in the channel, and locks up the sea;
The port he seeks, obedient to her lord,
Hurls back the rebel to his lifted sword.

But why this idle toil to paint that day?
This time elaborately thrown away?
Words all in vain pant after the distress,
The height of eloquence would make it less;
Heavens! how the good man trembles!—