The length'ning fhadows of the fetting fun,
And fainting beams of its declining light,
Declare how near my day of life is done;
And all things call to bid the world good night.

I know my days on earth are numb'red all,
The end is certain fixt in heaven's decree;
Lord make me ready to receive thy call,
When, where, and howfoever it shall be.

Jehovah; or, an Antidote against Melancholy.

WHENCE thefe complaints, my penfive heart,
Why thus indulge despair?
Confide to God thy better part,
'Tis his peculiar care.

Oft'times when reason represents
Ill objects in her glass,
The great Director of events,
Brings happier things to pass.

Fear, when indulg'd, 's a dang'rous guest,

That plays upon the mind;

Fear will unreal ftorms fuggeft

From ev'ry puff of wind.

The

The deepest forefight can't define

Of

What will the iffue be,

any act-till rip'ning time

Discovers God's decree.

Who could have entertain❜d a thought,
That ought could intervene,
Between the knife and Isaac's throat,
To change the bloody scene.

But lo! from heav'n an angel cries,
Hold, hold, the ftroke forbear,

I'll have another facrifice,

Preferve my church's heir!

Jacob, when by his mother fent,

To fhun his brother's hate,

Unto his uncle Laban went,
And liv'd in poor eftate.

Various the toil he fuffer'd then,
Till by diftrefs o'er born,

He wish'd to fee his fire again,
And to his love return.

With conscious apprehenfion fill'd
The gloomy scene he form'd,

How with contempt he'd be beheld,

Defpis'd, rejected, fcorn'd!

How

How sweetly were his thoughts deceiv'd,
When he arrived there,

And found himself with joy receiv'd,
By all he valu'd dear.

Thus ftill it is in misʼry's load,
Or fabricated grief;

Let us but place our trust in God,
And he will bring relief.

I

A Poem on Life, Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.

Sing the certain fate of human kind,
In now-existing worlds, and worlds design'd.
Creator God! all nature's fource and end,
Great first and laft, to whom all beings tend!
Who doft the fecret thoughts of man regard,
The guilty punish, and the just reward;
Affift my feeble Mufe, in heav'nly ftrains,
To fing the prefent now, and what remains;
To tell a careless world the doom decreed,
And drowsy finners roufe to life indeed.

Mortals attend! your time flides swiftly on, Be doing now, or foon you'll be undone : Time is a space for work to man affign'd, And life is time and work together join'd;

Of

Of careless fluggard fouls is justly said,
They dying live, they live among the dead.

Behold the world, its various beings scan,
All things are working hard, all work for man:
For man, the glorious fun pours out the day;
For man, the filver moon reflects his ray;
For man, the burning ftars and planets bright,
Diffuse their influence and expand their light;
For man, the cedar climbs to heights profound;
For man, the humble bramble clips the ground;
For man, fwift beafts advance, flow reptiles creep,
Birds mount the air, and fifhes plunge the deep.
The active orbs, in various orbits hurl'd,

Skim the huge void, and form a glorious world :
That glorious world, with various creatures ftor'd,
Of all those various creatures, man the lord:
To godlike man the fov'reign rule is givent,
And Jefus, Lord on earth, is Lord in heav'n.

* Awake thou that fleepest, and are from the dead. Ephef. v. 14.She that lives in pleasure is dead while fhe lives. 1 Tim. v. 6.

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the fon of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour thou madeft him to have dominion

VOL. I.

D

over

But fay, this glorious world for man was made, That all obey-Is none to be obey'd?

Rafh thought, indeed! unworthy of the God,
Who made the world obfequious to his nod:
Obedience is his due who gives the sway,
Man placed on high, the highest must obey;
Or ardent in his service spend his breath,

Or tread the downward road to endless death.
Who fondly boafts of life, his work to do,
Has only frail mortality in view;

And what's the state he gives that pompous name?
A noon-tide shadow, and a midnight dream;
A blazing meteor, fhining in the skies,

But lighted now, and now it drops and dies;
Thus fhort, thus fwift, is boafted human age!
Thus foon weak mortals quit this mortal stage;
Exulting now, anon all comforts fled,

Alive but now, now number'd with the dead.

over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. Psalm viii. 4, 5, 6.—But we see not yet all things put under him; but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour. Heb. ii. 8, 9. Against this doctrine Mr. Pope objects:

"But errs not nature from this gracious end,
"From burning funs, when livid deaths descend.”

Man