She quakes at his approach. Her hollow womb Conceiving thunders, through a thousand deeps And fiery caverns roar beneath his foot.
The hills move lightly and the mountains smoke, For he has touch'd them. From th' extremeft
Of elevation down into th' 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 ev'ry fide,
And fugitive in vain. The fylvan 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 o'erbearing height,
Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice
Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore
Refiftlefs. Never fuch a fudden flood,
Upridged fo hig, and sent on fuch a charge,
Poffefs'd an inland fcene. Where now the throng
That prefs'd the beach, and hafty to depart
Look'd to the fea for fafety? They are gone,
Gone with the refluent wave into the deep,
A prince with half his people. Ancient tow'rs,
And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenes
Where beauty oft and letter'd worth confume
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 restraint, enjoy
The terrors of the day that fets them free.
Who then that has thee, would not hold thee
Freedom! whom they that lofe thee, fo regret,
That ev'n 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 muft die.
Storms rife t' o'erwhelm him: or if stormy winds
Rife not, the waters of the deep shall rise,
And needing none affiftance of the ftorm,
Shall roll themselves, afhore, and reach him
there.
The earth fhall shake him out of all his holds,
Or make his house 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, whose faft-anchor'd ifle
Moved not, while their's was rock'd like a light
skiff,
The sport of ev'ry 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 chufe his mark.
May punish, if he please, the less, to warn
The more malignant. If he fpar'd not them,
Tremble and be amazed at thine escape
Far guiltier England, left he fpare not thee.
Happy the man who fees a God employed
In all the good and ill that chequer life!
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 leaft of our concerns (fince from the least
The greatest oft originate) could chance
Find place in his dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan,
Then God might be furprized, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The fmooth and equal courfe of his affairs.
This truth, philosophy, though eagle-eyed
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks,
And having found his inftrument, forgets
Or difregards, or more presumptuous still
Denies the pow'r that wields it. God proclaims
His hot displeasure against foolish men
That live an atheist-life: involves the heav'n
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 fhrivell'd lips,
And taints the golden ear, He springs his mines,
And defolates a nation at a blast.
Forth steps the spruce philofopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and difcordant fprings
And principles; of caufes how they work
By neceffary laws their fure effects,
The fource of the disease that nature feels,
And bids the world take heart and banish fear. Thou fool! will thy difcov'ry of the cause Sufpend th' effect or heal it? Has not God Still wrought by means fince first 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
Form'd for his ufe, and ready at his will?
Go, dress thine eyes with eye-falve, ask of him,
Or afk of whomfoever he has taught,
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of
England, with all thy faults, I love thee ftill My country! and while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may
Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year, most part, deform'd,
I would not yet exchange thy fullen skies
And fields without a flower, for warmer France
With all her vines; nor for Aufonia's groves
Of golden fruitage and her myrtle bowers.
To shake thy fenate, and from heights fublime
Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire
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