Like those of angels, short and far between:

Whilst the black demon, with his hell-scaped train, Admitted once into its better room,

Grew loud and mutinous, nor would be gone;

Lording it o'er the man; who now too late
Saw the rash error, which he could not mend:
An error fatal not to him alone,

But to his future sons, his fortune's heirs.
Inglorious bondage !-Human nature groans
Beneath a vassalage so vile and cruel,

And its vast body bleeds through every vein.

What havoc hast thou made, foul monster, Sin!
Greatest and first of ills.-The fruitful parent
Of woes of all dimensions!--but for thee
Sorrow had never been.-All-noxious thing,
Of vilest nature !-Other sorts of evils

Are kindly circumscribed, and have their bounds.
The fierce volcano, from his burning entrails,
That belches molten stone and globes of fire,
Involv'd in pitchy clouds of smoke and stench,
Mars the adjacent fields for some leagues round,
And there it stops.-The big-swoln inundation,
Of mischief more diffusive, raving loud,
Buries whole tracts of country, threatening more;
But that too has its shore it cannot pass.

More dreadful far than those! Sin has laid waste,
Not here and there a country, but a world:
Dispatching at a wide-extended blow

Entire mankind; and, for their sakes, defacing
A whole creation's beauty with rude hands;
Blasting the foodful grain, the loaded branches,
And marking all along its way with ruin,
Accursed thing!-Oh! where shall fancy find
A proper name to call thee by, expressive
Of all thy horrors?-Pregnant womb of ills!
Of temper so transcendently malign,
That toads and serpents, of most deadly kind,
Compared to thee, are harmless.-Sicknesses
Of every size and symptom, racking pains,
And bluest plagues are thine.-See, how the fiend
Profusely scatters the contagion round!

Whilst deep-mouth'd slaughter, bellowing at her heels,
Wades deep in blood new-spilt; yet for to-morrow
Shapes out new work of great uncommon daring,
And inly pines till the dread blow is struck.

But, hold! I've gone too far; too much discover'd My father's nakedness, and nature's shame. Here let me pause, and drop an honest tear, One burst of filial duty and condolence,

O'er all those ample deserts Death hath spread,

This chaos of mankind.-O great man-eater!
Whose every day is carnival, not sated yet!
Unheard-of Epicure! without a fellow!
The veriest gluttons do not always cram ;
Some intervals of abstinence are sought
To edge the appetite: thou seekest none.
Methinks the countless swarms thou hast devour'd,
And thousands that each hour thou gobblest up,
This, less than this, might gorge thee to the full.
But, ah! rapacious still, thou gap'st for more:
Like one, whole days defrauded of his meals,
On whom lank Hunger lays her skinny hand,
And whets to keenest eagerness his cravings.
As if diseases, massacres, and poison,
Famine, and war, were not thy caterers.

But know, that thou must render up thy dead, And with high interest too. They are not thine, But only in thy keeping for a season,

Till the great promised day of restitution;
When loud diffusive sound from brazen trump
Of strong-lung'd cherub, shall alarm thy captives,
And rouse the long, long sleepers, into life,
Day-light, and liberty.-

Then must thy doors fly open, and reveal

The mines, that lay forming under ground,

In their dark cells immured; but now full ripe,
And pure as silver from the crucible,

That twice has stood the torture of the fire,

And inquisition of the forge-We know
Th' illustrious Deliverer of mankind,

The Son of GOD, thee foil'd.-Him in thy power
Thou could'st not hold :-self-vigorous he rose,
And, shaking off thy fetters, soon retook
Those spoils his voluntary yielding lent:
(Sure pledge of our releasement from thy thrall!)
Twice twenty days he sojourn'd here on earth,
And shew'd himself alive to chosen witnesses,
By proofs so strong, that the most slow-assenting
Had not a scruple left.-This having done,

He mounted up to Heav'n. Methinks I see him Climb the aërial heights, and glide along

Athwart the severing clouds: but the faint eye,
Flung backwards in the chase, soon drops its hold;
Disabled quite, and jaded with pursuing.

Heaven's portals wide expand to let him in!
Nor are his friends shut out: as a great prince
Not for himself alone procures admission,

But for his train. It was his royal will,

-

That where he is, there should his followers be; Death only lies between.-A gloomy path!

Made yet more gloomy by our coward fears:

But not untrod, nor tedious: the fatigue

Will soon go off.-Besides, there's no bye-road
To bliss.-Then, why, like ill-condition'd children,
Start we at transient hardships in the way
That leads to purer air, and softer skies,
And a ne'er-setting sun?-Fools that we are!
We wish to be, where sweets unwithering bloom;
But straight our wish revoke, and will not go.
So have I seen upon a summer's even,
Fast by the rivulet's brink, a youngster play,
How wishfully he looks to stem the tide!
This moment resolute, next unresolv’d:
At last he dips his foot; but as he dips,
His fears redouble, and he runs away
From th' inoffensive stream, unmindful now
Of all the flowers that paint the further bank,
And smiled so sweet of late.-Thrice welcome Death!
That after many a painful bleeding step

Conducts us to our home, and lands us safe

On the long wish'd-for

change;

Our bane turn'd to a blessing!-Death disarm'd,
Loses its fellness quite.-All thanks to Him
Who scourged the venom out.-Sure the last end
Of the good man is peace!-How calm his exit !
Night-dews fall not more gently to the ground,
Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft.