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Lo! from afar the promis'd day
Shines with a well-distinguish'd ray :
But my wing'd passion hardly bears
These lengths of slow delaying years.

Send down a chariot from above,
With fiery wheels, and pav'd with love;
Raise me beyond the' ethereal blue,
To sing and love as angels do.

LOOKING UPWARD.

THE heavens invite mine eye,
The stars salute me round;
Father, I blush, I mourn to lie
Thus grovelling on the ground.

My warmer spirits move,
And make attempts to fly;
I wish aloud for wings of love
To raise me swift and high;

Beyond those crystal vaults,

And all their sparkling balls;

They're but the porches to thy courts, And paintings on thy walls.

Vain world, farewell to you;
Heaven is my native air:
I bid my friends a short adieu,
Impatient to be there.

I feel my powers releas'd

From their old fleshy clod;

Fair guardian, bear me up in haste,

And set me near my God.

CHRIST DYING, RISING, AND REIGNING.

HE dies! the heavenly lover dies!
The tidings strike a doleful sound
On my poor heart-strings: deep he lies
In the cold caverns of the ground.

Come, saints, and drop a tear or two
On the dear bosom of your God,
He shed a thousand drops for you,

A thousand drops of richer blood.

Here's love and grief beyond degree,
The Lord of Glory dies for men!
But lo, what sudden joys I see!
Jesus, the dead revives again.

The rising God forsakes the tomb,
Up to his Father's court he flies;
Cherubic legions guard him home,

And shout him welcome to the skies.

Break off your tears, ye saints, and tell
How high our Great Deliverer reigns,
Sing how he spoil'd the hosts of hell,

And led the monster Death in chains.

Say, live for ever, wondrous King!

Born to redeem, and strong to save! Then ask the monster, Where's his sting? And where's thy victory, boasting Grave?

THE GOD OF THUNDER.

O THE immense, the' amazing height,
The boundless grandeur of our God,
Who treads the worlds beneath his feet,
And sways the nations with his nod!

He speaks and lo, all nature shakes,
Heaven's everlasting pillars bow;

He rends the clouds with hideous cracks,
And shoots his fiery arrows through.

Well, let the nations start and fly

At the blue lightning's horrid glare, Atheists and emperors shrink and die, When flame and noise torment the air.

Let noise and flame confound the skies,
And drown the spacious realms below,
Yet will we sing the Thunderer's praise,
And send our loud hosannas through.

Celestial king, thy blazing power
Kindles our hearts to flaming joys,
We shout to hear thy thunders roar,
And echo to our Father's voice.

Thus shall the God our Saviour come,
And lightnings round his chariot play ;
Ye lightnings, fly to make him room,
Ye glorious storms, prepare his way.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.

AN ODE.

ATTEMPTED IN ENGLISH SAPPHICS.

WHEN the fierce north-wind with his airy forces
Rears up the Baltic to a foaming fury;

And the red lightning with a storm of hail comes
Rushing amain down.

How the poor sailors stand amaz'd and tremble! While the hoarse thunder, like a bloody trumpet, Roars a loud onset to the gaping waters

Quick to devour them.

Such shall the noise be, and the wild disorder,
(If things eternal may be like those earthly)
Such the dire terror when the great Archangel
Shakes the creation:

Tears the strong pillars of the vault of Heaven,
Breaks up old marble, the repose of princes;
See the graves open, and the bones arising,

Flames all around 'em.

Hark, the shrill outcries of the guilty wretches! Lively bright horror, and amazing anguish, [lies Stare through their eye-lids, while the living worm Gnawing within them.

Thoughts, like old vultures, prey upon their heart

strings,

And the smart twinges, when the eye beholds the Lofty Judge frowning, and a flood of vengeance Rolling afore him.

Hopeless immortals! how they scream and shiver While devils push them to the pit wide-yawning; Hideous and gloomy, to receive them headlong Down to the centre.

Stop here, my fancy: (all away, ye horrid
Doleful ideas,) come, arise to Jesus,

How he sits God-like? and the saints around him

0

Thron'd, yet adoring!

may I sit there when he comes triumphant, Dooming the nations! then ascend to glory, While our hosannas all along the passage

Shout the Redeemer.

THE SONG OF ANGELS ABOVE.

EARTH has detain'd me prisoner long,

And I'm grown weary now:

My heart, my hand, my ear, my tongue,
There's nothing here for you.

Tir'd in my thoughts I stretch me down,
And upward glance mine eyes;

Upward, my Father, to thy throne,
And to my native skies.

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