Verses to the Author

Now let the atheist tremble; thou alone Canst 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 heardst the sentence, how the guilty mourn, Driv'n out from GOD, and never to 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 sawst 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 horror view'd the desart 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 waft thou pleas'd the wond'rous 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 Heav'ns holy dictates in exalted verse; O thou hast pow'r 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.