NOW let the @3Atheist@1 tremble; Thou alone Canst bid his conscious Heart the @3Godhead@1 own. Whom shalt Thou not reform? O thou hast seen, How God descends to judge the Souls of Men. Thou heard'st the Sentence how the Guilty mourn, Driv'n out from GOD, and never must return! Yet more, behold ten thousand Thunders fall, And sudden Vengeance wrap the flaming Ball: When Nature sunk, when ev'ry Bolt was hurl'd, Thou saw'st the boundless Ruins of the World. When guilty @3Sodom@1 felt the burning Rain, And Sulphur fell on the devoted Plain; The @3Patriarch@1 thus the fiery Tempest past, With pious Horror view'd the desert Waste; The restless Smoke still wav'd its Curls around, For ever rising from the glowing Ground. But tell me, Oh! what heav'nly Pleasure tell, To think so greatly, and describe so well! How wast 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'n's 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VASHTI by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON WITH CHAOS IN EACH KISS by TIMOTHY LIU HOMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTIUS: 9 by EZRA POUND FLEMING HELPHENSTINE by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON OCTAVES: 20 by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON |