Speak, mighty God! and bid the suppliant live, Let my charm'd ears but hear the word-Forgive; My muse shall spread the joyful tidings round, And to remotest worlds convey the sound; Whilst other sinners shall obedient prove, And taught by me shall wonder at thy love: No more their minds ignobler fires shall warm, But looser pleasures want a pow'r to charm: My firm resolve shall their example be, To place their trust in virtue and in Thee. By other hands let the mute herd be slain, And on a thousand altars smoke in vain; These tears my better advocates shall be, No poor atoning man shall die for me; My penitence shall act a nobler part, I bring a broken and a contrite heart: But O! if stricter justice must be done, And my relentless fate comes rolling on, I stand the mark, whatever is decreed, Be Israel safe, and let its monarch bleed: On me, on me thy utmost vengeance take, But spare my people for thy mercies' sake; O let Jerusalem to ages stand, Build thou her walls, and spread her wide com mand! So shall thy name for ever be ador'd, And future worlds like me shall bless the LORD. GRONGAR HILL. DYER. SILENT Nymph, with curious eye! Draw the landscape bright and strong; Sat upon the flow'ry bed, With my hand beneath my head; And stray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood, Over mead and over wood, From house to house, from hill to hill, Till contemplation had her fill. About his chequer'd sides I wind, And leave his brooks and meads behind, And groves and grottos where I lay, And vistoes shooting beams of day: Wider and wider spreads the vale'; As circles on a smooth canal: The mountains round, (unhappy fate, Sooner or later, of all height!) Withdraw their summits from the skies, And lessen as the others rise: Still the prospect wider spreads, Adds a thousand woods and meads; Still it widens, widens still, And sinks the newly-risen hill. Now I gain the mountain's brow, Old castles on the cliffs arise Below me trees unnumber'd rise, The gloomy pine, the poplar blue, Haunt of Phillis, queen of love! Lies a long and level lawn, On which a dark hill, steep and high, That cast an awful look below; 1 Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps, K So both a safety from the wind 'Tis now the raven's bleak abode; And see the rivers how they run A various journey to the deep, } |