tims are. Since, wicked men's more guilty blood to spare, So will they fall, so will they flce, Nature and Time shall both be slain, [we With such deep sense by God's own hand were writ (Whose eloquence, though we understand not, we admire) Shall crackle, and the parts together shrink [lend; Th' exhausted Sun to th' Moon no more shall With such a violent storm as blows down tree and all. And thou, O cursed land! Which wilt not see the precipice where thou dost stand (Though thou stand'st just upon the brink) Thou of this poison'd bowl the bitter dregs shalt Thy rivers and thy lakes shall so [drink. That by thine own dead shall be slain As one who buys, surveys, a ground, To call us home, Home to the promis'd Canaan above, [honey flow; And with worse harden'd hearts do our own Pharaohs grow. Ah! lest at last we perish so, [prince Think, stubborn man, think of th' Egyptian (Hard of belief and will, but not so hard as thou); Think with what dreadful proofs God did convince The fccble arguments that human power could show; Think what plagues attend on thee, The kind instructing punishment enjoy; Who Moses' God does now refuse, more oft than Whom the red river cannot mend, the Red-sea Moses he. "If from some god you come," (said the proud With half a smile and half a frown; king But what god can to Egypt be unknown?) shall destroy. The river yet gave one instruction more; A loathsome host was quickly made, "What sign, what powers, what credence do you That scal'd the banks, and with loud noise did bring?" "Behold his seal! behold his hand !" Cries Moses, and casts down th' all-mighty wand. Th' all-mighty wand scarce touch'd the earth, When, with an undiscerned birth, Th' all-mighty wand a serpent grew, And his long half in painted folds behind him drew: Upwards his threatening tail he threw; He gap'd and hiss'd aloud, With flaming eyes survey'd the trembling crowd, And, like basilisk, almost look'd th' assembly dead; Swift fled th' amazed king, the guards before him fled. Jarnes and Jambres stopp'd their flight, And with proud words allay'd th' affright. "The God of slaves," said they, "how can he be More powerful than their master's deity?" And down they cast their rods, And mutter'd secret sounds that charm the servile gods. The evil spirits their charms obey, And in a subtle cloud they snatch the rods away, And serpents in their place the airy jugglers lay. Serpents in Egypt's monstrous land Were ready still at hand, And all at the Old Serpent's first command. On the fam❜d bank the prophets stood, Touch'd with their rod, and wounded, all the flood: Flood now no more, but a long vein of putrid The helpless fish were found [blood. In their strange current drown'd: The herbs and trees wash'd by the mortal tide About it blush'd and dy'd: Th' amazed crocodiles made haste to ground; From their vast trunks the dropping gore they spied, Thought it their own, and dreadfully aloud they cried. Nor all thy priests, north no, O king! could'st ever show all the country invade. As Nilus when he quits his sacred bed With welcome presents in his hand) Nor Pharaoh, nor his gods, they fear; But both were to no use; [cuse. As yet the sorcerers' mimic power serv'd for exTry what the earth will do," said God, and lo! They strook the earth a fertile blow, And all the dust did straight to stir begin; [find And every dust did an arm'd vermin prove, Not Pharaoh from th' unquiet plague could be, This was God's hand; and 'twas but just, To punish thus man's pride, to punish dust with dust. Lo! the third element does his plagues prepare, And different arms they bore; The country all around From whence thy wandering Nile begins his Did with the cries of tortur'd cattle sound; Course Of this new Nile thou seest the sacred source; And, as thy land that does o'erflow, Take heed lest this do so! What plague more just could on thy waters fall? The Hebrew infants' murder stains them all: About the fields enrag'd they flew, And wish'd the plague that was t' ensue. From poisonous stars a mortal influence came (The mingled malice of their flame); A skilful angel did th' ingredients take, And with just hands the sad composure make, And over all the land did the full vial shake. Sink, and prevent the lifted blow: The generous horse from the full manger turns Does his lov'd floods and pastures scorn, With the once-ravishing smell of all his dappled The starving sheep refuse to feed, Thus did the beasts for man's rebellion die; Which no Egyptian rituals tell: As gentle western blasts with downy wings, [way: To th' unborn buds with vital whispers say, Swelling pains and ulcers grew : It from the body call'd all sleeping poisons out, A noisome spring of sores, as thick as leaves, Heaven itself is angry next; (Woe to man, when Heaven is vext!) And murmur'd first in an imperfect sound: Waves the expected signal of his wand; rons move, And fill the spacious plains above; One would have thought, their dreadful day to have seen, The very hail, and rain itself, had kindled The infant corn, which yet did scarce appear, Of every thing that grew, And the well-stor'd Egyptian year Gave with large bounty to the thankful soil, Till Moses with a prayer Breath'd forth a violent western wind, Into the purple sea, and there bestow What blindness or what darkness did there e'er What, e'er, but that which now does represent Through secret conduits monstrous shapes arose, All Heaven's eclipsed face did shroud; Seem'd, with large wings spread o'er the sea and earth, To brood up a new Chaos's deformed birth. The living men were in their standing houses bu- Through which the rolling thunder first does And ghosts complain'd, and spirits murmured; play, And opens wide the tempest's noisy way. And straight a stony shower Of monstrous hail does downwards pour, Nor ask'd aid from the thunder's stroke; the ground, Some swimming o'er the water's face, And Fancy's multiplying sight Of God's dreadful anger these The golden heaven without allay Whose dross, in the creation purg'd away, [arose, Made up the Sun's adulterate ray- And with his winged will cuts through the yielding sky. He pass'd through many a star, and, as he past, Shone (like a star in them) more brightly there Than they did in their sphere. [last, On a tall pyramid's pointed head he stopp'd at And a mild look of sacred pity cast Down on the sinful land where he was sent, Tinflict the tardy punishment. "Ah! yet," said he, "yet, stubborn king! repent, Who would, alas! believe, "So hard to be forgiven should be, And yet for God so easy to forgive!" He spoke, and downwards fiew, And o'er his shining form a well-cut cloud he Made of the blackest fleece of Night, [threw, And close-wrought to keep in the powerful light, Yet wrought so fine it hinder'd not his flight; But through the key-holes and the chinks of doors, And through the narrow'st walks of crooked pores, He past more swift and free, Than in wide air the wanton swallows flee. He took a pointed pestilence in his hand; The spirits of thousand mortal poisons made The strongly-temper'd blade, [land. The sharpest sword that e'er was laid Up in the magazines of God to scourge a wicked Through Egypt's wicked land his march he took, And as be march'd the sacred first-born strook Of every womb; none did he spare, Is but like fire struck out of stone; So hardly got, and quickly gone, That it scarce out-lives the blow. Sorrow and fear soon quit the tyrant's breast; Rage and revenge their place possess'd; With a vast host of chariots and of horse, And all his powerful kingdom's ready force, The travelling nation he pursues; [news. Ten times o'ercome, he still th' unequal war reFill'd with proud hopes, "At least," said he, "Th' Egyptian gods, from Syrian magic free, Will now revenge themselves and me; Behold what passless rocks on either hand, Like prison-walls, about them stand, Whilst the sea bounds their flight before! And in our injur'd justice they must find A far worse stop than rocks and seas behind; Which shall with crimson gore New paint the water's name, and double dye the shore." Unloose their close embraces, and divide; (Though just before no space was seen) To let th' admired triumph pass between. None, from the meanest beast to Cenchre's pur- The wondering army saw on either hand ple heir. The swift approach of endless night Breaks ope the wounded sleepers' rolling eyes; They awake the rest with dying cries, And darkness doubles the affright; The mixed sounds of scatter'd deaths they hear, And lose their parted souls 'twixt grief and fear. Louder than all the shrieking women's voice Pierces this chaos of confused noise; As brighter lightning cuts a way Clear and distinguish'd through the day: With less complaints the Zoan temples sound, When the adored heifer 's drown'd, And no true-mark'd successor to be found. Whilst health and strength, and gladness, does [possess The festal Hebrew cottages; The blest destroyer comes not there, To interrupt the sacred cheer That new begins their well-reformed year: Upon their doors he read and understood, God's protection, writ in blood; Well was he skill'd i' th' character Divine; And, though he pass'd by it in haste, He bow'd and worship'd, as he past, The mighty mystery through its humble sign, The sword strikes now too deep and near, Longer with its edge to play; No diligence or cost they spare To haste the Hebrews now away, Pharaoh himself chides their delay; So kind and bountiful is fear! But, oh! the bounty which to fear we owe, The no-less-wondering waves like rocks of crystal stand: They march'd betwixt, and boldly trod The secret paths of God. And here and there all scatter'd in their way The Sun did with astonishment behold By his own priests, the poets, has been said, The upper waves, that highest crowded lie, Straight their first right-hand files begin to move, Give the word "March" to all behind. As several troops do all at once a common signal take. What tongue th' amazement and th'affright can tell Which on the Chamian army fell, The proposition. The invocation. The entrance into the history from a new agreement betwixt Saul and David. A description of Hell. The Devil's speech Envy's reply to him. Her appearing to Saul in the shape of Benjamin. Her speech, and Saul's to himself after she was vanished. A description of Heaven. God's speech: he sends an Angel to David: the Angel's message to him. David sent for, to play before Saul. A digression concerning music. David's psalm. Saul attempts to kill him. His escape to his own house, from whence being pursued by the king's guard, by the artifice of his wife Michal he escapes and flies to Naioth, the prophets' college at Ramah. Saul's speech, and rage at his escape. A long digression describing the prophets' college, and their manner of life there, and the ordinary subjects of their poetry. Saul's guards pursue David thither, and prophesy. Saul among the prophets. He is compared to Balaam, whose song concludes the book. I SING the man who Judah's sceptre bore All home-bred malice, and all foreign boasts; Their strength was armies, his the Lord of Hosts. Thou, who didst David's royal stem adorn, And gav'st him birth from whom thyself wast born; Who didst in triumph at Death's court appear, And slew'st him with thy nails, thy cross, and (Where hallow'd flames help to adorn that head In these untrodden paths to sacred fame! I consecrate my Magdalene to thee! The malice now of jealous Saul grew less, |