My nodding Frame can scarce sustain'
The bitter Load I undergo;

Speechless I figh! the envious woe
Forbids the very Pleasure to complain;
Forbids my faltering Tongue to tell
What Pangs for thee I feel,

Lovely, unhappy Ifrael.
VI.

Yet tho' the Fig-tree fhou'd no Bloffoms bear,
Tho' Vines defeat the Promise of the Year;
Yet tho' the Olive fhou'd not yield her Oil,
And the parch'd Glebe delude the Farmer's Toil;
Tho' the tir'd Ox beneath his Labours fall;

And pining Herds fhou'd perish from the Stall;
Yet fhall my grateful Strings,

For ever praise thy Name,

For ever thee proclaim,

Thee Everlasting God, the mighty King of Kings

Part of the XXXVIIIth and XXXIXth Chapters of Job.

A PARAPHRASE.

T

By the fame Hand.

HEN from his bright Aëreal Abode,

[mighty rode, On Storms and Whirlwinds down th' AlAnd the loud Voice of Thunder spoke the God. He stretch'd his dark Pavilion o'er the Floods, Harness'd the Winds,and rein'd the dusky Clouds. Then from his awful Gloom the Godhead spoke And at his Voice affrighted Nature shook.

Vain Man! who boldly, with dim Reason's Ray Vies with his God, and rivals his full Day!

Bu

But tell me now, fay how this beauteous Frame
Of All things, from the Womb of Nothing came.
When Nature's Lord, by one Almighty Call,
From No where rais'd the World's Capacious Ball?
How the revolving Spheres amid the Sky
In Confort move, and sweetest Harmony?
Why the vast Tide fometimes with wanton Play
In foft Meander's gently glides away:
Anon, why fwelling with impetuous Stores
Comes rowling down, and tumbles to the Shores?
By thy Command does fair Aurora rise,

And gild with Purple Beams the blushing Skies?
The warbling Lark salutes her chearful Ray,
And welcomes with his Song the rifing Day
The rifing Day Ambrofial Dew diftils;

Th' Ambrofial Dew with balmy Odours fills

[fmiles.

The Flow'rs; the Flow'rs rejoice, and Nature

H 4

Why

Why awful Night begins her folemn Round,
With all the Majesty of Darkness crown'd.
Now bufie Nature lies diffus'd in Sleep,
Hufh'd is the Land, and lull'd the peaceful Deep;
No Air of Breath disturbs the drowzy Woods,
No Whispers murmur from the filent Floods:
The filver Moon sheds down a trembling Light,
And glads the melancholy Face of Night.
The Stars in order twinkle in the Skies,

And fall in filence, and in filence rise.
'Till thro' the Gates of Light the radiant Sun
Iffues, and leads the circling Minutes on;
His fiery Courfers bounding from the Main,
Hurry the Chariot thro' th' Ethereal Plain
The fiery Courfers and the Coach display
A ftream of Glory, and a flood of Day.
Did e'er thy Eye defcend into the Deep,
Or haft thou seen where infant Tempests sleep?

;

Was

Was e'er the Graye or Regions of the Night
Yet trod by thee, or open'd to thy fight?
Has Death disclos'd to thee her gloomy State,
The ghaftly Forms, the various Woes that wait
In terrible Array before her awful Gate?
Know'st thou where Darkness bears Eternal Sway,
Or where's the Source of everlasting Day?
Why Eurus fans the Eastern Regions, born
Upon the Courfers of the balmy Morn?

Say, why fometimes the gentle Evening Breeze
Sleeps on the Waves, or murmurs thro' the Trees;
Or why the Winds fometimes their Pinions try,
Whisk o'er the Plain, and battel in the Sky?
On ruddy Wings why forky Lightning flies,
And rowling Thunder grumbles in the Skies?
Know'st thou why Comets threaten in the Air,
Heralds of Woes, Destruction, and Defpair,
The Plague,the Sword,and all the Forms of War?

Say