My eyes are open'd, and I see
Through the transparent fallacy :
Because we seem wisely to talk

Like men of business; and for business walk
From place to place,

And mighty voyages we take,

And mighty journeys seem to make,

O'er sea and land, the little point that has no space: Because we fight, and battles gain;

Some captives call, and say, " the rest are slain :"
Because we heap up yellow earth, and so

Rich, valiant, wise, and virtuous, seem to grow:
Because we draw a long nobility

From hieroglyphick proofs of heraldry,
And impudently talk of a posterity,
And, like Egyptian chroniclers,

Who write of twenty thousand years,
With maravedies make th' account,
That single time might to a sum amount:
We
grow at last by custom to believe,

That really we Live:

Whilst all these Shadows, that for Things we take, Are but the empty dreams which in Death's sleep we

make.

But these fantastick errors of our dream
Lead us to solid wrong;

We pray God our friends' torments to prolong,
And wish uncharitably for them

To be as long a-dying as Methusalem.

The ripen'd soul longs from his prison to come; But we would seal, and sow up, if we could, the womb:

We seek to close and plaister up by art

The cracks and breaches of th' extended shell,
And in that narrow cell

Would rudely force to dwell
The noble vigorous bird already wing'd to part.

THE

THIRTY-FOURTH CHAPTER

OF THE

PROPHET ISAIAH,

AWAKE, and with attention hear,
Thou drowsy World! for it concerns thee near;
Awake, I say, and listen well,

To what from God, I, his loud prophet, tell.
Bid both the poles suppress their stormy noise,
And bid the roaring sea contain its voice.
Be still, thou sea; be still, thou air and earth,
Still as old Chaos, before Motion's birth:
A dreadful host of judgments is gone out,
In strength and number more

The rotting corpse shall so infect the air,
Beget such plagues and putrid venoms there,
That by thine own dead shall be slain
All thy few living that remain.

As one who buys, surveys, a ground,
So the destroying-angel measures it around;
So careful and so strict he is,

Lest any nook or corner he should miss :
He walks about the perishing nation,
Ruin behind him stalks and empty Desolation.

Then shall the market and the pleading-place
Be chok'd with brambles and o'ergrown with grass:
The serpents through thy streets shall roll,
And in thy lower rooms the wolves shall howl,
And thy gilt chambers lodge the raven and the owl,
And all the wing'd ill-omens of the air,
Though no new ills can be foreboded there :
The lion then shall to the leopard say,

"Brother leopard, come away;

"Behold a land which God has given us in prey "Behold a land from whence we see

"Mankind expuls'd, his and our common enemy!" The brother leopard shakes himself, and does not stay.

The glutted vultures shall expect in vain
New armies to be slain;

Shall find at last the business done,

Leave their consumed quarters, and be gone:

Th' unburied ghosts shall sadly moan,
The satyrs laugh to hear them groan:
The evil spirits, that delight

To dance and revel in the mask of night,

The moon and stars, their sole spectators, shall af

fright:

And, if of lost mankind
Aught happen to be left behind;

If any relicks but remain;

They in the dens shall lurk, beasts in the palaces shall reign.

THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT.

Is this thy bravery, Man, is this thy pride?
Rebel to God, and slave to all beside!
Captiv'd by every thing! and only free

To fly from thine own liberty!

All creatures, the Creator said, were thine;
No creature but might since say, "Man is mine."
In black Egyptian slavery we lie;

And sweat and toil in the vile drudgery

Of tyrant Sin;

To which we trophies raise, and wear out all our breath

In building up the monuments of Death;

We, the choice race, to God and angels kin!

In vain the prophets and apostles come

To call us home,

Home to the promis'd Canaan above,

Which does with nourishing milk and pleasant honey flow;

And even i' th' way to which we should be fed

With angels' tasteful bread:

But we, alas! the flesh-pots love,

We love the very leeks and sordid roots below.

In vain we judgments feel, and wonders see!
In vain did God to descend hither deign;
He was his own ambassador in vain,
Our Moses and our guide himself to be!
We will not let ourselves to go,

And with worse harden'd hearts do our own Pharaohs grow.

Ah! lest at last we perish so,

Think, stubborn Man, think of th' Egyptian Prince (Hard of belief and will, but not so hard as thou); Think with what dreadful proofs God did convince The feeble arguments that human power could show;

Think what plagues attend on thee,

Who Moses' God dost now refuse, more oft than Moses he.

"If from some god you come" (said the proud

king

With half a smile and half a frown;