Now let the atheist tremble; thou alone

Canst bid his conscious heart the Godhead own. Whom shalt thou not reform? O thou hast seen How God descends to judge the souls of men. Thou heardst the sentence how the guilty mourn, Driv'n out from God, and never to return.

Yet more, behold ten thousand thunders fall, And sudden vengeance wrap the flaming ball. When Nature sunk, when every bolt was hurl'd, Thou saw'st the boundless ruins of the world. When guilty Sodom felt the burning rain, And sulphur fell on the devoted plain, The Patriarch 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 heavenly pleasure, tell, To think so greatly, and describe so well!

How wast thou pleas'd the wondrous 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
Heaven's holy dictates in exalted verse.

O thou hast power the harden'd heart to warmı,
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.

HIERE sacred truths, in lofty numbers told,
The prospect of a future state unfold;
The realms of night to mortal view display,
And the glad regions of eternal day.
This daring Author scorns, by vulgar ways
Of guilty wit, to merit worthless praise.
Full of her glorious theme, bis towering Muse,
With generous zeal, a nobler fame pursues:
Religion's cause her ravish'd heart inspires,
And with a thousand bright ideas fires;
Transports her quick, impatient, piercing eye,
O'er the strait limits of mortality

To boundless orbs, and bids her fearless soar
Where only Milton gain'd renown before;
Where various scenes alternately excite
Amazement, pity, terror, and delight.

Thus did the Muses sing in early times,
Ere skill'd to flatter vice, and varnish crimes:

Their lyres were tun'd to virtuous songs alone,
And the chaste poet and the priest were one;
But now, forgetful of their infant state,

They sooth the wanton pleasures of the great;
And from the press, and the licentious stage,
With luscious poison taint the thoughtless age:
Deceitful charms attract our wandering eyes,
And specious ruin unsuspected lies.

So the rich soil of India's blooming shores,
Adorn'd with lavish Nature's choicest stores,
Where serpents lurk, by flowers conceal'd from
Hides fatal danger under gay delight.

[sight,
These purer thoughts from gross alloys refin'd,
With heavenly raptures elevate the mind:
Not fram'd to raise a giddy, short-liv'd joy,
Whose false allurements, while they please, destroy;
But bliss resembling that of saints above,
Sprung from the vision of the' Almighty Love :
Firm, solid bliss, for ever great and new,
The more 'tis known, the more admir'd, like you;
Like you, fair nymph! in whom united meet
Endearing sweetness, unaffected wit,

And all the glories of your sparkling race,
While inward virtues heighten every grace.
By these secur'd, you will with pleasure read
Of future judgment, and the rising dead; [thrown;
Of time's grand period, Heav'n and earth o'er-
And gasping Nature's last tremendous groan.
These, when the stars and sun shall be no more,
Shall beauty to your ravag'd form restore :
Then shall you shine with an immortal ray,
Improv'd by death, and brighten'd by decay.

Pemb. Col.

Oxon.

T. TRISTRAM.

TO THE AUTHOR,

ON HIS LAST DAY,' AND UNIVERSAL PASSION.'

AND must it be as thou hast sung,
Celestial bard, seraphic Young!

Will there no trace, no point be found
Of all this spacious, glorious round?
Yon lamps of light must they decay?
On Nature's self Destruction prey?
Then fame, the most immortal thing
Ev'n thou canst hope, is on the wing.
Shall Newton's system be admir'd
When time and motion are expir'd?
Shall souls be curious to explore
Who rul'd an orb that is no more?
Or shall they quote the pictur'd age,
From Pope's and thy corrective page,
When vice and virtue lose their name
In deathless joy or endless shame?
While wears away the grand machine,
The works of genius shall be seen:
Beyond, what laurels can there be
For Homer, Horace, Pope, or thee?
Through life we chase, with fond pursuit,
What mocks our hope, like Sodom's fruit;
And, sure, thy plan was well design'd
To cure this madness of the mind;
First beyond time our thoughts to raise,
Then lash our love of transient praise;
In both we own thy doctrine just,
And fame's a breath, and men are dust.

1736.

J. BANKS.

THE COMPLAINT.

PREFACE.

As the occasion of this Poem was real, not fictitious, so the method pursued in it was rather imposed, by what spontaneously arose in the Author's mind on that occasion, than meditated or designed; which will appear very probable from the nature of it; for it differs from the common mode of poetry, which is, from long narrations to draw short morals: here, on the contrary, the narrative is short, and the morality arising from it makes the bulk of the Poem. The reason of it is, that the facts mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of the writer.

NIGHT I.

CALITY.

ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY.

TO THE RIGHT HON. ARTHUR ONSLOW, ESQ.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

TIR'D Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays

Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes:
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

From short (as usual) and disturb'd repose
I wake: how happy they who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams

Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding thought
From wave to wave of fancied misery

At random drove, her helm of reason lost.