Classic Poem

A LITTLE longer suffer me, while I
Proceed in this Divine Apology,
And from a far remov'd Original
His judgments vindicate Who made us all.
No fucus, nor vain supplement of art,
Shall falsify the language of my heart.
He Who is perfect, and abhors untruth,
With heav'nly influence inspires my youth.
For the Omnipotent is only wise:
Nor will the Great in Pow'r the weak despise,
His hands the poor from violence defend,
While sin-defiled souls to hell descend;
Beholds the just, with eyes that ever wake,
With princes rank'd, whose thrones no tempests shake.
Or if their vices cast them to the ground,
If in the fetters of affliction bound,
He to their trembling consciences displays
Their former lives, and errors of their ways.
Then opens wide the porches of their ears,
And their long veiled eyes from darkness clears:
That they themselves may see, instructions hear,
Return from sin, and their Creator fear.
They shall their happy days in pleasure spend,
And full of years in peace their progress end.
But if they disobey, the sword shall shed
Their guilty blood, and mix them with the dead.
For the deluder hastens his own fall,
Nor will in trouble on the Almighty call;
Who on the beds of sin supinely lie,
They in the summer of their age shall die.
God will the penitent to grace restore,
Taught by affliction to offend no more.
So from these fearful straits would thee have led,
Enlarg'd thy passage, and with marrow fed:
But thou, through wicked counsels, hast rebell'd,
And therefore justly by His judgments held.
O fear His wrath! Shouldst thou be swept away,
Not mines of treasure could thy ransom pay.
Cares He for wealth? Though gold on earth command,
No gold, or force, can free thee from His hand.
Let not thy desp'rate soul desire that night,
Which from the living takes the last of light,
Nor by the guide of sorrow blindly err,
And death before due chastisements prefer.
Lo! He His truth exalts: Who so complete
As He in pow'r! Whose knowledge is so great!
Who can to Him prescribe a path, or say,
" Thy judgments from the track of justice stray?
O rather praise the works His Hands have wrought,
By all beheld, with admiration fraught.
His glory but in part to man appears;
Who knows Him, or the number of His years?
He the congealed vapours melts again,
Extenuated into drops of rain;
Which on the thirsty earth in show'rs distill,
And all that life possess with plenty fill.
Who can th' extension of His clouds explore,
Or tell how they in their collisions roar,
Gilt with the flashes of their horrid light,
Yet darken all below with their own night?
Judgment and bounty each from hence proceeds;
With these His creatures punisheth and feeds;
With these the beauty of the day immures,
And all the ornaments of heav'n obscures;
Forthwith aerial tumults wound the ear,
Whose heat and cold the clouds asunder tear. "