Classic Poem

List, O my people, to the law,
Which grace and truth indulge,
And in your ears receive with awe
The doctrine I promulge.

I will in high mysterious verse
The parable unfold,
And to th' assembled tribes rehearse
Hard sentences of old.

Ev'n such as we ourselves have heard,
And in our mem'ries known,
Or which by filial love endear'd
Our aged sires have shown.

That we should not such truths conceal,
But hand directly down
To our posterity with zeal
God's wonders and renown.

With Jacob's race a league he struck,
A law for ev'ry tribe,
Which infants, when they ceas'd to suck,
Might from their sires imbibe:

That thence proceeding heir from heir,
Each other they might warn,
And a preservative prepare
For children yet unborn;

To this intent, that when they came
To their maturer growth,
Their issue might embrace the same
God's solemn league and oath.

That they might their affections set
And on their God confide,
And not his miracles forget,
But by his laws abide.

And not be like their father's race
Impatient and absurd,
A generation far from grace
And traitors to the word.

Like Ephraim's sons, which arm'd for blows,
And muster'd for assault,
With their habergeons, and their bows
Made infamous revolt.

The holy covenant of God
Was not by them observ'd,
They left the paths of peace untrod,
And from his ways they swerv'd;

Hence all th' atchievements that were past,
They taught their thoughts to shun,
And those stupendous things and vast,
Which he for them had done.

Prodigious works, THE GREAT I AM,
Before the patriarch swains,
Accomplish'd in the land of Ham,
And Zoan's famous plains.

He for his people's passage cleft
The waters of the deep,
The parted billows right and left
Ascended on an heap

A pillar'd cloud, their guide by day,
Forbade the sun to scorch,
And fire from heav'n to shew the way
Was in the night their torch

He clave the flints, which teem'd with sap
To quench their raging drouth,
The stream descended from the gap,
As from a torrent's mouth.

He brought out waters from the rocks
Which other murmurs hush'd,
And for their families and flocks
It like the rivers rush'd.

Yet for all this with eager haste
Their congregation sinn'd
Against the Highest in the waste,
Until their swarms he thinn'd.

They tempted goodness to defeat
God's mercy by distrust;
With impious hearts requiring meat
To gratify their lust.

They also blasphemously said,
Shall God provide us food,
And shall sufficient be convey'd
Into this desart rude?

He smote the stony rock indeed
The thirsty to refresh,
But will the miracle succeed
To give his people flesh?

At Israel then Jehovah's wrath
Was kindled like a fire;
And him to whom he pledg'd his troth
He spurn'd in grievous ire.

Because their eyes and ears they shut,
Nor would his works believe,
Nor in his help their trust they put
Their errors to retrieve:

So he controul'd the clouds above
To render up their stores,
And op'd in his indulgent love
The heav'ns exterior doors.

From heav'n itself he gave them bread,
Their clam'rous mouths to stop,
And in due measure o'er their head
He made the manna drop.

So man was bidden to partake
With angels in the skies,
For to their craving maws he brake
A plenty to suffice.

He caus'd his eastern blast to lowr
Upon the earth beneath,
And gave the south-west wind his pow'r
A stronger gale to breathe.

He rained flesh upon them thick
As dust upon the ground,
And fowls he lavish'd, quill'd and quick,
Like sand beside the sound.

Upon their camp he let them fall,
And in their tents bestow'd;
And crouded by the rapid squall
They came to their abode.

So they regal'd till all were fill'd,
And their desire obtain'd;
And from their lust the fleshy-will'd
Were by no checks restrain'd.

But while ev'n now their meat they chew,
The wrath of God awoke;
And of their wealthiest princes slew,
And Israel's pillars broke.

And tho' this terror and alarm
Might better things have taught;
They sinn'd the more, nor hail'd that arm
Which such great works had wrought.

He therefore left their youthful bloom
To vain licentious ways;
Their years of travel to the doom
Of trouble and amaze

When he, the Godhead to assert,
Destroy'd them for their crimes,
Their hearts they hasted to convert,
And sought the Lord betimes

And their dead mem'ries rous'd at length,
Acknowledg'd that the Lord,
E'en God most highest, was their strength,
Their Saviour and their ward.

Yet not the less they feign'd to sooth
His vengeance with their tongue,
And with dissembling lips and smooth
Their recantation sung

For in their heart they were not whole
His dictates to espouse,
Nor kept his laws with all their soul,
According to their vows

Yet he was still so loving kind
That he their sin forgave;
Nor unto death their deeds assign'd,
But let his vengeance wave.

Yea, oft he would his wrath asswage,
And to his love return;
Nor suffer'd all his mighty rage
Against his tribes to burn.

For he consider'd of what stuff
Frail mortals are begot,
And that they're like the wind—a puff
Which passes, and is not.

Oft they conspir'd, where desarts howl,
Their Saviour to incense;
And in the wilderness were foul
With many a gross offence.

They turn'd them back, and chose a chief,
God's suffering love to prove;
And by their perfidy to grief
The holy one they move.

They thought not of his mighty hand,
Nor of that great event,
When he the waters chang'd to land,
And made their foes repent;

The works which he in Egypt did,
That harden'd hearts might yield,
And all the carcasses he hid
In Zoan's conscious field.

He turn'd their waters into blood,
And made their rivers stink,
That in the vitiated flood
They could not lave nor drink.

Of every sort the vermin swarm'd
To eat them up alive;
And frogs the royal rooms deform'd,
Too dreadful to survive.

His dread commands upon their fruit
The locust-troops employ,
The caterpillar and the newt
Their labours to destroy.

The hailstones batter'd down the grape
Of so much care and cost;
Nor could the mulberries escape
The penetrating frost.

Their cattle too with hail he smote,
As well as verdant groves,
To death his thunder bolts devote
Their folded flocks and droves.

His wrath and fury fierce and strict
He sent upon their host,
And fiends he suffer'd to afflict
And vex their trembling coast

He let his indignation loose
Their bodies to infest,
The blasts their forfeit lives reduce
To perish with the pest.

And by his angel smote the prime
Of all th' Egyptian youth;
The most exalted and sublime
Amongst the foes of truth

But on his chosen tribes he smil'd,
And led them forth in peace,
And safe conducted through the wild,
As one that tends the fleece

He brought them from the tyrant's realm,
And was himself their guard,
While waves prevail'd their foes to whelm,
And all their chariots marr'd

And as their mind his grace instructs,
And sanctifies from vice,
To that blest mountain he conducts
He purchas'd with the price.

His host th' idolatrous eject,
Lest they with them should mix,
And give their land to his elect,
His wand'ring flock to fix.

So once more they began to thwart
The will of God most high,
And with the way his laws exhort
They scrupl'd to comply

Like broken bows they started back,
Preparing to rebel,
And keeping their forefathers track
As from the Lord they fell.

For to provoke his wrath they built
The shrines that he forbad;
And grieving Christ, the fiends of guilt
In human forms they clad

These crying sins the highest reach,
And inmost heav'n offend;
And on his tribes he makes a breach
While vengeful bolts descend.

The tabernacle he forsook,
And stopt the voice of mirth,
And would no longer overlook
The tent he pitch'd on earth

Their strength no longer reinforc'd
He doom'd to servile toil,
And all their beauteous bloom divorc'd
To grace a foreign soil

He gave his people to the sword,
Their goodly lot revers'd,
And by their pray'r no more implor'd
His heritage amerc'd.

Their young men into flames were driv'n
For burnings to dispatch;
So that the damsels were not giv'n
To their connubial match.

The sword, with its remorseless edge,
The holy priests assail'd;
Nor was there left a tender pledge
Or widow that bewail'd

Then up arose as from a trance
Th' omnipotence divine,
As warriors to the field advance,
And leave their wives and wine.

He smote his foes, their hinder parts,
And all their boasting quash'd,
And with perpetual shame their hearts
By his rebuke abash'd.

To Joseph's house he would not grant
This royal rank to see,
Nor deign'd, O Ephraim, to plant
This glorious wreath on thee.

But blessed Judah was his choice,
The tribe of most account,
And from his heav'n he gave his voice
For Zion's favourite mount.

There pillar'd up with molten brass,
His temple stands secure,
Made like the earth's continual mass
For ever to endure.

He chose out David from the ranks,
And plac'd above the world;
From folded sheep, and from the banks
Where silver Kidron purl'd.

From following ewes with young ones big
The tribes his task enlarge,
To place beneath his vine and fig
The Lord's peculiar charge.

So with a heart God's special gift,
And love by wisdom cool'd,
And with munificence and thrift
O'er Jacob's sons he rul'd.