As those who live by fhores with joy behold
Some wealthy vessel split or stranded nigh ;
And from the rocks leap down for fhipwreck'd gold,
And feek the tempefts which the others fly:
CCLII.
So these but wait the owners last despair,
And what's permitted to the flames invade ;
Ev'n from their jaws they hungry morfels tear,
And on their backs the spoils of Vulcan lade.
CCLIII.
The days were all in this lost labour spent ;
And when the weary king gave place to night,
His beams he to his royal brother lent,
And fo fhone still in his reflective light.
Night came, but without darkness or repose,
A difmal picture of the general doom;
Where fouls diftracted when the trumpet blows,
And half unready with their bodies come.
CCLV.
Those who have homes, when home they do repair,
To a laft lodging call their wandering friends :
Their fhort uneafy fleeps are broke with care,
To look how near their own deftruction tends.
Those who have none, fit round where once it was,
And with full eyes each wonted room require :
Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place,
As murder'd men walk where they did expire.
Some ftir up coals and watch the vestal fire,
Others in vain from fight of ruin run;
And while through burning labyrinths they retire,
With loathing eyes repeat what they would fhun.
CCLVIII.
The moft in fields like herded beafts lie down,
To dews obnoxious on the graffy floor;
And while their babes in fleep their forrows drown,
Sad parents watch the remnants of their ftore.
CCLIX.
While by the motion of the flames they guess
What streets are burning now, and what are near,
An infant waking to the paps would prefs,
And meets, instead of milk, a falling tear.
CCLX.
No thought can eafe them but their fovereign's care,
Whose praise th' afflicted as their comfort fing:
Ev'n thofe, whom want might drive to just despair,
Think life a bleffing under fuch a king.
Mean-time he fadly fuffers in their grief,
Out-weeps an hermit, and out-prays a faint:
All the long night he ftudies their relief,
How they may be fupply'd, and he may want.
CCLXII.
O God, faid he, thou patron of my days,
Guide of my youth in exile and distress!
Who me unfriended brought'ft by wondrous ways,
The kingdom of my fathers to poffefs :
Be thou my judge, with what unweary'd care
I fince have labour'd for my people's good;
To bind the bruifes of a civil war,
And stop the iffues of their wafting blood.
CCLXIV.
Thou who haft taught me to forgive the ill,
And recompenfe as friends the good mifled;
mercy be a precept of thy will,
Return that mercy on thy fervant's head.
CCLXV.
Or if my heedless youth has step'd aftray,
Too foon forgetful of thy gracious hand;
On me alone thy juft difpleafure lay,
But take thy judgments from this mourning land.
CCLXVI.
We all have finn'd, and thou haft laid us low,
As humble earth from whence at firft we came :
Like flying shades before the clouds we show,
And shrink like parchment in confuming flame.
CCLXVII.
O let it be enough what thou haft done;
When spotted deaths ran arm'd through every street, With poison'd darts which not the good could fhun, The speedy could out-fly, or valiant meet.
The living few, and frequent funerals then,
Proclaim'd thy wrath on this forfaken place
And now those few who are return'd again,
Thy fearching judgments to their dwellings trace.
O pafs not, Lord; an abfolute decree,
Or bind thy fentence unconditional:
But in thy fentence our remorse foresee,
And in that forefight this thy doom recal.
CCLXX.
Thy threatenings, Lord, as thine thou may'st revoke :
But if immutable and fix'd they stand,
Continue ftill thyfelf to give the ftroke,
And let not foreign foes opprefs thy land.
CCLXXI.
Th' Eternal heard, and from the heavenly quire
Chofe out the cherub with the flaming sword;
And bad him swiftly drive th' approaching fire
From where our naval magazines were stor’d.
CCLXXII.
The bleffed minifter his wings display'd,
And like a fhooting star he cleft the night:
He charg'd the flames, and those that disobey'd
He lafh'd to duty with his fword of light.
CCLXXIII.
The fugitive flames chaftis'd went forth to prey
On pious ftructures, by our fathers rear'd;
By which to heaven they did affect the way,
Ere faith in churchmen without works was heard.
CCLXXIV.
The wanting orphans faw with watery eyes,
Their founders charity in duft laid low;
And fent to God their ever-anfwer'd cries,
For he protects the poor, who made them fo.
Nor could thy fabric, Paul's, defend thee long, Though thou wert facred to thy Maker's praise: Though made immortal by a poet's fong;
And poets fongs the Theban walls could raife.
The daring flames peep'd in, and faw from far
The awful beauties of the facred quire:
But, fince it was prophan'd by civil war,
Heaven thought it fit to have it purg'd by fire.
CCLXXVII.
Now down the narrow streets it fwiftly came,
And widely opening did on both fides prey :
This benefit we fadly owe the flame,
If only ruin muft enlarge our way.
And now four days the fun had seen our woes:
Four nights the moon beheld th' inceffant fire:
It feem'd as if the ftars more fickly rofe,
And farther from the feverish north retire.
CCLXXIX.
In th' empyrean heaven, the blefs'd abode,
The thrones and the dominions proftrate lie,
Not daring to behold their angry God;
And an hufh'd filence damps the tuneful sky.
CCLXXX.
At length th' Almighty caft a pitying eye,
And mercy foftly touch'd his melting breast :
He faw the town's one half in rubbish lie,
And eager flames drive on to form the rest.
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