Before the world was first conceiv'd,
Before the pregnant earth,
Call'd forth the mountains from her womb,
Who struggled to their birth;
Eternal God! thy early days Beyond duration run,
Ere the first race of starting time Was meafur'd by the fun.
We die; but future nations hear Thy potent voice again,
Rife at the fummons, and reftore The perifh'd race of man;
Before thy comprehensive fight, Duration fleets away; And rapid ages on the wing, Fly swifter than a day.
As great Jehovah's piercing eyes
Eternity explore,
The longest æra is a night,
A period is an hour.
We at thy mighty call, O Lord,
Our fancy'd beings leave,
Rouz'd from the flattering dream of life,
To fleep within the grave.
Swift from their barrier to their goal
The rapid moments pass,
And leave poor man, for whom they run,
The emblem of the grass.
In the first morn of life it grows,
And lifts its verdant head,
At noon decays, at evening dies, And withers in the mead.
We in the glories of thy face Our fecret fins furvey,
And fee how gloomy those appear, How pure and radiant they.
To death as our appointed goal Thy anger drives us on,
To that full period fix'd at length This tale of life is done.
With winged speed, to ftated bounds And limits we must fly,
While feventy rolling funs compleat Their circles in the sky.
Or if ten more around us roll, 'Tis labour, woe, and ftrife,
Till we at length are quite drawn down To the last dregs of life.
But who, O Lord, regards thy wrath, Though dreadful and fevere?
That wrath, whatever fear he feels, Is equal to his fear.
So teach us, Lord, to count our days,
And eye their constant race,
To measure what we want in time,
By wisdom, and by grace.
With us repent, and on our hearts Thy choicest graces shed,
And shower from thy celestial throne Tny bleffings on our head.
Oh! may thy mercy crown us here,
And come without delay;
Then our whole courfe of life will feem
One glad triumphant day.
Now the bleft years of joy restore, For those of grief and ftrife, And with one pleasant drop allay This bitter draught of life.
Thy wonders to the world display,
Thy fervants to adorn,
That may delight their future fons, And children yet unborn;
Thy beams of majesty diffuse, With them thy great commands,
And bid profperity attend
The labours of our hands.
Dread Jehovah! thy all-piercing eyes
Explore the motions of this mortal frame, This tenement of duft: Thy ftretching fight Surveys th' harmonious principles, that move
In beauteous rank and order, to inform
This cask, and animated mass of clay. Nor are the prospects of thy wondrous fight To this terreftrial part of man confin'd; But shoot into his foul, and there difcern The firft materials of unfashion'd thought, Yet dim and undigefted, till the mind, Big with the tender images, expands, And, fwelling, labours with th' ideal birth. Where-e'er I move, thy cares pursue my feet Attendant. When I drink the dews of fleep, Stretch'd on my downy bed, and there enjoy A fweet forgetfulness of all my toils, Unfeen, thy fovereign prefence guards my fleep, Wafts all the terrors of my dreams away, Sooths all my foul, and foftens my repose. Before conception can employ the tongue, And mould the ductile images to found; Before imagination stands display'd, Thine eye the future eloquence can read, Yet unarray'd with fpeech. Thou, mighty Lord! Haft moulded man from his congenial duft, And spoke him into being; while the clay, Beneath thy forming hand, leap'd forth, infpir'd, And started into life: through every part, At thy command, the wheels of motion play'd. But fuch exalted knowledge leaves below And drops poor man from its fuperior sphere. In vain, with reason's ballast, would he try To ftem th' unfathomable depth; his bark O'er-fets, and founders in the vast abyss.
Then whither fhall the rapid fancy run, Though in its full career, to speed my flight From thy unbounded presence? which, alone, Fills all the regions and extended space Beyond the bounds of nature! Whither, Lord! Shall my unrein'd imagination rove,
To leave behind thy fpirit, and out-fly
Its influence, which, with brooding wings, out-fpread Hatch'd unfledg'd nature from the dark profound. If mounted on my towering thoughts I climb Into the heaven of heavens; I there behold The blaze of thy unclouded majesty!
In the pure empyrean thee I view,
High thron❜d above all height, thy radiant shrine, Throng'd with the proftrate seraphs, who receive Beatitude paft utterance! If I plunge
Down to the gloom of Tartarus profound, There too I find thee, in the lowest bounds Of Erebus, and read thee, in the fcenes Of complicated wrath; I see thee clad In all the majefty of darkness there,
If, on the ruddy morning's purple wings Up-born, with indefatigable course,
I feek the glowing borders of the Eaft,
Where the bright fun, emergent from the deeps, With his first glories gilds the sparkling feas,
And trembles o'er the waves; ev'n there, thy hand. Shall through the watery defert guide my course, And o'er the broken furges pave my way, While on the dreadful whirles I hang fecure,
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