Hafte, my belov'd, thy promise hafte to crown,
The form thou 'lt honour waits thy coming down;
Nor let fuch fwiftnefs in the roes be fhown
To fave themselves, as thine to fave thine own.
Hafte, like the nimblest harts, that lightly bound
Before the stretches of the fwiftest hound;
With reaching feet devour a level way,
Across their backs their branching antlers lay,
In the cool dews their bending body ply,
And brush the spicy mountains as they fly.
JONA H.
THUS fung the king-Some angel reach a bough
From Eden's tree to crown the wifeft brow.
And now, thou fairest garden ever made,
Broad banks of fpices, bloffom'd walks of shade,
O Lebanon! where much I love to dwell,
Since I must leave thee, Lebanon, farewell!
Swift from my foul the fair idea flies,
A wilder fight the changing scene supplies;
Wide feas come rolling to my future page,
And storms ftand ready, when I call, to rage.
Then go where Joppa crowns the winding fhore,
The prophet Jonah juft arrives before;
He fees a ship unmooring, foft the gales,
He pays, and enters, and the veffel fails.
Ah, wouldst thou fly thy God? rash man, forbear.
What land so distant but thy God is there?
Weak reason, cease thy voice.—They run the deep,
And the tir'd Prophet lays his limbs to fleep.
Here God fpeaks louder, sends a storm to fea,
The clouds remove to give the vengeance way;
Strong blafts come whistling, by degrees they roar,
And fhove big furges tumbling on to shore ;
The veffel bounds, then rolls, and every blast
Works hard to tear her by the groaning mast;
The failors, doubling all their shouts and cares,
Furl the white canvas, and caft forth the wares ;
Each feek the God their native regions own,
In vain they seek them, for those Gods were none.
Yet Jonah flept the while, who folely knew,
In all that number, where to find the true.
Sleeper, rife and pray,
may thine do more than they!
Perhaps we waft a foe
To heaven itself, and that's our cause of woe;
Let's feek by lots, if heaven be pleas'd to tell ;
And what they fought by lots, on Jonah fell :
Then, whence he came, and who, and what, and why
Thus rag'd the tempeft, all confus'dly cry;
Each press'd in haste to get his question heard,
When Jonah ftops them with a grave regard.
An Hebrew man, you fee, who God revere,
He made this world, and makes this world his care;
His the whirl'd sky, these waves that lift their head,
And his yon land, on which you long to tread.
He charg'd me late, to Nineveh repair,
And to their face denounce his fentence there :
Go, faid the vifion, Prophet, preach to all,
Yet forty days, and Nineveh fhall fall.
But well I knew him gracious to forgive,
And much my zeal abhorr'd the bad should live;
And if they turn, they live; then what were I
But fome falfe Prophet, when they fail to die?
Or what, I fancied, had the Gentiles too
With Hebrew prophets, and their God, to do?
Drawn by the wilful thoughts, my foil I run,
I fled his prefence, and the work's undone.
The ftorm increases as the Prophet speaks,
O'er the toft fhip a foaming billow breaks;
She rifes pendant on the lifted waves,
And thence defcries a thousand watery graves;
Then, downward rufhing, watery mountains hide
Her hulk beneath, in deaths on every fide.
O, cry the failors all, thy fact was ill,
Yet, if a Prophet, speak thy mafter's will;
What part is ours with thee? can aught remain
To bring the bleffings of a calm again?
Then Jonah: Mine's the death will best atone
(And God is pleas'd that I pronounce my own);
Arife, and caft me forth, the wind will ceafe,
The fea fubfiding wear the looks of peace,
And you fecurely fteer. For well I fee
Myfelf the criminal, the ftorm for me.
Yet pity moves for one that owns a blame, And awe refulting from a Prophet's name; Love pleads, he kindly meant for them to die; Fear pleads against him, left they power defy:
If then to aid the flight abets the fin,
They think to land him where they took him in.
Perhaps, to quit the cause, might end the woe,
And, God appeafing, let the veffel go.
For this they fix their oars, and strike the main,
But God withstands them, and they strike in vain.
The ftorm increases more with want of light,
Low blackening clouds involve the ship in night;
Thick battering rains fly through the driving skies,
Loud thunder bellows, darted lightning flies;
A dreadful picture night-born horror drew,
And his, or their's, or both their fates, they view.
Then thus to God they cry: Almighty power,
Whom we ne'er knew till this despairing hour,
From this devoted blood thy fervants free,
To us he's innocent, if so to thee;
In all the past we see thy wond'rous hand,
And that he perish, think it thy command.
This prayer perform'd, they caft the Prophet o'er;
A furge receives him, and he mounts no more;
Then ftill's the thunder, cease the flames of blue,
The rains abated, and the winds withdrew ;
The clouds ride off, and, as they march away,
Through every breaking shoots a chearful day;
The fea, which rag'd fo loud, accepts the prize,
A while it rolls, then all the tempeft dies;
By gradual finking, flat the furface grows,
And safe the veffel with the failors goes.
The Lion thus, that bounds the fences o'er,
And makes the mountain-echoes learn to roar,
If on the lawn a branching deer he rend,
Then falls his hunger, all his roarings end;
Murmuring a while, to reft his limbs he lays,
And the freed lawn enjoys its herd at ease.
Blefs'd with the fudden calm, the failors own That wretched Jonah worship'd right alone; Then make their vows, the victim sheep prepare, Bemoan the Prophet, and the God revere.
Now, though you fear to lose the power to breathe,
Now, though you tremble, Fancy, dive beneath;
What worlds of wonders in the deep are seen!
But this the greateft-Jonah lives within!
The man who fondly fled the Maker's view,
Strange as the crime, has found a dungeon too.
God fent a monster of the frothing sea,
Fit, by the bulk, to gorge the living prey,
And lodge him ftill alive; this hulk receives
The falling Prophet, as he dafh'd the waves.
There, newly wak'd from fancied death, he lies,
And oft again in apprehension dies:
While three long days and nights, depriv'd of fleep,
He turn'd and toss'd him up and down the deep,
He thinks the judgment of the strangest kind,
And much he wonders what the Lord defign'd;
Yet, fince he lives, the gift of life he weighs,
That's time for prayer, and thus a ground for praise;
From the dark entrails of the whale to thee,
(This new contrivance of a hell to me)
To thee, my God, I cry'd; my full distress
Pierc'd thy kind ear, and brought my soul redress.
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