THE COMING OF THE JUDGE. EVEN thus, amid thy pride and luxury, O Earth! shall that last coming burst on thee, When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan, Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain. And marriage-feasts begin their jocund strain : Till Earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro, And mountains molten by his burning feet, And Heaven his presence own, all red with furnace heat. The hundred-gated Cities then, The Towers and Temples, nam'd of men Eternal, and the Thrones of Kings; The gilded summer Palaces, The courtly bowers of love and ease, Where still the Bird of Pleasure sings ; Ask ye the destiny of them? Go, gaze on fallen Jerusalem! Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roll, 'Gainst earth and heaven God's standard is unfurl'd; The skies are shrivell'd like a burning scroll, And the vast common doom ensepulchres the world. Oh! who shall then survive? Oh! who shall stand and live? When all that hath been is no more : When for the round earth hung in air, In the sky's azure canopy; When for the breathing Earth, and sparkling Sea, Lord of all power, when thou art there alone That in its high meridian noon Needs not the perish'd sun nor moon: When thou art there in thy presiding state, Wide-sceptred Monarch o'er the realm of doom; When from the sea-depths, from earth's darkest womb, The dead of all the ages round thee wait: And when the tribes of wickedness are strown So shall the Church, thy bright and mystic Bride, Yes, 'mid yon angry and destroying signs, O'er us the rainbow of thy mercy shines; We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam, Almighty to avenge, Almightiest to redeem. LEIGH HUNT. AN ITALIAN GARDEN. A NOBLE range it was, of many a rood, A winding stream about it, clear and glad, All the sweet cups to which the bees resort, With plots of grass, and perfum'd walks between Of sweetbrier, honeysuckle, and jessamine, With orange, whose warm leaves so finely suit, And look as if they shade a golden fruit; And 'midst the flowers, turf'd round beneath a shade Of circling pines, a babbling fountain play'd, And 'twixt their shafts you saw the water bright, Which through the darksome tops glimmer'd with showering light. So now you walk'd beside an odorous bed Of gorgeous hues, purple, and gold, and red; And now turn'd off into a leafy walk, Close and continuous, fit for lovers' talk; And now pursued the stream, and as you trod And then, perhaps, you enter'd upon shades, And all about, the birds kept leafy house, And sung and darted in and out the boughs; And all about, a lovely sky of blue Clearly was felt, or down the leaves laugh'd through; And here and there, in every part, were seats, Some in the open walks, some in retreats But 'twixt the wood and flowery walks, half-way, And form'd of both, the loveliest portion lay, A spot that struck you like enchanted ground : It was a shallow dell, set in a mound Of sloping shrubs, that mounted by degrees― The birch and poplar mixed with heavier trees; Down by whose roots, descending darkly still, (You saw it not, but heard) there gush'd a rill, Whose low sweet talking seem'd as if it said Something eternal to that happy shade. The ground within was lawn, with plots of flowers Heap d towards the centre, and with citron bowers; And in the midst of all, cluster'd with bay |