The harmless wolf with sportive lambkin plays,
The adder stings not, nor the lion slays;
Mountains and forests hail the listening skies,
The Heavens are vocal, and the Earth replies.*
When spoke the Seer, whom we divinest own,
The proud Assyrian trembled on his throne; †
The people, oft in sad defections found,

His voice, relentless, warn'd with awful sound,
To lean no more on Egypt's "broken reed,"
But turn to GOD, their help in times of need.‡
And, when predicting, the great Prophet show'd
The Lamb enslaughter'd, and the Blood that flow'd,
With all the splendours, in a countless train,
That mark the progress of MESSIAH's reign,
Rapt, in the vision, every sentence glow'd
With all the grandeur of the coming GOD.§

Sad JEREMIAH! whom, methinks, I see Like some lorn spirit of adversity,

* Isaiah xxxv. lxv. † Is. x. xiii. xiv. ‡ Is. i. xxx. xxxi.
§ Is. liii. ix. xxiv. lii. xl.

Seated, in tears, midst Zion's lov'd remains,
"Lamenting" loud, Chaldea's galling chains;
Of all the harps that sing of woeful tine,
None breathes with plaintive Elegy like thine.*
Spirit of grief! thine head, thine eye appears
A flood of "waters," and a "fount of tears."

Mystic and awful, as the "wheel" he drew,Dazzling and rapid, as his "seraph" flew,—† The great EZEKIEL, Judah's confines shook. (Whose mould our Ossian and our Dante took.) AMOS, whose herds on bleak Tekoah fed,

The poor man's solace, and the tyrant's dread,
Deign'd not the chastening of his harp to spare,
But woke to strains "the land refused to bear."‡
Famine and drought on JOEL's page appear
With pathos equal to Uzziah's seer.§

When Judah bled with vile Manasseh's crime,
In "lyric” measures, awful and sublime,

* Jer. iv. ix. x. xvii. &c. and Lamentations, passim. † Ezek. i. Amos i. 1. vii. 10. § Isaiah i. 1. Joel i.

H

The stern HABA'KKUK sang. No more we name.
Tho' numerous seers might highest homage claim,
Our theme demands not. Nor, in sooth, the reign
Of Judah's loftiest Bards did long remain.
Her latest stars were dimming fast away,

As nearer drew her bright MESSIAH's Day.

With scheme delusive, artful, fervid, bold, Composed to charm the mind of Eastern mould, The ARABIAN SEER, with bright luxuriant line, Secur'd his "Koran" an immortal shrine.

Vain with it's flights each ardent Poet vied,
Lábid in vain, the skilful contest tried.

The adapted verse, the rich mellifluous strain,
Distill'd like dew-drops on the burning plain;
Or bolder transports took their figur❜d bound,
While rapt Arabia drank the enchanting sound.
Ah! deadly page! how impious thy sublime!
The foe of Idols, yet the friend of Crime!

* See Lowth's Dissertation.

Fram'd to conceal the ends the wretch desired;
Yet, bold to license what his lust required.

Joyous, we turn to that SUPERior Page,
The unerring guide of this dark pilgrimage!

If, in Thy courts, Thou sov'reign LORD of all! Where songs beseem as from archangels fall, The puissant Minstrel of Judea's praise, Strung his bright harp to unpolluted lays,— May not the herald of a brighter scene

Raise his faint voice? when eke, with plumage sheen And sacred, Poesy to him descends,

Inspires him graciously, and gladly lends

Her wings, new burnish'd with celestial fire,

To waft his genius to her spotless quire?

Why should it be so arduous to divine, How "Saint and Poet" should in one combine?* Why not to some illustrious bard be given

"These two most sacred names of earth and heaven?"

*See Cowley's "Elegy on Crashaw."

On this foul orb, where only sin we see,
It may, perchance, a rare connexion be:
But such event, like all sublunar ill,

Must be ascrib'd to man's polluted will.

Man, rais'd by hallow'd fervour and desire,

May catch the rapture of celestial fire,

May breathe such anthems, consecrate and pure,
That, when set free from earth's investiture,
He only needs to join the angelic throng,
And, holier made, the same bright theme prolong.

Yet gracious spirits have adorn'd our earth; None more than they who boast an Albion birth: Our HERBERT earliest of this class arose,

Whose "Temple" still with warm devotion glows.
Of Learning vast, adorn'd with matchless grace,
The sainted CRASHAW claims distinguish'd place.
WALLER, whose voice a list'ning senate moves,
With polish'd line our native verse improves :
By fortune scourg'd, his earlier work redeems,
And soothes his drooping years with "sacred" themes.