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ENCOMIUMS ON YOUNG.

UPON

DR. YOUNG'S POEM ON ‹ THE LAST DAY. Now let the atheist tremble; thou alone

Canst bid his conscious heart the Godhead own. Whom shalt thou not reform? O thou hast seen How God descends to judge the souls of men. Thou heardst the sentence how the guilty mourn, Driven out from God, and never to return.

Yet more, behold ten thousand thunders fall, And sudden vengeance wrap the flaming ball. When Nature sunk, when every bolt was hurl'd, Thou saw'st the boundless ruins of the world. When guilty Sodom felt the burning rain, And sulphur fell on the devoted plain, The Patriarch thus, the fiery tempest past, With pious horror view'd the desert waste; The restless smoke still wav'd its curls around, For ever rising from the glowing ground.

But tell me, oh! what heavenly pleasure, tell, To think so greatly, and describe so well! How wast thou pleas'd the wondrous theme to try And find the thought of man could rise so high Beyond this world the labour to pursue, And open all eternity to view?

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But thou art best delighted to rehearse Heaven's holy dictates in exalted verse. O thou hast power the harden'd heart to warm, To grieve, to raise, to terrify, to charm; To fix the soul on God; to teach the mind To know the dignity of human kind; By stricter rules well-govern'd life to scan, And practise o'er the angel in the man.

Magd. Col.
Oxon.

T. WARTON, Sen.

TO A LADY,

WITH " THE LAST DAY.'

HERE sacred truths, in lofty numbers told,
The prospect of a future state unfold;
The realms of night to mortal view display,
And the glad regions of eternal day.
This daring Author scorus, by vulgar ways
Of guilty wit, to merit worthless praise.
Full of her glorious theme, his towering Muse,
With generous zeal, a nobler fame pursues :
Religion's cause her ravish'd heart inspires,
And with a thousand bright ideas fires;
Transports her quick, impatient, piercing eye,
O'er the strait limits of mortality

To boundless orbs, and bids her fearless soar
Where only Milton gain'd renown before;
Where various scenes alternately excite
Amazement, pity, terror, and delight.

Thus did the Muses sing in early times,

Ere skill'd to flatter vice, and varnish crimes;

Their lyres were tun'd to virtuous songs alone,
And the chaste poet and the priest were one:
But now, forgetful of their infant state,

They soothe the wanton pleasures of the great;
And from the press, and the licentious stage,
With luscious poison taint the thoughtless age:
Deceitful charms attract our wandering eyes,
And specious ruin unsuspected lies.

So the rich soil of India's blooming shores,
Adorn'd with lavish Nature's choicest stores,
Where serpents lurk, by flowers conceal'd from
Hides fatal danger under gay delight. [sight,
These purer thoughts from gross alloys refin'd,
With heavenly raptures elevate the mind:
Not fram'd to raise a giddy, short-liv'd joy,
Whose false allurements, while they please, destroy;
But bliss resembling that of saints above,
Sprung from the vision of the' Almighty Love:
Firm, solid bliss, for ever great and new,
The more 'tis known, the more admir'd, like you;
Like you, fair nymph! in whom united meet
Endearing sweetness, unaffected wit,

And all the glories of your sparkling race,
While inward virtues heighten every grace.
By these secur'd, you will with pleasure read
Of future judgment, and the rising dead; [thrown;
Of time's grand period, Heaven and earth o'er-
And gasping Nature's last tremendous groan.
These, when the stars and sun shall be no more,
Shall beauty to your ravag'd form restore :
Then shall you shine with an immortal ray,
Improv'd by death, and brighten'd by decay.

Pemb. Col.

Oxon.

T. TRISTRAM.

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