Religious and Moral Poems | Page 8

of all the gods,?"Beneath whose steps the tow'ring mountain nods,?"Will give thine armies to the savage brood,?"That cut the liquid air, or range the wood.?"Thee too a well-aim'd pebble shall destroy,?"And thou shalt perish by a beardless boy:?"Such is the mandate from the realms above,?"And should I try the vengeance to remove,?"Myself a rebel to my king would prove.?"Goliath say, shall grace to him be shown,?"Who dares heav'ns Monarch, and insults his throne?"?"Your words are lost on me," the giant cries,?While fear and wrath contended in his eyes,?When thus the messenger from heav'n replies:?"Provoke no more Jehovah's awful hand?"To hurl its vengeance on thy guilty land:?"He grasps the thunder, and, he wings the storm,?"Servants their sov'reign's orders to perform."?The angel spoke, and turn'd his eyes away,?Adding new radiance to the rising day.?Now David comes: the fatal stones demand?His left, the staff engag'd his better hand:?The giant mov'd, and from his tow'ring height?Survey'd the stripling, and disdain'd the fight,?And thus began: "Am I a dog with thee??"Bring'st thou no armour, but a staff to me??"The gods on thee their vollied curses pour,?"And beasts and birds of prey thy flesh devour."?David undaunted thus, "Thy spear and shield?"Shall no protection to thy body yield:?"Jehovah's name------no other arms I bear,?"I ask no other in this glorious war.?"To-day the Lord of Hosts to me will give?"Vict'ry, to-day thy doom thou shalt receive;?"The fate you threaten shall your own become,?"And beasts shall be your animated tomb,?"That all the earth's inhabitants may know?"That there's a God, who governs all below:?"This great assembly too shall witness stand,?"That needs nor sword, nor spear, th' Almighty's?hand:?"The battle his, the conquest he bestows,?"And to our pow'r consigns our hated foes."?Thus David spoke; Goliath heard and came?To meet the hero in the field of fame.?Ah! fatal meeting to thy troops and thee,?But thou wast deaf to the divine decree;?Young David meets thee, meets thee not in vain;?'Tis thine to perish on th' ensanguin'd plain.?And now the youth the forceful pebble slung?Philistia trembled as it whizz'd along:?In his dread forehead, where the helmet ends,?Just o'er the brows the well-aim'd stone descends,?It pierc'd the skull, and shatter'd all the brain,?Prone on his face he tumbled to the plain:?Goliath's fall no smaller terror yields?Than riving thunders in aerial fields:?The soul still ling'red in its lov'd abode,?Till conq'ring David o'er the giant strode:?Goliath's sword then laid its master dead,?And from the body hew'd the ghastly head;?The blood in gushing torrents drench'd the plains,?The soul found passage through the spouting veins.?And now aloud th' illustrious victor said,?"Where are your boastings now your champion's?"dead?"?Scarce had he spoke, when the Philistines fled:?But fled in vain; the conqu'ror swift pursu'd:?What scenes of slaughter! and what seas of blood!?There Saul thy thousands grasp'd th' impurpled sand?In pangs of death the conquest of thine hand;?And David there were thy ten thousands laid:?Thus Israel's damsels musically play'd.?Near Gath and Edron many an hero lay,?Breath'd out their souls, and curs'd the light of day:?Their fury, quench'd by death, no longer burns,?And David with Goliath's head returns,?To Salem brought, but in his tent he plac'd?The load of armour which the giant grac'd.?His monarch saw him coming from the war,?And thus demanded of the son of Ner.?"Say, who is this amazing youth?" he cry'd,?When thus the leader of the host reply'd;?"As lives thy soul I know not whence he sprung,?"So great in prowess though in years so young:"?"Inquire whose son is he," the sov'reign said,?"Before whose conq'ring arm Philistia fled."?Before the king behold the stripling stand,?Goliath's head depending from his hand:?To him the king: "Say of what martial line?"Art thou, young hero, and what sire was thine?"?He humbly thus; "The son of Jesse I:?"I came the glories of the field to try.?"Small is my tribe, but valiant in the fight;?"Small is my city, but thy royal right."?"Then take the promis'd gifts," the monarch cry'd,?Conferring riches and the royal bride:?"Knit to my soul for ever thou remain?"With me, nor quit my regal roof again."
Thoughts on the WORKS OF PROVIDENCE.
A R I S E, my soul, on wings enraptur'd, rise?To praise the monarch of the earth and skies,?Whose goodness and benificence appear?As round its centre moves the rolling year,?Or when the morning glows with rosy charms,?Or the sun slumbers in the ocean's arms:?Of light divine be a rich portion lent?To guide my soul, and favour my intend.?Celestial muse, my arduous flight sustain?And raise my mind to a seraphic strain!?Ador'd for ever be the God unseen,?Which round the sun revolves this vast machine,?Though to his eye its mass a point appears:?Ador'd the God that whirls surrounding spheres,?Which first ordain'd that mighty Sol should reign?The peerless monarch of th' ethereal train:?Of miles twice forty millions is his height,?And yet his radiance dazzles mortal sight?So far beneath--from him th' extended earth?Vigour derives, and ev'ry flow'ry birth:?Vast through her orb she moves