Swift fly the years, and rise the expected

morn!

Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!

See Nature hastes her earliest wreaths

to bring,

With all the incense of the breathing

spring:

See lofty Lebanon his head advance, See nodding forests on the mountains dance:

See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise,

And Carmel's flowery top perfumes the skies!

Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;

Prepare the way! a God, a God ap

pears:

A God, a God! the vocal hills reply, The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity.

Lo, earth receives him from the bending skies!

Sink down, ye mountains, and, ye valleys, rise;

With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay;

Be smooth, ye rocks; ye rapid floods, give way;

The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold!

Hear him, ye deaf, and all ye blind, behold!

He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,

And on the sightless eyeball pour the day:

'Tis he the obstructed paths of sound shall clear,

And bid new music charm the unfolding

ear:

The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,

And leap exulting like the bounding

roe.

No sigh, no murmur the wide world. shall hear,

From every face he wipes off every

tear.

In adamantine chains shall Death be

bound,

And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,

And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead;

The steer and lion at one crib shall

meet,

And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.

The smiling infant in his hand shall take

The crested basilisk and speckled snake, Pleased the green lustre of the scales survey,

And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.

Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!

Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!

See, a long race thy spacious courts adorn;

See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,

In crowding ranks on every side arise, Demanding life, impatient for the skies! See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,

Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;

See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,

And heap'd with products of Sabean springs,

For thee Idume's spicy forests blow, And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.

See heaven its sparkling portals wide display,

And break upon thee in a flood of day.

No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,

Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;

But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays, One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze O'erflow thy courts; the Light himself shall shine

Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF MAN VINDICATED.

[From The Essay on Man, Book I.] HEAV'N from all creatures hides the book of Fate,

All but the page prescrib'd, their present state;

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know,

Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?

Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,

And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.

O blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle marked by
Heav'n;

Who sees with equal eye, as God of ali,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall;
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a
world.

Hope humbly, then, with trembling
pinions soar;

Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore.

What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,

But gives that Hope to be thy blessing

now.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never Is, but always TO BE blest: The soul, uneasy and confined from

home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'á

mind

Just as absurd to mourn the task or pains,

The great directing Mind of All ordains,

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,

Whose body Nature is, and God the Soul:

That chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,

Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,

Lives through all life, extends through all extent,

Spreads undivided, operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that

THE ORIGIN OF SUPERSTITION AND TYRANNY.

[From The Essay on Man, Book III.]

WHO first taught souls enslav'd and realms undone,

Th' enormous faith of many made for

one;

That proud exception to all Nature's laws,

T' invert the world, and counterwork its cause?

Force first made conquest, and that conquest, law;

Till Superstition taught the tyrant awe, Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid, And Gods of conqu❜rors, slaves of subjects made.

She, 'midst the lightning's blaze, and thunder's sound,

When rock'd the mountains, and when groan'd the ground,

She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray,

To pow'rs unseen, and mightier far than they :

She, from the rending earth and bursting skies,

Saw Gods descend, and fiends infernal