One he foresees excluded heav'nly grace,
And mark'd with curses fatal to his race.
Abraham, potent prince, the friend of God, 410
Of human ills must bear the destin'd load,
By blood and battles must his pow'r maintain,
And slay the monarchs ere he rules the plain;
Must deal just Portions of a servile life
To a proud handmaid and a peevish wife;
Must with the mother leave the weeping son,
In want to wander and in wilds to groan;
Must take his other child, his age's hope,
To trembling Moriam's melancholy top,
Order'd to drench his knife in filial blood,
Destroy his heir or disobey his God.
Moses beheld that God; but how beheld
The Deity, in radiant beams conceal'd,
And clouded in a deep abyss of light?
While present, too severe for human sight,
Nor staying longer than one swift-wing'd night:
The following days, and months, and years, decreed
To fierce encounter, and to toilsome deed:
His youth with wants and hardships must engage,
Plots and rebellions must disturb his age:
Some Corah still arose, some rebel slave,
Prompter to sink the state than he to save,
And Israel did his rage so far provoke,
That what the Godhead wrote the prophet broke.
His voice scarce heard, his dictates scarce believ'd, In camps, in arms, in pilgrimage, she liv'd,
And dy'd obedient to severest law,
Forbid to tread the Promis'd land he saw.
My father's life was one long line of care,
A scene of danger and a state of war.
Alarm'd, expos'd his childhood must engage
The bear's rough gripe and foaming lion's rage.
By various turns his threaten'd youth must fear
Goliath's lifted sword and Saul's emitted spear.
Forlorn he must, and persecuted, fly,
Climb the steep mountain, in the cavern lie,
And often ask, and be refus'd to die.
For ever from his manly toils are known The weight of pow'r and anguish of a crown. What tongue can speak the restless monarch's woes. When God and Nathan were declar'd his foes? 451 When ev'ry object his offence revil'd,
The husband murder'd and the wife defil'd,
The parent's sins impress'd upon the dying child? What heart can think the grief which he sustain'd, When the King's crime brought vengeance on the land, And the inexorable prophet's voice [choice? Gave famine, plague, or war, and bid him fix his
He dy'd; and, oh! may no reflexion shed
Its pois'nous venom on the royal dead:
Yet the unwilling truth must be exprest,
Which long has labour'd in this pensive breast;
Dying, he added to my weight of care;
He made me to his crimes undoubted heir;
Left his unfinish'd murder to his son,
And Joab's blood entail'd on Judah's crown.
Young as I was, I hasted to fulfil
The cruel dictates of my parent's will:
Of his fair deeds a distant view I took,
But turn'd the tube upon his faults to look;
Forgot his youth, spent in his country's cause,
His care of right, his rev'rence to the laws,
But could with joy his years of folly trace,
Broken and old in Bathsheba's embrace;
Could follow him where'er he stray'd from good,
And cite his sad example, whilst Itrod
Paths open to deceit, and track'd with blood.
Soon docile to the secret acts of ill,
With smiles I could betray, with temper kill;
Soon in a brother could a rival view,
Watch all his acts, and all his ways pursue:
In vain for life he to the altar fled;
Ambition and Revenge have certain speed.
Ev'n there, my Soul, ev'n there he should have fell,
But that my int'rest did my rage conceal.
Doubling my crime, I promise and deceive,
Purpose to slay, whilst swearing to forgive.
Treaties, persuasions, sighs, and tears are vain;
With a meau lie curs'd vengeance I sustain,
Join fraud to force, and policy to pow'r,
Till of the destin'd fugitive secure,
His voice scarce heard, his dictates scarce believ'd,
In camps, in arms, in pilgrimage, she liv'd,
And dy'd obedient to severest law,
Forbid to tread the Promis'd land he saw.
My father's life was one long line of care,
A scene of danger and a state of war.
Alarm'd, expos'd his childhood must engage
The bear's rough gripe and foaming lion's rage.
By various turns his threaten'd youth must fear
Goliath's lifted sword and Saul's emitted spear.
Forlorn he must, and persecuted, fly,
445
Climb the steep mountain, in the cavern lie,
And often ask, and be refus'd to die.
For ever from his manly toils are known
The weight of pow'r and anguish of a crown.
What tongue can speak the restless monarch's woes.
When God and Nathan were declar'd his foes? 451
When ev'ry object his offence revil'd,
The husband murder'd and the wife defil'd,
The parent's sins impress'd upon the dying child?
What heart can think the grief which he sustain'd,
Whenthe King's crime brought vengeance on the land,
And the inexorable prophet's voice [choice?
Gave famine, plague, or war, and bid him fix his
He dy'd; and, oh! may no reflexion shed
Its pois'nous venom on the royal dead;
Yet the unwilling truth must be exprest,
Which long has labour'd in this pensive breast;
The utmost limit of a narrow span,
And end of motion, which with life began ?
As smoke that rises from the kindling fires
Is seen this moment, and the next expires;
As empty clouds by rising winds are tost,
Their fleeting forms scarce sooner found than lost,
So vanishes our state, so pass our days,
So life but opens now, and now decays;
The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh,
To live is scarce distinguish'd from to die.
Cure of the miser's wish and coward's fear, Death only shews us what we knew was near. With courage, therefore, view the pointed hour, Dread not Death's anger, but expect his pow'r, Nor Nature's law with fruitless sorrow mourn, But die, O mortal Man! for thou wast born. Cautious thro' doubt, by want of courage wise,
To such advice the reas'ner still replies.
Yet measuring all the long continued space,
Ev'ry successive day's repeated race,
Since Time first started from his pristine goal, 540
Till he had reach'd that hour wherein my soul
Join'd to my body swell'd the womb, I was
(At least I think so) nothing; must I pass
Again to nothing when this vital breath
Ceasing, consigns me o'er to rest and death?
Must the whole man, amazing thought! return
To the cold marble or contracted urn?
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