XCIX.

From sleep to wakeful torture then he turns:
His sparkling eyeballs mad derision glare;

He scoffs at dreams, while all his soul still burns;
To fight rebellious would hell's legions dare :
Except himself he owns no other God;

He spurns heaven, earth, high justice, and its rod.

C.

Not so the Hebrew chiefs whom he holds bound:
They Joseph, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, know:
Through moans, they hear a distant, joyful sound;

With toils and stripes fond hopes of freedom grow; The life-pledged secret warms their heart's own blood: They rise with Moses from the monster's flood.

CI.

More kindly, generous aid meets not our view,

When knaves their shafts malicious round us shower;

More kindly falls not eve's refreshing dew

On sun scorched lawn, on plaintive drooping flower,

Than sable night its sheltering umbrage throws

Upon the Hebrews' toils, their daily woes.

CII.

No star through sea's dark storms more kindly gleams;
A Jacob's breast did ne'er more warmly glow;
More kindly shine not spring's dissolving beams,
On frost-bound stream, on verdure-burying snow;
Than now upon the Hebrews' deepening night,
The star of promise sheds increasing light.

CIII.

Proud Pharaoh's court now rears their champion's fame,

To Jochebed by fond Thermutis given;

They gather from the conscious breeze his name:

It breathes the slow but certain wrath of heaven:

Reviving hope from long oppression calls ;

And tenfold vengeance on oppressors falls.

CIV.

Oft from his cloud-capp'd height the Boor's rapt eye

Such scenes beheld: such visions quickly rise

On holy page: immortal souls defy

Earth's circuit; quit its clouds for purest skies

In Christ's refulgence; hence this world survey;
And trace man's night to everlasting day.

CV.

Do tuneful cherubim their splendors dart, Proclaiming round the flocks a Saviour born?

The rays reflected by the faithful heart,

Reach Moses from his woful mother torn ;

Celestial heralds there too raise their voice ;

Jehovah's praise bids heaven and earth rejoice.

CVI.

Does holy light on Jethro's shepherd blaze,

Of truth eternal th' immaterial flame !

Upon it Peter, James, and John too gaze;

On Stephen's face it shines; does Saul reclaim:

It dawned in smiles upon creation's morn;

And shall its saints in every age adorn.

CVII.

When thickest gloom did mantle chaos' form,
Concealing elements of wild misrule,

Like what, regardless of the future storm,

Men oft admit within their moral school,

The purifying beams of heavenly light
Brought fair creation from primeval night.

CVIII.

When gloom chaotic rules the conscious mind,

Or o'er a guilty nation hangs in frowns,

If heaven-nerved hope bid Providence be kind,
If earth-bound rulers seek celestial crowns,
Before such light will mental darkness fly;
Its mildest beams will clear the troubled sky.

CIX.

But should man's guides to bliss, man's blindness love,
And thwart or bar heaven's mildly rising sun;
Should pride ne'er turn a melting eye above,

To seek that kingdom which a Saviour won:
His burning light, heaped high in wrathful store,
Shall burst in fire, and swift destruction pour.

CX.

While darkness palpable hid Egypt's gods,

And seers benighted prayed in vain for day; While tyrants cursed their sorcerers' swallowed rods, Forgot their crimes, and sought for one kind ray; Truth shone within the faithful Hebrew's breast,

Illumed his night, and bade his sorrows rest.

CXI.

When weak Darius signed the mad decree;
When Belus' sevenfold wrath sought to control
The dauntless bosom of the noble three;

Bright truth gave courage to the shrinking soul; By it are lions tamed, fierce flames o'erpowered, Bold fraud consumed, pale jealousy devoured.

CXII.

As on cursed Sodom fiery torrents fell,

To vindicate the truth from foul disgrace;
As of Baal's prophets shorn of fiction's spell,
Elijah's sword did every name efface:

So thrones and altars are to ruin hurled,
When truth forsaken dooms a guilty world.

CXIII.

O'er all his works Jehovah's arm is raised,

To smite the scornful, to uphold the just : By life and death, by heaven and hell he's praised, When slaves rebel, when tyrants lick the dust: While earth, a speck in space, its years revolves, His endless power creates, connects, dissolves.