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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Poem On The Last Day - Book I</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">While others sing the fortune of the great,<br>Empire and arms, and all the pomp of state;<br>With Britain's hero<br>set their souls on fire,<br>And grow immortal as his deeds inspire;<br>I draw a deeper scene; a scene that yields<br>A louder trumpet and more dreadful fields:-<br>The world alarm'd, both earth and heaven o'erthrown,<br>And gasping Nature's last tremendous groan;<br>Death's ancient sceptre broke, the teeming tomb,<br>The righteous Judge, and man's eternal doom.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Twixt joy and pain I view the bold design,<br>And ask my anxious heart if it be mine.<br>Whatever great or dreadful has been done<br>Within the sight of conscious stars or sun,<br>Is far beneath my daring: I look down<br>On all the splendours of the British crown.<br>This globe is for my verse a narrow bound;<br>Attend me, all ye glorious worlds around!<br>O! all ye angels, howsoe'er disjoin'd,<br>Of every various order, place, and kind,<br>Hear and assist a feeble mortal's lays;<br>'Tis your eternal King I strive to praise.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But chiefly Thou, great Ruler, Lord of all!<br>Before whose throne archangels prostrate fall;<br>If at Thy nod, from discord and from night,<br>Sprang beauty, and yon sparkling worlds of light,<br>Exalt e'en me: all inward tumults quell;<br>The clouds and darkness of my mind dispel;<br>To my great subject Thou my breast inspire,<br>And raise my labouring soul with equal fire.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Man, bear thy brow aloft; view every grace<br>In God's great offspring, beauteous Nature's face:<br>See Spring's gay bloom; see golden Autumn's store;<br>See how Earth smiles, and hear old Ocean roar.<br>Leviathans but heave their cumbrous mail,<br>It makes a tide, and wind-bound navies sail.<br>Here, forests rise, the mountain's awful pride;<br>Here, rivers measure climes, and worlds divide;<br>There, valleys fraught with gold's resplendent seeds,<br>Hold kings and kingdoms' fortunes in their beds:<br>There, to the skies aspiring hills ascend,<br>And into distant lands their shades extend.<br>View cities, armies, fleets; of fleets the pride,<br>See Europe's law in Albion's Channel ride.<br>View the whole earth's vast landscape unconfined,<br>Or view in Britain all her glories join'd.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then let the firmament thy wonder raise;<br>'T will raise thy wonder, but transcend thy praise.<br>How far from east to west? The labouring eye<br>Can scarce the distant azure bounds descry:<br>Wide theatre! where tempests play at large,<br>And God's right hand can all its wrath discharge.<br>Mark how those radiant lamps inflame the pole,<br>Call forth the seasons, and the year control:<br>They shine through time, with an unalter'd ray,<br>See this grand period rise, and that decay:<br>So vast, this world's a grain; yet myriads grace,<br>With golden pomp, the throng'd ethereal space;<br>So bright, with such a wealth of glory stored,<br>'T were sin in Heathens not to have adored.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">How great, how firm, how sacred all appears!<br>How worthy an immortal round of years!<br>Yet all must drop, as autumn's sickliest grain,<br>And earth and firmament be sought in vain;<br>The tract forgot where constellations shone,<br>Or where the Stuarts fill'd an awful throne:<br>Time shall be slain, all Nature be destroy'd,<br>Nor leave an atom in the mighty void.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Sooner or later, in some future date,<br>(A dreadful secret in the book of fate!)<br>This hour, for aught all human wisdom knows,<br>Or when ten thousand harvests more have rose;<br>When scenes are changed on this revolving earth,<br>Old empires fall, and give new empires birth;<br>While other Bourbons rule in other lands,<br>And (if man's sin forbids not) other Annes;<br>While the still busy world is treading o'er<br>The paths they trod five thousand years before,<br>Thoughtless, as those who now life's mazes run,<br>Of earth dissolved, or an extinguish'd sun;<br>(Ye sublunary worlds, awake, awake!<br>Ye rulers of the nations, hear, and shake!)<br>Thick clouds of darkness shall arise on day,<br>In sudden night all earth's dominions lay;<br>Impetuous winds the scatter'd forests rend;<br>Eternal mountains, like their cedars, bend;<br>The valleys yawn, the troubled ocean roar,<br>And break the bondage of his wonted shore;<br>A sanguine stain the silver moon o'erspread;<br>Darkness the circle of the sun invade;<br>From inmost heaven incessant thunders roll,<br>And the strong echo bound from pole to pole.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">When, lo, a mighty trump, one half conceal'd<br>In clouds, one half to mortal eye reveal'd,<br>Shall pour a dreadful note; the piercing call<br>Shall rattle in the centre of the ball;<br>The' extended circuit of creation shake,<br>The living die with fear, the dead awake.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">O powerful blast! to which no equal sound<br>Did e'er the frighted ear of Nature wound,<br>Though rival clarions have been strain'd on high,<br>And kindled wars immortal through the sky;<br>Though God's whole enginery discharged, and all<br>The rebel angels bellow'd in their fall.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Have angels sinn'd? And shall not man beware?<br>How shall a son of earth decline the snare?<br>Not folded arms, and slackness of the mind,<br>Can promise for the safety of mankind:<br>None are supinely good; through care and pain,<br>And various arts, the steep ascent we gain.<br>This is the scene of combat, not of rest;<br>Man's is laborious happiness at best;<br>On this side death his dangers never cease;<br>His joys are joys of conquest, not of peace.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">If then, obsequious to the will of fate,<br>And bending to the terms of human state,<br>When guilty joys invite us to their arms,<br>When beauty smiles, or grandeur spreads her charms,<br>The conscious soul would this great scene display,<br>Call down the' immortal hosts in dread array,<br>The trumpet sound, the Christian banner spread,<br>And raise from silent graves the trembling dead;<br>Such deep impression would the picture make,<br>No power on earth her firm resolve could shake;<br>Engaged with angels she would greatly stand,<br>And look regardless down on sea and land;<br>Not proffer'd worlds her ardour could restrain,<br>And Death might shake his threatening lance in vain!<br>Her certain conquest would endear the fight,<br>And danger serve but to exalt delight.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Instructed thus to shun the fatal spring<br>Whence flow the terrors of that day I sing,<br>More boldly we our labours may pursue,<br>And all the dreadful image set to view.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The sparkling eye, the sleek and painted breast,<br>The burnish'd scale, curl'd train, and rising crest,<br>All that is lovely in the noxious snake,<br>Provokes our fear, and bids us flee the brake:<br>The sting once drawn, his guiltless beauties rise<br>In pleasing lustre, and detain our eyes;<br>We view with joy what once did horror move,<br>And strong aversion softens into love.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Say, then, my Muse, whom dismal scenes delight,<br>Frequent at tombs, and in the realms of Night;<br>Say, melancholy maid, if bold to dare<br>The last extremes of terror and despair;<br>O say, what change on earth, what heart in man,<br>This blackest moment since the world began!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ah mournful turn! The blissful Earth, who late<br>At leisure on her axle roll'd in state;<br>While thousand golden planets knew no rest,<br>Still onward in their circling journey press'd;<br>A grateful change of seasons some to bring,<br>And sweet vicissitude of fall and spring;<br>Some through vast oceans to conduct the keel,<br>And some those watery worlds to sink or swell;<br>Around her some, their splendours to display,<br>And gild her globe with tributary day:-<br>This world so great, of joy the bright abode,<br>Heaven's darling child, and favourite of her God,<br>Now looks an exile from her Father's care,<br>Deliver'd o'er to darkness and despair.<br>No sun in radiant glory shines on high;<br>No light, but from the terrors of the sky:<br>Fallen are her mountains, her famed rivers lost,<br>And all into a second chaos toss'd:<br>One universal ruin spreads abroad;<br>Nothing is safe beneath the throne of God.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Such, Earth, thy fate: what then canst thou afford<br>To comfort and support thy guilty lord?<br>Man, haughty lord of all beneath the moon,<br>How must he bend his soul's ambition down;<br>Prostrate, the reptile own, and disavow<br>His boasted stature and assuming brow;<br>Claim kindred with the clay, and curse his form,<br>That speaks distinction from his sister worm!<br>What dreadful pangs the trembling heart invade!<br>Lord, why dost Thou forsake whom Thou hast made?<br>Who can sustain Thy anger? who can stand<br>Beneath the terrors of Thy lifted hand?<br>It flies the reach of thought; O save me, Power<br>Of powers supreme, in that tremendous hour!<br>Thou who beneath the frown of Fate hast stood,<br>And in Thy dreadful agony sweat blood;<br>Thou, who for me, through every throbbing vein,<br>Hast felt the keenest edge of mortal pain;<br>Whom Death led captive through the realms below,<br>And taught those horrid mysteries of woe;<br>Defend me, O my God! O save me, Power<br>Of powers supreme, in that tremendous hour!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">From east to west they fly, from pole to line,<br>Imploring shelter from the wrath Divine;<br>Beg flames to wrap, or whelming seas to sweep,<br>Or rocks to yawn, compassionately deep:<br>Seas cast the monster forth to meet his doom,<br>And rocks but prison up for wrath to come.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">So fares a traitor to an earthly crown:<br>While death sits threatening in his prince's frown,<br>His heart's dismay'd; and now his fears command<br>To change his native for a distant land:<br>Swift orders fly, the king's severe decree<br>Stands in the channel, and locks up the sea;<br>The port he seeks, obedient to her lord,<br>Hurls back the rebel to his lifted sword.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But why this idle toil to paint that day,<br>This time elaborately thrown away?<br>Words all in vain pant after the distress,<br>The height of eloquence would make it less:<br>Heavens! how the good man trembles!-</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And is there a Last Day? and must there come<br>A sure, a fix'd, inexorable doom?<br>Ambition, swell, and, thy proud sails to show,<br>Take all the winds that Vanity can blow;<br>Wealth, on a golden mountain blazing stand,<br>And reach an India forth in either hand;<br>Spread all thy purple clusters, tempting Vine,<br>And thou, more dreaded foe, bright Beauty, shine:<br>Shine all; in all your charms together rise;<br>That all, in all your charms, I may despise,<br>While I mount upward on a strong desire,<br>Borne, like Elijah, in a car of fire.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In hopes of glory to be quite involved!<br>To smile at death, to long to be dissolved!<br>From our decays a pleasure to receive,<br>And kindle into transport at a grave!<br>What equals this? And shall the victor now<br>Boast the proud laurels on his loaded brow?<br>Religion! O thou cherub, heavenly bright!<br>O joys unmix'd, and fathomless delight!<br>Thou, thou art all; nor find I in the whole<br>Creation aught but God and my own soul.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">For ever then, my soul, thy God adore,<br>Nor let the brute creation praise Him more.<br>Shall things inanimate my conduct blame,<br>And flush my conscious cheek with spreading shame?<br>They all for Him pursue or quit their end;<br>The mounting flames their burning power suspend;<br>In solid heaps the' unfrozen billows stand,<br>To rest and silence awed by His command:<br>Nay, the dire monsters that infest the flood,<br>By nature dreadful, and athirst for blood,<br>His will can calm, their savage tempers bind,<br>And turn to mild protectors of mankind.<br>Did not the prophet this great truth maintain<br>In the deep chambers of the gloomy main,<br>When darkness round him all her horrors spread,<br>And the loud ocean bellow'd o'er his head?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">When now the thunder roars, the lightning flies,<br>And all the warring winds tumultuous rise;<br>When now the foaming surges, toss'd on high,<br>Disclose the sands beneath, and touch the sky;<br>When death draws near, the mariners, aghast,<br>Look back with terror on their actions past;<br>Their courage sickens into deep dismay,<br>Their hearts, through fear and anguish, melt away;<br>Nor tears, nor prayers, the tempest can appease.<br>Now they devote their treasure to the seas;<br>Unload their shatter'd bark, though richly fraught,<br>And think the hopes of life are cheaply bought<br>With gems and gold: but O, the storm so high,<br>Nor gems nor gold the hopes of life can buy!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The trembling prophet then, themselves to save,<br>They headlong plunge into the briny wave.<br>Down he descends, and, booming o'er his head,<br>The billows close; he's number'd with the dead.<br>(Hear, O ye just! attend, ye virtuous few!<br>And the bright paths of piety pursue!)<br>Lo! the great Ruler of the world, from high,<br>Looks smiling down with a propitious eye,<br>Covers His servant with His gracious hand,<br>And bids tempestuous nature silent stand;<br>Commands the peaceful waters to give place,<br>Or kindly fold him in a soft embrace:<br>He bridles-in the monsters of the deep,<br>The bridled monsters awful distance keep;<br>Forget their hunger, while they view their prey,<br>And guiltless gaze, and round the stranger play.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But still arise new wonders. Nature's Lord<br>Sends forth into the deep His powerful word,<br>And calls the great leviathan: the great<br>Leviathan attends in all his state;<br>Exults for joy, and, with a mighty bound,<br>Makes the sea shake, and heaven and earth resound;<br>Blackens the waters with the rising sand,<br>And drives vast billows to the distant land.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">As yawns an earthquake, when imprison'd air<br>Struggles for vent, and lays the centre bare,<br>The whale expands his jaws' enormous size:<br>The prophet views the cavern with surprise;<br>Measures his monstrous teeth, afar descried,<br>And rolls his wondering eyes from side to side;<br>Then takes possession of the spacious seat,<br>And sails secure within the dark retreat.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now is he pleased the northern blast to hear,<br>And hangs on liquid mountains, void of fear;<br>Or falls immersed into the depths below,<br>Where the dead silent waters never flow;<br>To the foundations of the hills convey'd,<br>Dwells in the shelving mountain's dreadful shade:<br>Where plummet never reach'd, he draws his breath,<br>And glides serenely through the paths of death.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=381273" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Two wondrous days and nights, through coral groves,<br>Through labyrinths of rocks and sands, he roves:<br>When the third morning with its level rays<br>The mountains gilds, and on the billows plays,<br>It sees the king of waters rise and pour<br>His sacred guest uninjured on the shore:<br>A type of that great blessing, which the Muse<br>In her next labour ardently pursues.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Edward+Young">Edward Young</a></strong></div>