Part I.

M Y people, hear my words: I will unfold
Dark oracles and wonders done of old:
By our great ancestors both heard and known,
Successively unto their children shown.
Which we will to posterity relate,
That people yet unknown may celebrate
God's pow'r, His praise and glorious acts; since He
Wills this tradition by divine decree,
Until one day shall give the world an end,
That all their hopes might on His help depend.
Nor ever let His noble actions sleep
In dark oblivion, but His statutes keep.
Unlike their rebel sires, a stubborn race,
Who fell from God, nor sought His slighted grace.
The Ephraimites, though expert in their bows,
Though arm'd, ignobly fled before their foes;
Who vainly brake the cov'nant of their God,
Nor in the ways of His prescription trod;
Forgot His famous acts, His wonders shown
In Zoan, and the plains by Nile o'erflown.
He brought them through the bowels of the flood,
The parted waves like solid mountains stood.
By day with leading clouds affords a shade,
By night a flaming pyramis display'd.
Hard rocks He in the thirsty deserts clave,
And drink out of their stony entrails gave.
Ev'n from their barren sides the waters gush'd,
And down in rivers through the valleys rush'd.

Part II.

Yet still they sinn'd, and meat to satisfy
Their lust demand, provoking the Most High.
Blaspheming thus: Can God our wants redress?
A table furnish in the wilderness?
Though from the cloven rocks fresh currents drill,
Can He give bread? with flesh the hungry fill?
Thus tempted by their hourly murmurings,
He to His long retarded wrath gives wings.
Their infidelity enrag'd the Just,
That would not to His sure protection trust.
Who all the curtains of the skies withdrew,
And made the clouds resolve into a dew.
With manna, food of angels, mortals fed,
And fill'd with plenty of celestial bread.
Then caus'd the early eastern winds to rise,
And bade the dropping south obscure the skies;
Whence show'rs of quails descend, as thick as sand
On sea-wash'd shores, or dust on sun-dried land,
Which fell among their tents. They their delights
Enjoy, and feast their deadly appetites.
For lo! while they those fatal dainties chew,
And their inordinate desires pursue,
The wrath of God surpris'd them, and cut down
The choice of all, ev'n those of most renown.
Nor by their own mishaps admonished,
Would they His work believe or judgments dread.
So He their spirits quench'd with daily fears,
In vanity and toil consum'd their years.

Part III.

But when, by slaughter wasted, the forlorn
Return'd and sought Him in the early morn,
They then confess'd and said: Thou art our tow'r,
Our strength, alone protectest by Thy pow'r.
Yet their sly tongues did but their souls disguise,
Full of deluding flatteries and lies.
Their faithless hearts revolted from His will,
Nor ever would His just commands fulfill.
How oft would He Whose mercy hath no bound
Their pardon sign, nor in their sins confound!
How oft did He His burning wrath assuage!
How oft divert the fury of His rage!
Consider'd them as flesh in frailty born,
A passing wind that never can return.
Yet still would they His sacred laws transgress,
Provok'd Him in th' unpeopled wilderness,
Confin'd the Holy One of Israel,
Against their Saviour frantickly rebell.
Forgetful of His pow'r, nor ever thought
Of that great day when from long bondage brought,
His dreadful miracles to Egypt known,
And wonders in the field of Zoan shown.
The river chang'd into a sea of blood,
Men faint for thirst t' avoid th' infected flood.
Huge swarms of unknown flies display their wings,
Which wound to death with their envenom'd stings.
Loath'd frogs ev'n in their palaces abound,
And with their filthy slime pollute the ground.

Part IV.

Their early fruits the caterpillars spoil,
And grasshoppers devour the ploughman's toil.
Long vines with storms their dangling burdens lost,
The broad-leav'd sycamores destroy'd with frost.
Their flocks, beat down with hailstones, breathless lie,
Their cattle by the stroke of thunder die.
The vengeance of His wrath all forms of woes,
More plagues than could be fear'd, upon them throws;
Whom evil angels to their sins betray.
He to the torrent of His wrath gave way,
Nor would with man or sinless beasts dispense,
Shot by the arrows of his pestilence.
Slew all the flow'r of youth, their first-born sons,
There where old Nilus in seven channels runs.
But like a flock of sheep His people led,
Safe and secure through deserts full of dread;
Ev'n through unfathom'd deeps, which part and close
Their tumbling waves to swallow their proud foes.
Then brought them to His consecrated land,
Ev'n to His mountain purchas'd by His Hand.
Cast out the giant-like inhabitants,
And in their rooms the tribes of Israel plants.
Yet they (O most ungrateful!) falsify
Their vows, and still exasp'rate the Most High,
Who in their faithless fathers' traces go,
And start aside like a deceitful bow.
Their altars on the tops of mountains blaze,
While they their hands to cursed idols raise.

Part V.

These objects fuel to His wrath afford,
Whose Soul revolted Israel abhorr'd.
The ancient seat of Shiloh then forsook,
Nor longer would that hated mansion brook.
His ark ev'n to captivity declin'd,
His strength and glory to the foe resign'd,
And yielded up His people to the rage
Of barbarous swords, nor would His wrath assuage.
Devouring flames their able youth confound,
Nor are their maids with nuptial garlands crown'd.
Their mitred priests in heat of battle fall,
No widows weeping at their funeral.
Then as a giant, folded in the charms
Of wine and sleep, starts up and cries, To arms.
So rous'd, His foes behind Jehovah wounds,
And with eternal infamy confounds.
Yet would in Joseph's tents no longer dwell,
Nor Ephraim chose, who from His cov'nant fell;
But Judah's mountain for His seat elects,
And sacred Sion, which He most affects.
There our great God His glorious temple plac'd,
Firm as the centre, never to be raz'd.
And from the bleating flocks His David chose,
When he attended on the yeaning ewes,
And rais'd him to a throne, that he might feed
His people, Israel's selected seed.
Who fed them faithfully, and all the land
Directed with a just and equal hand.