BOOK V.

1

ARGUMENT.

Every class of immortal beings called to praise God-chiefly the redeemed.-The irretrievable nature of the deeds done in Time.-Apostrophe to the remembrances of childhood-to the loves, pleasures, and delights of Earth.-Its innocent pleasures and joys recounted-Whether its cup contained most of sweet or sour-Nature requiring little, not necessarily condemned to lament and suffer.--The Dwelling of Happiness assigned by poets and others to rural solitude--The heart her true seat: Who were her companions.-The morning of life described-The delights that attend the early exercise of the reason and senses of man.-The bliss attending maternal feelingsThe mother and her group of little ones. -Habits and fascinations of childhood.-Love apostrophised.-A scene of early love.-The delights of the faithful friendships of Earth.-The lonely walks of meditation.-Enjoyment of the solitary bard in communion with his own mind-and in the exercise of imagination and intellect.-The sources of innocent enjoyment copious and diversified-Found even in trifles.-The delights afforded by the change of seasons, and the varieties of natural scenery.-The native landscape of the Bard of Earth, as beheld from his father's house. Enough on Earth to excite the affections, and give felicity to human beings of every age and class.-Freaks of Fancy in Dreams.-The moral influences of some dreams.-Joys peculiar to earth alone-The joy which sprang from pain and misery escaped or surmounted.— The Widow- Her desolation-Her haunts.-Brightness of her final hope.-A mother dying in childbed. The righteous had purer and more exquisite enjoyments on Earth than the wicked.— Evil state of society that preceded the Millennium-Tyranny of Kings and Priests-Persecution and humiliation of the Church-The Romish superstition.-Signs of approaching change-Great battle of the saints and angels with the powers of Earth and Darkness-Triumph of the saints.— Angel of the Proclamation.-State of the righteous and the wicked contrasted.-The universal happiness of Earth in this Sabbath of Time-Exaltation of the Church.-All tribes of Earth worshippers in Zion.-Enumeration of the nations.-Peace and gentleness of the inferior animals, and beauty and fertility of the Earth, during the Millennium.

PRAISE God, ye servants of the Lord! praise God,
Ye angels strong! praise God, ye sons of men!
Praise Him who made, and who redeemed your souls,
Who gave you hope, reflection, reason, will;
Minds that can pierce eternity remote,
And live at once on future, present, past:

Can speculate on systems yet to make,
And back recoil on ancient days of Time:
Of time soon past, soon lost among the shades
Of buried years.
Not so the actions done

In Time, the deeds of reasonable men :

As if engraven with pen of iron grain,

And laid in flinty rock, they stand unchanged,
Written on the various pages of the past;
If good, in rosy characters of love;

If bad, in letters of vindictive fire.

God may forgive, but cannot blot them out.
Systems begin and end, Eternity
Rolls on his endless years, and men, absolved
By mercy from the consequence, forget
The evil deed, and God imputes it not;
But neither systems ending nor begun,
Eternity, that rolls his endless years,

Nor men absolved, and sanctified and washed
By mercy, from the consequence, nor yet
Forgetfulness, nor God imputing not,

Can wash the guilty deed, once done, from out
The faithful annals of the past: who reads,

And many read, there finds it as it was,
And is, and shall for ever be-a dark,
Unnatural, and loathly moral spot.

The span of Time was short, indeed; and now Three-fourths were past, the last begun, and on Careering to its close, which soon we sing. But first our promise we redeem, to tell

The joys of Time, her joys of native growth;
And briefly must, what longer tale deserves.

Wake, dear remembrances! wake, childhood days!
Loves, friendships, wake! and wake, thou morn and even!
Sun! with thy orient locks, night, moon, and stars!
And thou, celestial bow, and all ye woods,

And hills and vales, first trod in dawning life,
And hours of holy musing, wake! wake, Earth!
And smiling, to remembrance come, and bring,
For thou canst bring, meet argument for song
Of heavenly harp, meet hearing for the ear
Of heavenly auditor, exalted high.

God gave much peace on earth-much holy joy;
Oped fountains of perennial spring, whence flowed
Abundant happiness to all who wished

To drink-not perfect bliss; that dwells with us,
Beneath the eyelids of the Eternal One,
And sits at his right hand alone-but such
As well deserved the name, abundant joy;
Pleasures on which the memory of saints
Of highest glory still delights to dwell.

It was, we own, subject of much debate, And worthy men stood on opposing sides, Whether the cup of mortal life had more

Of sour or sweet. Vain question this, when asked

In general terms, and worthy to be left

Unsolved. If most was sour, the drinker, not

The cup, we blame.

Each in himself the means