In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!

See barb'rous nations at thy gates attend,

Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;

See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabæan springs!
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,

And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See Heav'n its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor ev'ning Cynthia fill her silver horn;

But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,

One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze

O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and GOD's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fix'd His word, His saving power remains ;
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own MESSIAH reigns!