University of Virginia Library

PSALM CVI.

In Alleluias all your Voices join;
With grateful Praise confess the Lord benign:
No Period e'er shall his Indulgence bound,
While Ages measure their eternal Round.
His mighty Deeds what Mortal can relate?
His equal Praises who shall celebrate?
How happy they who Justice still attend,
And all their Hours in Acts of Virtue spend!
Remember me, O Lord! that I may find
What Favour for thy People is design'd:
With salutary Presence visit me;
That I the Bliss of thy Elect may see,
Partake the Joys of thy peculiar Train,
And share the Triumphs of thy own Domain.
We to our Ancestors in Guilt succeed:
In perpetrated Crimes, and impious Deed.
Our Sires beheld, with inattentive Thought,
Thy iterated Signs in Ægypt wrought;
Nor treasur'd in their recollected Sense
The boundless Stores of thy Benevolence;
But where the Sea, the Erythræan flows,
Against thee there in bold Rebellion rose.
Yet them he sav'd, to vindicate his Name:
And his Omnipotence confirm'd to Fame.
Reprov'd by him, the Sea forgets to flow;
And bare appears the solid Soil below;
By him conducted, thro' the Deep they pass'd,
As thro' the Regions of the sandy Waste.
He then redeem'd them from the Tyrant's Hand;
And sav'd them from their Enemy's Command:
While all their Foes beneath the gulphy Wave
Lie whelm'd; not one escapes the watry Grave.
His Oracles did then their Credence gain:
His Praise they sung in an alternate Strain.
But soon to dark Oblivion they resign'd
His Acts; nor to his Council bend their Mind.
As thro' the dreary Solitude they go,
To mad Excess their wanton Wishes grow;
And with their insolent Demands they try,
Amid the Wild, to brave the Deity:
He grants the Boon; but thus the Grant controlls,
That meager Atrophy shou'd waste their Souls.
Yet in the Camp again, with Envy fir'd,
Against their patient Leader they conspir'd;
And Aaron, venerable by the Sign
Of Consecration to the Pow'r Divine.
The gaping Earth, down to the Centre cleaves,
And Rebel Dathan to the Shades receives:
Then, closing o'er their Heads, it's Bars restrain
His guilty Brother, and seditious Train.
The sudden Flame amid their Crew aspires:
The Impious perish in devouring Fires.
At Horeb's Foot an imag'd Calf they made:
And to the molten Gold their Adoration paid.
Thus their inverted Glory they deface;
And with the Semblance of an Ox disgrace:
An Animal, who knows no higher Good
Than ruminating on his grassy Food.
Their Saviour, God, they banish'd from their Thought;
And all his mighty Deeds in Ægypt wrought:
Stupendous Prodigies in Ammon's Land;
And Signs terrific on the Red-Sea Strand.
Then he pronounc'd, that he decreed to fall
The universal Ruin on them all:
But Moses, his Elect, the Breach maintains
And from the rest the issuing Wrath detains;
That Wrath celestial, which prepar'd to fall,
With universal Ruin menac'd all.
Yet ev'n that happy Region they disdain'd;
Nor now his Promise their Belief obtain'd:
They spread the Murmurs of their Discontent,
In mutual Confidence from Tent to Tent;
Too obstinate Attention to afford
To monitory Dictates of the Lord.
He rais'd against them his obtesting Hand,
To whelm them in the solitary Land:
To drive their Progeny dispers'd and hurl'd
Thro' barb'rous Nations, and the distant World.
To Phegor next they join'd themselves; and fed
On the polluted Victims of the Dead:
Their wild Inventions his Revenge inflame;
And on them swift the dire Destruction came.
Then Phineas rose, and by Atonement made
With guilty Blood, the spreading Mischief stay'd:
This Act imputed Righteousness shall crown,
From Age to Age recording his Renown.
His dreadful Anger yet again they try'd;
There where the Waters of Contention glide:
Then Moses found, by sad Experience taught,
The Prince to suffer for the People's Fault;
For him so far their Murmurs did provoke,
That from his Lips unguarded Passion broke,
Yet did they not destroy the gentile Train,
So did the Mandate of the Lord ordain:
Accurs'd Alliance soon their Blood unites;
And leads to imitate forbidden Rites.
The imag'd Gods their servile Homage share:
Which often prov'd their Detriment and Snare.
Unhappy Victims! at the Dæmon's Call,
Their blooming Youth, and fairest Virgins fall;
All smear'd with filial Gore the Parents stand
Of Innocents, who by the dire Command
Of Canaan's Idols purple all the Land.
They, with the Tincture of their Deeds embrew'd,
Their Fictions with adult'rous Love pursu'd.
Against his People this incens'd the Lord;
Who now his own Inheritance abhorr'd.
He then resign'd them to the cruel Hand
Of heathen Nations; to the hard Command
Of hostile Lords: To their oppressive Foe,
Beneath the Yoak of Servitude they bow.
He oft reliev'd them; they as many Times
Provok'd him, and were humbled for their Crimes:
He yet regards their Sorrows; nor denies
A gentle Audience to their suppliant Cries.
His Covenant again recall'd to mind,
He, in his num'rous Mercies, grows more kind:
The Victors to Compassion he inclin'd.
Preserve us, Lord! our God whom we adore!
From foreign Lands our scatter'd Race restore:
Again assembled to thy sacred Name
Our Thanks to pay; and triumph in thy Fame.
Blest be the Lord whom Israel's Sons adore,
From Age to Age, till Time shall be no more!
Let full Assent resound from all the Throng;
And with your Alleluias end the Song.