(Now might the Muse in melting lays bemoan The Father's tender name extinct and lost, But the unsufferable noise affrights,
Confounds her, and in silence seals her tongue.)
The skies asunder rend, the doors expand,
Where Vengeance in its iron prison dwells,
And in a thousand penal terrors reigns.
Swift issue huge conglomerated clouds,
Fraught with outrageous sulphur: lightnings thence,
All arm'd with tortures exquisitely keen,
Voluminous, uninterrupted rush
Down on his guiltless head. The wrath immense
He firmly suffers, though beneath his pangs
The blood reluctant quits its well-known roads,
And bathes his limbs in gore, the purple sweat
In big round drops descending to the ground.
Still, still the' avenging Queen* her direful work
Plies with redoubled fury, loudly chides
The lagging fire, and wakes her lingering sword
To more than sevenfold rage. 'Arise, (she cries)
And in Immanuel's bosom sheath thy blade
And drink his sacred blood: my keenest shafts
With all your iron torments wound his heart:
He can endure them all, the' indwelling God
Supports the weak humanity to bear
The weight of sorrows due to human guilt:
And thou, most holy law of stamp divine,
Broken, insulted by the sins of men,
Here take full recompense for all thy wrongs.
See the full expiation! See the blood,
Ordain'd thine injur'd honours to restore,
Merit unknown from Deity acquire.'
Thus Vengeance spoke, and with remorseless rage * Divine Justice, or Vengeance.
Transfix'd his heart, and gash'd him o'er with
The inmost deep recesses of his soul [wounds.
Thrown open, Anguish there on cruel wing
Alights, and, like an hungry vulture, tears
And preys upon his heart-strings, but amidst
The' unparallel'd distress, the Son of God
Superior shines, defies the fiercest pangs,
And triumphs in his woes. Heroic zeal
For his great Father's glories arm'd his soul,
Join'd with invincible delight to save
Millions of rebels from the gulf of hell.
Such his stupendous ardour to endure
Vicarious punishment! What will not love,
When love inspires a mortal breast, achieve?
But when celestial bosoms catch the fire,
What miracles of mercy blaze around?
But let fancy with all its images subside and vanish. I know not whither the impetuous Muse has hurried me. I designed only four lines in verse, and behold what a number! While I have indulged my rapture, I fear my juvenile heat, and too bold an imagination, may have made some trespass on divinity.
I received a letter yesterday acquainting me that our mother was somewhat better, though the fever has not left her. I intended to have written more particularly, but the swelling and growing verses have prevented me, and contracted the limits of my letter. Farewell, dear brother, and may you make strenuous advances in the study of religion and medicine! Given from my study in London on the sixteenth of the Kalends of February, 1693.
FRATRIS E. W. OLIM NAVIGATURO.
I FELIX, pede prospero
I frater, trabe pineâ
Sulces æquora cœrula
Pandas carbasa flatibus
Quæ tutò reditura sint.
Non te monstra natantia
Ponti carnivore incolæ
Prædentur rate naufragâ.
Navis, tu tibi creditum
Fratrem dimidium mei
Salvum fer per inhospita
Ponti regna, per avios
Tractus, et liquidum Chaos.
Nec te sorbeat horrida
Syrtis, nec scopulus minax
Rumpat roboreum latus :
Captent mitia flamina
Antennæ; et Zephyri leves
Dent portum placidum tibi.
Tu, qui flumina, qui vagos
Fluctus oceani regis,
Et sævam boream domas,
Da fratri faciles vias,
Et fratrem reducem suis.
TRANSLATION. BY DR. GIBBONS.
BROTHER, May Heaven vouchsafe to bless,
And crown your voyage with success!
Go, in the planks of pinė immur'd,
And from surrounding harms secur'd;
Go, and with sails expanding wide,
With pleasure plough the placid tide,
In safety wafted o'er the main,
In safety wafted home again.
O may no monster of the flood
That roams for prey, and thirsts for blood,
Seize you to his tremendous pow'r,
And with remorseless jaws devour;
While the bark, shiver'd by the blast,
Strows with its wreck the watry waste!
My brother trusted to.thy care,
Half of myself, O vessel, bear
Secure through ocean's wide domain;
At best a desert trackless plain,
And oft, when hurricanes arise,
In billows thundering to the skies:
Safe from the sand's devouring heap,
May'st thou thy wary passage keep;
Safe too from each tremendous rock,
Where ships are shatter'd by the shock:
May only favourable gales
Attend thy course, and fill thy sails,
And may the zephyrs' softest wing
Thee to thy port serenely bring!
Thou, who dost o'er the seas preside,
Rouse them to rage, or smooth their tide!
Thou, who dost in thy fetters keep
The boisterous tyrants of the deep!
To foreign climes secure convey
My brother, through the watry way;
And back conduct him, o'er the main,
To his dear shores and friends again!
FIDUM ADOLESCENTIE MEÆ PRÆCEPTORUM.
Pindarica Carminis Specimen. 1694.
EN te, Pinhorni, Musa Trisantica
Salutat, ardens discipulum tuam
Gratè fateri nunc Athenas,
Nunc Latias per amœnitates
Tutò pererrans te recolit ducem,
Te quondam teneros et Ebraia per aspera gressus Non durâ duxisse manu.
Tuo patescunt lumine Thespii
Campi atque ad arcem Pieridôn iter:
En altus assurgens Homerus
Arma deosque virosque miscens
Occupat æthereum Parnassi culmen: Homeri
Immensos stupeo manes-
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