Thou art all love, all mercy, all divine,
And shall I make these glories cease to shine?
Shall sinful man grow great by his offence,
And from its course turn back Omnipotence?
"Forbid it! and oh! grant, great God, at least
This one, this slender, almost no request;
When I have wept a thousand lives away,
When torment is grown weary of its prey,
When I have rav'd ten thousand years in fire,
Ten thousand thousand, let me then expire."
Deep anguish! but too late; the hopeless soul,
Bound to the bottom of the burning pool,
Though loth, and ever loud blaspheming, owns
He's justly doom'd to pour eternal groans;
Enclos'd with horrors, and transfix'd with pain,
Rolling in vengeance, struggling with his chain:
To talk to fiery tempests; to implore
The raging flame to give its burnings o'er;
To toss, to writhe, to pant beneath his load,
And bear the weight of an offended God.
The favour'd of their Judge, in triumph move
To take possession of their thrones above;
Satan's accurs'd desertion to supply,
And fill the vacant stations of the sky;
Again to kindle long-extinguish'd rays,
And with new lights dilate the heavenly blaze;
To crop the roses of immortal youth,
And drink the fountain-head of sacred truth
To swim in seas of bliss, to strike the string,
And lift the voice to their Almighty King;
To lose eternity in grateful lays,
And fill heaven's wide circumference with praise.
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