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| THROUGH heaven’s high courts the trump eternal roars— | |
| Lift up your heads ye everlasting doors; | |
| And wait the God of gods!—Lo, at the sound, | |
| Wide fly the portals, blazing all around. | |
| And see he comes! adown the rending skies, | 5 |
| Borne on the whirlwind’s rapid wing he flies, | |
| Cherub and seraphim prepare his way, | |
| Black thunder rolls and livid lightnings play. | |
| Heaven’s radiant bow his awful head arrays, | |
| His face the sun’s refulgent beam displays; | 10 |
| Beneath his feet the avenging bolts are hurl’d, | |
| The avenging bolts that shake a guilty world.— | |
| Sounds but his dread command, when down they fly, | |
| The deep-mouth’d thunder rends the vaulted sky; | |
| All nature trembles as they issue down, | 15 |
| Deep groans the earth, her utmost regions groan. | |
| And lo, on Sinai’s top descends the God, | |
| That wrapt in tempest, trembled as he trod. | |
| Flame, smoke, and whirlwind clothe its awful brow, | |
| While earthquake heaves the groaning base below. | 20 |
| Tremendous scene, oh how shall men withstand, | |
| When God in thunder gives the world command! | |
| And hark! the trumpet’s intermitted sound | |
| Roars from the mount and shakes all nature round. | |
| “I am the King of Kings, the Lord of all, | 25 |
| At whose dread shrine even Gods in honor fall: | |
| By whom creation rose, divinely fair, | |
| Who form’d the stars, and launch’d them in the air: | |
| Whose mighty nod the rough tumultuous sea, | |
| The whirlwind’s sweep, and rending bolt obey. | 30 |
| I speak—and lo ten thousand thunders roll— | |
| I breathe—and lightning gleams from pole to pole. | |
| The Almighty is my name—at my command | |
| Thick darkness rose that veil’d the Memphian land. | |
| Empower’d by me, your leader smote the main, | 35 |
| And call’d up plagues that poison’d all their plain; | |
| That e’en the earth and air, which gave them birth, | |
| Conspired and smote them with enormous death.— | |
| I spake the word, asunder Jordan rode, | |
| That Israel o’er its dry foundations trod.— | 40 |
| Egypt pursued, I bade the same dread wave | |
| Roll back, and whelm their millions in a grave. | |
| ’Twas said—the raging elements combined, | |
| The rushing tempest and the warring wind; | |
| Till own’d too late a God’s superior power, | 45 |
| They sunk in depths, and sunk to rise no more! | |
| Still would ye have the assistance of that God | |
| Continued through a life’s perplexing road; | |
| That when at last the heavens and earth expire, | |
| And nature rolls in one devouring fire, | 50 |
| Ye might in transport view the advancing hour, | |
| In transport hear the last dread thunders roar; | |
| Then like the day emerging from the gloom, | |
| Arise to flourish in eternal bloom— | |
| With due respect, with holy awe receive | 55 |
| Those institutions which your God will give!— | |
| For this he trod the unhallow’d realms below, | |
| In all the pomp the powers of heaven could show. * * * * * * | |
| Thus spake the Legislator of the sky— | |
| And earth’s long shores return the loud reply. | 60 |
| Peal push’d on peal, the doubling thunders roar, | |
| Bellow the winds—the flamy lightnings glare.— * * * * * * | |
| Such shall the scene be at that dreadful time, | |
| When the last trump shall sound his wrath sublime: | |
| That potent trump which every head shall call | 65 |
| From each dark chamber of the bursting ball. | |
| Then at the flames which in his nostrils glow, | |
| The everlasting hills in streams shall flow— | |
| The affrighted sun shall from yon arch retire, | |
| Shook from his sphere, and help the general fire.— | 70 |
| Yon moon in blood! then every star shall fall, | |
| In rude combustion o’er a flaming ball: | |
| Creation sunk, and all God’s thunder hurl’d | |
| Down on the wrecks of each expiring world. | |
| But where ’s the muse?—behold the Almighty rise: | 75 |
| The whirlwind bears him up the flaming skies. | |
| Follow harmonious all the tuneful choir, | |
| Sweet concert sweeping from the swelling lyre. | |
| Such notes as at creation’s birth they sung, | |
| When heaven’s broad arch with hallelujahs rung. | 80 |
| Hark—at the strain the enraptured spheres rebound; | |
| And laboring echo lengthens out the sound. | |
| “Lift up your heads, celestial gates!” they sing: | |
| And see—they open to receive the king. | |
| The expecting host their loudest accents raise— | 85 |
| “Eternal God, how glorious are thy ways! | |
| O for some great, some more than angel song, | |
| To speak the praises which to thee belong! | |
| Imagination faints on this great scene; | |
| Thought is too low, and majesty too mean: | 90 |
| So great thy condescension thus to own | |
| Vile man, the meanest prostrate at thy throne | |
| May from his grateful altar ever rise | |
| A glad perfume of incense to the skies.” | |
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