ISAAC WATTS, D.D.

ISAAC WATTS, an eminent divine, philosopher, and poet, was born at Southampton, in 1674, and became a congregational minister. As a poet he is chiefly known by his "Hebrew Lyrics," "Hymns," &c. They are not very carefully finished; but there is a remarkable sweetness and purity of thought in them. Perhaps the most successful of his poems are his "Hymns for the Young," which are admirably adapted for their purpose. His psalms and hymns have, for half a century, been used in nearly all the churches that worship in the English language; and if popularity were a test of merit, Watts should be ranked with Milton. He died in 1748.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.

AN ODE ATTEMPTED IN THE ENGLISH SAPPHIC.

WHEN the fierce north wind, with his airy forces,
Rears up the Baltic to a foaming fury,

And the red lightning, with a storm of hail, comes
Rushing amain down,

How the
poor sailors stand amazed and tremble,
While the hoarse thunder, like a bloody trumpet,
Roars a loud onset to the gaping waters,
Quick to devour them!

Such shall the noise be, and the wild disorder,
(If things eternal may be like those earthly,)
Such the dire terror when the great archangel
Shakes the creation,

Tears the strong pillars of the vault of heaven,
Breaks up old marble, the repose of princes.
See the graves open, and the bones arising―
Flames all around them.

Hark! the shrill outcries of the guilty wretches;
Lively bright horror and amazing anguish

Stare through their eyelids, while the living worm lies
Gnawing within them.

Thoughts, like old vultures, prey upon their heart-strings,
And the smart twinges when the eye beholds the
Lofty Judge frowning, and a flood of vengeance
Rolling afore Him.

Hopeless immortals! how they scream and shiver,
While devils push them to the pit wide yawning,
Hideous and gloomy, to receive them headlong
Down to the centre!

Stop here, my fancy: (all away, ye horrid
Doleful ideas:) come, arise to Jesus;

How He sits God-like! and the saints around Him,
Throned, yet adoring.

Oh! may I sit there when he comes triumphant,
Dooming the nations, then ascend to glory;
While our Hosannas all along the passage
Shout the Redeemer.

HOPE IN DARKNESS.

YET gracious God,

Yet will I seek thy smiling face:
What though a short eclipse his beauties shroud,
And bar the influence of his rays?

"Tis but a morning vapor or a summer cloud;
He is my sun, though He refuse to shine.

Though for a moment He depart,

I dwell forever on his heart,

Forever He on mine.

Early before the light arise,

I'll spring a thought away to God;

The passion of my heart and eyes
Shall shout a thousand groans and sighs,
A thousand glances strike the skies,
The floor of his abode.

Dear Sovereign, hear thy servant pray;

Bend the blue heavens, Eternal King,

Downward thy cheerful graces bring;

Or shall I breathe in vain, and pant my hours away? Break, glorious Brightness, through the gloomy veil, Look, how the armies of despair

Aloft their sooty banners rear

Round my poor captive soul, and dare

Pronounce me prisoner of hell.

But Thou, my Sun, and Thou, my Shield,

Wilt save me in the bloody field;

Break, glorious Brightness, shoot one glimmering ray; One glance of thine creates a day,

And drives the troops of hell away.

Happy the times, but ah! those times are gone,

When wondrous power, and radiant grace,

Round the tall arches of thy temple shone,

And mingled their victorious rays:

Sin, with all its ghastly train,

Fled to the depths of death again,

And smiling triumph sat on every face:

Our spirits, raptured with the sight,

Were all devotion, all delight,

And loud Hosannas sounded the Redeemer's praise.

Here could I say,

(And paint the place whereon I stood,)

Here I enjoyed a visit half the day

From my descending God:

I was regaled with heavenly fare,

With fruit and manna from above; Divinely sweet the blessings were, While my Emmanuel was there;

And o'er my head

The Conqueror spread

The banner of his love.

Then why, my heart, sunk down so low?
Why do my eyes dissolve and flow,
And hopeless nature mourn?

Review, my soul, those pleasing days,
Read his unalterable grace

Through the displeasure of his face,
And wait a kind return.

A father's love may raise a frown,
To chide the child, or prove the son,
But love will ne'er destroy;

The hour of darkness is but short,

Faith be thy life, and patience thy support:

The morning brings the joy.

DIVINE JUDGMENTS.

Nor from the dust my sorrows spring, Nor drop my comforts from the lower skies: Let all the baneful planets shed

Their mingled curses on my head;

How vain their curses, if th' Eternal King Look through the clouds, and bless me with his eyes! Creatures with all their boasted sway,

Are but his slaves, and must obey;

They wait their orders from above,

And execute his word, the vengeance, or the love.

'Tis by a warrant from his hand,

The gentler gales are bound to sleep;

The north-wind blusters, and assumes command
Over the desert and the deep;

Old Boreas, with his freezing powers,
Turns the earth iron, makes the ocean glass,
Arrests the dancing riv'lets as they pass,

And chains them moveless to the shores;

The grazing ox lows to the gelid skies,

Walks o'er the marble meads with withering eyes,

Walks o'er the solid lakes, snuffs up the wind, and dies.

Fly to the polar world, my sun,

And mourn the pilgrims there, (a wretched throng!)
Seized and bound in rigid chains,

A troop of statues on the Russian plains,
And life stands frozen in the purple veins.
Atheist, forbear, no more blaspheme;
God has a thousand terrors in his name,
A thousand armies at command,
Waiting the signal of his hand,

And magazines of frost, and magazines of flame.
Dress thee in steel to meet his wrath;

His sharp artillery from the north

Shall pierce thee to thy soul, and shake thy mortal frame. Sublime on winter's rugged wings,

He rides in arms along the sky,

And scatters fate on swains and kings;

And flocks, and herds, and nations die,

While impious lips, profanely bold,

Grow pale, and quivering at his dreadful cold,

Give their own blasphemies the lie.

The mischiefs that infest the earth,

When the hot dog-star fires the realms on high,
Drought, and disease, and cruel dearth,

Are but the flashes of a wrathful eye,

From the incensed Divinity.

In vain our parching palates thirst

For vital food, in vain we cry,
And pant for vital breath;

The verdant fields are burnt to dust,

The sun has drunk all channels dry,
And all the air is death.

Ye scourges of our Maker's rod,

"Tis at his dread command, at his imperial nod, You deal your various plagues abroad.