The Works of Abraham Cowley/Volume 2/The Thirty-fourth Chapter of the Prophet Isaiah

by Abraham Cowley

THE

THIRTY-FOURTH CHAPTER

OF THE

PROPHET ISAIAH.

Awake, and with attention hear,
Thou drowsy World! for it concerns thee near;
Awake, I say, and listen well,
To what from God, I, his loud prophet, tell.
Bid both the poles suppress their stormy noise,
And bid the roaring sea contain its voice.
Be still, thou sea; be still, thou air and earth,
Still as old Chaos, before Motion's birth:
A dreadful host of judgments is gone out,
In strength and number more
Than e'er was rais'd by God before,
To scourge the rebel world, and march it round about.

I see the sword of God brandish'd above,
And from it streams a dismal ray;
I see the scabbard cast away;
How red anon with slaughter will it prove!
How will it sweat and reek in blood!
How will the scarlet-glutton be o'ergorged with his food,
And devour all the mighty feast!
Nothing soon but bones will rest.
God does a solemn sacrifice prepare;
But not of oxen, nor of rams,
Not of kids, nor of their dams,
Not of heifers, nor of lambs:
The altar all the land, and all men in 't the victims are.
Since, wicked men's more guilty blood to spare,
The beasts so long have sacrificed been;
Since men their birth-right forfeit still by sin;
'T is fit at last beasts their revenge should have,
And sacrificed men their better brethren save.

So will they fall, so will they flee,
Such will the creatures wild distraction be,
When, at the final doom,
Nature and Time shall both be slain,
Shall struggle with Death's pangs in vain,
And the whole world their funeral pile become.
The wide-stretch'd scroll of heaven, which we
Immortal as the Deity think,
With all the beauteous characters that in it
With such deep sense by God's own hand were writ
(Whose eloquence, though we understand not, we admire)
Shall crackle, and the parts together shrink
Like parchment in a fire:
Th' exhausted sun to th' moon no more shall tend;
But truly then headlong into the sea descend:
The glittering host, now in such fair array,
So proud, so well-appointed, and so gay,
Like fearful troops in some strong ambush ta'en,
Shall some fly routed, and some fall slain,
Thick as ripe fruit, or yellow leaves, in autumn fall,
With such a violent storm as blows down tree and all.

And thou, O cursed land!
Which wilt not see the precipice where thou dost stand
(Though thou stand'st just upon the brink)
Thou of this poison'd bowl the bitter dregs shalt drink.
Thy rivers and thy lakes shall so
With human blood o'erflow,
That they shall fetch the slaughter'd corpse away,
Which in the fields around unburied lay,
And rob the beasts and birds to give the fish their prey:
The rotting corpse shall so infect the air,
Beget such plagues and putrid venoms there,
That by thine own dead shall be slain
All thy few living that remain.
As one who buys, surveys, a ground,
So the destroying-angel measures it around;
So careful and so strict he is,
Lest any nook or corner he should miss:
He walks about the perishing nation,
Ruin behind him stalks and empty Desolation.

Then shall the market and the pleading-place
Be chok'd with brambles and o'ergrown with grass:
The serpents through thy streets shall roll,
And in the lower rooms the wolves shall howl,
And thy gilt chambers lodge the raven and the owl,
And all the wing'd ill-omens of the air,
Though no new ills can be foreboded there:
The lion then shall to the leopard say,
"Brother leopard, come away;
“Behold a land which God has given us in prey!
"Behold a land from whence we see
"Mankind expuls'd, his and our common enemy!"
The brother leopard shakes himself, and does not stay.

The glutted vultures shall expect in vain
New armies to be slain;
Shall find at last the business done,
Leave their consumed quarters, and be gone:
Th' unburied ghosts shall sadly moan,
The satyrs laugh to hear them groan:
The evil spirits, that delight
To dance and revel in the mask of night,
The moon and stars, their sole spectators, shall affright:
And, if of lost mankind
Aught happen to be left behind;
If any relicks but remain;
They in the dens shall lurk, beasts in the palaces shall reign.

 

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