REDEMPTION. Ill
Of all-pervading grace and boundless love,
That speechless struck the oracles of Greece,
Held Tenedos at bay, closed Sibyl's caves,
O'erturn'd the Delphic fane, and demons sent,
With all the demo-gods, howling to hell,
Anew to learn, whose hand created, not
Withheld, had pow'r rebellious to destroy.
Nor Asia fails, who first his Star saw light
The eastern sky, and sends her wise men, fraught
With royal gifts, frankincense, gold and myrrh ;
Him first to hail, but last, save few, to own.
Egypt her arms, Him, opens to receive ;
And sable Africa bows down with awe
Before him, who, her deserts as the rose,
Makes blossom, and all her sunny fountains
With healing virtues flow. Not less the Medes
And Parthians own his sway ; whilst Elamites,
Libyans and Cretes, Araby and Gyrene,
Prepare his way, for whom, valleys were raised,
Mountains and hills brought low, crooked made straight,
And every rough place plain. Nor yet the East
Alone, greeted with joy man's rising Hope,
Whose circling beams o'erspread the Western world,
And heav'nly smile on tribes conceal'd from view;
On tribes long lost, but in the counsels, who,
Of God's redeeming love, recorded stood,
Vessels of grace, alike predestinate
In his good time to be aroused from death,
And bathed in life's regenerating flood.
These see his beams from far, and hail the sign,
Of which some glimm'ring rays, not quite obscured,
Transpierce the mists that clouded their dark minds.
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