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And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead;
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,1
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently
play.

Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise! 2

3

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90

Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!
See, a long race thy spacious courts adorn ;
See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;
See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate
kings,

lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the den of the cockatrice.” -P.

1 Isa. lxv. 25.-P.

2 Ibid. lx. 1. The thoughts of Isaiah, which compose the latter part of the poem, are wonderfully elevated, and much above those general exclamations of Virgil, which make the loftiest parts of his "Pollio:

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Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo!
-toto surget gens aurea mundo!

-incipient magni procedere menses!

Aspice, venturo lætentur ut omnia sæclo!" &c.

The reader needs only to turn to the passages of

Isaiah here cited.-P.

3 Isa. lx. 4.-P.

4 Ibid. lx. 3.-P.

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And heaped with products of Sabæan springs! 1
For thee Idume's spicy forest's blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See heaven its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day.
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,2
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall
shine

100

3

Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine! 104 The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,3 Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away; But fixed his word, his saving power remains : Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own MESSIAH reigns!

1 Isa. lx. 6.-P.

2 Ibid. lx. 19, 20.-P. 3 Ibid. li. 6; liv. 10.-P.

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AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1709.

Si quid novisti rectius istis,

Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum."

Horat.