The lightnings are thy ministers of ire,
The double-forked and ever-living fire;
In thy unconquerable hand they glow,
And at the flash all nature quakes below.
Thus, thunder-armed, thou dost creation draw
To one immense, inevitable law;
And with the various mass of breathing souls
Thy power is mingled and thy spirit rolls.
Dread genius of creation! all things bow
To thee! the universal monarch thou!
Nor aught is done without thy wise control
On earth, or sea, or round the ethereal pole,
Save when the wicked, in their frenzy blind,
Act o'er the follies of a senseless mind.

Thou curb'st th' excess; confusion to thy sight
Moves regular; th' unlovely scene is bright.
Thy hand, educing good from evil, brings
To one apt harmony the strife of things.
One ever-during law still binds the whole,
Though shunned, resisted, by the sinner's soul.
Wretches! while still they course the glittering prize,
The law of God eludes their ears and eyes.
Life then were virtue, did they this obey;
But wide from life's chief good they headlong stray.

Now glory's arduous toils the breast inflame;
Now avarice thirsts, insensible of shame;
Now sloth unnerves them in voluptuous ease,