Thomson and Pollok: containing The seasons, by James Thomson, and The course of time, by Robert Pollok, A. M.

I

402

THE COURSE OF TIME.

The king, in purple robe, had owned, indeed,
The beggar for his brother; pride of rank
And office thawed into paternal love;
Oppression feared the day of equal rights,
Predicted; covetous extortion kept
In mind the hour of reckoning, soon to come;
And bribed injustice thought of being judged,
When he should stand, on equal foot, beside
The man he wronged, and surely-nay, 'tis true,
Most true, beyond all whispering of doubt,
That he, who lifted up the reeking scourge,
Dripping with gore from the slave's back, before
He struck again, had paused, and seriously
Of that tribunal thought, where God himself
Should look him in the face, and ask in wrath,
"Why didst thou this? Man! was he not thy
brother,
Bone of thy bone, and flesh and blood of thine?"
But, ah! this truth, by heaven and reason taught,
Was never fully credited on earth.
The titled, flattered, lofty men of power,
Whose wealth bought verdicts of applause for deecs
Of wickedness, could ne'er believe the time
Should truly come when judgment should proceed
Impartially against them, and they, too,
Have no good speaker at the Judge's ear,
No witnesses to bring them off for gold,
No power to turn the sentence from its course;
And they of low estate, who saw themselves,
Day after day, despised, and wronged, and mocked,
Without redress, could scarcely think the day
Should e'er arrive, when they, in truth, should stand
On perfect level with the potentates
And princes of the earth, and have their cause
Examined fairly, and their rights allowed.
But now this truth was felt, believed and felt,

`~U~