CONNECT/HOOK

Burst, burst, thou charm! wake, trembler wake again,
Nor let thy parent’s dying prayers be vain!
The hour arriv’d, th’ infernal trumpet blew;
Black from its mouth a cloud sulphureous flew;
The caverns groan’d; the startled throng gave way,
And forth the chariot rush’d to gloomy day.
On every side, expressive emblems rose,
The man, the scene, the purpose to disclose.
Here wrinkled dotage, like a fondled boy,
Titter’d, and smirk’d its momentary joy:
His crumbs there avarice grip’d, with lengthen’d nails,
And weigh’d clipp’d half pence in unequal scales.
Trim vanity her praises laugh’d aloud,
And snuff’d for incense from the gaping crowd,
While Age an eye of anguish cast around,
His crown of glory prostrate on the ground.
There C******* sate; aloud his voice declar’d,
Hell is no more, or no more to be fear’d.
What tho’ the Heavens, in words of flaming fire,
Disclose the vengeance of eternal ire,
Bid anguish o’er the unrepenting soul,
In waves succeeding waves, forever roll;
The strongest terms, each language knows, employ
To teach us endless woe, and endless joy:
‘Tis all a specious irony, design’d
A harmless trifling with the human kind:
Or, not to charge the sacred books with lies,
A wile most needful of the ingenious skies,
On this bad earth their kingdom to maintain,
And curb the rebel, man: but all in vain.

Timothy Dwight: The Triumph of Infidelity (1788)

There * * * * * * grinn’d, his conscience fear’d anew,
And scarcely with’d the doctrine false or true;
Scarce smil’d, himself secure from God to know,
So poor the triumph o’er so weak a foe.
In the deep midnight of his guilty mind,
Where not one solitary virtue shin’d,
Hardly, at times, his struggling conscience wrought
A few, strange intervals of lucid thought,
Holding her clear and dreadful mirrour nigher,
Where villain glow’d, in characters of fire.
Those few the tale dispers’d: His soul no more
Shall, once a year, the Beelzebub run o’er;
No more shall J — — n’s ghost her infant show,
Saw his hard nerves, and point the hell below;
Fixd in cold death, no more his eyeballs stare,
Nor change to upright thorns his bristly hair.
There Demas smil’d, who once the Christian name
Gravely assum’d, and wore with sober fame.
Meek, modest, decent, in life’s lowly vale,
Pleas’d he walk’d on; nor now had grac’d this tale;
But, borne beyond the Atlantic ferry, he
Saw wondrous things, his schoolmates did not see,
Great houses, and great men, in coaches carried;
Great Ladies, great Lord’s wives, tho’ never married;
Fine horses, and fine pictures, and fine plays,
And all the finest things of modern days.
Camelion like, he lost his former hue,
And, mid such great men, grew a great man too;
Enter’d the round of silly, vain parade;
His hair he powder’d, and his bow he made.
Shall powder’d heads, he cried, be sent to hell?
Shall men in vain in such fine houses dwell?
There Euclio — Ah my Muse, let deepest shame
Blush on thy cheek, at that unhappy name!
Oh write it not, my hand! the name appears
Already written: Wash it out, my tears!
Still, Oh all pitying Saviour! let thy love,
Stronger than death, all heights, and heavens above,
That on the accursed tree, in woes severe,
The thief’s dire guilt extinguish’d with a tear,
Yearn o’er that mind, that, with temptations dire,
Rank appetites, and passions fraught with fire,
By each new call without, each thought within,
Is forc’d to folly, and is whirl’d to sin;
In conscience spite, tho’ arm’d with hissing fears,
Strong pangs of soul, and all his country’s tears,
Is charm’d to madness by the old serpent’s breath,
And hurried swiftly down the steep of death.