The Poems of Philip Freneau

In ages past, when smit with warmth sublime,Their bards foretold the dark events of

time,And piercing forward through the mystic shade,Kings yet to come, and chiefs

unborn survey'd,Amittai's son perceiv'd, among the rest,The mighty flame usurp his

labouring breast:¿For this, in dreams, the voice unerring cameOf Him, who lives

through every age the same:"Arise! and o'er the intervening waste,"To Nineveh's

imperial turrets haste;"That mighty town to ruin I decree,"Proclaim destruction, and

proclaim from me:"Too long it stands, to God and man a foe,"Without one virtue left

to shield the blow;[Pg 4]"Guilt, black as night, their speedy ruin brings,"And hottest

vengeance from the King of Kings."The prophet heard¿but dared to disobey,(Weak

as he was) and fled a different way;In Joppa's port a trading ship he foundFar o'er

the main to distant Tarshish bound:The price of passage to her chief he paid,And

there conceal'd with wandering sailors stay'd,His purpose fixt, at once perverse and

blind,To leave his country, and his God behind.But He who spread the ocean's vast

expanse,And views all nature with a single glance,Forth from its prison bade the

tempest fly