Yet, when was time so full of miracles? When did God show His power with more effect? Will you have always eyes that do not see A people thankless?--still your ear be struck With greatest wonders, and your heart unmoved? Must I, then, Abner, call to mind the course Of prodigies accomplished in our days? Of Israel's tyrants, the notorious shame, And God found true in all His menaces; The impious Ahab ruined, and his blood That drenched the field by homicide usurped; Jezebel slaughtered near that fatal field; That queen beneath the feet of horses crushed; The dogs in her inhuman blood quenched full, And the torn members of her hideous corpse; Of lying prophets, the confounded crew, And flames upon the altar fall'n from heaven; Elijah speaking like a potentate Unto the elements, the firmament As heated brass becoming, closed by him; The earth three years without both rain and dew; The dead reviving at Elisha's voice? O, Abner, own in these transcendant deeds, A God such as He was throughout all time. Who knoweth, when He wills, to show His glory, His people always present in His thoughts. {ABNER.} But where the dignities to David promised, And e'en foretold by Solomon, his son? Alas! we hoped that from that happy race Was to descend a numerous train of kings; That over every nation, every tribe, His domination one of them should fix; Make war and tumult cease in every land, And at their feet behold all earthly kings. {JOAD.} Wherefore renounce the promises of heaven? {ABNER.} Where shall we seek that monarch, David's son? Can heaven itself repair that withered tree, Dead, even to its roots? The infant king, By Athaliah murdered in his cradle; Can those, for eight years dead, forsake the tomb? Ah! in her fury were she but deceived! If of the royal blood one drop escaped! {JOAD.} What would you then? {ABNER.} O happy day for me! O with what ardour would I own my king! Doubt you, that at his feet our eager tribes-- But wherefore flatter me with these vain thoughts? The wretched heir of our triumphant kings Alone was Ochoziah, with his children; By Jehu's shafts I saw the father pierced; You, by the mother, saw the son despatched. {JOAD.} I say no more; but when the star of day Shall have performed a third part of his course On the horizon, come with this same zeal Again into the temple, whilst to prayers The third hour summons us, and God to you Will show, by benefactions weighty, that His word is stable, that it ne'er deceives. Depart: I must prepare for this great day, And dawn already gilds the temple's summit. {ABNER.}