And God for him was still prepar❜d to spare
Thy city, had ten righteous men been there;
But all were full of wickedness, and none

Could there be call'd "the righteous," no not one.
His earnest supplication could not stay

The messenger of vengeance on his way:

For crimes unnumber'd from thy worthless crowd,

For signal punishment had cried aloud.

He could no more entreat for thy lost race,

But sorrowing "return'd unto his place :"

Nor long, ere scorching fire from heaven swept o'er
Thy plains, so green so flourishing before.

And when at length the next bright morn awoke,(51)

All there was wrapt in thick ascending smoke.
Art thou(52) the place where erst the happy Lot
Once pitch'd his tents, a rich and verdant spot,-

(51)" And lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace."-Gen. xix. 28.

(52) ❝ And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar."-Gen. xiii.

10.

The flow'ry pasture where his shepherds kept
Their flocks, and underneath thy palm trees slept?
Or 'mid these plains did once his herds increase,
And drink of Jordan's winding stream in peace?
If so, how sadly alter'd is the scene,

How drear, how wild, from what it once had been.
The traveller now explores thy arid plain,

Where still and heartless silence holds her reign;

His weary eye would pierce the prospect rude,

And look beyond its hopeless solitude;

For there is nought remaining, to confess

Thy happier day, thy former loveliness.

“Bleak are the crusted rocks, where silent sleep"

Thy waters, Asphaltites, dark and deep:

The plains are parch'd and dry, where once was seen Nature's gay carpet spread, of richest green;

No pine-trees there, no palm now waves its head,

No graceful cedars, every tree is dead.

And should the Arab seek thee, it is when

He tracks the wild beast to his hungry den;

Or perhaps his robber horde may pass thee by,
For other countries, "and a fairer sky."

Thou, too, Phoenician city of the isles,(53)

Whom Fortune once hath favoured with her smiles,

Rich in the golden store and purple vest,

With every costly gift of nations bless'd,
Wert mighty when before the prosp❜rous gale
Thy Tyrian sailor spread his swelling sail;
Or, furl'd it, loosely flapping, till again

Outbound with stores, it whiten'd on the main.
Glad in the boast his native-place should be
Phoenicia's pride, the mistress of the sea.

Those days, proud Tyre, have long been pass'd, no more

The teeming numbers haunt thy busy shore;

So all, thy merchants, nobles, princes, sought,(54)
The pomp and varied show,(55) is come to nought.

(53)❝ Tyre is expressly called an 'island' and 'the sea even the midst of the sea;' it was built partly on the continent and partly on some islands." There was old and new Tyre.—Newton on Prophecies.

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(54) ❝ A mart of nations," " the crowning city whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth." -Isaiah xxiii.

(55) ❝ You find no similitude now, of that glory for which Tyre was once so renowned, and which the prophet Ezekiel describes, there being not so much as one entire house left:

Still is the busy hum, the noise of trade,

The beating heart; amid the dust is laid

The swarthy arm which once heap'd up thy store

Of richest purples, and Arabian ore.

No morning sun, now beaming o'er the bay,
Shall find thy well-stor❜d vessel on its way,
Nor cheerful song, from Tyrians on the main,
In well-timed notes will e'er be heard again;
And if those waters shone with gilded prow
Of many a stately ship, 'tis not so now;
For e'en the fisherman, with bended oar,

Can scarcely toil through sea-weeds for the shore,

To share, perhaps, in some mean dwelling nigh,
The scanty gains among his family;

Spread forth the lowly meal, or fold his net
From off the rocks, ere yet the sun has set.(56)

its present inhabitants are only a few wretched fishermen, harbouring themselves in the ruins, and subsisting on fishing, who seem to be preserved in the place by Divine Providence, as a visible argument how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre."-Maundrell.

(56) "It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken it saith the Lord God. I will make thee like the top of a rock, thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon."--Ezekiel 26,

Great city of the plain,(57) of Shinar's host
Pride of the east, and the Assyrian's boast,-
Where are thy brazen gates,(58) thy lofty walls,
Thy towers, thy palaces, thy stately halls?
Swept by destruction's pinion from the face(59)
Of earth, hast thou too scarcely left a trace?
Fearful and sad(60) that none will pass thereby,
Hast thou fulfill'd thy fated destiny?

Do pools of water rear the blighted reed

Where storks may build their nests, or bitterns feed;
Do satyrs dance around, and scorpions creep
Beneath the dry and crumbling stones to sleep;
And have the punishments the Lord hath sent,

Made thee a bye-word, an astonishment?

(57) Babylon stood on the plain of Shinar.

(58) See Isaiah's prophecy, xiii. 19.

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(59) ❝ I will also make it a possession for the bittern and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts."-Isaiah xiv. 23.

(60) "A land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby."-Jeremiah li. 43.