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Dread Silence reigned! I, shuddering, feared!
When suddenly a voice I heard,
In slow and solemn tone:
“Shall man,” it cried, “presume to vie
In justice, and in majesty,
With Heaven’s Eternal Throne?

“Can man more purity display
Than He, who formed him from the clay,
The offspring of the dust?
Behold! to those that round Him stand,
Attentive to His dread command,
He gives no charge, or trust.

“Even angels, next in might to God,
Submissive at His footstool nod,
And own superior power;
And ah! how much! how far below
Are mortals, doomed to pain and woe,
The pageants of an hour.

“Before the meanest worm they die,
And, mouldering into dust, they lie,
Within the earth’s cold bed.
Many, on whom the morn arose,
Before the evening shades, repose
In mansions of the dead.