Classic Poem

From judges judgment God withdraws;
From counsellors of state
Detracting wisdom and applause,
With fools he does them rate.

Proud monarchs' cruel bonds he breaks,
Tears their engines of pain;
And binds, on tort'ring tyrants' necks,
The tortur'd pris'ner's chain.

He overturns the mighty peers,
And princes in their pride;
These that abash'd the world with fears,
He makes the world deride.

He takes their wisdom from the wise,
And knowledge from the sage,
And makes their former friends despise
Their oracles and age.

On princes great he pours contempt,
On kings of wide command,
He wrests, what seem'd from woe exempt,
Their sceptres from their hand.

To his all-penetrating eye,
The darkest shades of night,
And deepest hellish plots do lie,
As ope as noon-day light.

By him all nations high or low,
And kingdoms wax and wane;
By him their numbers ebb or flow,
And share the bliss or bane.

Great chiefs, like cowards, thro' heartless fright
He makes in deserts stray,
As drunkards groping in the night,
And reeling, lose their way.