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220 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.