Sonnet — The Judgment Day

AS VIEWED BY WM. MILLER
It comes! it comes! That great and terrible day 
Is near at hand, big with creation's doom,—
The day whose prophecies unceasing boom 
Loud on the ear, when heavens shall roll away 
Even as a scroll, and rocks, like beaten clay
Grow small as dust. The dark and caverned tomb
Shakes fearfully through all its halls of gloom,
As If it heard the great archangel say 
The fiat that unfolds its marble jaws;
And earth, all ready for the wasting flame, 
Seems on its course in shuddering to pause, 
Struck with swift palsy through its iron frame, 
In terror of that word that shall be sent 
To sweep its burning orb from the vast firmament.