Psalm xc. O Lord, Thou art our home, to whom we fly, Or that the frame was up of earthly stage, One God Thou wert, and art, and still shalt be; Both death and life obey Thy holy lore, And visit in their turns, as they are sent; Or as a watch by night, that course doth keep, Thou carry'st man away as with a tide : Then down swim all his thoughts that mounted high : Much like a mocking dream, that will not bide, But flies before the sight of waking eye; Or as the grass, that cannot term obtain, At morning, fair it musters on the ground; Thou bury'st not within oblivion's tomb Our trespasses, but ent'rest them aright; As a tale told, which sometimes men attend, The life of man is threescore years and ten, Or, if that he be strong, perhaps fourscore; LORD BACON. Yet all things are but labour to him then, New sorrows still come on, pleasures no more. Why should there be such tormoil and such strife, But who considers duly of Thine ire? Or doth the thoughts thereof wisely embrace? Teach us, O Lord, to number well our days, This bubble light, this vapour of our breath, Return unto us, Lord, and balance now With days of joy our days of misery; Help us right soon; our knees to Thee we bow, Depending wholly on Thy clemency; Then shall Thy servants, both with heart and voice, All the days of their life in Thee rejoice. Begin Thy work, O Lord, in this our age, Shew it unto Thy servants that now live; GEORGE WITHER. 127 In 1631, this versatile and productive poet gave forth a version of the Psalms, which is now become so scarce that we have never met with a copy. The 137th Psalm we reprint from a modern collection, and the somewhat free trans lation of the 148th we transcribe from Wither's "Preparation to the Psalter." They give us a high idea of the powers of the author. Psalm cxxxvii. As nigh Babel's streams we sat, From our eyes the tears descended; On the willows growing nigh. For (insulting on our woe) They that had us here enthralled, For a song of Sion called; Come, ye captives, come, said they, Sing us now an Hebrew lay. But, oh Lord, what heart had we, In a foreign habitation, For our spoilers' recreation? Ah, alas! we cannot yet Oh, Jerusalem, if I Do not mourn, all pleasure shunning, Let my right hand lose his cunning, To my palate fast be clung. Psalm cxlviii. Come, O come; with sacred lays, Hither bring, in true consent, Let the Orphurion sweet With the harp and viol meet. GEORGE WITHER. To your voices tune the lute; Let such things as do not live, Come, ye sons of human race, From the earth's vast hollow womb Seas and floods, from shore to shore, So shall He, from heaven's high tower, 129 There our voices we will rear, And enforce the fiends that dwell In the air, to sink to hell. Let us sound th' Almighty's praise. GEORGE SANDYS. Ever since the psalms of George Sandys* were pronounced by Montgomery "incomparably the most poetical in the English language," they have received a large measure of attention. The eulogy is not extravagant, but many are rendered in metres altogether unadapted to congregational worship. The first edition, a small folio, appeared in 1638. It was one of a few books with which Charles I. solaced his captivity in Carisbrook Castle. Besides two psalms, properly so called, we give, on account of its fine elegiac strain, "David's Lament for Saul and Jonathan." Psalm xv. Who shall in Thy tent abide? He that's just and innocent, Tells the truth of his intent; Slanders none with venom'd tongue; Fosters not base infamies; Who by these directions guide Their pure steps, shall never slide. * Sandys has been already noticed, vol. i. p. 321; where, however, he is mentioned by mistake as Hooker's visitor at Drayton-Beauchamp, instead of his brother Edwin. |