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Psalm xc.

O Lord, Thou art our home, to whom we fly,
And so hast always been from age to age:
Before the hills did intercept the eye,

Or that the frame was up of earthly stage,

One God Thou wert, and art, and still shalt be;
The line of time, it doth not measure Thee.

Both death and life obey Thy holy lore,

And visit in their turns, as they are sent;
A thousand years with Thee they are no more
Than yesterday, which, ere it is, is spent;

Or as a watch by night, that course doth keep,
And goes and comes, unwares to them that sleep.

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,
To see the summer come about again.

At morning, fair it musters on the ground;
At ev'n it is cut down, and laid along:
And though it spared were, and favour found,
The weather would perform the mower's wrong.
Thus hast Thou hang'd our life on brittle pins,
To let us know it will not bear our sins.

Thou bury'st not within oblivion's tomb

Our trespasses, but ent'rest them aright;
Ev'n those that are conceiv'd in darkness' womb,
To thee appear as done at broad day-light.

As a tale told, which sometimes men attend,
And sometimes not, our life steals to an end.

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,
To spin in length this feeble line of life?

But who considers duly of Thine ire?

Or doth the thoughts thereof wisely embrace?
For Thou, O God, art a consuming fire:
Frail man, how can he stand before Thy face?
If Thy displeasure Thou dost not refrain,
A moment brings all back to dust again.

Teach us, O Lord, to number well our days,
Thereby our hearts to wisdom to apply;
For that which guides man best in all his ways
Is meditation of mortality.

This bubble light, this vapour of our breath,
Teach us to consecrate to hour of death.

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;
But to our children raise it many a stage,
That all the world to Thee may glory give.
Our handiwork likewise, as fruitful tree,
Let it, O Lord, blessed, not blasted be.

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,
Full of grief and unbefriended,
Minding Sion's poor estate,

From our eyes the tears descended;
And our harps we hanged high

On the willows growing nigh.

For (insulting on our woe)

They that had us here enthralled,
Their imperious power to shew,

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,
To repeat our songs of Thee,

For our spoilers' recreation?

Ah, alas! we cannot yet
Thee, Jerusalem, forget.

Oh, Jerusalem, if I

Do not mourn, all pleasure shunning,
Whilst thy walls defaced be,

Let my right hand lose his cunning,
And for ever let my tongue

To my palate fast be clung.

Psalm cxlviii.

Come, O come; with sacred lays,
Let us sound th' Almighty's praise.

Hither bring, in true consent,
Heart, and voice, and instrument.

Let the Orphurion sweet

With the harp and viol meet.

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GEORGE WITHER.

To your voices tune the lute;
Let nor tongue nor string be mute;
Nor a creature dumb be found,
That hath either voice or sound.

Let such things as do not live,
In still-music praises give.
Lowly pipe, ye worms that creep
On the earth, or in the deep.
Loud, aloft, your voices strain,
Beasts and monsters of the main.
Birds, your warbling treble sing.
Clouds, your peals of thunder ring.
Sun and moon, exalted higher,
And you stars, augment the quire.

Come, ye sons of human race,
In this chorus take your place,
And amid the mortal throng,
Be you masters of the song.
Angels, and celestial powers,
Be the noblest tenor your's.
Let (in praise of God) the sound
Run in a never-ending round,
That our holy hymn may be
Everlasting, as is He.

From the earth's vast hollow womb
Music's deepest bass shall come.

Seas and floods, from shore to shore,
Shall the counter-tenor roar.
To this concert (when we sing)
Whistling winds, your descant bring,
Which may bear the sound above,
Where the orb of fire doth move;
And so climb from sphere to sphere,
Till our song th' Almighty hear.

So shall He, from heaven's high tower,
On the earth His blessing shower:
All this huge, wide orb we see,
Shall one quire, one temple be.

129

There our voices we will rear,
Till we fill it everywhere,

And enforce the fiends that dwell

In the air, to sink to hell.
Then, O come, with sacred lays,

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?
On Thy holy hill reside?

He that's just and innocent,

Tells the truth of his intent;

Slanders none with venom'd tongue;
Fears to do his neighbour wrong;

Fosters not base infamies;
Vice beholds with scornful eyes;
Honours those who fear the Lord;
Keeps, though to his loss, his word;
Takes no bribes for wicked ends,
Nor to use his money lends.

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.

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