So shall it never slide. 12 Thee will I praise, O Lord my God, Thee honour and adore With my whole heart, and blaze abroad Thy name for evermore. 13 For great thy mercy is toward me, 14 O God, the proud against me rise, To seek my life, and in their eyes No fear of thee have set. 15 But thou, Lord, art the God most mild, Readiest thy grace to shew, Slow to be angry, and art styled Most merciful, most true. 16 Oh turn to me thy face at length, And me have mercy on; Unto thy servant give thy strength, And save thy handmaid's son. 17 Some sign of good to me afford, And be ashamed, because thou, Lord, PSALM LXXXVII. I AMONG the holy mountains high 2 Sion's fair gates the Lord loves more Of Jacob's land, though there be store, 40 50 60 3 City of God, most glorious things I mention Egypt, where proud kings 4 I mention Babel to my friends, And Tyre, with Ethiop's utmost ends : 5 But twice that praise shall in our ear This and this man was born in her; High God shall fix her fast. 6 The Lord shall write it in a scroll, 7 Both they who sing and they who dance In thee fresh brooks and soft streams glance, PSALM LXXXVIII. I LORD GOD, that dost me save and keep, And all night long before thee weep, 2 Into thy presence let my prayer, And to my cries, that ceaseless are, Thine ear with favour bend. 3 For, cloyed with woes and trouble store, My life, at death's uncheerful door, 4 Reckoned I am with them that pass 10 20 10 Down to the dismal pit; I am a 1 man but weak, alas ! And for that name unfit, 1 Heb.: A man without manly 5 From life discharged and parted quite strength. Among the dead to sleep, And like the slain in bloody fight Them, from thy hand delivered o'er, Where thickest darkness hovers round, 7 Thy wrath, from which no shelter saves, 2 Thou break'st upon me all thy waves, 8 Thou dost my friends from me estrange, Me to them odious, for they change, And I here pent up thus. 9 Through sorrow and affliction great 10 Wilt thou do wonders on the dead? Shall the deceased arise 20 30 2 The Hebrew bears both. And praise thee from their loathsome bed With pale and hollow eyes? II Shall they thy loving-kindness tell 12 In darkness can thy mighty hand 40 Or wondrous acts be known? Of dark oblivion? 13 But I to thee, O Lord, do cry And up to thee my prayer doth hie 14 Why wilt thou, Lord, my soul forsake 3 15 That am already bruised, and shake While I thy terrors undergo, Astonished with thine ire? 16 Thy fierce wrath over me doth flow; Thy threatenings cut me through: 17 All day they round about me go; Like waves they me pursue. 18 Lover and friend thou hast removed, And severed from me far: They fly me now whom I have loved, PSALM I. Done into verse 1653. BLEST is the man who hath not walked astray He shall be as a tree which planted grows PSALM II. Done August 8, 1653.—Terzetti. 10 WHY do the Gentiles tumult, and the nations "Let us break off," say they, "by strength of hand, Their bonds, and cast from us, no more to wear, Their twisted cords." He who in heaven doth dwell Shall laugh; the Lord shall scoff them, then severe Speak to them in his wrath, and in his fell And fierce ire trouble them. "But I," saith he, "Anointed have my King (though ye rebel) On Sion my holy hill." A firm decree I will declare the Lord to me hath said, IO The Heathen, and, as thy conquest to be swayed, Earth's utmost bounds: them shalt thou bring full low With iron sceptre bruised, and them disperse Like to a potter's vessel shivered so." And now be wise at length, ye kings averse; 20 |