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The Poets of Old Israel

LD Israel's readers of the stars,

OLD

I love them best. Musing, they read,
In embers of the heavenly hearth,

High truths were never learned below.
They asked not of the barren sands,
They questioned not that stretch of death;
But upward from the humble tent
They took the stairway of the hills;
Upward they climbed, bold in their trust,
To pluck the glory of the stars,

Faith falters, knowledge does not know,
Fast, one by one, the phantoms fade;
But that strange light, unwavering love,
Grasped from the lowered hand of God,
Abides, quenchless forevermore.

JOHN VANCE CHENEY.

One of the earliest specimens of English verse written by an English-born Jew addressed to Daniel Israel Lopez Laguna, who published in 1720 a metrical translation of the Psalms in Spanish under the title "Espejo fiet de Vidas."

On Translating the Psalms

HOW great thy Thoughts, how Glorious thy De

signs,

How every Musick varies in thy Lines;

The Praise of God in every Verse is found,

Art strengthening Nature, Sense improv'd by Sound;
Your strains are Regularly Bold and Please,
With unforst Care and unaffected Ease:
Whene'er I look in thy Delightful Page,
The Godly Verse my busy Thoughts engage,
And David's Psalms so Perfect does appear
True to the Sense, Harmonious to the Ear.

Happy the Man who strings his tuneful Lyre,
That like King David's Harp, it do's Inspire:
Thrice Happy thee and Worthiest to Dwell,
Amongst those Precepts thou hast Sung so well;
Your Wondrous Song with Raptures I Rehearse,
Then ask who wrought this Miracle of Verse:
Triumph LAGUNA with Immortal Lays
'Tis you alone that do's Deserve this Praise:
'Tis you alone could chuse so great a Theme,
That all the world in Duty must Esteem.

SAMPSON GUIDEON, JR.

To God

THOU, the One supreme o'er all!
For by what other name

May we upon thy greatness call,
Or celebrate thy fame?

Ineffable! to thee what speech
Can hymns of honor raise?
Ineffable! what tongue can reach
The measure of thy praise?

How, unapproached, shall mind of man
Descry Thy dazzling throne,
And pierce and find thee out, and scan
Where thou dost dwell alone?

Unuttered thou! all uttered things
Have had their birth from thee;
The one unknown! from thee the springs
Of all we know and see!

And all things, as they move along
In order fixed by thee,

Thy watchword heed, in silent song
Hymning thy majesty.

And lo! all things abide in thee,
And through the complex whole,
Thou spread'st thine own divinity,
Thyself of all the goal.

One being thou, all things, yet none,
Nor one nor yet all things;
How call thee, O mysterious One?
A worthy name, who brings?

All-named from attributes thine own,

How call thee as we ought?

Thou art unlimited, alone,

Beyond the range of thought.

GREGORY NANZIANZEN.

(Translated by Allen W. Chatfield).

Thou Art of All Created Things
THOU art of all created things,

O Lord, the essence and the cause,
The source and centre of all bliss;
What are those veils of woven light
Where sun and moon and stars unite,
The purple morn, the spangled night,
But curtains which thy mercy draws
Between the heavenly world and this?
The terrors of the sea and land—
When all the elements conspire,
The earth and water, storm and fire—
Are but the sketches of thy hand;
Do they not all in countless ways—
The lightning's flash, the howling storm,
The dread volcano's awful blaze-
Proclaim Thy glory and Thy praise?
CALDERON.

The Seeing Eye

THERE is an eye that never sleeps
Beneath the wing of night;

There is an ear that never shuts
When sink the beams of sight;
There is an arm that never tires

When human strength gives way;
There is a love that never fails
When earthly loves decay.
That eye is fix'd on seraph throngs,
That ear is filled with angels' songs,
That arm upholds the worlds on high,
That Love is throned beyond the sky.

REGINALD HEBER.

O

O Thou Eternal One!

THOU Eternal One! whose presence bright All space doth occupy, all motion guide: Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight; Thou only God! There is no God beside! Being above all beings! mighty One!

Whom none can comprehend and none explore; Who fill'st existence with Thyself alone: Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er,— Being whom we call God, and know no more! GABRIEL ROMANOVITCH DERZHAVIN.

Translated by SIR JOHN BOWRING.

The Infinity of God

NO coward soul is mine,

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:

I see Heaven's glories shine,

And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,

Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life-that in me has rest,

As I-undying Life-have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men's hearts: unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds,

Or idle froth amid the boundless main.

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by Thine infinity;

So surely anchored on

The steadfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love

Thy spirit animates eternal years,

Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,

And suns and universes ceased to be,

And Thou were left alone,

Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,

Nor atom that his might could render void:

Thou Thou art Being and Breath,

And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

EMILY BRONTË.

Adoration

I LOVE my God, but with no love of mine,
For I have none to give;

I love thee, Lord, but all the love is thine,
For by thy life I live.

I am as nothing, and rejoice to be

Emptied and lost and swallowed up in thee.

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