FROM HORACE. All barbarous people and their princes too, The very wandering Scythians do. Continue us in wealth and state, FROM HORACE. The power that did create can change the scene FROM EURIPIDES. This is true liberty, when freeborn men a FROM HORACE. LAUGHING, to teach the truth, FROM HORACE. JOKING decides great things. Stronger and better oft than earnest can. FROM SOPHOCLES. 'TIS it, not I. You do the deeds, And your ungodly deeds find me the words. Bless's is the man who hath not walk'd astray PSALM II. DONE Aug. 8, 1653. TERZETTE. Why do the Gentiles tumult, and the nations Muse a vain thing, the kings of th' earth upstand With pow'r, and princes in their congregations Lay deep their plots together through each land | Milton's father composed Psalm tunes; and metrical Psalmody was very popular in Milton's time. Against the Lord and his Messiah dear? 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 heav'n 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, said 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 Thou art my Son, I have begotten thee This day; ask of me, and the grant is made; As thy possession I on thee bestow The Heathen, and as thy conquest to be sway'd Earth’s utmost bounds: then shalt thou bring full low With iron sceptre bruised, and them disperse Like to a potter's vessel shiver'd so. Be taught, ye Judges of the earth; with fear Jehovah serve, and let your joy converse With trembling; kiss the Son lest he appear In anger, and ye pérish in the way, If once his wrath take fire like fuel sere. Happy all those who have in them their stay. LORD, how many are my foes ! How many those Many are they Thee through my story Th' exalter of my head I count: Aloud I cried For my sustain ? The populous rout Hast smote ere now Of men abhorr’d PSALM IV. Aug. 10, 1653. ANSWER me when I call, earnest pray’r. Things false and vain, and nothing else but lies ? i The verb used as a substantive. “So 'disturb,’ in P. L, VI. 549."-TODD, |