The Works of the English Poets: Milton

7 Both they who fing, and they who dance, With facred fongs are there,

In thee freb brooks, and foft ftreams glance, my fountains clear.

And all

PSAL. LXXXVIII.

ORD God, that doft me save and keep,
All day to thee I cry ;

And all night long before thee weep,

Before thee proftrate lie.

2 Into thy prefence let my prayer

With fighs devout afcend,

And to my cries, that ceaseless are,

Thine ear with favor bend.

3 For cloy'd with woes and trouble store Surcharg'd my foul doth lie,

My life at death's unchearful door

Unto the grave draws nigh.

4 Reckon'd I am with them that pafs

Down to the dismal pit,

I am a * man, but weak alas,

And for that name unfit.

5 From life discharg'd and parted quite

Among the dead to fleep,

And like the flain in bloody fight

That in the grave lie deep.

* Heb. A man without manly ftrength.

Whom

Whom thou remembereft no more,

Doft never more regard,

Them from thy hand deliver'd o'er

Death's hideous house hath barr'd. 6 Thou in the lowest pit profound

Haft fet me all forlorn,

Where thickest darkness hovers round,

In horrid deeps to mourn.

7 Thy wrath, from which no shelter faves,

Full fore doth prefs on me;

* Thou break'ft upon me all thy ways,

*And all thy waves break me,

8 Thou dost my friends from me eftrange,

And mak'ft me odious,

Me to them odious, for they change,

And I here pent up thus.

9 Through forrow, and affliction great, Mine eye grows dim and dead,

Lord, all the day I thee intreat,

My hands to thee I spread.

10 Wilt thou do wonders on the dead,

Shall the deceas'd arife

And praise thee from their loathfome bed
With pale and hollow eyes?

11 Shall they thy loving-kindness tell On whom the grave bath bold,

Or they who in perdition dwell,

Thy faithfulness unfold?

The Hebr. bears both.

P 3

12 In

12 In darkness can thy mighty band

Or wondrous acts be known,

Thy juftice in the gloomy land

And up to thee

my prayer doth hie,

Each morn, and thee prevent.

14 Why wilt thou, Lord, my foul forfake,

Bruis'd, and afflicted, and so low

As ready to expire,

While I thy terrors undergo

Aftonish'd with thine ire.

16 Thy fierce wrath over me doth flow, Thy threatnings cut me through:

17 All day they round about me go,

18 Lover and friend thou haft remov'd,

And fever'd from me far:

They fly me now whom I have lov'd,
And as in darkness are.

*Heb. Pra Concuffione.

A Paraphrafe

A Paraphrafe on PSAL. CXIV.

This and the following Pfalm were done by the Author at fifteen years old.

WHEN the bleft feed of Terah's faithful son

After long toil their liberty had won,
And past from Pharian fields to Canaan land,
Led by the ftrength of the Almighty's hand,
Jehovah's wonders were in Ifrael shown,
His praise and glory was in Ifrael known.
That faw the troubled fea, and fhivering fled,
And fought to hide his froth-becurled head
Low in the earth; Jordan's clear ftreams recoil,
As a faint hoft that hath receiv'd the foil.

The high, huge-bellied mountains skip like rams
Amongst their ewes, the little hills like lambs.
Why fled the ocean? And why skipt the mountains ?
Why turned Jordan tow’rd his crystal fountains?
Shake, Earth, and at the prefence be aghaft
Of him that ever was, and ay fhall last,

That glaffy floods from rugged rocks can crush,
And make foft rills from fiery flint-ftones gush.

ΤΟ