Their love is only love of lies;

Their wordes and deedes, dissenting soe, When from their lippes most blessing flyes, Then deepest curse in hart doth grow.

Yet shall my soule in silence still
On God my hope attentive stay:
Yet hee my fort, my health, my hill,
Remove I may not, move I may.
My God doth me with glory fill,
Not only shield me safe from harme;
To shun distresse, to conquer ill,

To him I clime, in him I arme.

O then, on God, our certaine stay,
All people in all times rely:
Your hartes before him naked lay,

To Adam's sonnes 'tis vain to fly,
Soe vain, soe false, soe fraile are they,

Ev'n he that seemeth most of might,
With lightnesse self if him you weigh,
Than lightnesse self will weigh more light.

In fraud and force noe trust repose;

Such idle hopes from thought expell,
And take good heed, when riches growes,
Let not your hart on riches dwell.
All powre is Gods, his own word showes,

Once said by him, twice heard by me :
Yet from thee, Lord, all mercy flowes,

And each man's work is paid by thee.

VOL. I.

Most plainly, Lord, the frame of sky
Doth show thy word decayeth never :
And constant stay of earth descry

Thy word, that staid it, staieth ever.
For by thy lawes they hold their standings,
Yea all things do thy service try;
But that I joy'd in thy commandings,
I had myself been sure to dye.

Thy word that hath revived me

I will retaine, forgetting never.
Let me, thine owne, be sav'd by thee,
Whose statutes are my studies ever.
I mark thy will the while their standings
The wicked take, my bane to be;
For I no close of thy commandings,

Of best things else an end I see *.

In those numerous instances where the Hebrew bard bursts forth into strains of joy and gladness, and where the imagery requires from the metrical translator a rapid and exhilarating movement, lady Pembroke has often been singularly successful in supporting the spirit of her original. Thus, in the opening of the eighty-first psalm, where the son of Jesse is calling upon the Israelites to celebrate their feast-days with a mirthful heart, with the

Sidney Psalms, pp. 108, 109, and 235.

united concord of their sweetest instruments and voices, I know not any lyrical measure which could have been better chosen for the expression of that grateful hilarity which the poet is inculcating, than what the last four lines of the following stanza exhibit :

All gladnes, gladdest hartes can hold,

In meriest notes that mirth can yield;
Lett joyfull songes to God unfold,
To Jacobs God, our sword and shield.
Muster hither musick's joyes,
Lute, and lyre, and tabrett's noise :
Lett noe instrument be wanting;

Chasing grief, and pleasure planting *.

Turning from this strain of joyful thanksgiving, so happily expressed both as to language and measure, let us examine what justice has been done by our translator to a theme of an opposite nature, to that very impressive part of the funeral service which is contained in the first portion of the ninetieth psalm, and where we find a picture of the transitory state of our pilgrimage here, which is at once the most affecting and the most awfully sublime that can be contemplated by the mind of man. I give the version of the first four stanzas.

* Sidney Psalms, p. 153.

Thou our refuge, thou our dwelling,
O Lord, hast byn from time to time;
Long ere mountaines proudly swelling
Above the lowly dales did clime;
Long ere the earth, embowl'd by thee,
Bare the forme it now doth beare;
Yea, thou art God for ever, free
From all touch of age and yeare.

O but man by thee created,

As he at first of earth arose,
When thy word his end hath dated,
In equall state to earth he goes.
Thou saist, and saying, makst it soe:
Be noe more, O Adams heyre;
From whence ye came, dispatch to goe,
Dust againe, as dust ye were.

Graunt a thousand yeares be spared
To mortall men of life and light;
What is that to thee compared?

One day, one quarter of a night. When death upon them storm-like falis, Like unto a dreame they grow: Which goes and comes as fancy calls, Nought in substance, all in show.

As the hearbe that early groweth,

Which leaved greene, and flowered faire, Ev'ning change with ruine moweth,

And laies to rost in withering aire :

Soe in thy wrath we fade away,

With thy fury overthrowne;

When thou in sight our faultes dost lay,
Looking on our synns unknown*.

Of these stanzas, the first and third are full of beauty; and I would particularly refer to the line distinguished by italics, as one of peculiarly vigorous and highly poetical expression.

Were I called upon, however, to point out in this book of the inspired lyrist one passage more truly pathetic, or more intrinsically beautiful than another, I should, without hesitation, fix upon that which is formed by the prior part of the hundred and thirty-seventh psalm, as furnishing a picture most perfect in its kind, whether we consider the force of the appeal which it makes to the heart, or the strength with which it addresses the imagination. To do justice to such an original cannot but be esteemed a work of great difficulty, and, consequently, we shall not be surprised to find that many have failed in making the attempt. In the old version, this psalm was intrusted to William Whyttingham, unfortunately one of the least poetical of the group

* Sidney Psalms, p. 171, 172.