The Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney :: :: University of Virginia Library

With all my hart, ô Lord I will praise thee,
My speaches all thy mervailes shall discry:
In thee my joyes and comfortes ever be
Yea ev'n my songs thy name shall magnify,
ô Lord most hie.

Because my foes to fly are now constrain'd,
And they are fall'n, nay perisht at thy sight:
For thou my cause, my right thou hast maintain'd,
Setting thy self, in throne which shined bright,
Of judging right.

The Gentiles thou rebuked sorely hast,
And wicked folks, from thee to wrack do wend:
And their renown, which seem'd so like to last;
Thou dost put out, and quite consuming send
To endles end.

O bragging foe, where is the endles wast
Of conquer'd states, whereby such fame you gott?
What? doth their memory no longer last?
Both ruines, ruiners, and ruin'd plott
Be quite forgott.

But God shall sitt in his eternall Chaire,
Which he prepar'd to give his judgmentes high:
Thither the world for justice shall repaire:
Thence he to all, his judgments shall apply
Perpetually.

Thou Lord also th'oppressed wilt defend,
That they to thee in troublous tyme may flee:
They that know thee, on thee their trust will bend,
For thou Lord found by them wilt ever be,
That seake to thee.

O praise the Lord, this Syon-dweller good,
Shew foorth his actes, and this as act most high:
That he enquiring, doth require just blood,
Which he forgetteth not, nor letteth dy
Th'afflicted cry.

196

Have mercy, mercy Lord, I once did say,
Ponder the paines which on me loaden be
By them whose mindes on hatefull thoughts do stray:
Thou Lord that from death-gates hast lifted me,
I call to thee.

That I within the portes most bewtifull
Of Sions daughter may sound foorth thi praise:
That I, ev'n I, of heav'nly comfort full
May only joy in all thy saving waies
Through out my daies.

No sooner said, but lo mine enymies sinck
Down in the pitt which they them selves had wrought:
And in that nett which they well hidden think,
Is their own foote, led by their own ill thought,
Most surely caught.

For then the Lord in judgment showes to raign,
When godlesse men be snar'd in their own snares:
When wicked soules be turned to hellish pain,
And that forgettfull sort, which never cares
What God prepares.

But on the other side, the poore in sprite
Shall not be scrapt, from out of heav'nly score:
Nor meeke abiding of the pacient wight
Yet perish shall (although his paine be sore)
For evermore.

Up Lord and judg the Gentiles in thy right,
And lett not man have upper hand of thee:
With terrors greate, ô Lord, doe thou them fright:
That by sharp proofes, the heathen them selves may see
But men to be.