The psalms :: :: University of Virginia Library

O God, why hast thou thus
Repulst, and scattred us?
Shall now thy wrath no lymmitts hold?
But ever smoke and burne?
Till it to Asshes turne
The chosen folk of thy deare fold?

Ah! think with milder thought
On them whom thou hast bought,
And purchased from endlesse daies:
Thinck of thy birthright lott,
Of Sion, on whose plott,
Thy sacred house supported staies.

Come, Lord, O come with speed,
This sacrilegious seed
Roote quickly out, and hedlong cast:
All that thy holy place
Did late adorne and grace,
Their hatefull hands have quite defast.

Their beastly trumpetts rore,
Where heav'nly notes before
In praises of thy might did flow:
Within thy temple they
Their ensignes eft display
The ensignes, which their conquest show.

As men with axe on arme
To some thick forrest swarme,
To lopp the trees which stately stand:
They to thy temple flock,
And spoiling, cutt and knock
The curious workes of carving hand.

157

Thy most, most holy seate
The greedy flames do eate,
And have such ruthlesse ruyns wrought,
That all thy house is raste,
So raste, and so defast,
That of that all remayneth nought.

Nay they resolved are,
We all alike shall fare,
All of one cruell cup shall taste.
For not one house doth stand
Of God in all the land,
But they by fire have laide it waste.

We see the signes no more
We wont to see before;
Nor any now with sp'ryt divine
Amongst us more is found,
Who can to us expound,
What tearme these dollors shall define.

How long, O God, how long
Wilt thou winck at the wrong
Of thy reviling railing foe?
Shall he that hates thy name,
And hatred paintes with shame,
So do, and do for ever soe?

Woe us! what is the cause
Thy hand his help withdrawes?
That thy right hand far from us keepes?
Ah lett it once arise,
To plague thine enimies,
Which now, embosom'd, idely sleepes.

Thou art my God, I know,
My king, who long ago
Didst undertake the chardg of me:
And in my hard distresse
Didst work me such release,
That all the earth did wondring see.

Thou by thy might didst make
That seas in sunder brake,
And dreadfull dragons which before
In deepe or swamme or cral'd
Such mortall strokes appal'd,
They floted dead to ev'ry shore.

158

Thou crusht that monsters head
Whom other monsters dread,
And soe his fishy flesh did'st frame,
To serve as pleasing foode
To all the ravening brood,
Who had the desert for their dame.

Thou wondrously didst cause,
Repealing natures lawes,
From thirsty flynt a fountayne flow
And of the rivers cleare
The sandy beds appeare,
Soe dry thou mad'st theyr chanells grow.

The day arraid in light,
The shadow-clothed night,
Were made, and are maintain'd by thee.
The sunn and sunn-like rays,
The boundes of nightes and daies,
Thy workmanshipp no lesse they be.

To thee the earth doth owe,
That earth in sea doth grow,
And sea doth earth from drowning spare:
The summers corny crowne,
The winters frosty gowne,
Nought but thy badge, thy lyvery are.

Thou then still one, the same,
Thinck how thy glorious name
These brain-sick mens despight have borne,
How abject enimies,
The Lord of highest skies,
With cursed taunting tongues have torne.

Ah! give noe hauke the pow're
Thy turtle to devowre,
Which sighes to thee with moorning mones:
Nor utterly out-rase
From tables of thy grace
The flock of thy afflicted ones.

But call thy league to mynd,
For horror all doth blind,
No light doth in the land remayne:
Rape, murther, violence,
Each outrage, each offence,
Each where doth range, and rage and raigne.

159

Enough, enough we mourne:
Let us no more returne
Repulst with blame and shame from thee,
But succour us opprest,
And give the troubled rest,
That of thy praise their songes may be.

Rise, God, pleade thyne owne case,
Forget not what disgrace
These fooles on thee each day bestow:
Forgett not with what cries
Thy foes against thee rise,
Which more and more to heav'n doe grow.