The Finding of The Book and Other Poems By William Alexander |
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| PSALM LXVIII
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| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
| VII. |
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 | The Finding of The Book and Other Poems |  |
148
PSALM LXVIII
I
Rise up, Lord,And let Thine enemies be scattered,
And let them that hate Thee flee before Thee!
As the dispersion of smoke-drift,
Thou wilt disperse them abroad;
As the wax in its weakness melts off
From before the face of the fire,
So our foes—the unrighteous—shall perish
From before the Face of our God,
But the just shall exult and be glad.
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II
Chant ye to God!Sing psalms of praise to His name!
The awful Rider extol ye,
Who rides on the raven-black clouds,
By His changeless immutable Name
Of Jah—and exult ye before Him.
—A Father of orphans bereavèd;
A Judge that gives sentence of good
To the silent life of the widow,
Is God in His holy abode.
—God maketh the lonely ones
To sit in a home of their own;
He bringeth the fetter'd ones forth,
To places happy and free:
Only the rebels must dwell
In a land blanched white by the sun.
III
1
God! when Thou wentest forth before Thy people,Proceeding on Thy stately march
Across the desert steppes,
Trembled the earth and quaked:
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—This Sinai's self before the Face of God,
The God of Israel.
The free aspersion of a rain of gifts
Priestlike Thou wavedst to and fro, O God!
Thy heritage, forlorn and sick at heart,
Thou didst establish. So in that lone land
The armies of Thy chosen dwelt long years.
Thou with Thy goodness for the needy ones
Didst so establish, God!
2
Suddenly His signal gives the Lord.Those who tell, in every coast,
Tidings of great joy, and high
Annunciation of good things
Multiply, a countless host
Of women, full of glorious boast;
Kings of armies fly—they fly
Like the birds with fluttered wings.
She who kept the house that day
For her lord, at war away,
Shares the spoils of victory.
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Ye lie down by the cattle-fold;
And ye see in your homes beside ye a sheen,
Like the wings of a dove in the sunshine glint,
That are covered o'er with a silver tint;
Her feathers all lit with a manifold
Vibration and shooting of yellow gold,
That passes, the woof of the plumes between,
To a colour of strange and paling green.
—When, from many a field of war,
Kings the Almighty scatters far,
Through our dark estate of woe
—As o'er Salmon's forest line,
Night-black where the shadows are,
Shows that silver gleam divine—
Comes a sudden intense glow,
Like the gleam of new-fallen snow.
3
Mountain of God! mountain of Bashan!Mountain of summits! mountain of Bashan!
Why watch ye, with a scowl upon your foreheads,
Ye mountains, with your summits arching grand?
152
For a habitation in the land,
Yea—to dwell there while the ages stand!
Chariots of our God are twice ten thousand,
Thousands told again and yet again:
And the Lord's Great Presence is among them
Here in Sion, as in Sinai then.
Thou hast gone up on high,
Thou hast captive led captivity,
Thou hast received gifts for men;
Yea—for rebels, who allegiance owed,
That the Lord God may have meet abode.
IV
Bless'd be the Lord,Day after day!
Whoever loads us with sorrow,
God is our Saviour for aye.
This God is to us the God
Of Salvation—and of Him the Lord
Out of death are manifold issues:
Surely He will bruise
The very head of His foes,
And the hairy scalp of such an one
As walketh on still in his sin.
153
I will bring thee again
From the dark, voiceful depths of the sea;
That thou thy footsteps mayst dash,
Red-wetshod, in blood of the foe,
And the tongue of thy dogs in the same.’
V
They are seen—Thy goings, O God!—Thy goings, my God and my King!
In the place which is holy to Thee.
First, went the song-men in front,
Behind, those who strook the strings,
In the midst the choir of the maidens,
Who skill the tabrets to beat.
In the full assemblies, O bless ye
God the Lord, ye souls
That well forth in living waves,
From Israel's fountain-head!
Benjamin's tribe is there;
Small, but his chief at his head.
The princes of Judah are there,
With their goodly company;
The princes of Zebulun,
And the princes of Naphtali.
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VI
Thy God assureth thee strength,Strengthen, O God! Thy decree,
The things Thou workest for us,
Because of Thy palace, which hangs
Dominant over Jerusalem.
So shall kings bring presents to Thee!
Rebuke the thronging mass
Of the men who hold the lance—
The swarming horde of the bisons,
The young steers among the herds
That are nations of mighty men—
Till they move themselves restlessly forward,
With tribute of silver bars.
He has scattered the hordes of nations
Whose will is the onset of war.
—Nobles shall come out of Egypt,
And Cush—his hands in haste
Shall yet be uplifted to God.
VII
Sing ye to God,Earth's kingdoms!—sing psalms to the Lord!
To Him who rides forth
On the heaven of heavens eterne.
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And that a voice of strength.
Ascribe ye strength to God,
His loftiness is over Israel;
His strength abides above,
Where the thin clouds fleck the sky.
Terrible art Thou, O God!
From Thy sanctuaries—Israel's God!—
Giving strength and strong defences
To the nation. Blessed be God!
It has sometimes seemed to me as if the spirit of the psalms might be more livingly conveyed to English readers by a style somewhat akin to that which is here attempted. These specimens indeed somewhat fail to bring out the strict parallelism of the original; but they retain in measure a numerous prose, and in the higher passages are helped by a faint colouring of rhyme. These observations only apply to one aspect of the psalm—the poetical. The sacred must be marked by the ecclesiastical rhyme, or by an archaic and majestic prose.
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