The psalms :: :: University of Virginia Library

My God most glad to look, most prone to heere,
An open eare O let my praier find,
And from my plaint turne not thy face away.
Behold my gestures, harken what I say
While uttering mones with most tormented mind.
My body I no lesse torment and teare,
For loe, their fearful threatnings wound mine eare,
Who griefs on griefs on me still heaping laie,
A mark to wrath and hate and wrong assign'd;
Therefore my hart hath all his force resign'd
To trembling pants, death terrors on me pray,
I feare, nay shake, nay quiv'ring quake with feare.

Then say I, O might I but cutt the wind,
Born on the wing the fearfull dove doth beare:
Stay would I not, till I in rest might stay.
Far hence, O far, then would I take my way
Unto the desert, and repose me there,
These stormes of woe, these tempests left behind:
But swallow them, O Lord, in darkness blind,
Confound their councells, leade their tongues astray,
That what they meane by wordes may not appeare;
For Mother Wrong within their towne each where,
And daughter Strife their ensignes so display,
As if they only thither were confin'd.

These walk their cittie walles both night and day,
Oppressions, tumults, guiles of ev'ry kind
Are burgesses, and dwell the midle neere;
About their streetes his masking robes doth weare
Mischief, cloth'd in deceit, with treason lin'd,
Where only hee, hee only beares the sway.
But not my foe with mee this pranck did play,
For then I would have borne with patient cheere
An unkind part from whom I know unkind;
Nor hee whose forhed Envies mark had sign'd,
His trophes on my ruins sought to reare,
From whom to fly I might have made assay.

108

But this to thee, to thee impute I may,
My fellow my companion, held most deere,
My soule, my other self, my inward frend:
Whom unto me, me unto whom did bind
Exchanged secrets, who together were
Gods temple wont to visit, there to pray.
O lett a soddaine death work their decay,
Who speaking faire, such canckred malice mind,
Let them be buried breathing in their beare.
But purple morn, black ev'n, and midday cleare,
Shall see my praying voice to God enclin'd,
Rowzing him up; and nought shall me dismay.

He ransom'd me, he for my saftie fin'd
In fight where many sought my soule to slay;
He, still him self, (to noe succeeding heire
Leaving his Empire) shall no more forbeare:
But, at my motion, all these Atheists pay,
By whom (still one) such mischiefs are design'd;
Who but such caitives would have undermin'd,
Nay overthrowne, from whome but kindnes meare
They never found? who would such trust betray?
What buttred wordes! yet warr their harts bewray;
Their speach more sharp then sharpest sword or speare
Yet softer flowes then balme from wounded rinde.

But, my ore loaden soule, thy selfe upcheare:
Cast on Gods shoulders what thee down doth waigh,
Long borne by thee with bearing pain'd and pin'd;
To care for thee he shall be ever kinde.
By him the just, in safety held allway,
Chaunglesse shall enter, live, and leave the yeare:
But, Lord, how long shall these men tarry here?
Fling them in pitt of death where never shin'd
The light of life; and while I make my stay
On thee, let who their thirst with bloud allay
Have their life-holding threed so weakly twin'd
That it, half spunne, death may in sunder sheare.