Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PSALM 88, by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PSALM 88, by                    
First Line: Lord god that dost me save and keep
Last Line: And as in darkness are.


1 Lord God that dost me save and keep,
All day to thee I cry;
All all night long, before thee weep
Before thee prostrate lie.
2 Into thy presence let my prayer
With sighs devout ascend;
And to my cries, that ceaseless are,
Thine ear with favour bend.
3 For cloyed with woes and trouble store
Surcharged my soul doth lie;
My life at death's uncheerful door
Unto the grave draws nigh.
4 Reckoned I am with them that pass
Down to the dismal pit;
I am a man, but weak alas
And for that name unfit.
5 From life discharged and parted quite
Among the dead to sleep,
And like the slain in bloody fight
That in the grave lie deep,
Whom thou rememberest no more,
Dost never more regard:
Them from thy hand delivered o'er
Death's hideous house hath barred.
6 Thou in the lowest pit profound
Hast set me all forlorn,
Where thickest darkness hovers round,
In horrid deeps to mourn.
7 Thy wrath from which no shelter saves
Full sore doth press on me;
Thou break'st upon me all thy waves,
And all thy waves break me.
8 Thou dost my friends from me estrange,
And mak'st me odious,
Me to them odious, for they change,
And I here pent up thus.
9 Through sorrow, and affliction great
Mine eye grows dim and dead;
Lord all the day I thee entreat,
My hands to thee I spread.
10 Wilt thou do wonders on the dead?
Shall the deceased arise
And praise thee from their loathsome bed
With pale and hollow eyes?
11 Shall they thy loving kindness tell
On whom the grave hath hold,
Or they who in perdition dwell
Thy faithfulness unfold?
12 In darkness can thy mighty hand
Or wondrous acts be known?
Thy justice in the gloomy land
Of dark oblivion?
13 But I to thee O Lord do cry
Ere yet my life be spent,
And up to thee my prayer doth hie
Each morn, and thee prevent.
14 Why wilt thou Lord my soul forsake,
And hide thy face from me,
15 That am already bruised, and shake
With terror sent from thee;
Bruised, and afflicted and so low
As ready to expire,
While I thy terrors undergo
Astonished with thine ire.
16 Thy fierce wrath over me doth flow,
Thy threat'nings cut me through.
17 All day they round about me go,
Like waves they me pursue.
18 Lover and friend thou hast removed
And severed from me far.
They fly me now whom I have loved,
And as in darkness are.





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