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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


A PARAPHRASE ON PSALM 114 by JOHN MILTON

Poet Analysis

First Line: WHEN THE BLEST SEED OF TERAH'S FAITHFUL SON
Last Line: AND MAKE SOFT RILLS FROM FIERY FLINT-STONES GUSH.

When the blest seed of Terah's faithful son,
After long toil their liberty had won,
And passed from Pharian fields to Canaan land,
Led by the strength of the Almighty's hand,
Jehovah's wonders were in Israel shown,
His praise and glory was in Israel known.
That saw the troubled sea, and shivering fled,
And sought to hide his froth-becurled head
Low in the earth; Jordan's clear streams recoil,
As a faint host that hath received the foil.
The high, huge-bellied mountains skip like rams
Among their ewes, the little hills like lambs.
Why fled the ocean? And why skipped the mountains?
Why turned Jordan toward his crystal fountains?
Shake earth, and at the presence be aghast
Of him that ever was, and ay shall last,
That glassy floods from rugged rocks can crush,
And make soft rills from fiery flint-stones gush.



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