Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PSALM 55, by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PSALM 55, by                    
First Line: My god most glad to look, most prone to heare
Last Line: ^3^ fearelesse, expunged.


My God most glad to look, most prone to heare
An Open eare O let my prayer find
And from my plaint turn not Thy face away
Behold my gestures, hearken what I say
While uttring moanes with most tormented mind
My body I no lesse torment and teare
For lo, their fearfull threatnings wound myne eare
Who greifes on greifes on me still heaping lay
A mark to wrath and hate and wrong assign'd
Therfore my heart hath all his force resignd
To trembling pants; Deaths terrors on me prey
I feare, nay shake, nay quivering 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
Farr hence, O farr 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 Counsels, lead their tongues astray
That what they meane by words may not appeare
For Mother Wrong within their town each where
And Daughter strife their ensigns so display
As if they only thither were confin'd.

These walk their Citty walls both night and day
Oppressions, tumults, guiles of evry kind
Are Burgesses and dwell the middle neare
About their streets, his masquing robes doth weare
Mischeife cloth'd in deceit with treason lin'd
Where only hee, hee only beares the sway.
But not my Foe with me this prank did play
For then I would born with patient chere
An unkind part, from whom I knew unkind
Nor hee whose forehead envys mark had signd
His Trophys on my ruins sought to reare
From whom to fly I might have made assay.

But this to Thee, to Thee impute I may
My Fellow, my Companion, held most deare
My soul, my other self, my inward friend
Whom unto me, me unto whom did bind
Exchanged secrets, who together were
Gods temple wont to visit; there to pray
O let a suddain Death work their decay
Who speaking faire such cankred malice mind
Let them be buryed breathing from their beere
But purple Morn, black even and mid-day cleare
Shall see my praying voice to God enclin'd
Rousing him up, and naught shall me dismay.

He ransom'd me, be for my safty find
In fight where many sought my Soul to slay
He still himself to no succeding heire
Leaving his empire shall no more forbeare.
But att my motion all these Atheists pay
By whom still One, such mischeifes are designd
Who but such Catives would have undermin'd
Nay overthrown, from whom but kindness meere.
They never found? Who would such trust betray?
What butterd words? yet warr their hearts bewray
Their speed more sharp, than sharpest sword or speare
Yet softer flowes than balm from wounded rinde.

But my oreloaden soul Thy self upcheare
Cast^1^ on Gods shoulders what Thee down doth weigh
Long born by Thee, with bearing paind and pin'd
To care for Thee He shall be ever kind
By him the just in safety held^2^ alway
Changeless^3^ shall enter, love, 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 blood allay
Have their life holding thred so weakely twin'd
That it half spun, Death may in sunder sheare.

^FOOTNOTES^

^1^ Lay, expunged.

^2^ kept, expunged.

^3^ fearelesse, expunged.





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