Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PSALM 74, by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PSALM 74, by                    
First Line: O god, why hast thou thus
Last Line: Which more and more to heaven grow


O God why hast Thou thus
Repuls'd and scatterd us
Shall now Thy wrath no limits hold?
But ever smoake and burn
Till it to ashes turn
The chosen flock of Thy deare fold

Ah! Think with milder thought
On them whom Thou hast bought
And purchased from endless dayes
Think of Thy Birth right lott
Of Sion, on whose plott
Thy Sacred House supported stayes.

Come Lord, O come with speed
This Sacrilegious Seed
Root quickly out and headlong cast
All that Thy Holy Place
Did late adorn and grace
Their hatefull hands have quite defac't

Their beastly trumpets roare
Where heavnly notes before
In prayses of Thy might did flow
Within Thy Temple they
Their Ensigns eft display
Their Ensigns which their conquest show.

As men with ax on arme
To some thick Forrest swarm
To lopp the Trees which stately stand
They to Thy Temple flock
And spoyling cutt and knock
The curious works of carving hand.

Thy Most, most Holy Place
The greedy Flames do eate
And have such ruthlesse ruins wrought
That all Thy house is ras't
So ras't and so defac't
That of that all remaineth nought

Nay they resolved are
We all alike shall fare
All of One Cruel Cupp shall taste
For not one house doth stand
Of God in all the land
But they by Fire have laid it waste

We see the Signs no more
We wont to see before
Nor any now with Spirit Divine
Among us more is found
Who can to us expound
What term these Dolors shall define

How long, O God, how long
Wilt Thou winck at the wrong
Of Thy reviling railing Foe?
Shall he that hates Thy Name
And hated paints with shame
Lo, Lo, and do for ever so?

Woe us, what is the Cause
Thy hand his help withdrawes?
That Thy right hand farr from us keeps?
Ah let it once arise
To plague Thyne Enemys
Which now embosom'd idly sleeps.

Thou art my God I know
My King who long ago
Didst undertake the Charge of me
And in my hard distresse
Didst work me such release
That all the earth did wondring see

Thou by Thy might didst make
That Seas in Sunder brake
And dreadfull Dragons which before
In Deep, or Swam or crauld
Such mortall stroakes appal'd
They floted dead to every shoare.

Thou crush'st that monsters head
Whom other Monsters dread
And so his fishy flesh didst frame
To serve as pleasing food
To all the ravning brood
Who had the Desert for their Dame

Thou wondrously didst cause
Repealing Natures Lawes
From thirsty flint a ffountain flow
And of the Rivers cleere
The sandy bedds appeare
So dry Thou madest their channels grow

The day array'd in light
The shaddow clothed night
Were made, and are maintained by Thee
The sun and sunlike rayes
The bounds of nights and dayes
Thy workmanship no lesse they be.

To Thee the Earth doth Owe
That Earth in Sea doth grow
And Sea doth Earth from drowning spare
The Summers corny crown
The Winters Frosty gown
Naught but Thy badg, Thy Livery are.

Thou then still One The same
Think how Thy glorious Name
These brain-sick mens despights hath born
How abject Enemys
The Lord of highest skyes
With cursed taunting tongues have torn.

Ah! Give no hawk the power
Thy Turtle to devoure
Which sighs to Thee with mourning moanes
Nor utterly out rase
From tables of Thy grace
The flock of Thy afflicted ones

But call Thy league to mind
For horror all doth blind
No light doth in the Land remain
Rape, murder violence
Each outrage, each offence
Each where doth range, and rage, and reign.

Enough, enough We mourn
Let us no more return
Repuls'd with blame, and shame from Thee
But succour us opprest
And give the troubled rest
That of Thy Praise their songs may be

Rise God, plead Thyn own Case
Forget not what disgrace
Those Fooles on Thee each day bestow
Forget not with what cryes
Thy Foes against Thee rise
Which more and more to heaven grow





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