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Frail as summer's flower we flourish;
Blows the wind, and it is gone;
But while mortals rise and perish,
God endures unchanging on;
Praise Him! Praise Him!

Praise the High Eternal One.

86

HENRY FRANCIS LYTE

PSALM CXIV

When the seed of Jacob fled

From the cruel Pharaoh's land,

Judah was in safety led

By the Lord, whose powerful hand
Guided all the Hebrew band.

This the sea saw, and dismayed

Flies; swift Jordan backward makes;
Mountains skipped like rams afraid,
And the lower hillock shakes,
Like a tender herb that quakes.

What, O Sea, hath thee dismayed?
Why did Jordan backwards make?
Mountains, why like rams afraid

Skipped ye? wherefore did ye shake,
Hillocks, like the lambs that quake?

Tremble, O thou steadfast Earth,
At the presence of the Lord,
That makes rocks give rivers birth,
And by virtue of whose word
Flints shall flowing springs afford.

ADAPTED FROM THOMAS CAREW

87

PSALM CXXII

I rejoiced when they said, Let us go to God's house And within its loved gates once again set our feet. O Jerusalem, built as a city compact,

Where the tribes of the Lord did in olden times

meet,

To give thanks to His name, ever blest, on each feast,

When Salem stood proudly, the Queen of the East.

Though Salem no more in her grandeur exists,

We revere her old walls, we pray for her peace; Let her lessons go forth, as the word of the Lord, That friendship and brotherhood here may in

crease;

That the house of the Lord may unite us in love, And gain us the peace of the temple above.

RABBI HENRY S. JACOBS

88

PSALM CXXXVII

We sat us down and wept,

Where Babel's waters slept,

And we thought of home and Zion as a long-gone happy dream;

We hung our harps in air,

On the willow-boughs, which there,

Gloomy as round a sepulchre, were drooping o'er the stream.

The foes, whose chains we wore,

Were with us on that shore,

Exulting in our tears that told the bitterness of woe.

66

Sing us," they cried aloud,

"Ye, once so high and proud,

The songs ye sang in Zion ere we laid her glory low."

And shall the harp of heaven

To Judah's monarch given,

Be touched by captive fingers, or grace a fettered hand?

No! sooner be my tongue

Mute, powerless, and unstrung,

Than its words of holy music make glad a stranger

land.

May this right hand, whose skill

Can wake the harp at will,

And bid the listeners' joys or griefs in light or dark

ness come,

Forget its godlike power,

If for one brief, dark hour,

My heart forgets Jerusalem, fallen city of my home.

Daughter of Babylon!

Blessed be that chosen one,

Whom God shall send to smite thee, when there is

none to save;

He from the mother's breast
Shall pluck the babe at rest,

And lay it in the sleep of death beside its father's

grave!

89

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK

FROM PSALM CXXXIX

Where from Thy presence shall I flee?
Where seek a hiding-place from Thee?
If the pure breath of Heaven I share,
Lo! I shall find Thy spirit there!
If, wandering in the depths of hell,
I trust in secrecy to dwell,

Behold! in all Thy power and might

Thou, Lord, shalt pierce the veil of night.

If on the radiant wings of morn
To unknown lands I'm gently borne,
There, even there, Thy hand shall lead,
Thy voice support my sinking head.
If to my inmost soul I say

Darkness and night shall shroud my way,
That darkness shall dissolve in light,
And day usurp the throne of night.
No power can dim Thy searching eye,
Or bid Thy guardian spirit fly.

Thou knowest well each infant thought,
Which passion, pride, or sin has taught;
And doubts and fears, but half-expressed,
To Thee, Almighty, stand confessed.
Plain as the waves of yonder sea,

Man's subtlest thoughts are known to Thee
From the small insect tribe which plays

Within the sun's enlivening rays,

To the broad ocean waves which rise

In heaving billows to the skies,

Or great or small, each work of Thine,
It whispers of a hand divine.

Each breeze which fans the twilight hour,
Speeds onward, guided by Thy power;
Each wind which wildly sweeps abroad,
Is teeming with the voice of God.

MARGARET M. DAVIDSON

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