Classic Poem

PSAIM XLI .

Beatus qui intelligit.

1.

He blessed is who with wise temper can
Judg of th' afflicted man,
For God shall him deliver in the time
When most his troubles clime.
The Lord will keep his life yet safe and sound
With blessings of the ground;
And will not him unto the will expose
Of them that be his foes.

2.

When bedd, from rest, becomes his seat of woe,
In God his strength shall grow,
And turn his couch, where sick he couched late,
To well recoverd state;
Therfore I said, in most infirmity,
Haue mercy, Lord, on me;
O, heale my soule; let there Thy care begin
Where 'gainst Thee lay my sin.

3.

My foes' evill words their hate of me display,
While thus, alas, they say, —
When, when will death o'retake this wretched wight,
And his name perish quite?
Their courteous visitings are courting lyes,
They inward evills disguise,
Even heapes of wicked thoughts, which streight they show,
As soon as out they go.

4.

For then their hatefull heads close whispring be,
With hurtfull thoughts to me:
Now is he wrackt, they say; lo, there he lyes
Who never more must rise
O, yee, my friend, to whom I did impart
The secrets of my heart, —
My friend, I say, who at my table sate,
Did kick against my state.

5.

Therfore, O Lord, abandon'd thus of all,
On me let mercy fall,
And rayse me vp, that I may once haue might
Their merits to requite.
But what? this doth already well appeare
That I to Thee am deare,
Since foes, nor haue, nor shall haue cause to be
Triumphing over me.

6

But triumph well may I, whom Thou dost stay
In my sound rightfull way:
Whom Thou, O place of places, all dost place,
For aye, before Thy face.
So then be blest now, then, at home, abroad,
Of Israel the God:
World without end, let still this blessing flow;
Oh so, oh be it so.