THIRTEENTH PSALM.

LORD, how long, how long wilt Thou
Quite forget, and quite neglect me?
How long, with a frowning brow,

Wilt Thou from Thy sight reject me?

How long shall I seek a way

Forth this maze of thoughts perplexed, Where my griev'd mind, night and day, Is with thinking tired and vexed?

How long shall my scornful foe,

On my fall his greatness placing, Build upon my overthrow,

And be graced by my disgracing?

Hear, O Lord and God, my cries;
Mark my foe's unjust abusing;
And illuminate mine eyes,

Heavenly beams in them infusing.

Lest my woes, too great to bear,
And too infinite to number,
Rock me soon, 'twixt hope and fear,
Into Death's eternal slumber.

These black clouds will over-blow;
Sunshine shall have his returning;
And my grief-dull'd heart, I know,
Into joy shall change his mourning.

Francis Davison.

AND yet, alas! when all our lamps are burn'd,
Our bodies wasted and our spirits spent,
When we have all the learned volumes turn'd,
Which yield men's wits both help and ornament;

What can we learn, or what can we discern,
When error clouds the windows of the mind?
The divers forms of things how can we learn,
That have been ever from our birthday blind?

VANITY OF LEARNING.

When reason's lamp, which, like the sun in sky,

Throughout man's little world her beams did spread, Is now become a sparkle, which doth lie

Under the ashes, half extinct and dead;

How can we hope that through the eye and ear,
This dying sparkle, in this cloudy place,
Can recollect those beams of knowledge clear,
Which were infused in the first minds by Grace?

So might the heir, whose father hath in play
Wasted a thousand pounds of ancient rent,
By careful earning of one groat a day

Hope to restore the patrimony spent.

The wits that div'd most deep, and soar'd most high,
Seeking man's powers, have found his weakness such;
Skill comes so slow, and life so fast doth fly;
We learn so little, and forget so much.

All things without, which round about we see,
We seek to know, and how therewith to do;
But that whereby we reason, live, and be,

Within ourselves, we strangers are thereto.

We seek to know the moving of each sphere,

And the strange cause o' th' ebbs and floods of Nile; But of that clock, which in our breasts we bear, The subtle motions we forget the while.

We that acquaint ourselves with every zone,

And pass both tropics, and behold both poles; When we come home, are to ourselves unknown, And unacquainted still with our own souls.

For this, few know themselves; for merchants broke,
View their estate with discontent and pain;

As seas are troubled, when they do revoke
Their flowing waves into themselves again.

VANITY OF LEARNING.

And while the face of outward things we find
Pleasing and fair, agreeable and sweet,

These things transport, and carry out the mind,
That with herself the mind can never meet.

Yet if affliction once her wars begin,

And threat the feebler sense with sword and fire, The mind contracts herself and shrinketh in,

And to herself she gladly doth retire;

As spiders touch'd seek their webs' inmost part;
As bees in storms back to their hives return;
As blood in danger gathers to the heart;

As men seek towns, when foes the country burn.

If aught can teach us aught, affliction's looks,
Making us pry into ourselves so near,
Teach us to know ourselves beyond our books,
Or all the learned schools that ever were.

This mistress lately pluck'd me by the ear,

And many a golden lesson hath me taught; Hath made my senses quick, and reason clear, Reform'd my will, and rectified my thought.

So do the winds and thunders cleanse the air;
So working lees settle and purge the wine;
So lopp'd and pruned trees do flourish fair;
So doth the fire the drossy gold refine.

Sir John Davies.

PRAYER OF THE PSALMIST.

FRANKLY pour, O Lord, on me
Saving grace to set me free;
That supported I may see
Promise truly kept by Thee.

That to them who me defame,
Roundly I may answer frame;
Who, because Thy word and name
Are my trust, thus seek my shame.

Thy true word, O do not make
Utterly my mouth forsake;

Since I thus still waiting wake,
When Thou wilt just vengeance take.

Then, lo, I Thy doctrine pure,
Sure I hold, will hold more sure;
Nought from it shall me allure
All the time my time shall dure.

Then as brought to widest way
From restraint of straitest stay;
All their thinking night and day
On Thy Law my thoughts shall lay.