Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edward Farr, ed. Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 1845.

Psalm LVII

XXXVIII. George Wither

LORD, grant, oh grant me thy compassion;

For I in thee my trust haue placed;

Display thy wings for my saluation,

Until my greefs are over-passed.

To thee I sue, Oh God most high,

To thee that canst all want supplie.

From their despights who seek to rend mee,

Let help, O Lord! from heaven be daigned,

And let thy truth and loue defend me;

For I with lions am detained:

With men inflam’d, whose biting words

Are shafts, and speares, and naked swords.

Let over heauen God’s, praise be reared,

And through the world his glorie showed;

For they who netts for mee prepared,

(They who my soul to ground had bowed,)

Eu’n they within those trapps are caught,

Which for my fall their hands had wrought.

Oh God! my hart now ready maketh,

My hart is for thy praise preparing;

My tongue, my harpe, my lute awaketh,

And I myselfe betimes vprearing,

Will speak and sing in praise of thee,

Where greatest throngs of people be.

For, Lord, thy mercies forth are stretched,

As farr as are the sphears extended;

Thy truth unto the clouds hath reached,

And thou thyself art high ascended.

Let still, thy fame and praise, Oh God!

Through heauen and earth be spread abrode.