Donne adopted this metre, with a slight variation, in his version of the 137th Psalm. The following stanza, from the 130th Psalm, is very beautifully rendered, the alliteration in the fourth line being the only defect: My soul base earth despising More longs with God to be Tired watchmen watch to see! I have omitted a few lines in this translation of the 13th Psalm : Lord, how long, how long wilt Thou How long with a frowning brow Wilt Thou from thy sight reject me? How long shall I seek a way From this range of thoughts perplex'd, How long shall my stormful foe On my fall his greatness placing, And be grac'd by my disgracing? Hear, O Lord and God, my cries, Heavenly beams in them infusing. Lest my woes too great to bear, These black clouds will overblow, Into joy shall change his mourning. "Grief-dulled" is a very picturesque epithet. The same graceful facility and religious fervour animate the 86th Psalm: Save my soul which Thou didst cherish Until now, now like to perish, Save Thy servant that hath none After Thy sweet-wonted fashion, Send, O send, relieving gladness, Let thine ears which long have tarried For Thou, darter of dread thunders, Thou the living God alone. Heavenly Tutor, of thy kindness, Teach my dulness, guide my blindness, In knots to be loosed never, Lord, my God, thou shalt be praised, But Thy might their malice passes, Thy kind look no more deny me, And some gracious token show me, Thee to help and comfort me. Joseph Bryan has versified the 65th Psalm with great harmony of language and sweetness of fancy. Of his history I have been unable to obtain any illustrations; he must not, however, be confounded with Francis Bryan, whom, in the beautiful lines of Drayton, The Muses kept And in his cradle rock'd him whilst he slept. Dwellers beyond Thule's bands, In fair lands, At thy signs shall be affrighted. Are with light and heat delighted. * Unite. Furrows else plough'd, sow'd in vain, Are with blades and ears maintained. Pranking them with curious flowers; Sweet and soft descending showers. His dead-seeming seed reviving; Thou didst bless, Blasts and frosts would keep from thriving. Fall, and fill With thy blessing barren places; Deck'd with Flora's various graces. Among the poets who exercised a lively influence over their immediate contemporaries and successors, the name of Sylvester should not be omitted. The first part of his translation of the Divine Weeks of Dubartas was published in 1598. Bishop Hall speaks of him with affectionate praise" Our worthy friend, Mr. J. Sylvester," he says, "hath showed me how happily he hath sometimes turned from his Bartas to the sweet singer of Israel." He closed a troubled life at Middleburgh, in Holland, on the 28th of September, 1618, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. He appears to have been secretary to the Company of Merchants in that town*. The youthful admiration of Milton and Dryden has endeared the works of Sylvester to the poetical student. Mr. Dunster, in his ingenious considerations on Milton's early reading, has shown his obligations to this singular * Cole MSS. Cole ascertained this fact from the list of subscribers to Minshieu's Dictionary, in 1617. author, in whose poetry the flame of genuine fancy continually shoots up through all the extravagance of imagery that oppresses it. He enriched our language with some of its most picturesque epithets. His descriptions of the "sweet-numbered Homer," the "clear-styled Herodotus," and the "choice-termed Petrarch," are not more gracefully poetic, than critically correct. The melody and richness of some of his pictures of nature entitled him to the appellation bestowed by his contemporaries, of the "silvertongued." The "rose-crowned Zephyrus," and the "saffron-coloured bed of Aurora," are worthy of Theocritus or Anacreon. Perhaps the whole range of our poetry does not present a more exquisite descriptive couplet than the following: Arise betimes, while th' opal-coloured morn In golden pomp doth May-day's door adorn. The fate of Davison recalls to the memory the unfortunate and accomplished Sir Walter Raleigh, whom Spenser, in a beautiful sonnet, called the Summer's Nightingale. Mr. Tytler seems to have proved in his recent Life of Raleigh, that the charge of irreligion, so frequently urged against him, does not apply to his maturer years. The afflictions of his manhood appear to have obliterated the vain and sceptical feelings of his youth, and to have impressed his mind with a just and lively sense of the Divine Power. During his long imprisonment, rendered still more melancholy by the uncertainty of its issue, he composed one or two touching Hymns that testify the sincerity of his heart and the piety of his feelings. Probably the last words ever traced by his pen were the lines written in his Bible on the evening preceding his execution, in which he renewed his expression of confidence in the mercy and intercession of our Saviour. |