Then farewell, world! thy uttermost I see
Eternal Love, maintain Thy life in me.

Splendidis longum valedico nugis.1

Sydney's Translation of the Psalms was finished by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. It was thought, until recently, impossible to distinguish her portion of them, but there is now evidence of some weight that it begins with the forty-fourth Psalm. I quote from the part which is reasonably ascribed to Sydney.

From Psalm xvi. :—

1

Save me, Lord, for why? Thou art
All the hope of all my heart:
Witness thou, my soul with me,

That to God, my God, I say,—
Thou, my Lord, Thou art my stay,
Though my works reach not to Thee.

God my only portion is,

And of my childs-part the bliss:
He then shall maintain my lot.
Say then, is not my lot found
In a goodly pleasant ground?
Have not I fair partage got?

Ever, Lord, I will bless Thee,
Who dost ever counsel me;

E'en when night with his black wing
Sleepy darkness does o'ercast,

In my inward reins I taste

Of my faults a chastening.

My eyes still my God regard,

And He my right hand doth guard;
So can I not be opprest,

So my heart is fully glad,

So my joy in glory clad,

Yea, my flesh in hope shall rest.

For I know the deadly grave
On my soul no power shall have ;
For I know Thou wilt defend
Even the body of Thine own
Dear, beloved, holy one

From a foul corrupting end.

Sir Philip Sydney's Works, vol. i. 147, ed. by Grosart.

Thou life's path wilt make me know
In whose view with plenty grow

All delights that souls can crave;
And whose bodies placéd stand
On Thy blessed-making hand;
They all pleasures endless have.1

From Psalm xliii. :—

Send Thy truth and light,
Let them guide me right
From the paths of folly,
Bringing me to Thy
Tabernacles high

In Thy hill most holy.

To God's altars tho (then)
I will boldly go,
Shaking off all sadness;
To that God that is
God of all my bliss,
God of all my gladness.

Then lo, then I will
With sweet music's skill
Grateful meaning show Thee.
Then God, yea, my God,
I will sing abroad
What great thanks I owe Thee.

Why art thou, my soul,
Cast down in such dole?
What ails thy discomfort?
Wait on God, for still
Thank my God I will,
My only aid and comfort.2

From the Countess of Pembroke's Psalms I may quote a part of the ninety-fifth

Come, come let us with joyful voice
Record and raise
Jehovah's praise :

Come, let us in our safety's rock rejoice.
Into His presence let us go,

And there with psalms our gladness show,

1 Sir Philip Sydney's Works, iii. 113:

Save me, Lord, for why, Thou art
All the hope of all my heart.

2 Id. iii. 198.

For He is God, a God most great
Above all gods, a King in kingly seat.

What lowest lies in earthy mass,
What highest stands,

Stands in His hand :

The sea is His, and He the sea-wright was.
He made the sea, He made the shore :
Come let us fall, let us adore :

Come let us kneel with awful grace

Before the Lord, the Lord our Maker's face.

He is our God, He doth us keep :

We by Him led,

And by Him fed,

His people are; we are his pasture sheep.
To-day if He some speech will use,
Do not, O do not you refuse

With hardened hearts His voice to hear,
As Massa now, or Meribah it were.1

Speaking generally of this version of the Psalms by Sir Philip Sydney and his sister, it seems to me nearly, if not quite, the best and most readable of any complete rendering in English verse.

Humphrey Gifford's Posie of Gilloflowers was published about 1580. Very little is known of him except that he was connected by marriage with the ancient family of the Copes, that in some manner he 'served' Edward Cope of Eydon, and that he had convenient leisure among his books, 'with which exercise,' says he, 'of all earthly recreations I am most delighted.' From his poems, I select one of much merit, In Praise of the Contented Minde :—

If all the joys that worldly wights possess,

Were throughly scann'd, and ponder'd in their kinds,

No man of wit, but justly must confess

That they joy most that have contented minds;

And other joys which bear the name of joys

Are not right joys, but sunshines of annoys.

1 The Psalms of David, etc., by Sir Philip Sydney, and finished by the Countess of Pembroke, his sister, 1823: 'Come, come lett us with joyfull voice.'

In outward view we see a number glad,

Which make a show, as if mirth did abound,
When pinching grief within doth make them sad;
And many a one in these days may be had,
Which faintly smile, to shroud their sorrows so,
When oftentimes they pine in secret woe.

But every man that holds himself content,
And yields God thanks, as duty doth require,
For all the goods that He to us hath sent,
And is not vexed with over great desire;
All such, I say, most quietly do sleep,
When fretting cares do others waking keep.
What doth avail huge heaps of shining gold,
Or gay attire, or stately buildings brave,
If worldly pomp thy heart in bondage hold?

Not thou thy goods, thy goods make thee their slave;
For greedy men like Tantalus do fare;

In midst of wealth they needy are and bare.

A wary heed that things go not to loss,

Doth not amiss, so that it keeps the mean;
But still to toil and moil for worldly dross,

And taste no joy nor pleasure for our pains-
In cark and care both day and night to dwell,
Is nothing else but even a very hell.

Wherefore I say, as erst I did begin,

Contented men enjoy the greatest bliss;
Let us content ourselves to fly from sin,
And still abide what God's good pleasure is.

If joy or pain, if wealth or want befall,

Let us be pleased, and give God thanks for all.1

I must add a few lines, from his Complaynt of a Sinner, on the world-long struggle between the spirit and the flesh :

:

Ah me! when that some good desire
Would move me to do well,
Affection fond makes me retire,

And cause me to rebel.

I wake, yet am asleep,

I see, yet still am blind;

In ill I run with headlong race,

In good I come behind,

1 H. Gifford's Posie of Gilloflwers in Al. Grosart's Miscellanies, vol. i.:

If all the joyes that worldly wightes possesse.'

Lo, thus in life I daily die,
And dying shall not live,
Unless Thy mercy speedily
Some succour to me give.

The following is from William Byrd's Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs (1588)—

Care for thy soul as thing of greatest price,
Made to the end to taste of power divine,
Devoid of guilt, abhorring sin and vice,
Apt by God's grace to virtue to incline :
Care for it so that by thy reckless train
It be not brought to taste eternal pain.

Care for thy soul as for thy chiefest stay;
Care for thy body for the soul's avail:
Care for the world for body's help alway;
Care yet but so as virtue may prevail :
Care in such sort as thou beware of this-

Care keep thee not from heaven and heavenly bliss.1

Thomas Churchyard (c. 1520-1604) was author of a number of poems of no very superlative character. The following stanza from Churchyarde's Chippes rises above his ordinary level:

Here is no home nor harbouring house,

But cabins built on sand,

That every pirrie [gust] puffeth down,

Or still on props do stand.

Our fathers' spirits pass in peace

The country that we crave,

But we are strangers far from home
That nothing certain have.2

Spenser's Faery Queen (1590) is a religious poem in a very noble sense, as representing a pure and beautiful ideal of the Christian character. 'I labour,' he says, in his preface to Sir Walter Raleigh, to portray the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve moral virtues,

1 More Lyrics from Elizabethan Song-Books, edited by A. H. Bullen, 1888, p. 16.

2

Churchyarde's Chippes, by Thomas Churchyard, Gentilman, 1573; edited by J. P. Collier, p. 74:

Here is no home nor harboring house,

But cabbens built on sande.