When nations go against her bent,
    And kings with siege her walls enround;
  The void of air his voice doth rent,
    Earth fails their feet with melting ground. 
    To strength and keep us sound,
  The God of armies arms;
    Our rock on Jacob’s God we found,
  Above the reach of harms.

  O come with me, O come, and view
    The trophies of Jehovah’s hand! 
  What wrecks from him our foes pursue! 
    How clearly he hath purged our land! 
    By him wars silent stand: 
  He brake the archer’s bow,
    Made chariot’s wheel a fiery brand,
  And spear to shivers go.

  Be still, saith he; know, God am I;
    Know I will be with conquest crowned
  Above all nations—­raised high,
    High raised above this earthly round. 
    To strength and keep us sound,
  The God of armies arms;
    Our rock on Jacob’s God we found,
  Above the reach of harms.

“The God of armies arms” is a grand line.

Now let us have a hymn of Nature—­a far finer, I think, than either of the preceding:  Praise waiteth for thee.

  PSALM LXV.

  Sion it is where thou art praised,
    Sion, O God, where vows they pay thee: 
  There all men’s prayers to thee raised,
    Return possessed of what they pray thee. 
  There thou my sins, prevailing to my shame,
  Dost turn to smoke of sacrificing flame.

  Oh! he of bliss is not deceived, disappointed.
    Whom chosen thou unto thee takest;
  And whom into thy court received,
    Thou of thy checkrole[65] number makest: 
  The dainty viands of thy sacred store
  Shall feed him so he shall not hunger more.

  From thence it is thy threat’ning thunder—­
    Lest we by wrong should be disgraced—­
  Doth strike our foes with fear and wonder,
    O thou on whom their hopes are placed,
  Whom either earth doth stedfastly sustain,
  Or cradle rocks the restless wavy plain.

Thy virtue stays the mighty mountains, power.
Girded with power, with strength abounding. 
The roaring dam of watery fountains the “dam of fountains”
Thy beck doth make surcease her sounding. [is the ocean.
When stormy uproars toss the people’s brain,
That civil sea to calm thou bring’st again. political, as opposed
[to natural.

Where earth doth end with endless ending,
All such as dwell, thy signs affright them;
And in thy praise their voices spending,
Both houses of the sun delight them—–­
Both whence he comes, when early he awakes,
And where he goes, when evening rest he takes.

Thy eye from heaven this land beholdeth,
Such fruitful dews down on it raining,
That storehouse-like her lap enfoldeth
Assured hope of ploughman’s gaining: 
Thy flowing streams her drought doth temper so,
That buried seed through yielding grave doth grow.