The most essential thing in the appreciation of the poetry in the
Psalms is the recognition of the three great spiritual qualities which
distinguish them.
The first of these is the deep and genuine love of nature. The psalmists
delight in the vision of the world, and their joy quickens their senses
to read both the larger hieroglyphs of glory written in the stars and
the delicate tracings of transient beauty on leaf and flower; to hear
both the mighty roaring of the sea and the soft sweet laughter of the
rustling corn-fields. But in all these they see the handwriting and
hear the voice of God. It is His presence that makes the world sublime
and beautiful. The direct, piercing, elevating sense of this presence
simplifies, enlarges, and enables their style, and makes it different
from other nature-poetry. They never lose themselves, as Theocritus and
Wordsworth and Shelley and Tennyson sometimes do, in the contemplation
and description of natural beauty. They see it, but they always see
beyond it. Compare, for example, a modern versified translation with the
psalm itself:
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their Great Original proclaim.[9]
Addison’s descriptive epithets betray a conscious effort to make a
splendid picture. But the psalmist felt no need of this; a larger impulse
lifted him at once into “the grand style:”
The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament showeth his handiwork.
The second quality of the poetry in the Psalms is their passionate sense
of the beauty of holiness. Keats was undoubtedly right in his suggestion
that the poet must always see truth in the form of beauty. Otherwise he
may be a philosopher, or a critic, or a moralist, but he is not a true
poet. But we must go on from this standpoint to the Platonic doctrine
that the highest form of beauty is spiritual and ethical. The poet must
also see beauty in the light of truth. It is the harmony of the soul with
the eternal music of the Good. And the highest poets are those who, like
the psalmists, are most ardently enamoured of righteousness. This fills
their songs with sweetness and fire incomparable and immortal:
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever:
The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold:
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
The third quality of the poetry of the Psalms is their intense joy in
God. No lover ever poured out the longings of his heart toward his
mistress more eagerly than the Psalmist voices his desire and thirst for
God. No conqueror ever sang of victory more exultantly than the Psalmist
rejoices in the Lord, who is his light and his salvation, the strength of
his life and his portion forever.
After all, the true mission of poetry is to increase joy. It must,
indeed, be sensitive to sorrow and acquainted with grief. But it has
wings given to it in order that it may bear us up into the air of
gladness.
There is no perfect joy without love. Therefore love-poetry is the best.
But the highest of all love-poetry is that which celebrates, with the
Psalms,
that Love which is and was
My Father and my Brother and my God.