"And th' earth did shake and quake and styrred bee
grounds of the mount: & shook for wroth was hee
Smoke mounted, in his wrath, fyre did eat
out of his mouth: from it burned-with heat."
Alas, poor Priscilla! how could she sing with ease or reverence such
confused verses? The tune, too, set in the psalm-book seems absolutely
unfitted to the metre. I fear when she sang from the pages "the old Puritan
anthem" that she was forced to turn it into a chant, else the irregular
lines could never have been brought within the compass of the melody; and
yet, the metre is certainly better than the sense.
It may be thought that these selections of the Psalms have been chosen for
their crudeness and grotesqueness. I have tried in vain to find othersome
that would show more elegant finish or more of the spirit of poetry; the
most poetical lines I can discover are these, which are beautiful for the
reason that the noble thoughts of the Psalmist cannot be hidden, even by
the wording of the learned Puritan minister:--