Clothed with state and girt with might,
Monarch-like Jehovah reigns:
He who earth’s foundation pight,[63]
Pight at first, and yet sustains:
He whose stable throne disdains
Motion’s shock, and ages’ flight:
He who endless One remains,
One the same in changeless plight.
Rivers, yea, though rivers roar,
Roaring though sea-billows rise;
Vex the deep, and break the shore,
Stronger art Thou, Lord of skies.
Firm and true Thy promise lies
Now and still as heretofore:
Holy worship never dies
In Thy house where we adore.
George Sandys (1577-1643) was a true poet. Dryden called him ‘the best
versifier of the former age,’ and Richard Baxter said, ‘I must confess
after all that, next the Scripture poems, there are none so savoury to
me as Mr. George Herbert’s and Mr. George Sandys’s.’ Charles the First
comforted himself with Sandys’s psalms during his imprisonment at
Carisbrooke.
He is even yet little known to our hymn-books, though a few of his
psalms make, with a little adaptation, good hymns. The _Methodist
Hymn-book_ contains two—
Thou who art enthroned above[64] (Ps. xcii.).
Ye who dwell above the skies (Ps. cxlviii.).