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Psalm CXIV

By William Cowper

Topics: classic

When the blest seed of Terah's faithful Son,[1]     After long toil their liberty had won,     And past from Pharian[2] fields to Canaan Land,     Led by the strength of the Almighty's hand,     Jehovah's wonders were in Israel shown,     His praise and glory was in Israel known.     That saw the troubl'd Sea, and shivering fled,     And sought to hide his froth-becurled head     Low in the earth, Jordan's clear streams recoil,     As a faint host that hath receiv'd the foil.     The high, huge-bellied Mountains skip like Rams     Amongst their Ewes, the little Hills like Lambs.     Why fled the Ocean? And why skip'd the Mountains?     Why turned Jordan toward his Crystal Fountains?     Shake earth, and at the presence be aghast     Of him that ever was, and ay shall last,     That glassy floods from rugged rocks can crush,     And make soft rills from the fiery flint-stones gush.

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Author:William Cowper

"When the blest seed of Terah's faithful Son,[1]..." by William Cowper

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

William Cowper

About William Cowper

William Cowper (1731–1800) was an English poet and hymnodist whose work bridges the gap between the Augustan age and Romanticism. His poems "The Task" and "John Gilpin" were enormously popular, and his hymn "God Moves in a Mysterious Way" remains widely sung.

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