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.).
His version of Ps. lxvi. also has some good lines. It begins—
Happy sons of Israel,
Who in pleasant Canaan dwell:
Fill the air with shouts of joy,