One of the most remarkable specimens I know of the play with words of which I have already spoken as common even in the serious writings of this century, is to be found in the next line: "Where earth doth end with endless ending." David, regarding the world as a flat disc, speaks of the ends of the earth: Sidney, knowing it to be a globe, uses the word of the Psalmist, but re-moulds and changes the form of it, with a power fantastic, almost capricious in its wilfulness, yet causing it to express the fact with a marvel of precision. We see that the earth ends; we cannot reach the end we see; therefore the "earth doth end with endless ending." It is a case of that contradiction in the form of the words used, which brings out a truth in another plane as it were;—a paradox in words, not in meaning, for the words can bear no meaning but the one which reveals its own reality.
The following little psalm, The Lord reigneth, is a thunderous organ-blast of praise. The repetition of words in the beginning of the second stanza produces a remarkably fine effect.
PSALM XCIII.
Clothed with state, and girt with might,
Monarch-like Jehovah reigns;
He who earth's foundation pight— pitched.
Pight at first, and yet sustains;
He whose stable throne disdains
Motion's shock and age's 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.
I close my selections from Sidney with one which I consider the best of all: it is the first half of Lord, thou hast searched me.
PSALM CXXXIX.
O Lord, in me there lieth nought
But to thy search revealed lies;
For when I sit
Thou markest it;
No less thou notest when I rise:
Yea, closest closet of my thought
Hath open windows to thine eyes.
Thou walkest with me when I walk
When to my bed for rest I go,
I find thee there,
And every where:
Not youngest thought in me doth grow,
No, not one word I cast to talk
But, yet unuttered, thou dost know.
If forth I march, thou goest before;
If back I turn, thou com'st behind:
So forth nor back
Thy guard I lack;
Nay, on me too thy hand I find.
Well I thy wisdom may adore,
But never reach with earthy mind.