The glorious majesty of God above
Shall ever reign, in mercy and in love;
God shall rejoice all his fair works to see,
For, as they come from him, all perfect be.
The earth shall quake, if aught his wrath provoke;
Let him but touch the mountains, they shall smoke.
As long as life doth last, I hymns will sing,
With cheerful voice, to the Eternal King;
As long as I have being, I will praise
The works of God, and all his wondrous ways.
I know that he my words will not despise:
Thanksgiving is to him a sacrifice.
But as for sinners, they shall be destroyed
From off the earth--their places shall be void.
Let all his works praise him with one accord!
Oh praise the Lord, my soul! Praise ye the Lord!
His Hundred and Forty-ninth Psalm is likewise good; but I have given
enough of Lord Bacon's verse, and proceed to call up one who was a poet
indeed, although little known as such, being a Roman Catholic, a Jesuit
even, and therefore, in Elizabeth's reign, a traitor, and subject to the
penalties according. Robert Southwell, "thirteen times most cruelly
tortured," could "not be induced to confess anything, not even the colour
of the horse whereon on a certain day he rode, lest from such indication
his adversaries might conjecture in what house, or in company of what
Catholics, he that day was.
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