102 A TRANSLATION OF CERTAIN PSALMS. 



Thou carry s! man away with a tide : 



Then down swim all his [thoughts that mounted 



high: 



Much like a mocking dream, that will not bide, 

 But flies before the sight of waking eye ; 

 Or as the grass, that cannot term obtain, 

 To see the summer come about again. 



At morning, fair it musters on the ground ; 



At ev n it is cut down, and laid along : 

 And though it spared were, and favour found, 

 The weather would perform the mower s wrong : 

 Thus hast thou hang d our life on brittle pins, 

 To let us know it will not bear our sins. 



Thou bury st not within oblivion s tomb 



Our trespasses, but en t rest them aright ; 

 Ev n those that are conceiv d in darkness womb, 

 To thee appear as done at broad day-light. 

 As a tale told, which sometime men attend, 

 And sometimes not, our life steals to an end. 



The life of man is threescore years and ten, 



Or, if that he be strong, perhaps fourscore; 

 Yet all things are but labour to him then, 

 New sorrow s still come on, pleasures no more. 

 Why should there be such turmoil and such strife, 

 To spin in length this feeble line of life ? 



