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Psalm CXIV[1]

By William Cowper

Topics: classic

When Israel by Jehovah call'd          From Egypt's hostile plain,     Pour'd forth in numbers as the Sand          And sought the adjacent main:     Then God descended from on high          To lead the favour'd Race     To rule o'er Jacob, & his Name          In Judah's Tribe to place.     The Sea at their approach alarm'd          In wild amazement fled     And Jordan's flood was driven back          Within it's fountainhead.     The Mountains from their basis shook          Confess'd the Parent God!     With sudden throws like Rams they skipp'd          And broken, fell abroad.     The little Hills by the same power          Were from their Center torn     Like Lambs resistless they gave way          In Tumult wild, upborn.     Ye Waves what strange amazement, say,          Seiz'd on you that you fled?     Thou Jordan too! On Israel's march,          Why driven to thy Head?     Ye Mountains whence this sudden fright          That shook you from your base?     And whence, ye little Hills, your flight          From Israel's chosen Race?     Tremble thou Earth! Jehovah leads,          And guards the might Host!     That God, who by his awful Word,          Commands the Stream to flow[2]     From flinty Rocks; & pouring thence,          To form the Lake below.

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"When Israel by Jehovah call'd..." 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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