124
Yahweh is praiseworthy, because he has saved us from the teeth of our enemies.
Our soul has escaped like a songbird out of the snare of the fowlers. The trap is broken, and we are fled.
125
Whoever trusts in Yahweh shall be like a statue that remains standing throughout all ages.
Just as ranges of mountains surround our Parisian God-house, so Yahweh’s phantom rises up like a giant wall around the caravan forever, and follows it everywhere it goes.
Do good, O Yahweh, unto those who are good.
126
When Yahweh set us free from our imprisonment, at first we thought that we were dreaming. Then we started to laugh, and then we were singing. People residing in the neighborhood around where we were imprisoned said one to another: “Yahweh must have done great things for those escaped prisoners, because they seem glad.”
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
He that goes forth weeping while planting seed shall come back rejoicing when bringing in the sheaves.
127
If Yahweh himself does not build the house, then the builders who build it build it to no purpose. If Yahweh himself does not police the city, then the police that police it police it to no purpose.
It is vain for you to rise early or to work late. Only Yahweh himself can do anything effectively.
128
A wife is a gift from God: a help meet for you. Children are a gift from God: fruit of the womb.
Happy is the married man who has a wain full of little ones mewling.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine by the side of your house; your children like olive plants round about your table.
129
The plowers plowed my back: they made long furrows. Let them wither prematurely, like the grass upon the housetops.
130
If you were to punish sin, O Yahweh, then who would be left standing! But you are merciful, forgiving all who ask in earnest.
My soul waits for Yahweh more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
Let all wayfarers hope in Yahweh, for with Yahweh is plenteous redemption.
131
I never try to grasp matters beyond what our rulers deem it safe to know: I behave obediently, like a chastened child, and accept their propaganda.
132
The priests tell us that David shall govern forever.
His enemies shall be drowned in shame, but God shall put an aureole on David’s head.
133
(A som for the Eternal Christ Bryan,
King of Kings of America.)
How pleasant it is for all nations to dwell together in unity!
It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Bryan’s great beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments; just as Sinai’s magma oozed over the mountainsides, when Yahweh commanded the blessing: LIFE FOREVERMORE.
134
All you who stand at night outdoors, raise your arms. Freeze! Yahweh is going to search you.
135
Yahweh is enormous. All the other gods fit inside Yahweh.
Whatsoever Yahweh desired, he accomplished: in heaven, on earth, in the seas, and all deep places. He caused smoke to ascend from the edges of the earth. He made lightnings to go with the rain. He brought the wind out of his treasuries.
He murdered all the firstborn of Egypt, both human and beast.
Think about it.
136
Praise Yahweh, who gives food to all flesh. His goodness is endless.
137
By the river in Wonderland, we sat down and wept, remembering Eldorado.
We hanged our blue guitars in the midst of the willows.
For Ozymandias, our aggressor, came over and demanded a song of us: “Sing a happy one,” he said.
How can we trill a jingle in four-part harmony on the blue guitar, when we are so sad?
If I forget you, O caravan, let my right hand forget how to hold a pen. If I do not remember you, let all the breath in my frame escape away and be afraid to return. I hold Sweet Beulah Land above my chief joy.
Recall, O Yahweh, how the enemy’s generals entered Eldorado, and instructed their shock-troops: “Kidnap the population!”
All you Wonderlanders shall be repaid by the Golden Rule. Blessed be the judge who treats you as you treated your neighbors.
138
I will praise you with my whole heart. Before the gods shall I sing praise unto you.
In the day when I cried out, you answered me, and added a support beam to my soul.
All the rulers of the world shall praise Yahweh, when they hear the words of his mouth.
Although Yahweh is very high, he respects the lowly; and he has a secret plan to dismantle those who are arrogant.
I can walk right through trouble, and your hands push all my enemies away.
Yahweh will perfect every element that concerns me.
139
Holy Officer, you have searched me; you know my contents. You have mapped my downsitting and my uprising. You grasp my thoughts before I even think them. You have memorized my daily routine. Everything I’ve ever said, you have a recording of it. You have beset me behind and before, and clamped my head with your claw. I don’t understand how you did all this; you really got me.
How could I escape your perception? Where could I go to hide from your awareness? Your presence is everywhere; you are the all-seeing eye; your spirit fills the world. If I climb a ladder to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, there you are; if I sail on the wings of the morning to go and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there I encounter you, and your gloved hand clutches my neck. If I say: “Surely the darkness will cover me,” lo, you possess night-vision. Pitch blackness cannot obscure me from your sight, not even thick fog: it’s all the same, because you also possess heat-vision. You have gained the fullest grip on my reins: you hold all the strings of my puppet. You’ve steered my fate since my mother’s womb.
Therefore, I will praise you. What choice do I have? For this marvelous achievement, my soul congratulates you: I am fearfully and wonderfully dominated.
You keep a list of my ingredients in your database; for you conducted the operation, when you devised my being in your lab; I was curiously fashioned in the lowest parts of the earth. You beheld my essence when it was still unperfect; you diagrammed all my members in your book; you revised and continued to fabricate my soul, when it was yet nothing.
Now I exist, generating more thoughts than the sands of the sea, and you save them all: how great is the sum! Your whim is my bidding, O God: I was concocted to please you.
Do I not hate them that hate you? Yes, surely, I hate them with perfect hatred: I deem them my enemies.
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