Psalm 129 [Up from my youth, may Israel say,]

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Title:     Psalm 129 [Up from my youth, may Israel say,]
Author: Isaac Watts [More Titles by Watts]

Persecutors punished.

Up from my youth, may Israel say,
Have I been nurs'd in tears;
My griefs were constant as the day,
And tedious as the years.

Up from my youth I bore the rage
Of all the sons of strife;
Oft they assail'd my riper age,
But not destroy'd my life.

Their cruel plough had torn my flesh
With furrows long and deep,
Hourly they vex my wounds afresh,
Nor let my sorrows sleep.

The Lord grew angry on his throne,
And with impartial eye
Measur'd the mischiefs they had done
Then let his arrows fly.

How was their insolence surpris'd
To hear his thunders roll!
And all the foes of Zion seiz'd
With horror to the soul.

Thus shall the men that hate the saints
Be blasted from the sky;
Their glory fades, their courage faints,
And all their projects die.

[What tho' they flourish tall and fair,
They have no root beneath;
Their growth shall perish in despair,
And lie despis'd in death.]

[So corn that on the house-top stands
No hope of harvest gives;
The reaper ne'er shall fill his hands,
Nor binder fold the sheaves.

It springs and withers on the place:
No traveller bestows
A word of blessing on the grass,
Nor minds it as he goes.]

[The end]
Isaac Watts's poem: Psalm 129

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