The wanderers, in answer, united their voices, and sent
forth, in solemn modulation, the two first verses of the seventy-sixth
Psalm, according to the metrical version of the Scottish Kirk:
"In Judah's land God is well known,
His name's in Israel great:
In Salem is his tabernacle,
In Zion is his seat.
There arrows of the bow he brake,
The shield, the sword, the war.
More glorious thou than hills of prey,
More excellent art far."
A shout, or rather a solemn acclamation, attended the close of the
stanza; and after a dead pause, the second verse was resumed by the
insurgents, who applied the destruction of the Assyrians as prophetical
of the issue of their own impending contest:--
"Those that were stout of heart are spoil'd,
They slept their sleep outright;
And none of those their hands did find,
That were the men of might.
When thy rebuke, O Jacob's God,
Had forth against them past,
Their horses and their chariots both
Were in a deep sleep cast."
There was another acclamation, which was followed by the most profound
silence.
While these solemn sounds, accented by a thousand voices, were prolonged
amongst the waste hills, Claverhouse looked with great attention on the
ground, and on the order of battle which the wanderers had adopted, and
in which they determined to await the assault.
Pages:
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281