THE PSALMS OF DAVID by Lamartine

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 8, 1859

THE PSALMS OF DAVID.

By Lamartine

The last psalm ends with a chorus to the praise of God, in which the poet calls on all people, all instruments of sacred music, all the elements and all the stars to join. Sublime finale of that opera of sixty years sung by the shepherd, the hero, the king and the old man!

In the closing psalm we see the almost inarticulate enthusiasm of the lyric poet; so rapidly do the words press to his lips, floating upward toward God their source, like the smoke of a great fire of the soul wafted by the tempest! Here we see David, or rather the human heart itself, with all its God-given notes of grief, joy, tears and adoration—poetry sanctified to its highest expression; a vase of perfume broken on the steps of the temple, and shedding abroad its odors from the heart of David to the heart of all humanity! Hebrew, Christian, or even Mohammedan—every religion, every complaint, every prayer, has taken from this vase, shed on the heights of Jerusalem, wherewith to give forth their accents. The little shepherd has become the master of the sacred choir of the universe. There is not a worshiper on earth who prays not with his words, or sings not with his voice. A chord of his harp is to be found in all choirs, resounding everywhere, and forever in unison with the echoes of Horeb and Engaddi! David is the Psalmist of eternity; what a destiny—what a power hath poetry when inspired by God!

As for myself, when my spirit is excited, or devotional, or sad, and seeks for an echo to its enthusiasm, its devotion, or its melancholy, I do not open Pindar, or Horace, or Hafiz, those purely academic poets; neither do I find myself murmuring to express my emotion. I open the book of Psalms, and there I find words which seem to issue from the soul of the ages, and which penetrate even to the heart of all generations. Happy the bard who has thus become the eternal hymn, the personified prayer and complaint of all humanity! If we look back to that remote age when such songs resounded over the world, if we consider that while the lyric poetry of all the most cultivated nations only sang of wine, love, blood, and the victories of coursers at the games of Elidus, we are seized with profound astonishment at the mystic accents of the shepherd prophet, who speaks to God the Creator as one friend to another, who understands and praises his great works, admires his justice, implores his mercy, and becomes, as it were, an anticipative echo of the evangelical poetry, speaking the soft words of Christ before his coming. Prophet or not, as he may be considered by Christian or sceptic, none can deny in the poet king an inspiration granted to no other man. Read Greek or Latin poetry after a psalm, and see how pale it looks?—Lamartine.