from "Upon the translation of the Psalms by Sir Philip Sydney and the Countess of Pembroke His Sister" by John Donne

UPON THE TRANSLATION OF THE PSALMS BY

SIR PHILIP SYDNEY AND THE COUNTESS

OF PEMBROKE HIS SISTER.

                                 1635.

Eternal God, (for whom who ever dare

Seek new expressions, do the circle square

And thrust into straight corners of poor wit

Thee, who art cornerless and infinite,)

I would but bless thy name, not name thee now;

And thy gifts are as infinite as thou;

Fix we our praises therefore on this one,

That, as thy blessed Spirit fell upon

These psalms’ first author in a cloven tongue,

(For ‘t was a double power by which he sung

The highest matter in the noblest form),

So thou hast cleft that Spirit to perform

That work again, and shed it here upon

Two by their bloods, and by thy Spirit one,

A brother and a sister, made by thee

The organ, where thou art the harmony,

Two, that make one John Baptist’s holy voice,

And who that Psalm, Now let the Isles rejoice,

Have both translated and applied it too,

Both told us what, and taught us how to do.

Source of the text – The Poems of John Donne, from the text of the edition of 1633, revised by James Russell Lowell with the various readings of the other editions of the seventeenth century, and with a preface, an introduction, and notes by Charles Eliot Norton, Volume II.  New York: The Grolier Club, 1895, p. 176.

TJB: A refusal to wit. Should Donne’s warning against naming God apply to either of the sibling-translators (on whose behalf Donne praises God)?