Psalm 58 S. Vere Utique by Mary (Countess of Pembroke) Sidney Herbert

Psalm 58 Si Vere Utique
And call ye this to utter what is just
You that of justice hold the sovereign throne?
And call ye this, to yield, O sons of dust,
To wronge`d brethren every man his own?
O no! It is your long malicious will
Now to the world to make by practice known
With whose oppression you the balance fill:
Just to yourselves, indifferent1 else to none.
But what could they, who even in birth declined
From truth and right to lies and injuries?
To show the venom of their cankered mind
The adders image scarcely can suffice;
Nay, scarce the aspic2 may with them contend,
On whom the charmer all in vain applies
His skilfullst spells, aye missing of his end,
While she, self-deaf and unaffected, lies.
Lord, crack their teeth! Lord, crush these lions jaws!
So let them sink as water in the sand.
When deadly bow their aiming fury draws,
1. If heaven had spared your life so that you could
have completed your representation of human life.
2. The least part—all that she, with her limitations
as a writer, is able to express. Professions of
a writers inadequacy are conventional.
3. My sorrow would mount to heaven to meet
you, presuming that the justness of my cause
would allow me (however personally unworthy)
entrance there.
Shiver the shaft ere past the shooters hand.
So make them melt as the dishouse`d snail,
Or as the embryo whose vital band
Breaks ere it holds, and formless eyes do fail
To see the sun, though brought to lightful land.
O let their brood, a brood of springing thorns,
Be by untimely rooting overthrown;
Ere bushes waxed,3 they push with pricking horns,
As fruits yet green are oft by tempest blown.
The good with gladness this revenge shall see
And bathe his feet in blood of wicked one
While all shall say, The just rewarded be;
There is a God that carves to each his own.
1. Impartial.
2. The asp, a small poisonous snake.