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AMERICAN LITERATURE
ing the Psalms of David into metrical form for church use, and the result was one of the most marvellous productions ever written in English. It need not be said to one who has read even a fragment from this book that the men of early New England were anything but poetical. "Everywhere in the book," writes Tyler, "is manifest the agony it cost the writers to find two words that would rhyme,—more or less." A brief extract will characterize it better than a page of description.
Psalm CXXXVII.
The rivers on of Babilon,there when wee did sit downe,Yea, even then wee mourned whenwe remembered Sion.
"Our harp wee did hang it amidupon the willow tree,because there they that us awayled into captivitee,"
Required of us a song,and thus askt mirth as waste who laid,Sing us among a Sion song,unto us then they said.
"The Lord's song sing, can wee, beingin stranger's land?then let lose her skill my right hand ifI Jerusalem forget."
The Literature of the Period falls naturally into three groups: Journals and Historical Works, Religious and Theological Writings, and Poetry.
