SONGS OF LOVE

We have reserved the best for last. The truest and most fundamental of human emotions is love and the most beautiful songs are love songs. (Who does not know the twenty-third psalm ?) Almost all of the spectrum of love is here and it is presented in the rainbow from youthful and innocent love, through marital love, unfaithful and carnal love, then to redemptive love and, at the last, to the love that sustains one another through the valley of the shadow of death.

Psalm #128
(a song for grandparents)

Good days all my life;
my wife is as the fruitful vine
clinging to the house;
children as the olive plants.
Oh, to see my children`s child.

Psalm 27
(a song of immortality)

The fruit of the womb,
children are the heritage
who shall speak for us -
arrows of eternity.
Happy we, whose quiver is full.

Psalm # 144
(a song of siblings)

Happy the people
and blest, whose sons in their youth
are like plants full grown;
whose daughters like veined marble,
are polished for palaces.

Psalm #45
(a song for a young bride)

Hearken O daughter,
All thy garments smell of myrrh,
cassia, aloes,
thy raiment of needlework,
thy clothing is of wrought gold.

Psalm #21
(a song of life giving)

He asked life of thee
and thou gavest it to him,
even length of days
Thou, the desire of his heart,
fill the request of his lips.

Psalm #17
( a love song)

Wouldst thou try my heart?
Incline thine ear, hear my words,
visit me by night.
Keep me apple of thine eye
in the shadow of thy wings.

Psalm #63
(a song of desire)

My soul thirsts for thee
and my flesh longeth for thee.
My lips are joyful
in a dry and thirsty land
where no other water is.

Psalm #12
(a song of truth and falsehood)

Falsehoods are spoken
with double hearts, double tongues
and flattering lips.
True words are as silver, pure,
sintered, seven times refined.

Psalm #11
(a Valentine`s Day warning)

Flee, take refuge, flee
like a bird to the mountains.
Evil bends his bow.
Arrows fitted to the string
Shot in the dark, to the heart.

Psalm #92
(a boast)

My horn shall exult
like the horn of unicorn.
Anointed with oil,
righteous, fat and flourishing,
bringing forth fruit in old age.

Psalm #38
(song for a loathsome disease)

Cause I was foolish
there`s no soundness in my flesh.
Wounds corrupt, I stink.
Loins filled with loathsome disease,
lovers aloof from my sores.

Psalm #22
(a song of desertion)

I call night and day.
Why hast thou forsaken me?
Words of my groaning;
my heart, like wax, melts within
and I pour out, like water.

Psalm #31
(a swan song)

My soul, my belly,
and mine eye consumed with grief.
My life wastes away.
I sorrow, sigh, faint, die, and
to thee commit my spirit.

Psalm #88
(a song of deep depression)

Cast in deepest pit,
like the slain that lie in graves,
free among the dead.
Lover and friend far from me,
acquaintances in darkness.

Psalm #116
(a basis for love)

Trouble and sorrow,
death`s anguish encompassed me,
pains of hell took hold.
Then I called, beseeched, believed.
Because I was heard, I loved.

Psalm #31
(a swan song)

My soul, my belly,
and mine eye consumed with grief.
My life wastes away.
I sorrow, sigh, faint, die, and
to thee commit my spirit.

Psalm #25
(a song of tender lovingkindness)

In thee I trusted.
Recall not my transgressions
or sins of my youth.
Tender, tender thy mercy.
Loving kindness, shield my shame.

Psalm # 139
(a song of omnipresent love)

Whither shall I go ?
Whither, whither shall I flee ?
Should I ascend to
heaven on wings of morning,
or go to hell, thou art there.

Psalm #73
(compassionate love)

Foolish, ignorant,
when my soul was embittered
and my heart hasty
I was a beast unto thee.
None-the-less you held my hand.

Psalm #81
(a song of a tryst)

Your voice in trouble
was a voice I had not known,
so I came to thee.
I proved you at the waters,
answered in a secret place.

Psalm #27
(a song of ups and downs)

Light, light up thy face.
Put me not down in anger,
for thou art my help.
Leave me not, forsake me not,
take me up, or I fall faint.

Psalm 23
(a song of true love)

Led by still waters,
refreshed in the green pastures,
rightful soul restored.
Though I walk through death`s valley
I fear naught - thou art with me.

Psalm #138
( a song of comfort)

In the day when I cried,
thou strengthenedst me with strength,
thou answeredst me.
Though I walk amidst trouble,
thou wilt save me, revive me.

Psalm #23
(a song of demanding love)

Prepare my table!
Then annoint my head with oil!
Overfill my cup!
Surely goodness and mercy
will follow all my days.

PAULS PSALM


(a tanka chain)
The torrent of emotions completed the Psalmist had neither the time or inclination to sum it up. It was left to the new testament and most of all, to Paul, speaking with the eloquence of the Greek language, to refine and define the noblest emotion of the human animal. Need we retranslate this love song so eloquently retranslated in the King James version and so stultified in the RSV? Only if we wish to restore the rough hewn cadence of the tribe where this emotion was first born. It thus appears here as a Tonka chain capped by a Haiku, bluntly and unashamedly proclaiming the verities of love.

THOUGH I SPEAK WITH TONGUES,
tongues of men and angels;
if I have not love,
I am as a sounding brass
or teeny tinkling cymbal.

THOUGH I AM GIFTED
mystic, prophet, genius,
man of stoic faith,
remover of the mountains,
without love - I am nothing.

LOVE SUFFERETH LONG
envieth not, vaunteth not,
thinketh no evil.
Bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

LOVE NEVER FAILETH
prophecies fail, tongues shall cease,
knowledge fade away.
For we prophecy in part
waiting for the perfect day.

ONCE I WAS A CHILD
spoke and thought and understood
as a little child,
but, when I became a man
childish things were put away.

NOW WE FAINTLY SEE
through a glass - dimly, darkly,
but then - face to face.
Now I know in part, knowing
I shall know as I am known.

NOW ABIDETH THREE
just three, faith and hope and love.

Above all is love.

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