Edward Clarke

The Idiom of the Psalms 

---

I heard our eldest son
Relate an anecdote
Whose lines our youngest one
Would take and twist and quite exaggerate,
Repeating this detail, changing that phrase,
To share an effervescent tale
Whose parallel cola quite amaze
The listeners they’d regale.

The eldest set a scene
Of heavy rain, when, lo,
The youngest said he’d seen
Big thunderstorms, and conjured up clouds low
On hills that fizzed and shook, and darkness round
The earth that billowed in the noise;
The floods have lifted up their sound:
The floods lift up their voice.

Can it be that they’re charmed
Spontaneously to raise
The idiom of the Psalms?
They seem to live, like trees, at the height of praise,
These boys of mine, and when the story’s over play
On cymbals and synthesizer songs
That sound as if their singers obey
A rule they’ll break before long.