The Dedication
The Poet's Offering
The poet dedicates his work as a firstfruits offering to God, asking for acceptance and for the right readers to be drawn to it.
Lord, my first fruits present themselves to you; yet they're not mine either, for they came from you and must return.✦ Accept them and me, and make us strive over who will sing your Name best.1 Turn this way the eyes of those who will gain by it; hold back the eyes of those who would hurt themselves or me.2
Read the original English
LOrd, my first fruits present themselves to thee; Yet not mine neither: for from thee they came, And must return. Accept of them and me, And make us strive, who shall sing best thy Name. Turn their eyes hither, who shall make a gain: Theirs, who shall hurt themselves or me, refrain.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Chr.29.14 — But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give so willingly as this? For all things come from you, and from your hand we have given to you.
Notes
- 1 ↩Period 'Accept of them' = accept them (not 'accept some of them'). 'Make us strive, who shall sing best' means spur a holy rivalry between the poems and the poet over who praises God's Name better.
- 2 ↩'Theirs... refrain' continues the eye-metaphor: God is asked to keep away the gaze of harmful readers, not merely to make those readers refrain in the abstract.
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