Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/175

146 Of mouth of childer and soukand Made þou lof in ilka land, For þi faes; þat þou for-do Þe fai, þe wreker him unto. For I sal se þine hevenes hegh, And werkes of þine fingres slegh; Þe mone and sternes mani ma, Þat þou grounded to be swa. What is man, þat þou mines of him? Or sone of man, for þou sekes him? Þou liteled him a litel wight Lesse fra þine aungeles bright; With blisse and mensk þou crouned him yet, And over werkes of þi hend him set. þou under-laide alle þinges Under his fete þat ought forth-bringes, Neete and schepe bathe for to welde, In-over and beestes of þe felde, Fogheles of heven and fissches of se, Þat forth-gone stihes of þe se. Laverd, our Laverd, hou selkouth is Name þine in alle land þis.

The above Psalm is a specimen of the Northumbrian Psalter (Surtees Society), a translation which, from its large proportion of obsolete words, must have been com&shy;piled about 1250, though it has come down to us only in a transcript made sixty years later. This is the earliest well-marked specimen of the Northern Dialect, spoken at York, Durham, and Edinburgh alike; it was now making its way to Ayr and Aberdeen, and driving out the old Celtic dialects before it. This was the speech