f his longing, as a weary exile,
for one draught of water from the well at Bethlehem--where in the dear
old times he had so often led his flocks.

But though we cannot say confidently that we have any psalms prior to
his first exile, there are several which, whatever their date may be,
are echoes of his thoughts in these first days. This is especially the
case in regard to the group which describe varying aspects of
nature--viz., Psalms xix., viii., xxix. They are unlike his later psalms
in the almost entire absence of personal references, or of any trace of
pressing cares, or of signs of a varied experience of human life. In
their self-forgetful contemplation of nature, in their silence about
sorrow, in their tranquil beauty, they resemble the youthful works of
many a poet whose later verse throbs with quivering consciousness of
life's agonies, or wrestles strongly with life's problems. They may not
unnaturally be regarded as the outpouring of a young heart at leisure
from itself, and from pain, far from men and very near God. The fresh
mountain air of Bethlehem blows through them, and the dew of life's
quiet morning is on them. The early experience supplied their materials,
whatever was the date of their composition; and in them we can see what
his inward life was in these budding years. The gaze of child-like
wonder and awe upon the blazing brightness of the noonday, and on the
mighty heaven with all its stars, the deep voice with which all creation
spoke of God, the great thoughts of the dignity of man (thoughts ever
welcome to lofty youthful souls), the gleaming of an inward light
brighter than all suns, the consciousness of mysteries of weakness which
may become miracles of sin in one's own heart, the assurance of close
relation to God as His anointed and His servant, the cry for help and
guidance--all this is what we should expect David to have thought and
felt as he wandered among the hills, alone with God; and this is what
these psalms give us.

Common to them all is the peculiar manner of looking upon nature, so
uniform in David's psalms, so unlike more modern descriptive poetry. He
can smite out a picture in a phrase, but he does not care to paint
landscapes. He feels the deep analogies between man and his
dwelling-place, but he does not care to lend to nature a shadowy life,
the reflection of our own. Creation is to him neither a subject for
poetical description, nor for scientific examination. It is nothin