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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:34:23 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10375-0.txt b/10375-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e9106b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/10375-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11614 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10375 *** + +[Illustration: England's Antiphon] + + + +ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON + +BY GEORGE MACDONALD + + + ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON + was originally published in 1868 + + + + +PREFACE + + +In this book I have sought to trace the course of our religious poetry +from an early period of our literary history. + +This could hardly be done without reference to some of the principal +phases of the religious history of the nation. To give anything like a +full history of the religious feeling of a single county, would require a +large book, and--not to mention sermons--would involve a thorough +acquaintance with the hymns of the country,--a very wide subject, which I +have not considered of sufficient importance from a literary point of +view to come within the scope of the volume. + +But if its poetry be the cream of a people's thought, some true +indications of the history of its religious feeling must be found in its +religious verse, and I hope I have not altogether failed in setting forth +these indications. + +My chief aim, however, will show itself to have been the mediating +towards an intelligent and cordial sympathy betwixt my readers and the +writers from whom I have quoted. In this I have some confidence of +success. + +Heartily do I throw this my small pebble at the head of the great +Sabbath-breaker _Schism_. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTION. + + CHAPTER I. + SACRED LYRICS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. + + CHAPTER II. + THE MIRACLE PLAYS, AND OTHER POEMS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. + + CHAPTER III. + THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. + + CHAPTER IV. + INTRODUCTION TO THE ELIZABETHAN ERA. + + CHAPTER V. + SPENSER AND HIS FRIENDS. + + CHAPTER VI. + LORD BACON AND HIS COEVALS. + + CHAPTER VII. + DR. DONNE. + + CHAPTER VIII. + BISHOP HALL AND GEORGE SANDYS. + + CHAPTER IX. + A FEW OF THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS. + + CHAPTER X. + SIR JOHN BEAUMONT AND DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. + + CHAPTER XI. + THE BROTHERS FLETCHER. + + CHAPTER XII. + WITHER, HERRICK, AND QUARLES. + + CHAPTER XIII. + GEORGE HERBERT. + + CHAPTER XIV. + JOHN MILTON. + + CHAPTER XV. + EDMUND WALLER, THOMAS BROWN, AND JEREMY TAYLOR. + + CHAPTER XVI. + HENRY MORE AND RICHARD BAXTER. + + CHAPTER XVII. + CRASHAW AND MARVELL. + + CHAPTER XVIII. + A MOUNT OF VISION--HENRY VAUGHAN. + + CHAPTER XIX. + THE PLAIN. + + CHAPTER XX. + THE ROOTS OF THE HILLS. + + CHAPTER XXI. + THE NEW VISION. + + CHAPTER XXII. + THE FERVOUR OF THE IMPLICIT. INSIGHT OF THE HEART. + + CHAPTER XXIII. + THE QUESTIONING FERVOUR. + + + + +ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +If the act of worship be the highest human condition, it follows that the +highest human art must find material in the modes of worship. The first +poetry of a nation will not be religious poetry: the nation must have a +history at least before it can possess any material capable of being cast +into the mould of religious utterance; but, the nation once possessed of +this material, poetry is the first form religious utterance will assume. + +The earliest form of literature is the ballad, which is the germ of all +subsequent forms of poetry, for it has in itself all their elements: the +_lyric_, for it was first chanted to some stringed instrument; the +_epic_, for it tells a tale, often of solemn and ancient report; the +_dramatic_, for its actors are ever ready to start forward into life, +snatch the word from the mouth of the narrator, and speak in their own +persons. All these forms have been used for the utterance of religious +thought and feeling. Of the lyrical poems of England, religion possesses +the most; of the epic, the best; of the dramatic, the oldest. + +Of each of these I shall have occasion to speak; but, as the title of the +book implies,--for _Antiphon_ means the responsive song of the parted +choir,--I shall have chiefly to do with the lyric or song form. + +For song is the speech of feeling. Even the prose of emotion always +wanders into the rhythmical. Hence, as well as for other reasons +belonging to its nature, it is one chief mode in which men unite to +praise God; for in thus praising they hold communion with each other, and +the praise expands and grows. + +The _individual_ heart, however, must first have been uplifted into +praiseful song, before the common ground and form of feeling, in virtue +of which men might thus meet, could be supplied. But the vocal utterance +or the bodily presence is not at all necessary for this communion. When +we read rejoicingly the true song-speech of one of our singing brethren, +we hold song-worship with him and with all who have thus at any time +shared in his feelings, even if he have passed centuries ago into the +"high countries" of song. + +My object is to erect, as it were, in this book, a little auricle, or +spot of concentrated hearing, where the hearts of my readers may listen, +and join in the song of their country's singing men and singing women. + +I will build it, if I may, like a chapel in the great church of England's +worship, gathering the sounds of its never-ceasing choir, heart after +heart lifting up itself in the music of speech, heart after heart +responding across the ages. Hearing, we worship with them. + +For we must not forget that, although the individual song springs from +the heart of the individual, the song of a country is not merely +cumulative: it is vital in its growth, and therefore composed of +historically dependent members. No man could sing as he has sung, had not +others sung before him. Deep answereth unto deep, face to face, praise to +praise. To the sound of the trumpet the harp returns its own vibrating +response--alike, but how different! The religious song of the country, I +say again, is a growth, rooted deep in all its story. + +Besides the fact that the lyric chiefly will rouse the devotional +feeling, there is another reason why I should principally use it: I wish +to make my book valuable in its parts as in itself. The value of a thing +depends in large measure upon its unity, its wholeness. In a work of +these limits, that form of verse alone can be available for its unity +which is like the song of the bird--a warble and then a stillness. +However valuable an extract may be--and I shall not quite eschew such--an +entire lyric, I had almost said _however inferior_, if worthy of a place +at all, is of greater value, especially if regarded in relation to the +form of setting with which I hope to surround it. + +There is a sense in which I may, without presumption, adopt the name of +Choragus, or leader of the chorus, in relation to these singers: I must +take upon me to order who shall sing, when he shall sing, and which of +his songs he shall sing. But I would rather assume the office of master +of the hearing, for my aim shall be to cause the song to be truly heard; +to set forth worthy points in form, in matter, and in relation; to say +with regard to the singer himself, his time, its modes, its beliefs, such +things as may help to set the song in its true light--its relation, +namely, to the source whence it sprung, which alone can secure its right +reception by the heart of the hearer. For my chief aim will be the heart; +seeing that, although there is no dividing of the one from the other, the +heart can do far more for the intellect than the intellect can do for the +heart. + +We must not now attempt to hear the singers of times so old that their +language is unintelligible without labour. For this there is not room, +even if otherwise it were desirable that such should divide the volume. +We must leave Anglo-Saxon behind us. In Early English, I shall give a few +valuable lyrics, but they shall not be so far removed from our present +speech but that, with a reasonable amount of assistance, the nature and +degree of which I shall set forth, they shall not only present themselves +to the reader's understanding, but commend themselves to his imagination +and judgment. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +SACRED LYRICS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. + + +In the midst of wars and rumours of wars, the strife of king and barons, +and persistent efforts to subdue neighbouring countries, the mere +effervescence of the life of the nation, let us think for a moment of +that to which the poems I am about to present bear good witness--the true +life of the people, growing quietly, slowly, unperceived--the leaven hid +in the meal. For what is the true life of a nation? That, I answer, in +its modes of thought, its manners and habits, which favours the growth +within the individual of that kingdom of heaven for the sake only of +which the kingdoms of earth exist. The true life of the people, as +distinguished from the nation, is simply the growth in its individuals of +those eternal principles of truth, in proportion to whose power in them +they take rank in the kingdom of heaven, the only kingdom that can +endure, all others being but as the mimicries of children playing at +government. + +Little as they then knew of the relations of the wonderful story on which +their faith was built, to everything human, the same truth was at work +then which is now--poor as the recognition of these relations yet +is--slowly setting men free. In the hardest winter the roots are still +alive in the frozen ground. + +In the silence of the monastery, unnatural as that life was, germinated +much of this deeper life. As we must not judge of the life of the nation +by its kings and mighty men, so we must not judge of the life in the +Church by those who are called Rabbi. The very notion of the kingdom of +heaven implies a secret growth, secret from no affectation of mystery, +but because its goings-on are in the depths of the human nature where it +holds communion with the Divine. In the Church, as in society, we often +find that that which shows itself uppermost is but the froth, a sign, it +may be, of life beneath, but in itself worthless. When the man arises +with a servant's heart and a ruler's brain, then is the summer of the +Church's content. But whether the men who wrote the following songs moved +in some shining orbit of rank, or only knelt in some dim chapel, and +walked in some pale cloister, we cannot tell, for they have left no name +behind them. + +My reader will observe that there is little of theory and much of love in +these lyrics. The recognition of a living Master is far more than any +notions about him. In the worship of him a thousand truths are working, +unknown and yet active, which, embodied in theory, and dissociated from +the living mind that was in Christ, will as certainly breed worms as any +omer of hoarded manna. Holding the skirt of his garment in one hand, we +shall in the other hold the key to all the treasures of wisdom and +knowledge. + +I think almost all the earliest religious poetry is about him and his +mother. Their longing after his humanity made them idolize his mother. If +we forget that only through his humanity can we approach his divinity, we +shall soon forget likewise that his mother is blessed among women. + +I take the poems from one of the Percy Society publications, edited by +Mr. Wright from a manuscript in the British Museum. He adjudges them to +the reign of Edward I. Perhaps we may find in them a sign or two that in +cultivating our intellect we have in some measure neglected our heart. + +But first as to the mode in which I present them to my readers: I have +followed these rules:-- + +1. Wherever a word differs from the modern word only in spelling, I have, +for the sake of readier comprehension, substituted the modern form, with +the following exception:--Where the spelling indicates a different +pronunciation, necessary for the rhyme or the measure, I retain such part +of the older form, marking with an acute accent any vowel now silent +which must be sounded. + +2. Where the word used is antique in root, I give the modern synonym in +the margin. Antique phrases I explain in foot-notes. + +It must be borne in mind that our modern pronunciation can hardly fail in +other cases as well to injure the melody of the verses. + +The modern reader will often find it difficult to get a rhythm out of +some of them. This may arise from any of several causes. In the first +place many final _e_'s were then sounded which are now silent; and it is +not easy to tell which of them to sound. Again, some words were +pronounced as dissyllables which we treat as monosyllables, and others as +monosyllables which we treat as dissyllables. I suspect besides, that +some of the old writers were content to allow a prolonged syllable to +stand for two short ones, a mode not without great beauty when sparingly +and judiciously employed. Short supernumerary syllables were likewise +allowed considerable freedom to come and go. A good deal must, however, +be put down to the carelessness and presumption of the transcribers, who +may very well have been incapable of detecting their own blunders. One of +these ancient mechanics of literature caused Chaucer endless annoyance +with his corruptions, as a humorous little poem, the last in his works, +sufficiently indicates. From the same sources no doubt spring as well +most of the variations of text in the manuscripts. + +The first of the poems is chiefly a conversation between the Lord on the +cross and his mother standing at its foot. A few prefatory remarks in +explanation of some of its allusions will help my readers to enjoy it. + +It was at one time a common belief, and the notion has not yet, I think, +altogether vanished, that the dying are held back from repose by the love +that is unwilling to yield them up. Hence, in the third stanza, the Lord +prays his mother to let him die. In the fifth, he reasons against her +overwhelming sorrows on the ground of the deliverance his sufferings will +bring to the human race. But she can only feel her own misery. + +To understand the seventh and eighth, it is necessary to know that, among +other strange things accepted by the early Church, it was believed that +the mother of Jesus had no suffering at his birth. This of course +rendered her incapable of perfect sympathy with other mothers. It is a +lovely invention, then, that he should thus commend mothers to his +mother, telling her to judge of the pains of motherhood by those which +she now endured. Still he fails to turn aside her thoughts. She is +thinking still only of her own and her son's suffering, while he +continues bent on making her think of others, until, at last, forth comes +her prayer for all women. This seems to me a tenderness grand as +exquisite. + +The outburst of the chorus of the Faithful in the last stanza but one,-- + + When he rose, then fell her sorrow, + +is as fine as anything I know in the region of the lyric. + + + "Stand well, mother, under rood;[1] _the cross._ + Behold thy son with gladé mood; _cheerful._ + Blithe mother mayst thou be." + "Son, how should I blithé stand? + I see thy feet, I see thy hand + Nailéd to the hard tree." + + "Mother, do way thy wepynde: _give over thy weeping._ + I tholé death for mankind-- _suffer._ + For my guilt thole I none." + "Son, I feel the dede stounde; _death-pang._ + The sword is at my heart's ground _bottom._ + That me byhet Simeon." _foreshowed._ + + "Mother, mercy! let me die, + For Adam out of hell buy, _for to buy Adam._ + And his kin that is forlore." _lost._ + "Son, what shall me to rede?[2] + My pain paineth me to dede: _death._ + Let me die thee before!" + + "Mother, thou rue all of thy bairn; _rue thou_; _all_ is only expletive + Thou wash away the bloody tern; _wash thou; tears._ + It doth me worse than my ded." _hurts me more; death._ + "Son, how may I terés werne? _turn aside tears._ + I see the bloody streamés erne _flow._ + From thy heart to my fet." _feet._ + + "Mother, now I may thee seye, _say to thee._ + Better is that I one deye _die._ + Than all mankind to hellé go." + "Son, I see thy body byswongen, _lashed._ + Feet and hands throughout stongen: _pierced through and through._ + No wonder though me be woe." _woe be to me._ + + "Mother, now I shall thee tell, + If I not die, thou goest to hell: + I thole death for thy sake." _endure._ + "Son, thou art so meek and mynde, _thoughtful._ + Ne wyt me not, it is my kind[3] + That I for thee this sorrow make." + + "Mother, now thou mayst well leren _learn._ + What sorrow have that children beren, _they have; bear._ + What sorrow it is with childé gon." _to go._ + "Sorrow, I wis! I can thee tell! + But it be the pain of hell _except._ + More sorrow wot I none." + + "Mother, rue of mother-care, _take pity upon._ + For now thou wost of mother-fare, _knowest._ + Though thou be clean maiden mon."[4] + "Soné, help at alle need + Allé those that to me grede, _cry._ + Maiden, wife, and full wymmon." _woman with child._ + + "Mother, may I no longer dwell; + The time is come I shall to hell; + The third day I rise upon." + "Son, I will with thee founden; _set out, go._ + I die, I wis, for thy wounden: + So sorrowful death nes never none." _was not never none._ + + When he rose, then fell her sorrow; + Her bliss sprung the third morrow: + Blithe mother wert thou tho! _then._ + Lady, for that ilké bliss, _same._ + Beseech thy son of sunnés lisse: _for sin's release._ + Thou be our shield against our foe. _Be thou._ + + Blessed be thou, full of bliss! + Let us never heaven miss, + Through thy sweeté Sonés might! + Loverd, for that ilké blood, _Lord,_ + That thou sheddest on the rood, + Thou bring us into heaven's light. AMEN. + + +I think my readers will not be sorry to have another of a similar +character. + + I sigh when I sing + For sorrow that I see, + When I with weeping + Behold upon the tree, + + And see Jesus the sweet + His heart's blood for-lete _yield quite._ + For the love of me. + His woundés waxen wete, _wet._ + They weepen still and mete:[5] + Mary rueth thee. _pitieth._ + + High upon a down, _hill._ + Where all folk it see may, + A mile from each town, + About the mid-day, + The rood is up arearéd; + His friendés are afearéd, + And clingeth so the clay;[6] + The rood stands in stone, + Mary stands her on, + And saith Welaway! + + When I thee behold + With eyen brighté bo, _eyes bright both._ + And thy body cold-- + Thy ble waxeth blo, _colour: livid._ + Thou hangest all of blood _bloody._ + So high upon the rood + Between thieves tuo-- _two._ + Who may sigh more? + Mary weepeth sore, + And sees all this woe. + + The nails be too strong, + The smiths are too sly; _skilful._ + Thou bleedest all too long; + The tree is all too high; + The stones be all wete! _wet._ + Alas, Jesu, the sweet! + For now friend hast thou none, + + But Saint John to-mournynde, _mourning greatly._ + And Mary wepynde, _weeping._ + For pain that thee is on. + + Oft when I sike _sigh._ + And makie my moan, + Well ill though me like, + Wonder is it none.[7] + When I see hang high + And bitter pains dreye, _dree, endure._ + Jesu, my lemmon! _love._ + His woundés sore smart, + The spear all to his heart + And through his side is gone. + + Oft when I syke, _sigh._ + With care I am through-sought; _searched through._ + When I wake I wyke; _languish._ + Of sorrow is all my thought. + Alas! men be wood _mad._ + That swear by the rood _swear by the cross._ + And sell him for nought + That bought us out of sin. + He bring us to wynne, _may he: bliss._ + That hath us dear bought! + + +I add two stanzas of another of like sort. + + Man that is in glory and bliss, + And lieth in shame and sin, + He is more than unwis _unwise._ + That thereof will not blynne. _cease._ + All this world it goeth away, + Me thinketh it nigheth Doomsday; + Now man goes to ground: _perishes._ + Jesus Christ that tholed ded _endured death._ + He may our souls to heaven led _lead._ + Within a little stound. _moment._ + + Jesus, that was mild and free, + Was with spear y-stongen; _stung_ or _pierced._ + He was nailéd to the tree, + With scourges y-swongen. _lashed._ + All for man he tholed shame, _endured._ + Withouten guilt, withouten blame, + Bothé day and other[8]. + Man, full muchel he loved thee, _much._ + When he woldé make thee free, + And become thy brother. + + +The simplicity, the tenderness, the devotion of these lyrics is to me +wonderful. Observe their realism, as, for instance, in the words: "The +stones beoth al wete;" a realism as far removed from the coarseness of a +Rubens as from the irreverence of too many religious teachers, who will +repeat and repeat again the most sacred words for the merest logical ends +until the tympanum of the moral ear hears without hearing the sounds that +ought to be felt as well as held holiest. They bear strongly, too, upon +the outcome of feeling in action, although doubtless there was the same +tendency then as there is now to regard the observance of +church-ordinances as the service of Christ, instead of as a means of +gathering strength wherewith to serve him by being in the world as he was +in the world. + +From a poem of forty-eight stanzas I choose five, partly in order to +manifest that, although there is in it an occasional appearance of what +we should consider sentimentality, allied in nature to that worship of +the Virgin which is more a sort of French gallantry than a feeling of +reverence, the sense of duty to the Master keeps pace with the profession +of devotedness to him. There is so little continuity of thought in it, +that the stanzas might almost be arranged anyhow. + + Jesu, thy love be all my thought; + Of other thing ne reck I nought; _reckon._ + I yearn to have thy will y-wrought, + For thou me hast well dear y-bought. + + Jesu, well may mine hearté see + That mild and meek he must be, + All unthews and lustés flee, _bad habits._ + That feelen will the bliss of thee. _feel._ + + For sinful folk, sweet Jesus, + Thou lightest from the high house; + Poor and low thou wert for us. + Thine heart's love thou sendest us. + + Jesu, therefore beseech I thee + Thy sweet love thou grant me; + That I thereto worthy be, + Make me worthy that art so free. _thou that art._ + + Jesu, thine help at my ending! + And in that dreadful out-wending, _going forth of the spirit._ + Send my soul good weryyng, _guard._ + That I ne dread none evil thing. + + +I shall next present a short lyric, displaying more of art than this +last, giving it now in the old form, and afterwards in a new one, that my +reader may see both how it looks in its original dress, and what it +means. + + Wynter wakeneth al my care, + Nou this leves waxeth bare, + Ofte y sike ant mourne sare, _sigh; sore._ + When hit cometh in my thoht + Of this worldes joie, how hit goth al to noht. + + Now hit is, ant now hit nys, _it is not._ + Also hit ner nere y-wys,[9] + That moni mon seith soth hit ys,[10] + Al goth bote Godes wille, + Alle we shule deye, thah us like ylle. _though it pleases us ill._ + + Al that gren me graueth grene,[11] + Nou hit faleweth al by-dene; _grows yellow: speedily._ + Jhesu, help that hit be sene, _seen._ + Ant shild us from helle; + For y not whider y shal, ne hou longe her duelle.[12] + + +I will now give a modern version of it, in which I have spoiled the +original of course, but I hope as little as well may be. + + Winter wakeneth all my care; + Now the trees are waxing bare; + Oft my sighs my grief declare[13] + When it comes into my thought + Of this world's joy, how it goes all to nought. + + Now it is, and now 'tis not-- + As it ne'er had been, I wot. + Hence many say--it is man's lot: + All goeth but God's will; + We all die, though we like it ill. + + Green about me grows the grain; + Now it yelloweth all again: + Jesus, give us help amain, + And shield us from hell; + For when or whither I go I cannot tell + +There were no doubt many religious poems in a certain amount of +circulation of a different cast from these; some a metrical recounting of +portions of the Bible history--a kind unsuited to our ends; others a +setting forth of the doctrines and duties then believed and taught. Of +the former class is one of the oldest Anglo-Saxon poems we have, that of +Caedmon, and there are many specimens to be found in the fourteenth and +fifteenth centuries. They could, however, have been of little service to +the people, so few of whom could read, or could have procured manuscripts +if they had been able to use them. A long and elaborate composition of +the latter class was written in the reign of Edward II. by William de +Shoreham, vicar of Chart-Sutton in Kent. He probably taught his own +verses to the people at his catechisings. The intention was, no doubt, by +the aid of measure and rhyme to facilitate the remembrance of the facts +and doctrines. It consists of a long poem on the Seven Sacraments; of a +shorter, associating the Canonical Hours with the principal events of the +close of our Lord's life; of an exposition of the Ten Commandments, +followed by a kind of treatise on the Seven Cardinal Sins: the fifth part +describes the different joys of the Virgin; the sixth, in praise of the +Virgin, is perhaps the most poetic; the last is less easy to +characterize. The poem is written in the Kentish dialect, and is +difficult. + +I shall now turn into modern verse a part of "The Canonical Hours," +giving its represented foundation of the various acts of worship in the +Romish Church throughout the day, from early in the morning to the last +service at night. After every fact concerning our Lord, follows an +apostrophe to his mother, which I omit, being compelled to choose. + + Father's wisdom lifted high, + Lord of us aright-- + God and man taken was, + At matin-time by night. + The disciples that were his, + Anon they him forsook; + Sold to Jews and betrayed, + To torture him took. + + At the prime Jesus was led + In presence of Pilate, + Where witnesses, false and fell, + Laughed at him for hate. + In the neck they him smote, + Bound his hands of might; + Spit upon that sweet face + That heaven and earth did light. + + "Crucify him! crucify!" + They cried at nine o'clock; + A purple cloth they put on him-- + To stare at him and mock. + They upon his sweet head + Stuck a thorny crown; + To Calvary his cross he bears. + Pitiful, from the town + + Jesus was nailed on the cross + At the noon-tide; + Strong thieves they hanged up, + One on either side. + In his pain, his strong thirst + Quenched they with gall; + So that God's holy Lamb + From sin washed us all. + + At the nones Jesus Christ + Felt the hard death; + He to his father "Eloi!" cried, + Gan up yield his breath. + A soldier with a sharp spear + Pierced his right side; + The earth shook, the sun grew dim, + The moment that he died. + + He was taken off the cross + At even-song's hour; + The strength left and hid in God + Of our Saviour. + Such death he underwent, + Of life the medicine! + Alas! he was laid adown-- + The crown of bliss in pine! + + At complines, it was borne away + To the burying, + That noble corpse of Jesus Christ, + Hope of life's coming. + Anointed richly it was, + Fulfilled his holy book: + I pray, Lord, thy passion + In my mind lock. + +Childlike simplicity, realism, and tenderness will be evident in this, as +in preceding poems, especially in the choice of adjectives. But indeed +the combination of certain words had become conventional; as "The hard +tree," "The nails great and strong," and such like. + +I know I have spoiled the poem in half-translating it thus; but I have +rendered it intelligible to all my readers, have not wandered from the +original, and have retained a degree of antiqueness both in the tone and +the expression. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE MIRACLE PLAYS AND OTHER POEMS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. + + +The oldest form of regular dramatic representation in England was the +Miracle Plays, improperly called Mysteries, after the French. To these +plays the people of England, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, +owed a very large portion of what religious knowledge they possessed, for +the prayers were in an unknown tongue, the sermons were very few, and +printing was uninvented. The plays themselves, introduced into the +country by the Normans, were, in the foolish endeavour to make Normans of +Anglo-Saxons, represented in Norman French[14] until the year 1338, when +permission was obtained from the Pope to represent them in English. + +The word _Miracle_, in their case, means anything recorded in Scripture. +The Miracle Plays had for their subjects the chief incidents of Old and +New Testament history; not merely, however, of this history as accepted +by the Reformed Church, but of that contained in the Apocryphal Gospels +as well. An entire series of these _Miracles_ consisted of short dramatic +representations of many single passages of the sacred story. The whole +would occupy about three days. It began with the Creation, and ended with +the Judgment. That for which the city of Coventry was famous consists of +forty-two subjects, with a long prologue. Composed by ecclesiastics, the +plays would seem to have been first represented by them only, although +afterwards it was not always considered right for the clergy to be +concerned with them. The hypocritical Franciscan friar, in "Piers +Ploughman's Creed," a poem of the close of the same century, claims as a +virtue for his order-- + + At markets and miracles we meddleth us never. + +They would seem likewise to have been first represented in churches and +chapels, sometimes in churchyards. Later, when the actors chiefly +belonged to city-guilds, they were generally represented in the streets +and squares. + +It must be borne in mind by any who would understand the influence of +these plays upon the people, that much in them appearing to us grotesque, +childish, absurd, and even irreverent, had no such appearance in the eyes +of the spectators. A certain amount of the impression of absurdity is +simply the consequence of antiquity; and even that which is rightly +regarded as absurd in the present age, will not at least have produced +the discomposing effects of absurdity upon the less developed beholders +of that age; just as the quaint pictures with which their churches were +decorated may make us smile, but were by them regarded with awe and +reverence from their infancy. + +It must be confessed that there is in them even occasional coarseness; +but that the devil for instance should always be represented as a baffled +fool, and made to play the buffoon sometimes after a disgusting fashion, +was to them only the treatment he deserved: it was their notion of +"poetic justice;" while most of them were too childish to be shocked at +the discord thus introduced, and many, we may well hope, too childlike to +lose their reverence for the holy because of the proximity of the +ridiculous. + +There seems to me considerably more of poetic worth scattered through +these plays than is generally recognized; and I am glad to be able to do +a little to set forth the fact. I cannot doubt that my readers will be +interested in such fragments as the scope and design of my book will +allow me to offer. Had there been no such passages, I might have regarded +the plays as but remotely connected with my purpose, and mentioned them +merely as a dramatic form of religious versification. I quote from the +_Coventry Miracles_, better known than either of the other two sets in +existence, the Chester Plays and those of Widkirk Abbey. The manuscript +from which they have been edited by Mr. Halliwell, one of those students +of our early literature to whom we are endlessly indebted for putting +valuable things within our reach, is by no means so old as the plays +themselves; it bears date 1468, a hundred and thirty years after they +appeared in their English dress. Their language is considerably +modernized, a process constantly going on where transcription is the +means of transmission--not to mention that the actors would of course +make many changes to the speech of their own time. I shall modernize it a +little further, but only as far as change of spelling will go. + +The first of the course is _The Creation_. God, and angels, and Lucifer +appear. That God should here utter, I cannot say announce, the doctrine +of the Trinity, may be defended on the ground that he does so in a +soliloquy; but when we find afterwards that the same doctrine is one of +the subjects upon which the boy Jesus converses with the doctors in the +Temple, we cannot help remarking the strange anachronism. Two remarkable +lines in the said soliloquy are these: + + And all that ever shall have being + It is closed in my mind. + +The next scene is the _Fall of Man_, which is full of poetic feeling and +expression both. I must content myself with a few passages. + +Here is part of Eve's lamentation, when she is conscious of the death +that has laid hold upon her. + + Alas that ever that speech was spoken + That the false angel said unto me! + Alas! our Maker's bidding is broken, + For I have touched his own dear tree. + Our fleshly eyes are all unlokyn, _unlocked._ + Naked for sin ourself we see; + That sorry apple that we have sokyn _sucked._ + To death hath brought my spouse and me. + +When the voice of God is heard, saying, + + Adam, that with my hands I made, + Where art thou now? what hast thou wrought? + +Adam replies, in two lines, containing the whole truth of man's spiritual +condition ever since: + + Ah, Lord! for sin our flowers do fade: + I hear thy voice, but I see thee nought. + +The vision had vanished, but the voice remained; for they that hear shall +live, and to the pure in heart one day the vision shall be restored, for +"they shall see God." There is something wonderfully touching in the +quaint simplicity of the following words of God to the woman: + + Unwise woman, say me why + That thou hast done this foul folly, + And I made thee a great lady, + In Paradise for to play? + +As they leave the gates, the angel with the flaming sword ends his speech +thus: + + This bliss I spere from you right fast; _bar._ + Herein come ye no more, + Till a child of a maid be born, + And upon the rood rent and torn, + To save all that ye have forlorn, _lost._ + Your wealth for to restore. + +Eve laments bitterly, and at length offers her throat to her husband, +praying him to strangle her: + + Now stumble we on stalk and stone; + My wit away from me is gone; + Writhe on to my neck-bone + With hardness of thine hand. + +Adam replies--not over politely-- + + Wife, thy wit is not worth a rush; + +and goes on to make what excuse for themselves he can in a very simple +and touching manner: + + Our hap was hard, our wit was nesche, _soft, weak,_ still in use in + To Paradise when we were brought: [some provinces. + My weeping shall be long fresh; + Short liking shall be long bought. _pleasure._ + +The scene ends with these words from Eve: + + Alas, that ever we wrought this sin! + Our bodily sustenance for to win, + Ye must delve and I shall spin, + In care to lead our life. + +_Cain and Abel_ follows; then _Noah's Flood_, in which God says, + + They shall not dread the flood's flow; + +then _Abraham's Sacrifice_; then _Moses and the Two Tables_; then _The +Prophets_, each of whom prophesies of the coming Saviour; after which we +find ourselves in the Apocryphal Gospels, in the midst of much nonsense +about Anna and Joachim, the parents of Mary, about Joseph and Mary and +the birth of Jesus, till we arrive at _The Shepherds_ and _The Magi, The +Purification, The Slaughter of the Innocents, The Disputing in the +Temple, The Baptism, The Temptation_, and _The Woman taken in Adultery_, +at which point I pause for the sake of the remarkable tradition embodied +in the scene--that each of the woman's accusers thought Jesus was writing +his individual sins on the ground. While he is writing the second time, +the Pharisee, the Accuser, and the Scribe, who have chiefly sustained the +dialogue hitherto, separate, each going into a different part of the +Temple, and soliloquize thus: + + _Pharisee_. Alas! alas! I am ashamed! + I am afeared that I shall die; + All my sins even properly named + Yon prophet did write before mine eye. + If that my fellows that did espy, + They will tell it both far and wide; + My sinful living if they outcry, + I wot not where my head to hide. + + _Accuser_. Alas! for sorrow mine heart doth bleed, + All my sins yon man did write; + If that my fellows to them took heed, + I cannot me from death acquite. + I would I were hid somewhere out of sight, + That men should me nowhere see nor know; + If I be taken I am aflyght _afraid._ + In mekyl shame I shall be throwe. _much._ + + _Scribe_. Alas the time that this betyd! _happened._ + Right bitter care doth me embrace. + All my sins be now unhid, + Yon man before me them all doth trace. + If I were once out of this place, + To suffer death great and vengeance able,[15] + I will never come before his face, + Though I should die in a stable. + +Upon this follows _The Raising of Lazarus_; next _The Council of the +Jews_, to which the devil appears as a Prologue, dressed in the extreme +of the fashion of the day, which he sets forth minutely enough in his +speech also. _The Entry into Jerusalem; The Last Supper; The Betrayal; +King Herod; The Trial of Christ; Pilate's Wife's Dream_ come next; to the +subject of the last of which the curious but generally accepted origin is +given, that it was inspired by Satan, anxious that Jesus should not be +slain, because he dreaded the mischief he would work when he entered +Hades or Hell, for there is no distinction between them either here or in +the Apocryphal Gospel whence the _Descent into Hell_ is taken. Then +follow _The Crucifixion_ and _The Descent into Hell_--often called the +_Harrowing of Hell_--that is, the _making war upon_ or _despoiling of +hell_,[16] for which the authority is a passage in the Gospel of +Nicodemus, full of a certain florid Eastern grandeur. I need hardly +remind my readers that the Apostles' Creed, as it now stands, contains +the same legend in the form of an article of faith. The allusions to it +are frequent in the early literature of Christendom. + +The soul of Christ comes to the gates of hell, and says: + + Undo your gates of sorwatorie; _place of sorrow._ + On man's soul I have memorie; + There cometh now the king of glory, + These gates for to breke! + Ye devils that are here within, + Hell gates ye shall unpin; + I shall deliver man's kin-- + From woe I will them wreke. _avenge._ + + * * * * * + + Against me it were but waste + To holdyn or to standyn fast; + Hell-lodge may not last + Against the king of glory. + Thy dark door down I throw; + My fair friends now well I know; + I shall them bring, reckoned by row, + Out of their purgatory! + +_The Burial; The Resurrection; The Three Maries; Christ appearing to +Mary; The Pilgrim of Emmaus; The Ascension; The Descent of the Holy +Ghost; The Assumption of the Virgin_; and _Doomsday_, close the series. I +have quoted enough to show that these plays must, in the condition of the +people to whom they were presented, have had much to do with their +religious education. + +This fourteenth century was a wonderful time of outbursting life. +Although we cannot claim the _Miracles_ as entirely English products, +being in all probability translations from the Norman-French, yet the +fact that they were thus translated is one remarkable amongst many in +this dawn of the victory of England over her conquerors. From this time, +English prospered and French decayed. Their own language was now, so far, +authorized as the medium of religious instruction to the people, while a +similar change had passed upon processes at law; and, most significant of +all, the greatest poet of the time, and one of the three greatest poets +as yet of all English time, wrote, although a courtier, in the language +of the people. Before selecting some of Chaucer's religious verses, +however, I must speak of two or three poems by other writers. + +The first of these is _The Vision of William concerning Piers +Plowman_,--a poem of great influence in the same direction as the +writings of Wycliffe. It is a vision and an allegory, wherein the vices +of the time, especially those of the clergy, are unsparingly dealt with. +Towards the close it loses itself in a metaphysical allegory concerning +Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest.[17] I do not find much poetry in it. There is +more, to my mind, in another poem, written some thirty or forty years +later, the author of which is unknown, perhaps because he was an imitator +of William Langland, the author of the _Vision_. It is called _Pierce the +Plough-man's Crede_. Both are written after the fashion of the +Anglo-Saxon poetry, and not after the fashion of the Anglo-Norman, of +which distinction a little more presently. Its object is to contrast the +life and character of the four orders of friars with those of a simple +Christian. There is considerable humour in the working plan of the poem. + +A certain poor man says he has succeeded in learning his A B C, his +Paternoster, and his Ave Mary, but he cannot, do what he will, learn his +Creed. He sets out, therefore, to find some one whose life, according +with his profession, may give him a hope that he will teach him his creed +aright. He applies to the friars. One after another, every order abuses +the other; nor this only, but for money offers either to teach him his +creed, or to absolve him for ignorance of the same. He finds no helper +until he falls in with Pierce the Ploughman, of whose poverty he gives a +most touching description. I shall, however, only quote some lines of +_The Believe_ as taught by the Ploughman, and this principally to show +the nature of the versification: + + Leve thou on our Lord God, that all the world wroughté; _believe._ + Holy heaven upon high wholly he formed; + And is almighty himself over all his workés; + And wrought as his will was, the world and the heaven; + And on gentle Jesus Christ, engendered of himselven, + His own only Son, Lord over all y-knowen. + + * * * * * + + With thorn y-crowned, crucified, and on the cross diéd; + And sythen his blessed body was in a stone buried; _after that._ + And descended adown to the dark hellé, + And fetched out our forefathers; and they full fain weren. _glad._ + The third day readily, himself rose from death, + And on a stone there he stood, he stey up to heaven. _where: ascended._ + +Here there is no rhyme. There is measure--a dance-movement in the verse; +and likewise, in most of the lines, what was essential to Anglo-Saxon +verse--three or more words beginning with the same sound. This is +somewhat of the nature of rhyme, and was all our Anglo-Saxon forefathers +had of the kind. Their Norman conquerors brought in rhyme, regularity of +measure, and division into stanzas, with many refinements of +versification now regarded, with some justice and a little more +injustice, as peurilities. Strange as it may seem, the peculiar rhythmic +movement of the Anglo-Saxon verse is even yet the most popular of all +measures. Its representative is now that kind of verse which is measured +not by the number of syllables, but by the number of _accented_ +syllables. The bulk of the nation is yet Anglo-Saxon in its blind poetic +tastes. + +Before taking my leave of this mode, I would give one fine specimen from +another poem, lately printed, for the first time in full, from Bishop +Percy's manuscript. It may chronologically belong to the beginning of the +next century: its proper place in my volume is here. It is called _Death +and Liffe_. Like Langland's poem, it is a vision; but, short as it is in +comparison, there is far more poetry in it than in _Piers Plowman_. Life +is thus described: + + She was brighter of her blee[18] than was the bright sun; + Her rudd[19] redder than the rose that on the rise[20] hangeth; + Meekly smiling with her mouth, and merry in her looks; + Ever laughing for love, as she like would. + +Everything bursts into life and blossom at her presence, + + And the grass that was grey greened belive. _forthwith._ + +But the finest passage is part of Life's answer to Death, who has been +triumphing over her: + + How didst thou joust at Jerusalem, with Jesu, my Lord, + Where thou deemedst his death in one day's time! _judgedst._ + There wast thou shamed and shent and stripped for aye! _rebuked._ + When thou saw the king come with the cross on his shoulder, + On the top of Calvary thou camest him against; + Like a traitor untrue, treason thou thought; + Thou laid upon my liege lord loathful hands, + Sithen beat him on his body, and buffeted him rightly, _then._ + Till the railing red blood ran from his sides; _pouring down._ + + Sith rent him on the rood with full red wounds: _then._ + To all the woes that him wasted, I wot not few, + Then deemedst (him) to have been dead, and dressed for ever. + But, Death, how didst thou then, with all thy derffe words, _fierce._ + When thou pricked at his pap with the point of a spear, + And touched the tabernacle of his true heart, + Where my bower was bigged to abide for ever? _built._ + When the glory of his Godhead glinted in thy face, + Then wast thou feared of this fare in thy false heart; _affair._ + Then thou hied into hell-hole to hide thee belive; _at once._ + Thy falchion flew out of thy fist, so fast thou thee hied; + Thou durst not blush once back, for better or worse, _look._ + But drew thee down full in that deep hell, + And bade them bar bigly Belzebub his gates. _greatly, strongly._ + Then thou told them tidings, that teened them sore; _grieved._ + How that king came to kithen his strength, _show._ + And how she[21] had beaten thee on thy bent,[22] + and thy brand taken, + With everlasting life that longed him till. _belonged to him._ + +When Life has ended her speech to Death, she turns to her own followers +and says:-- + + Therefore be not abashed, my barnes so dear, _children._ + Of her falchion so fierce, nor of her fell words. + She hath no might, nay, no means, no more you to grieve, + Nor on your comely corses to clap once her hands. + I shall look you full lively, and latch full well, _search for: + And keere ye further of this kithe,[23] above [lay hold of._ + the clear skies. + +I now turn from those poems of national scope and wide social interest, +bearing their share, doubtless, in the growth of the great changes that +showed themselves at length more than a century after, and from the poem +I have just quoted of a yet wider human interest, to one of another tone, +springing from the grief that attends love, and the aspiration born of +the grief. It is, nevertheless, wide in its scope as the conflict between +Death and Life, although dealing with the individual and not with the +race. The former poems named of Pierce Ploughman are the cry of John the +Baptist in the English wilderness; this is the longing of Hannah at home, +having left her little son in the temple. The latter _seems_ a poorer +matter; but it is an easier thing to utter grand words of just +condemnation, than, in the silence of the chamber, or with the well-known +household-life around, forcing upon the consciousness only the law of +things seen, to regard with steadfastness the blank left by a beloved +form, and believe in the unseen, the marvellous, the eternal. In the +midst of "the light of common day," with all the persistently common +things pressing upon the despairing heart, to hold fast, after what +fashion may be possible, the vanishing song that has changed its key, is +indeed a victory over the flesh, however childish the forms in which the +faith may embody itself, however weak the logic with which it may defend +its intrenchments. + +The poem which has led me to make these remarks is in many respects +noteworthy. It is very different in style and language from any I have +yet given. There was little communication to blend the different modes of +speech prevailing in different parts of the country. It belongs,[24] +according to students of English, to the Midland dialect of the +fourteenth century. The author is beyond conjecture. + +It is not merely the antiquity of the language that causes its +difficulty, but the accumulated weight of artistically fantastic and +puzzling requirements which the writer had laid upon himself in its +composition. The nature of these I shall be enabled to show by printing +the first twelve lines almost as they stand in the manuscript. + + Perle plesaunte to prynces paye, + To clanly clos in golde so clere! + Oute of oryent I hardyly saye, + Ne proued I neuer her precios pere; + So rounde, so reken in vche araye, + So smal, so smothe her sydes were! + Quere-so-euer I iugged gemmes gaye, + I sette hyr sengeley in synglure: + Allas! I leste hyr in on erbere, + Thurh gresse to grounde hit fro me yot; + I dewyne for-dolked of luf daungere, + Of that pryuy perle with-outen spot. + +Here it will be observed that the Norman mode--that of rhymes--is +employed, and that there is a far more careful measure in the line that +is found in the poem last quoted. But the rhyming is carried to such an +excess as to involve the necessity of constant invention of phrase to +meet its requirements--a fertile source of obscurity. The most difficult +form of stanza in respect of rhyme now in use is the Spenserian, in +which, consisting of nine lines, four words rhyme together, three words, +and two words. But the stanza in the poem before us consists of twelve +lines, six of which, two of which, four of which, rhyme together. This we +should count hard enough; but it does not nearly exhaust the tyranny of +the problem the author has undertaken. I have already said that one of +the essentials of the poetic form in Anglo-Saxon was the commencement of +three or more words in the line with the same sound: this peculiarity he +has exaggerated: every line has as many words as possible commencing with +the same sound. In the first line, for instance,--and it must be +remembered that the author's line is much shorter than the Anglo-Saxon +line,--there are four words beginning with _p_; in the second, three +beginning with _cl_, and so on. This, of course, necessitates much not +merely of circumlocution, but of contrivance, involving endless +obscurity. + +He has gone on to exaggerate the peculiarities of Norman verse as well; +but I think it better not to run the risk of wearying my reader by +pointing out more of his oddities. I will now betake myself to what is +far more interesting as well as valuable. + +The poem sets forth the grief and consolation of a father who has lost +his daughter. It is called _The Pearl_. Here is a literal rendering, line +for line, into modern English words, not modern English speech, of the +stanza which I have already given in its original form: + + Pearl pleasant to prince's pleasure, + Most cleanly closed in gold so clear! + Out of the Orient, I boldly say, + I never proved her precious equal; + So round, so beautiful in every point! + So small, so smooth, her sides were! + + Wheresoever I judged gemmes gay + I set her singly in singleness. + Alas! I lost her in an arbour; + Through the grass to the ground it from me went. + I pine, sorely wounded by dangerous love + Of that especial pearl without spot. + +The father calls himself a jeweller; the pearl is his daughter. He has +lost the pearl in the grass; it has gone to the ground, and he cannot +find it; that is, his daughter is dead and buried. Perhaps the most +touching line is one in which he says to the grave: + + O moul, thou marrez a myry mele. + (O mould, thou marrest a merry talk.) + +The poet, who is surely the father himself, cannot always keep up the +allegory; his heart burns holes in it constantly; at one time he says +_she_, at another _it_, and, between the girl and the pearl, the poem is +bewildered. But the allegory helps him out with what he means +notwithstanding; for although the highest aim of poetry is to say the +deepest things in the simplest manner, humanity must turn from mode to +mode, and try a thousand, ere it finds the best. The individual, in his +new endeavour to make "the word cousin to the deed," must take up the +forms his fathers have left him, and add to them, if he may, new forms of +his own. In both the great revivals of literature, the very material of +poetry was allegory. + +The father falls asleep on his child's grave, and has a dream, or rather +a vision, of a country where everything--after the childish imagination +which invents differences instead of discovering harmonies--is +super-naturally beautiful: rich rocks with a gleaming glory, crystal +cliffs, woods with blue trunks and leaves of burnished silver, gravel of +precious Orient pearls, form the landscape, in which are delicious +fruits, and birds of flaming colours and sweet songs: its loveliness no +man with a tongue is worthy to describe. He comes to the bank of a river: + + Swinging sweet the water did sweep + With a whispering speech flowing adown; + (Wyth a rownande rourde raykande aryght) + +and the stones at the bottom were shining like stars. It is a noteworthy +specimen of the mode in which the imagination works when invention is +dissociated from observation and faith. But the sort of way in which some +would improve the world now, if they might, is not so very far in advance +of this would-be glorification of Nature. The barest heath and sky have +lovelinesses infinitely beyond the most gorgeous of such phantasmagoric +idealization of her beauties; and the most wretched condition of humanity +struggling for existence contains elements of worth and future +development inappreciable by the philanthropy that would elevate them by +cultivating their self-love. + +At the foot of a crystal cliff, on the opposite side of the river, which +he cannot cross, he sees a maiden sitting, clothed and crowned with +pearls, and wearing one pearl of surpassing wonder and spotlessness upon +her breast. I now make the spelling and forms of the words as modern as I +may, altering the text no further. + + + "O pearl," quoth I, "in perlés pight, _pitched, dressed._ + Art thou my pearl that I have plained? _mourned._ + Regretted by myn one, on night? _by myself._ + Much longing have I for thee layned _hidden._ + Since into grass thou me a-glyghte; _didst glide from me._ + Pensive, payred, I am for-pained,[25] _pined away._ + And thou in a life of liking light _bright pleasure._ + In Paradise-earth, of strife unstrained! _untortured with strife._ + What wyrde hath hither my jewel vayned, _destiny: carried off._ + And done me in this del and great danger? _sorrow._ + Fro we in twain were towen and twayned, _since: pulled: divided._ + I have been a joyless jeweller." + + That jewel then in gemmés gente, _gracious._ + Vered up her vyse with even gray, _turned: face._ + Set on her crown of pearl orient, + And soberly after then gan she say: + + "Sir, ye have your tale myse-tente, _mistaken._ + To say your pearl is all away, + That is in coffer so comely clente _clenched._ + As in this garden gracious gay, + Herein to lenge for ever and play, _abide._ + There mys nor mourning come never--here, _where: wrong._ + Here was a forser for thee in faye, _strong-box: faith._ + If thou wert a gentle jeweller. + + "But jeweller gente, if thou shalt lose + Thy joy for a gem that thee was lef, _had left thee._ + Me thinks thee put in a mad purpose, + And busiest thee about a reason bref. _poor object._ + For that thou lostest was but a rose, + That flowered and failed as kynd hit gef. _nature gave it._ + Now through kind of the chest that it gan close, _nature._ + To a pearl of price it is put in pref;[26] + And thou hast called thy wyrde a thef, _doom, fate: theft._ + That ought of nought has made thee, clear! _something of nothing._ + Thou blamest the bote of thy mischef: _remedy: hurt._ + Thou art no kyndé jeweller." _natural, reasonable._ + +When the father pours out his gladness at the sight of her, she rejoins +in these words: + + "I hold that jeweller little to praise + That loves well that he sees with eye; + And much to blame, and uncortoyse, _uncourteous._ + That leves our Lord would make a lie, _believes._ + That lelly hyghte your life to raise _who truly promised._ + Though fortune did your flesh to die; _caused._ + To set his words full westernays[27] + That love no thing but ye it syghe! _see._ + And that is a point of surquedrie, _presumption._ + That each good man may evil beseem, _ill become._ + To leve no tale be true to tryghe, _trust in._ + But that his one skill may deme."[28] + +Much conversation follows, the glorified daughter rebuking and +instructing her father. He prays for a sight of the heavenly city of +which she has been speaking, and she tells him to walk along the bank +until he comes to a hill. In recording what he saw from the hill, he +follows the description of the New Jerusalem given in the Book of the +Revelation. He sees the Lamb and all his company, and with them again his +lost Pearl. But it was not his prince's pleasure that he should cross the +stream; for when his eyes and ears were so filled with delight that he +could no longer restrain the attempt, he awoke out of his dream. + + My head upon that hill was laid + There where my pearl to groundé strayed. + I wrestled and fell in great affray, _fear._ + And sighing to myself I said, + "Now all be to that prince's paye." _pleasure._ + +After this, he holds him to that prince's will, and yearns after no more +than he grants him. + + "As in water face is to face, so the heart of man." + Out of the far past comes the cry of bereavement + mingled with the prayer for hope: we hear, and lo! + it is the cry and the prayer of a man like ourselves. + +From the words of the greatest man of his age, let me now gather two rich +blossoms of utterance, presenting an embodiment of religious duty and +aspiration, after a very practical fashion. I refer to two short lyrics, +little noted, although full of wisdom and truth. They must be accepted as +the conclusions of as large a knowledge of life in diversified mode as +ever fell to the lot of man. + + + GOOD COUNSEL OF CHAUCER. + + Fly from the press, and dwell with soothfastness; _truthfulness._ + Suffice[29] unto thy good, though it be small; + For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness;[30] + Praise hath envy, and weal is blent over all.[31] + Savour[32] no more than thee behové shall. + Rede well thyself that other folk shall rede; _counsel._ + And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede. _there is no doubt._ + + Paine thee not each crooked to redress, _every crooked thing._ + In trust of her that turneth as a ball: Fortune. + Great rest standeth in little busi-ness. + Beware also to spurn against a nail; _nail--to kick against + Strive not as doth a crocké with a wall. [the pricks._ + Demé thyself that demest others' deed; _judge._ + And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede. + + That thee is sent receive in buxomness: _submission_ + The wrestling of this world asketh a fall. _tempts destruction_ + Here is no home, here is but wilderness: + Forth, pilgrim, forth!--beast, out of thy stall! + Look up on high, and thanké God of[33] all. + Waivé thy lusts, and let thy ghost[34] thee lead, + And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede. + +This needs no comment. Even the remark that every line is worth +meditation may well appear superfluous. One little fact only with regard +to the rhymes, common to this and the next poem, and usual enough in +Norman verse, may be pointed out, namely, that every line in the stanza +ends with the same rhyme-sound as the corresponding line in each of the +other stanzas. A reference to either of the poems will at once show what +I mean. + +The second is superior, inasmuch as it carries one thought through the +three stanzas. It is entitled _A Balade made by Chaucer, teaching what is +gentilnesse, or whom is worthy to be called gentill._ + + The first stock-father of gentleness-- _ancestor of the race + What man desireth gentle for to be [of the gentle._ + Must follow his trace, and all his wittés dress _track, footsteps: + Virtue to love and vices for to flee; [apply._ + For unto virtue longeth dignity, _belongeth._ + And not the reverse falsely dare I deem,[35] + All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. _although he wear._ + + The first stock was full of righteousness; _the progenitor._ + True of his word, sober, piteous, and free; + Clean of his ghost, and loved busi-ness, _pure in his spirit._ + Against the vice of sloth in honesty; + + And but his heir love virtue as did he, _except._ + He is not gentle, though he rich seem, + All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. + + Vicesse may well be heir to old Richesse, _Vice: Riches._ + But there may no man, as men may well see, + Bequeath his heir his virtue's nobleness; + That is appropried unto no degree, _rank._ + But to the first father in majesty, + That maketh his heirés them that him queme, _please him._ + All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. + +I can come to no other conclusion than that by _the first stock-father_ +Chaucer means our Lord Jesus. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. + + +After the birth of a Chaucer, a Shakspere, or a Milton, it is long before +the genial force of a nation can again culminate in such a triumph: time +is required for the growth of the conditions. Between the birth of +Chaucer and the birth of Shakspere, his sole equal, a period of more than +two centuries had to elapse. It is but small compensation for this, that +the more original, that is simple, natural, and true to his own nature a +man is, the more certain is he to have a crowd of imitators. I do not say +that such are of no use in the world. They do not indeed advance art, but +they widen the sphere of its operation; for many will talk with the man +who know nothing of the master. Too often intending but their own glory, +they point the way to the source of it, and are straightway themselves +forgotten. + +Very little of the poetry of the fifteenth century is worthy of a +different fate from that which has befallen it. Possibly the Wars of the +Roses may in some measure account for the barrenness of the time; but I +do not think they will explain it. In the midst of the commotions of the +seventeenth century we find Milton, the only English poet of whom we are +yet sure as worthy of being named with Chaucer and Shakspere. + +It is in quality, however, and not in quantity that the period is +deficient. It had a good many writers of poetry, some of them prolific. +John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, a great imitator of Chaucer, was the +principal of these, and wrote an enormous quantity of verse. We shall +find for our use enough as it were to keep us alive in passing through +this desert to the Paradise of the sixteenth century--a land indeed +flowing with milk and honey. For even in the desert of the fifteenth are +spots luxuriant with the rich grass of language, although they greet the +eye with few flowers of individual thought or graphic speech. + +Rather than give portions of several of Lydgate's poems, I will give one +entire--the best I know. It is entitled, _Thonke God of alle_.[36] + + + THANK GOD FOR ALL. + + By a way wandering as I went, + Well sore I sorrowed, for sighing sad; + Of hard haps that I had hent + Mourning me made almost mad;[37] + + Till a letter all one me lad[38], + That well was written on a wall, + A blissful word that on I rad[39], + That alway said, 'Thank God for[40] all.' + + And yet I read furthermore[41]-- + Full good intent I took there till[42]: + Christ may well your state restore; + Nought is to strive against his will; _it is useless._ + He may us spare and also spill: + Think right well we be his thrall. _slaves._ + What sorrow we suffer, loud or still, + Alway thank God for all. + + Though thou be both blind and lame, + Or any sickness be on thee set, + Thou think right well it is no shame-- _think thou._ + The grace of God it hath thee gret[43]. + In sorrow or care though ye be knit, _snared._ + And worldés weal be from thee fall, _fallen._ + I cannot say thou mayst do bet, _better._ + But alway thank God for all. + + Though thou wield this world's good, + And royally lead thy life in rest, + Well shaped of bone and blood, + None the like by east nor west; + Think God thee sent as him lest; _as it pleased him._ + Riches turneth as a ball; + In all manner it is the best _in every condition._ + Alway to thank God for all. + + If thy good beginneth to pass, + And thou wax a poor man, + Take good comfort and bear good face, + And think on him that all good wan; _did win._ + + Christ himself forsooth began-- + He may renew both bower and hall: + No better counsel I ne kan _am capable of._ + But alway thank God for all. + + Think on Job that was so rich; + He waxed poor from day to day; + His beastés died in each ditch; + His cattle vanished all away; + He was put in poor array, + Neither in purple nor in pall, + But in simple weed, as clerkes say, _clothes: learned men._ + And alway he thanked God for all. + + For Christés love so do we;[44] + He may both give and take; + In what mischief that we in be, _whatever trouble we + He is mighty enough our sorrow to slake. [be in._ + Full good amends he will us make, + And we to him cry or call: _if._ + What grief or woe that do thee thrall,[45] + Yet alway thank God for all. + + Though thou be in prison cast, + Or any distress men do thee bede, _offer._ + For Christés love yet be steadfast, + And ever have mind on thy creed; + Think he faileth us never at need, + The dearworth duke that deem us shall;[46] + When thou art sorry, thereof take heed,[47] + And alway thank God for all. + + Though thy friendes from thee fail, + And death by rene hend[48] their life, + Why shouldest thou then weep or wail? + It is nought against God to strive: _it is useless._ + + Himself maked both man and wife-- + To his bliss he bring us all: _may he bring._ + However thou thole or thrive, _suffer._ + Alway thank God for all. + + What diverse sonde[49] that God thee send, + Here or in any other place, + Take it with good intent; + The sooner God will send his grace. + Though thy body be brought full base, _low._ + Let not thy heart adown fall, + But think that God is where he was, + And alway thank God for all. + + Though thy neighbour have world at will, + And thou far'st not so well as he, + Be not so mad to think him ill, _wish._ (?) + For his wealth envious to be: + The king of heaven himself can see + Who takes his sonde,[50] great or small; + Thus each man in his degree, + I rede thanké God for all. _counsel._ + + For Cristés love, be not so wild, + But rule thee by reason within and without; + And take in good heart and mind + The sonde that God sent all about; _the gospel._ (?) + Then dare I say withouten doubt, + That in heaven is made thy stall. _place, seat, room._ + Rich and poor that low will lowte, _bow._ + Alway thank God for all. + +I cannot say there is much poetry in this, but there is much truth and +wisdom. There is the finest poetry, however, too, in the line--I give it +now letter for letter:-- + + But think that God ys ther he was. + +There is poetry too in the line, if I interpret it rightly as intending +the gospel-- + + The sonde that God sent al abowte. + +I shall now make a few extracts from poems of the same century whose +authors are unknown.[51] A good many such are extant. With regard to the +similarity of those I choose, I would remark, that not only will the +poems of the same period necessarily resemble each other, but, where the +preservation of any has depended upon the choice and transcription of one +person, these will in all probability resemble each other yet more. Here +are a few verses from a hymn headed _The Sweetness of Jesus_:-- + + If I for kindness should love my kin, _for natural reasons. + Then me thinketh in my thought [Kind is nature,_ + By kindly skill I should begin _by natural judgment._ + At him that hath me made of nought; + His likeness he set my soul within, + And all this world for me hath wrought; + As father he fondid my love to win, _set about._ + For to heaven he hath me brought. + + Our brother and sister he is by skill, _reason._ + For he so said, and lerid us that lore, _taught._ + That whoso wrought his Father's will, + Brethren and sisters to him they wore. _were._ + My kind also he took ther-tille; _my nature also he took + Full truly trust I him therefore [for that purpose._ + That he will never let me spill, _perish._ + But with his mercy salve my sore. + + With lovely lore his works to fill, _fulfil._ + Well ought I, wretch, if I were kind-- _natural._ + Night and day to work his will, + And ever have that Lord in mind. + But ghostly foes grieve me ill, _spiritual._ + And my frail flesh maketh me blind; + Therefore his mercy I take me till, _betake me to._ + For better bote can I none find. _aid._ + +In my choice of stanzas I have to keep in view some measure of +completeness in the result. These poems, however, are mostly very loose +in structure. This, while it renders choice easy, renders closeness of +unity impossible. + +From a poem headed--again from the last line of each stanza--_Be my +comfort, Christ Jesus,_ I choose the following four, each possessing some +remarkable flavour, tone, or single touch. Note the alliteration in the +lovely line, beginning "Bairn y-born." The whole of the stanza in which +we find it, sounds so strangely fresh in the midst of its antiquated +tones, that we can hardly help asking whether it can be only the +quaintness of the expression that makes the feeling appear more real, or +whether in very truth men were not in those days nearer in heart, as well +as in time, to the marvel of the Nativity. + +In the next stanza, how oddly the writer forgets that Jesus himself was a +Jew, when, embodying the detestation of Christian centuries in one line, +he says, + + And tormented with many a Jew! + +In the third stanza, I consider the middle quatrain, that is, the four +lines beginning "Out of this world," perfectly grand. + +The oddness of the last line but one of the fourth stanza is redeemed by +the wonderful reality it gives to the faith of the speaker: "See my +sorrow, and say Ho!" stopping it as one would call after a man and stop +him. + + Jesus, thou art wisdom of wit, _understanding._ + Of thy Father full of might! + Man's soul--to save it, + In poor apparel thou wert pight. _pitched, placed, + Jesus, thou wert in cradle knit, [dressed._ + In weed wrapped both day and night; originally, _dress of + In Bethlehem born, as the gospel writ, [any kind._ + With angels' song, and heaven-light. + Bairn y-born of a beerde bright,[52] + Full courteous was thy comely cus: _kiss._ + Through virtue of that sweet light, + So be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + + Jesus, that wert of yearis young, + Fair and fresh of hide and hue, + When thou wert in thraldom throng, _driven._ + And tormented with many a Jew, + When blood and water were out-wrung, + For beating was thy body blue; + As a clot of clay thou wert for-clong, _shrunk._ + So dead in trough then men thee threw. _coffin._ + But grace from thy grave grew: + Thou rose up quick comfort to us. _living._ + For her love that this counsel knew, + So be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + + Jesus, soothfast God and man, + Two kinds knit in one person, + The wonder-work that thou began + Thou hast fulfilled in flesh and bone. + + Out of this world wightly thou wan, _thou didst win, or make + Lifting up thyself alone; [thy way, powerfully._ + For mightily thou rose and ran + Straight unto thy Father on throne. + Now dare man make no more moan-- + For man it is thou wroughtest thus, + And God with man is made at one; + So be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + + Jesu, my sovereign Saviour, + Almighty God, there ben no mo: _there are no more--thou + Christ, thou be my governor; [art all in all.(?)_ + Thy faith let me not fallen fro. _from_ + Jesu, my joy and my succour, + In my body and soul also, + God, thou be my strongest food, the rhyme fails here. + And wisse thou me when me is woe. _think on me._ + Lord, thou makest friend of foe, + Let me not live in languor thus, + But see my sorrow, and say now "Ho," + And be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + +Of fourteen stanzas called _Richard de Castre's Prayer to Jesus_, I +choose five from the latter half, where the prayer passes from his own +spiritual necessities, very tenderly embodied, to those of others. It +does our hearts good to see the clouded sun of prayer for oneself break +forth in the gladness of blessed entreaty for all men, for them that make +Him angry, for saints in trouble, for the country torn by war, for the +whole body of Christ and its unity. After the stanza-- + + Jesus, for the deadly tears + That thou sheddest for my guilt, + Hear and speed my prayérs + And spare me that I be not spilt; + +the best that is in the suppliant shines out thus + + Jesu, for them I thee beseech + That wrathen thee in any wise; + Withhold from them thy hand of wreche, _vengeance._ + And let them live in thy service. + + Jesu, most comfort for to see + Of thy saintis every one, + Comfort them that careful be, + And help them that be woe-begone. + + Jesu, keep them that be good, + And amend them that have grieved thee; + And send them fruits of earthly food, + As each man needeth in his degree. + + Jesu, that art, withouten lees, _lies._ + Almighty God in trinity, + Cease these wars, and send us peace, + With lasting love and charity. + + Jesu, that art the ghostly stone _spiritual._ + Of all holy church in middle-erde, _the world._ + Bring thy folds and flocks in one, + And rule them rightly with one herd. + +We now approach the second revival of literature, preceded in England by +the arrival of the art of printing; after which we find ourselves walking +in a morning twilight, knowing something of the authors as well as of +their work. + +I have little more to offer from this century. There are a few religious +poems by John Skelton, who was tutor to Henry VIII. But such poetry, +though he was a clergyman, was not much in Skelton's manner of mind. We +have far better of a similar sort already. + +A new sort of dramatic representation had by this time greatly encroached +upon the old Miracle Plays. The fresh growth was called Morals or Moral +Plays. In them we see the losing victory of invention over the +imagination that works with given facts. No doubt in the Moral Plays +there is more exercise of intellect as well as of ingenuity; for they +consist of metaphysical facts turned into individual existences by +personification, and their relations then dramatized by allegory. But +their poetry is greatly inferior both in character and execution to that +of the Miracles. They have a religious tendency, as everything moral must +have, and sometimes they go even farther, as in one, for instance, called +_The Castle of Perseverance_, in which we have all the cardinal virtues +and all the cardinal sins contending for the possession of _Humanum +Genus_, the _Human Race_ being presented as a new-born child, who grows +old and dies in the course of the play; but it was a great stride in art +when human nature and human history began again to be exemplified after a +simple human fashion, in the story, that is, of real men and women, +instead of by allegorical personifications of the analysed and abstracted +constituents of them. Allegory has her place, and a lofty one, in +literature; but when her plants cover the garden and run to seed, +Allegory herself is ashamed of her children: the loveliest among them are +despised for the general obtrusiveness of the family. Imitation not only +brings the thing imitated into disrepute, but tends to destroy what +original faculty the imitator may have possessed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +INTRODUCTION TO THE ELIZABETHAN ERA. + + +Poets now began to write more smoothly--not a great virtue, but +indicative of a growing desire for finish, which, in any art, is a great +virtue. No doubt smoothness is often confounded with, and mistaken for +finish; but you might have a mirror-like polish on the surface of a +statue, for instance, and yet the marble be full of inanity, or +vagueness, or even vulgarity of result--irrespective altogether of its +idea. The influence of Italian poetry reviving once more in the country, +roused such men as Wyat and Surrey to polish the sound of their verses; +but smoothness, I repeat, is not melody, and where the attention paid to +the outside of the form results in flatness, and, still worse, in +obscurity, as is the case with both of these poets, little is gained and +much is lost. + +Each has paraphrased portions of Scripture, but with results of little +value; and there is nothing of a religious nature I care to quote from +either, except these five lines from an epistle of Sir Thomas Wyat's: + + Thyself content with that is thee assigned, + And use it well that is to thee allotted; + + Then seek no more out of thyself to find + The thing that thou hast sought so long before, + For thou shalt feel it sticking in thy mind. + +Students of versification will allow me to remark that Sir Thomas was the +first English poet, so far as I know, who used the _terza rima_, Dante's +chief mode of rhyming: the above is too small a fragment to show that it +belongs to a poem in that manner. It has never been popular in England, +although to my mind it is the finest form of continuous rhyme in any +language. Again, we owe his friend Surrey far more for being the first to +write English blank verse, whether invented by himself or not, than for +any matter he has left us in poetic shape. + +This period is somewhat barren of such poetry as we want. Here is a +portion of the Fifty-first Psalm, translated amongst others into English +verse by John Croke, Master in Chancery, in the reign of Henry VIII. + + Open my lips first to confess + My sin conceived inwardly; + And my mouth after shall express + Thy laud and praises outwardly. + + If I should offer for my sin, + Or sacrifice do unto thee + Of beast or fowl, I should begin + To stir thy wrath more towards me. + + Offer we must for sacrifice + A troubled mind with sorrow's smart: + Canst thou refuse? Nay, nor despise + The humble and the contrite heart. + + To us of Sion that be born, + If thou thy favour wilt renew, + The broken sowle, the temple torn, _threshold._ + The walls and all shall be made new. + + The sacrifice then shall we make + Of justice and of pure intent; + And all things else thou wilt well take + That we shall offer or present. + +In the works of George Gascoigne I find one poem fit for quoting here. He +is not an interesting writer, and, although his verse is very good, there +is little likelihood of its ever being read more than it is now. The date +of his birth is unknown, but probably he was in his teens when Surrey was +beheaded in the year 1547. He is the only poet whose style reminds me of +his, although the _wherefore_ will hardly be evident from my quotation. +It is equally flat, but more articulate. I need not detain my reader with +remarks upon him. The fact is, I am glad to have something, if not "a +cart-load of wholesome instructions," to cast into this Slough of +Despond, should it be only to see it vanish. The poem is called + + + GASCOIGNE'S GOOD MORROW. + + You that have spent the silent night + In sleep and quiet rest, + And joy to see the cheerful light + That riseth in the east; + Now clear your voice, now cheer your heart; + Come help me now to sing; + Each willing wight come bear a part, + To praise the heavenly King. + + And you whom care in prison keeps, + Or sickness doth suppress, + Or secret sorrow breaks your sleeps, + Or dolours do distress; + Yet bear a part in doleful wise; + Yea, think it good accord, + And acceptable sacrifice, + Each sprite to praise the Lord. + + The dreadful night with darksomeness + Had overspread the light, + And sluggish sleep with drowsiness + Had overpressed our might: + A glass wherein you may behold + Each storm that stops our breath, + Our bed the grave, our clothes like mould, + And sleep like dreadful death. + + Yet as this deadly night did last + But for a little space, + And heavenly day, now night is past, + Doth shew his pleasant face; + So must we hope to see God's face + At last in heaven on high, + When we have changed this mortal place + For immortality. + +This is not so bad, but it is enough. There are six stanzas more of it. I +transcribe yet another, that my reader may enjoy a smile in passing. He +is "moralizing" the aspects of morning: + + The carrion crow, that loathsome beast, + Which cries against the rain, + Both for his hue and for the rest, + The Devil resembleth plain; + And as with guns we kill the crow, + For spoiling our relief, + The Devil so must we overthrow, + With gunshot of belief. + +So fares the wit, when it walks abroad to do its business without the +heart that should inspire it. + +Here is one good stanza from his _De Profundis:_ + + But thou art good, and hast of mercy store; + Thou not delight'st to see a sinner fall; + Thou hearkenest first, before we come to call; + Thine ears are set wide open evermore; + Before we knock thou comest to the door. + Thou art more prest to hear a sinner cry, _ready._ + Than he is quick to climb to thee on high. + Thy mighty name be praised then alway: + Let faith and fear + True witness bear + How fast they stand which on thy mercy stay. + +Here follow two of unknown authorship, belonging apparently to the same +period. + + + THAT EACH THING IS HURT OF ITSELF. + + Why fearest thou the outward foe, + When thou thyself thy harm dost feed? + Of grief or hurt, of pain or woe, + Within each thing is sown the seed. + So fine was never yet the cloth, + No smith so hard his iron did beat, + But th' one consuméd was with moth, + Th' other with canker all to-freate. _fretted away._ + + The knotty oak and wainscot old + Within doth eat the silly worm;[53] + Even so a mind in envy rolled + Always within it self doth burn. + Thus every thing that nature wrought, + Within itself his hurt doth bear! + No outward harm need to be sought, + Where enemies be within so near. + +Lest this poem should appear to any one hardly religious enough for the +purpose of this book, I would remark that it reminds me of what our Lord +says about the true source of defilement: it is what is bred in the man +that denies him. Our Lord himself taught a divine morality, which is as +it were the body of love, and is as different from mere morality as«the +living body is from the dead. + + + TOTUS MUNDUS IN MALIGNO POSITUS. + The whole world lieth in the Evil One. + + Complain we may; much is amiss; + Hope is nigh gone to have redress; + These days are ill, nothing sure is; + Kind heart is wrapt in heaviness. + + The stern is broke, the sail is rent, _helm or rudder--the + The ship is given to wind and wave; [thing to steer with._ + All help is gone, the rock present, + That will be lost, what man can save? _that which will be lost._ + + When power lacks care and forceth not, _careth._ + When care is feeble and may not, _is not able._ + When might is slothful and will not, + Weeds may grow where good herbs cannot. + + Wily is witty, brainsick is wise; _wiliness is counted + Truth is folly, and might is right; [prudence._ + Words are reason, and reason is lies; + The bad is good, darkness is light. + + Order is broke in things of weight: + Measure and mean who doth nor flee? _who does not avoid + Two things prevail, money and sleight; [moderation?_ + To seem is better than to be. + + Folly and falsehood prate apace; + Truth under bushel is fain to creep; + Flattery is treble, pride sings the bass, + The mean, the best part, scant doth peep. + + With floods and storms thus be we tost: + Awake, good Lord, to thee we cry; + Our ship is almost sunk and lost; + Thy mercy help our misery. + + Man's strength is weak; man's wit is dull; + Man's reason is blind these things t'amend: + Thy hand, O Lord, of might is full-- + Awake betimes, and help us send. + + In thee we trust, and in no wight; + Save us, as chickens under the hen; + Our crookedness thou canst make right-- + Glory to thee for aye. Amen. + +The apprehensions of the wiser part of the nation have generally been +ahead of its hopes. Every age is born with an ideal; but instead of +beholding that ideal in the future where it lies, it throws it into the +past. Hence the lapse of the nation must appear tremendous, even when she +is making her best progress. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +SPENSER AND HIS FRIENDS. + + +We have now arrived at the period of English history in every way fullest +of marvel--the period of Elizabeth. As in a northern summer the whole +region bursts into blossom at once, so with the thought and feeling of +England in this glorious era. + +The special development of the national mind with which we are now +concerned, however, did not by any means arrive at its largest and +clearest result until the following century. Still its progress is +sufficiently remarkable. For, while everything that bore upon the mental +development of the nation must bear upon its poetry, the fresh vigour +given by the doctrines of the Reformation to the sense of personal +responsibility, and of immediate relation to God, with the grand +influences, both literary and spiritual, of the translated, printed, and +studied Bible, operated more immediately upon its devotional utterance. + +Towards the close of the sixteenth century, we begin to find such verse +as I shall now present to my readers. Only I must first make a few +remarks upon the great poem of the period: I mean, of course, _The Faerie +Queen_. + +I dare not begin to set forth after any fashion the profound religious +truth contained in this poem; for it would require a volume larger than +this to set forth even that of the first book adequately. In this case it +is well to remember that the beginning of comment, as well as of strife, +is like the letting out of water. + +The direction in which the wonderful allegory of the latter moves may be +gathered from the following stanza, the first of the eighth canto: + + Ay me! how many perils do enfold + The righteous man to make him daily fail; + Were not that heavenly grace doth him uphold, _it_ understood. + And steadfast Truth acquit him out of all! + Her love is firm, her care continual, + So oft as he, through his own foolish pride + Or weakness, is to sinful bands made thrall: + Else should this Redcross Knight in bands have died, + For whose deliverance she this Prince doth thither guide. + +Nor do I judge it good to spend much of my space upon remarks personal to +those who have not been especially writers of sacred verse. When we come +to the masters of such song, we cannot speak of their words without +speaking of themselves; but when in the midst of many words those of the +kind we seek are few, the life of the writer does not justify more than a +passing notice here. + +We know but little of Spenser's history: if we might know all, I do not +fear that we should find anything to destroy the impression made by his +verse--that he was a Christian gentleman, a noble and pure-minded man, of +highest purposes and aims. + +His style is injured by the artistic falsehood of producing antique +effects in the midst of modern feeling.[54] It was scarcely more +justifiable, for instance, in Spenser's time than it would be in ours to +use _glitterand_ for _glittering_; or to return to a large use of +alliteration, three, four, sometimes even five words in the same line +beginning with the same consonant sound. Everything should look like what +it is: prose or verse should be written in the language of its own era. +No doubt the wide-spreading roots of poetry gather to it more variety of +expression than prose can employ; and the very nature of verse will make +it free of times and seasons, harmonizing many opposites. Hence, through +its mediation, without discord, many fine old words, by the loss of which +the language has grown poorer and feebler, might be honourably enticed to +return even into our prose. But nothing ought to be brought back +_because_ it is old. That it is out of use is a presumptive argument that +it ought to remain out of use: good reasons must be at hand to support +its reappearance. I must not, however, enlarge upon this wide-reaching +question; for of the two portions of Spenser's verse which I shall quote, +one of them is not at all, the other not so much as his great poem, +affected with this whim. + +The first I give is a sonnet, one of eighty-eight which he wrote to his +wife before their marriage. Apparently disappointed in early youth, he +did not fall in love again,--at least there is no sign of it that I +know,--till he was middle-aged. But then--woman was never more grandly +wooed than was his Elizabeth. I know of no marriage-present worthy to be +compared with the Epithalamion which he gave her "in lieu of many +ornaments,"--one of the most stately, melodious, and tender poems in the +world, I fully believe. + +But now for the sonnet--the sixty-eighth of the _Amoretti_: + + Most glorious Lord of Life! that, on this day, + Didst make thy triumph over death and sin, + And having harrowed hell, didst bring away + Captivity thence captive, us to win: + This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin; + And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die, + Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin, + May live for ever in felicity! + And that thy love we weighing worthily, + May likewise love thee for the same again; + And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy, + With love may one another entertain. + So let us love, dear love, like as we ought: + Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught. + +Those who have never felt the need of the divine, entering by the channel +of will and choice and prayer, for the upholding, purifying, and +glorifying of that which itself first created human, will consider this +poem untrue, having its origin in religious affectation. Others will +think otherwise. + +The greater part of what I shall next quote is tolerably known even to +those who have made little study of our earlier literature, yet it may +not be omitted here. It is from _An Hymne of Heavenly Love_, consisting +of forty-one stanzas, written in what was called _Rime Royal_--a +favourite with Milton, and, next to the Spenserian, in my opinion the +finest of stanzas. Its construction will reveal itself. I take two +stanzas from the beginning of the hymn, then one from the heart of it, +and the rest from the close. It gives no feeling of an outburst of song, +but rather of a brooding chant, most quiet in virtue of the depth of its +thoughtfulness. Indeed, all his rhythm is like the melodies of water, and +I could quote at least three passages in which he speaks of rhythmic +movements and watery progressions together. His thoughts, and hence his +words, flow like a full, peaceful stream, diffuse, with plenteousness +unrestrained. + + + AN HYMN OF HEAVENLY LOVE. + + Before this world's great frame, in which all things + Are now contained, found any being place, + Ere flitting Time could wag his eyas[55] wings + About that mighty bound which doth embrace + The rolling spheres, and parts their hours by space, + That high eternal power, which now doth move + In all these things, moved in itself by love. + + It loved itself, because itself was fair, + For fair is loved; and of itself begot + Like to itself his eldest son and heir, + Eternal, pure, and void of sinful blot, + + The firstling of his joy, in whom no jot + Of love's dislike or pride was to be found, + Whom he therefore with equal honour crowned. + + * * * * * + + Out of the bosom of eternal bliss, + In which he reignéd with his glorious Sire, + He down descended, like a most demisse _humble._ + And abject thrall, in flesh's frail attire, + That he for him might pay sin's deadly hire, + And him restore unto that happy state + In which he stood before his hapless fate. + + * * * * * + + O blessed well of love! O flower of grace! + O glorious Morning-Star! O Lamp of Light! + Most lively image of thy Father's face! + Eternal King of Glory, Lord of might! + Meek Lamb of God, before all worlds behight! _promised._ + How can we thee requite for all this good? + Or what can prize that thy most precious blood? _equal in value._ + + Yet nought thou ask'st in lieu of all this love + But love of us for guerdon of thy pain: + Ay me! what can us less than that behove?[56] + Had he required life of[57] us again, + Had it been wrong to ask his own with gain? + He gave us life, he it restored lost; + Then life were least, that us so little cost. + + But he our life hath left unto us free-- + Free that was thrall, and blessed that was banned; _enslaved; cursed._ + Nor aught demands but that we loving be, + As he himself hath loved us aforehand, + And bound thereto with an eternal band-- + Him first to love that us[58] so dearly bought, + And next our brethren, to his image wrought. + + Him first to love great right and reason is, + Who first to us our life and being gave, + And after, when we faréd had amiss, + Us wretches from the second death did save; + And last, the food of life, which now we have, + Even he himself, in his dear sacrament, + To feed our hungry souls, unto us lent. + + Then next, to love our brethren that were made + Of that self mould, and that self Maker's hand, + That[59] we, and to the same again shall fade, + Where they shall have like heritage of land, _the same grave-room._ + However here on higher steps we stand; + Which also were with selfsame price redeemed, + That we, however, of us light esteemed. _as._ + + And were they not, yet since that loving Lord + Commanded us to love them for his sake, + Even for his sake, and for his sacred word, + Which in his last bequest he to us spake, + We should them love, and with their needs partake; _share their + Knowing that, whatsoe'er to them we give, [needs._ + We give to him by whom we all do live. + + Such mercy he by his most holy rede _instruction._ + Unto us taught, and to approve it true, + Ensampled it by his most righteous deed, + Shewing us mercy, miserable crew! + That we the like should to the wretches[60] shew, + And love our brethren; thereby to approve + How much himself that loved us we love. + + Then rouse thyself, O earth! out of thy soil, + In which thou wallowest like to filthy swine, + And dost thy mind in dirty pleasures moyle, _defile._ + Unmindful of that dearest Lord of thine; + Lift up to him thy heavy clouded eyne, + That thou this sovereign bounty mayst behold, + And read through love his mercies manifold. + + Begin from first, where he encradled was + In simple cratch, wrapt in a wad of hay, _a rack or crib._ + Between the toilful ox and humble ass; + And in what rags, and in what base array + The glory of our heavenly riches lay, + When him the silly[61] shepherds came to see, + Whom greatest princes sought on lowest knee. + + From thence read on the story of his life, + His humble carriage, his unfaulty ways, + His cankered foes, his fights, his toil, his strife, + His pains, his poverty, his sharp assays, _temptations_ or _trials._ + Through which he passed his miserable days, + Offending none, and doing good to all, + Yet being maliced both by great and small. + + And look at last, how of most wretched wights + He taken was, betrayed, and false accused; + How with most scornful taunts and fell despites + He was reviled, disgraced, and foul abused; + How scourged, how crowned, how buffeted, how bruised; + And, lastly, how 'twixt robbers crucified, + With bitter wounds through hands, through feet, and side! + + * * * * * + + With sense whereof whilst so thy softened spirit + Is inly touched, and humbled with meek zeal + Through meditation of his endless merit, + Lift up thy mind to th' author of thy weal, + And to his sovereign mercy do appeal; + Learn him to love that lovéd thee so dear, + And in thy breast his blessed image bear. + + With all thy heart, with all thy soul and mind, + Thou must him love, and his behests embrace; _commands._ + All other loves with which the world doth blind + Weak fancies, and stir up affections base, + Thou must renounce and utterly displace, + And give thyself unto him full and free, + That full and freely gave himself to thee. + + * * * * * + + Thenceforth all world's desire will in thee die, + And all earth's glory, on which men do gaze, + Seem dust and dross in thy pure-sighted eye, + Compared to that celestial beauty's blaze, + Whose glorious beams all fleshly sense do daze + With admiration of their passing light, + Blinding the eyes and lumining the sprite. + + Then shalt thy ravished soul inspiréd be + With heavenly thoughts far above human skill, _reason._ + And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainly see + The Idea of his pure glory present still + Before thy face, that all thy spirits shall fill + With sweet enragement of celestial love, + Kindled through sight of those fair things above. + +There is a companion to the poem of which these verses are a portion, +called _An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie_, filled like this, and like two +others on Beauty and Love, with Platonic forms both of thought and +expression; but I have preferred quoting a longer part of the former to +giving portions of both. My reader will recognize in the extract a fuller +force of intellect brought to bear on duty; although it would be unwise +to take a mind like Spenser's for a type of more than the highest class +of the age. Doubtless the division in the country with regard to many of +the Church's doctrines had its part in bringing out and strengthening +this tendency to reasoning which is so essential to progress. Where +religion itself is not the most important thing with the individual, all +reasoning upon it must indeed degenerate into strifes of words, +_vermiculate_ questions, as Lord Bacon calls them--such, namely, as like +the hoarded manna reveal the character of the owner by breeding of +worms--yet on no questions may the light of the candle of the Lord, that +is, the human understanding, be cast with greater hope of discovery than +on those of religion, those, namely, that bear upon man's relation to God +and to his fellow. The most partial illumination of this region, the very +cause of whose mystery is the height and depth of its _truth_, is of more +awful value to the human being than perfect knowledge, if such were +possible, concerning everything else in the universe; while, in fact, in +this very region, discovery may bring with it a higher kind of conviction +than can accompany the results of investigation in any other direction. +In these grandest of all thinkings, the great men of this time showed a +grandeur of thought worthy of their surpassing excellence in other +noblest fields of human labour. They thought greatly because they aspired +greatly. + +Sir Walter Raleigh was a personal friend of Edmund Spenser. They were +almost of the same age, the former born in 1552, the latter in the +following year. A writer of magnificent prose, itself full of religion +and poetry both in thought and expression, he has not distinguished +himself greatly in verse. There is, however, one remarkable poem fit for +my purpose, which I can hardly doubt to be his. It is called _Sir Walter +Raleigh's Pilgrimage_. The probability is that it was written just after +his condemnation in 1603--although many years passed before his sentence +was carried into execution. + + Give me my scallop-shell[62] of Quiet; + My staff of Faith to walk upon; + My scrip of Joy, immortal diet; + My bottle of Salvation; + My gown of Glory, hope's true gage; + And thus I'll take my pilgrimage. + Blood must be my body's balmer,-- + No other balm will there be given-- + Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer, + Travelleth towards the land of Heaven; + Over the silver mountains, + Where spring the nectar fountains-- + There will I kiss + The bowl of Bliss, + And drink mine everlasting fill + Upon every milken hill: + My soul will be a-dry before, + But after, it will thirst no more. + Then by that happy blissful day, + More peaceful pilgrims I shall see, + That have cast off their rags of clay, + And walk apparelled fresh like me: + I'll take them first, + To quench their thirst, + And taste of nectar's suckets, _sweet things--things to suck._ + At those clear wells + Where sweetness dwells, + Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets. + And when our bottles and all we + Are filled with immortality, + Then the blessed paths we'll travel, + Strowed with rubies thick as gravel. + Ceilings of diamonds! sapphire floors! + High walls of coral, and pearly bowers!-- + From thence to Heaven's bribeless hall, + Where no corrupted voices brawl; + No conscience molten into gold; + No forged accuser bought or sold; + No cause deferred; no vain-spent journey; + For there Christ is the King's Attorney, + Who pleads for all without degrees, _irrespective of rank._ + And he hath angels, but no fees. + And when the grand twelve million jury + Of our sins, with direful fury, + 'Gainst our souls black verdicts give, + Christ pleads his death, and then we live. + Be thou my speaker, taintless Pleader, + Unblotted Lawyer, true Proceeder! + Thou giv'st salvation even for alms,-- + Not with a bribéd lawyer's palms. + And this is my eternal plea + To him that made heaven, earth, and sea, + That, since my flesh must die so soon, + And want a head to dine next noon,-- + Just at the stroke, when my veins start and spread, + Set on my soul an everlasting head: + Then am I ready, like a palmer fit, + To tread those blest paths which before I writ. + Of death and judgment, heaven and hell + Who oft doth think, must needs die well. + +This poem is a somewhat strange medley, with a confusion of figure, and a +repeated failure in dignity, which is very far indeed from being worthy +of Raleigh's prose. But it is very remarkable how wretchedly some men +will show, who, doing their own work well, attempt that for which +practice has not--to use a word of the time--_enabled_ them. There is +real power in the poem, however, and the confusion is far more indicative +of the pleased success of an unaccustomed hand than of incapacity for +harmonious work. Some of the imagery, especially the "crystal buckets," +will suggest those grotesque drawings called _Emblems_, which were much +in use before and after this period, and, indeed, were only a putting +into visible shape of such metaphors and similes as some of the most +popular poets of the time, especially Doctor Donne, indulged in; while +the profusion of earthly riches attributed to the heavenly paths and the +places of repose on the journey, may well recall Raleigh's own +descriptions of South American glories. Englishmen of that era believed +in an earthly Paradise beyond the Atlantic, the wonderful reports of +whose magnificence had no doubt a share in lifting the imaginations and +hopes of the people to the height at which they now stood. + +There may be an appearance of irreverence in the way in which he +contrasts the bribeless Hall of Heaven with the proceedings at his own +trial, where he was browbeaten, abused, and, from the very commencement, +treated as a guilty man by Sir Edward Coke, the king's attorney. He even +puns with the words _angels_ and _fees_. Burning from a sense of +injustice, however, and with the solemnity of death before him, he could +not be guilty of _conscious_ irreverence, at least. But there is another +remark I have to make with regard to the matter, which will bear upon +much of the literature of the time: even the great writers of that period +had such a delight in words, and such a command over them, that like +their skilful horsemen, who enjoyed making their steeds show off the +fantastic paces they had taught them, they played with the words as they +passed through their hands, tossing them about as a juggler might his +balls. But even herein the true master of speech showed his masterdom: +his play must not be by-play; it must contribute to the truth of the idea +which was taking form in those words. We shall see this more plainly when +we come to transcribe some of Sir Philip Sidney's work. There is no +irreverence in it. Nor can I take it as any sign of hardness that Raleigh +should treat the visual image of his own anticipated death with so much +coolness, if the writer of a little elegy on his execution, when Raleigh +was fourteen years older than at the presumed date of the foregoing +verses, describes him truly when he says: + + I saw in every stander-by + Pale death, life only in thy eye. + +The following hymn is also attributed to Raleigh. If it has less +brilliance of fancy, it has none of the faults of the preceding, and is +far more artistic in construction and finish, notwithstanding a degree of +irregularity. + + Rise, oh my soul, with thy desires to heaven; + And with divinest contemplation use + Thy time, where time's eternity is given; + And let vain thoughts no more thy thoughts abuse, + But down in darkness let them lie: + So live thy better, let thy worse thoughts die! + + And thou, my soul, inspired with holy flame, + View and review, with most regardful eye, + That holy cross, whence thy salvation came, + On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die! + For in that sacred object is much pleasure, + And in that Saviour is my life, my treasure. + + To thee, O Jesus, I direct my eyes; + To thee my hands, to thee my humble knees, + To thee my heart shall offer sacrifice; + To thee my thoughts, who my thoughts only sees-- + To thee myself,--myself and all I give; + To thee I die; to thee I only live! + +See what an effect of stately composure quiet artistic care produces, and +how it leaves the ear of the mind in a satisfied peace! + +There are a few fine lines in the poem. The last two lines of the first +stanza are admirable; the last two of the second very weak. The last +stanza is good throughout. + +But it would be very unfair to judge Sir Walter by his verse. His prose +is infinitely better, and equally displays the devout tendency of his +mind--a tendency common to all the great men of that age. The worst I +know of him is the selfishly prudent advice he left behind for his son. +No doubt he had his faults, but we must not judge a man even by what he +says in an over-anxiety for the prosperity of his child. + +Another remarkable fact in the history of those great men is that they +were all men of affairs. Raleigh was a soldier, a sailor, a discoverer, a +politician, as well as an author. His friend Spenser was first secretary +to Lord Grey when he was Governor of Ireland, and afterwards Sheriff of +Cork. He has written a large treatise on the state of Ireland. But of all +the men of the age no one was more variously gifted, or exercised those +gifts in more differing directions, than the man who of them all was most +in favour with queen, court, and people--Philip Sidney. I could write +much to set forth the greatness, culture, balance, and scope of this +wonderful man. Renowned over Europe for his person, for his dress, for +his carriage, for his speech, for his skill in arms, for his +horsemanship, for his soldiership, for his statesmanship, for his +learning, he was beloved for his friendship, his generosity, his +steadfastness, his simplicity, his conscientiousness, his religion. +Amongst the lamentations over his death printed in Spenser's works, there +is one poem by Matthew Roydon, a few verses of which I shall quote, being +no vain eulogy. Describing his personal appearance, he says: + + A sweet, attractive kind of grace, + A full assurance given by looks, + Continual comfort in a face, + The lineaments of Gospel books!-- + I trow, that countenance cannot lie + Whose thoughts are legible in the eye. + + Was ever eye did see that face, + Was ever ear did hear that tongue, + Was ever mind did mind his grace + That ever thought the travel long? + But eyes and ears, and every thought, + Were with his sweet perfections caught. + +His _Arcadia_ is a book full of wisdom and beauty. None of his writings +were printed in his lifetime; but the _Arcadia_ was for many years after +his death one of the most popular books in the country. His prose, as +prose, is not equal to his friend Raleigh's, being less condensed and +stately. It is too full of fancy in thought and freak in rhetoric to find +now-a-days more than a very limited number of readers; and a good deal of +the verse that is set in it, is obscure and uninteresting, partly from +some false notions of poetic composition which he and his friend Spenser +entertained when young; but there is often an exquisite art in his other +poems. + +The first I shall transcribe is a sonnet, to which the Latin words +printed below it might be prefixed as a title: _Splendidis longum +valedico nugis._ + + + A LONG FAREWELL TO GLITTERING TRIFLES. + + Leave me, O love, which reachest but to dust; + And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things; + Grow rich in that which never taketh rust: + What ever fades but fading pleasure brings. + Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might + To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be; + Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light + That doth both shine and give us sight to see. + Oh take fast hold; let that light be thy guide, + In this small course which birth draws out to death; + And think how evil[63] becometh him to slide + Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath. + Then farewell, world; thy uttermost I see: + Eternal love, maintain thy life in me. + +Before turning to the treasury of his noblest verse, I shall give six +lines from a poem in the _Arcadia_--chiefly for the sake of instancing +what great questions those mighty men delighted in: + + What essence destiny hath; if fortune be or no; + Whence our immortal souls to mortal earth do stow[64]: + + What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather, + With outward maker's force, or like an inward father. + Such thoughts, me thought, I thought, and strained my single mind, + Then void of nearer cares, the depth of things to find. + +Lord Bacon was not the only one, in such an age, to think upon the mighty +relations of physics and metaphysics, or, as Sidney would say, "of +naturall and supernaturall philosophic." For a man to do his best, he +must be upheld, even in his speculations, by those around him. + +In the specimen just given, we find that our religious poetry has gone +down into the deeps. There are indications of such a tendency in the +older times, but neither then were the questions so articulate, nor were +the questioners so troubled for an answer. The alternative expressed in +the middle couplet seems to me the most imperative of all questions--both +for the individual and for the church: Is man fashioned by the hands of +God, as a potter fashioneth his vessel; or do we indeed come forth from +his heart? Is power or love the making might of the universe? He who +answers this question aright possesses the key to all righteous +questions. + +Sir Philip and his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, made between them a +metrical translation of the Psalms of David. It cannot be determined +which are hers and which are his; but if I may conclude anything from a +poem by the sister, to which I shall by and by refer, I take those I now +give for the brother's work. + +The souls of the following psalms have, in the version I present, +transmigrated into fairer forms than I have found them occupy elsewhere. +Here is a grand hymn for the whole world: _Sing unto the Lord._ + + + PSALM XCVI. + + Sing, and let your song be new, + Unto him that never endeth; + Sing all earth, and all in you-- + Sing to God, and bless his name. + Of the help, the health he sendeth, + Day by day new ditties frame. + + Make each country know his worth: + Of his acts the wondered story + Paint unto each people forth. + For Jehovah great alone, + All the gods, for awe and glory, + Far above doth hold his throne. + + For but idols, what are they + Whom besides mad earth adoreth? + He the skies in frame did lay. + Grace and honour are his guides; + Majesty his temple storeth; + Might in guard about him bides. + + Kindreds come! Jehovah give-- + O give Jehovah all together, + Force and fame whereso you live. + Give his name the glory fit: + Take your off'rings, get you thither, + Where he doth enshrined sit. + + Go, adore him in the place + Where his pomp is most displayed. + Earth, O go with quaking pace, + Go proclaim Jehovah king: + Stayless world shall now be stayed; + Righteous doom his rule shall bring. + + Starry roof and earthy floor, + Sea, and all thy wideness yieldeth, + Now rejoice, and leap, and roar. + Leafy infants of the wood, + Fields, and all that on you feedeth, + Dance, O dance, at such a good! + + For Jehovah cometh, lo! + Lo to reign Jehovah cometh! + Under whom you all shall go. + He the world shall rightly guide-- + Truly, as a king becometh, + For the people's weal provide. + +Attempting to give an ascending scale of excellence--I do not mean in +subject but in execution--I now turn to the national hymn, _God is our +Refuge._ + + + PSALM XLIV. + + God gives us strength, and keeps us sound-- + A present help when dangers call; + Then fear not we, let quake the ground, + And into seas let mountains fall; + Yea so let seas withal + In watery hills arise, + As may the earthly hills appal + With dread and dashing cries. + + For lo, a river, streaming joy, + With purling murmur safely slides, + That city washing from annoy, + In holy shrine where God resides. + God in her centre bides: + What can this city shake? + God early aids and ever guides: + Who can this city take? + + When nations go against her bent, + And kings with siege her walls enround; + The void of air his voice doth rent, + Earth fails their feet with melting ground. + To strength and keep us sound, + The God of armies arms; + Our rock on Jacob's God we found, + Above the reach of harms. + + O come with me, O come, and view + The trophies of Jehovah's hand! + What wrecks from him our foes pursue! + How clearly he hath purged our land! + By him wars silent stand: + He brake the archer's bow, + Made chariot's wheel a fiery brand, + And spear to shivers go. + + Be still, saith he; know, God am I; + Know I will be with conquest crowned + Above all nations--raiséd high, + High raised above this earthly round. + To strength and keep us sound, + The God of armies arms; + Our rock on Jacob's God we found, + Above the reach of harms. + +"The God of armies arms" is a grand line. + +Now let us have a hymn of Nature--a far finer, I think, than either of +the preceding: _Praise waiteth for thee._ + + + PSALM LXV. + + Sion it is where thou art praiséd, + Sion, O God, where vows they pay thee: + There all men's prayers to thee raiséd, + Return possessed of what they pray thee. + There thou my sins, prevailing to my shame, + Dost turn to smoke of sacrificing flame. + + Oh! he of bliss is not deceivéd, _disappointed._ + Whom chosen thou unto thee takest; + And whom into thy court receivéd, + Thou of thy checkrole[65] number makest: + The dainty viands of thy sacred store + Shall feed him so he shall not hunger more. + + From thence it is thy threat'ning thunder-- + Lest we by wrong should be disgracéd-- + Doth strike our foes with fear and wonder, + O thou on whom their hopes are placéd, + Whom either earth doth stedfastly sustain, + Or cradle rocks the restless wavy plain. + + Thy virtue stays the mighty mountains, _power._ + Girded with power, with strength abounding. + The roaring dam of watery fountains _the "dam of fountains" + Thy beck doth make surcease her sounding. [is the ocean._ + When stormy uproars toss the people's brain, + That civil sea to calm thou bring'st again. _political, as opposed + [to natural._ + + Where earth doth end with endless ending, + All such as dwell, thy signs affright them; + And in thy praise their voices spending, + Both houses of the sun delight them--- + Both whence he comes, when early he awakes, + And where he goes, when evening rest he takes. + + Thy eye from heaven this land beholdeth, + Such fruitful dews down on it raining, + That storehouse-like her lap enfoldeth + Assuréd hope of ploughman's gaining: + Thy flowing streams her drought doth temper so, + That buried seed through yielding grave doth grow. + + Drunk is each ridge of thy cup drinking; + Each clod relenteth at thy dressing; _groweth soft._ + Thy cloud-borne waters inly sinking, + Fair spring sprouts forth, blest with thy blessing. + The fertile year is with thy bounty crowned; + And where thou go'st, thy goings fat the ground. + + Plenty bedews the desert places; + A hedge of mirth the hills encloseth; + The fields with flocks have hid their faces; + A robe of corn the valleys clotheth. + Deserts, and hills, and fields, and valleys all, + Rejoice, shout, sing, and on thy name do call. + +The first stanza seems to me very fine, especially the verse, "Return +possessed of what they pray thee." The third stanza might have been +written after the Spanish Philip's Armada, but both King David and Sir +Philip Sidney were dead before God brake that archer's bow.[66] The +fourth line of the next stanza is a noteworthy instance of the sense +gathering to itself the sound, and is in lovely contrast with the closing +line of the same stanza. + +One of the most remarkable specimens I know of the play with words of +which I have already spoken as common even in the serious writings of +this century, is to be found in the next line: "Where earth doth end with +endless ending." David, regarding the world as a flat disc, speaks of the +_ends_ of the earth: Sidney, knowing it to be a globe, uses the word of +the Psalmist, but re-moulds and changes the form of it, with a power +fantastic, almost capricious in its wilfulness, yet causing it to express +the fact with a marvel of precision. We _see_ that the earth ends; we +cannot reach the end we see; therefore the "earth doth end with endless +ending." It is a case of that contradiction in the form of the words +used, which brings out a truth in another plane as it were;--a paradox in +words, not in meaning, for the words can bear no meaning but the one +which reveals its own reality. + +The following little psalm, _The Lord reigneth_, is a thunderous +organ-blast of praise. The repetition of words in the beginning of the +second stanza produces a remarkably fine effect. + + + PSALM XCIII. + + Clothed with state, and girt with might, + Monarch-like Jehovah reigns; + He who earth's foundation pight-- _pitched._ + Pight at first, and yet sustains; + He whose stable throne disdains + Motion's shock and age's flight; + He who endless one remains + One, the same, in changeless plight. + + Rivers--yea, though rivers roar, + Roaring though sea-billows rise, + Vex the deep, and break the shore-- + Stronger art thou, Lord of skies! + Firm and true thy promise lies + Now and still as heretofore: + Holy worship never dies + In thy house where we adore. + +I close my selections from Sidney with one which I consider the best of +all: it is the first half of _Lord, thou hast searched me._ + + + PSALM CXXXIX. + + O Lord, in me there lieth nought + But to thy search revealed lies; + For when I sit + Thou markest it; + No less thou notest when I rise: + Yea, closest closet of my thought + Hath open windows to thine eyes. + + Thou walkest with me when I walk + When to my bed for rest I go, + I find thee there, + And every where: + Not youngest thought in me doth grow, + No, not one word I cast to talk + But, yet unuttered, thou dost know. + + If forth I march, thou goest before; + If back I turn, thou com'st behind: + So forth nor back + Thy guard I lack; + Nay, on me too thy hand I find. + Well I thy wisdom may adore, + But never reach with earthy mind. + + To shun thy notice, leave thine eye, + O whither might I take my way? + To starry sphere? + Thy throne is there. + To dead men's undelightsome stay? + There is thy walk, and there to lie + Unknown, in vain I should assay. + + O sun, whom light nor flight can match! + Suppose thy lightful flightful wings + Thou lend to me, + And I could flee + As far as thee the evening brings: + Ev'n led to west he would me catch, + Nor should I lurk with western things. + + Do thou thy best, O secret night, + In sable veil to cover me: + Thy sable veil + Shall vainly fail: + With day unmasked my night shall be; + For night is day, and darkness light, + O father of all lights, to thee. + +Note the most musical play with the words _light_ and _flight_ in the +fifth stanza. There is hardly a line that is not delightful. + +They were a wonderful family those Sidneys. Mary, for whom Philip wrote +his chief work, thence called "The Countess of Pembroke's _Arcadia,_" was +a woman of rare gifts. The chief poem known to be hers is called _Our +Saviour's Passion_. It is full of the faults of the age. Sir Philip's +sport with words is so graceful and ordered as to subserve the utterance +of the thought: his sister's fanciful convolutions appear to be there for +their own sake--certainly are there to the obscuration of the sense. The +difficulty of the poem arises in part, I believe, from corruption, but +chiefly from a certain fantastic way of dealing with thought as well as +word of which I shall have occasion to say more when we descend a little +further. It is, in the main, a lamentation over our Saviour's sufferings, +in which the countess is largely guilty of the very feminine fault of +seeking to convey the intensity of her emotions by forcing words, +accumulating forms, and exaggerating descriptions. This may indeed +convince as to the presence of feeling, but cannot communicate the +feeling itself. _The_ right word will at once generate a sympathy of +which all agonies of utterance will only render the willing mind more and +more incapable. + +The poem is likewise very diffuse--again a common fault with women of +power; for indeed the faculty of compressing thought into crystalline +form is one of the rarest gifts of artistic genius. It consists of a +hundred and ten stanzas, from which I shall gather and arrange a few. + + He placed all rest, and had no resting place; + He healed each pain, yet lived in sore distress; + Deserved all good, yet lived in great disgrace; + Gave all hearts joy, himself in heaviness; + Suffered them live, by whom himself was slain: + Lord, who can live to see such love again? + + Whose mansion heaven, yet lay within a manger; + Who gave all food, yet sucked a virgin's breast; + Who could have killed, yet fled a threatening danger; + Who sought all quiet by his own unrest; + Who died for them that highly did offend him, + And lives for them that cannot comprehend him. + + Who came no further than his Father sent him, + And did fulfil but what he did command him; + Who prayed for them that proudly did torment him + For telling truly of what they did demand him; + Who did all good that humbly did intreat him, + And bare their blows, that did unkindly beat him. + + Had I but seen him as his servants did, + At sea, at land, in city, or in field, + Though in himself he had his glory hid, + That in his grace the light of glory held, + Then might my sorrow somewhat be appeaséd, + That once my soul had in his sight been pleaséd. + + No! I have run the way of wickedness, + Forgetting what my faith should follow most; + I did not think upon thy holiness, + Nor by my sins what sweetness I have lost. + Oh sin! for sin hath compassed me about, + That, Lord, I know not where to find thee out. + + Where he that sits on the supernal throne, + In majesty most glorious to behold, + And holds the sceptre of the world alone, + Hath not his garments of imbroidered gold, + But he is clothed with truth and righteousness, + Where angels all do sing with joyfulness, + + Where heavenly love is cause of holy life, + And holy life increaseth heavenly love; + Where peace established without fear or strife, + Doth prove the blessing of the soul's behove;[67] + Where thirst nor hunger, grief nor sorrow dwelleth, + But peace in joy, and joy in peace excelleth. + +Had all the poem been like these stanzas, I should not have spoken so +strongly concerning its faults. There are a few more such in it. It +closes with a very fantastic use of musical terms, following upon a +curious category of the works of nature as praising God, to which I refer +for the sake of one stanza, or rather of one line in the stanza: + + To see the greyhound course, the hound in chase, + _Whilst little dormouse sleepeth out her eyne;_ + The lambs and rabbits sweetly run at base,[68] + Whilst highest trees the little squirrels climb, + The crawling worms out creeping in the showers, + And how the snails do climb the lofty towers. + +What a love of animated nature there is in the lovely lady! I am all but +confident, however, that second line came to her from watching her +children asleep. She had one child at least: that William Herbert, who is +generally, and with weight, believed the W.H. of Shakspere's Sonnets, a +grander honour than the earldom of Pembroke, or even the having Philip +Sidney to his uncle: I will not say grander than having Mary Sidney to +his _mother_. + +Let me now turn to Sidney's friend, Sir Fulk Grevill, Lord Brooke, who +afterwards wrote his life, "as an intended preface" to all his "Monuments +to the memory of Sir Philip Sidney," the said _monuments_ being Lord +Brooke's own poems. + +My extract is from _A Treatise of Religion_, in which, if the reader do +not find much of poetic form, he will find at least some grand spiritual +philosophy, the stuff whereof all highest poetry is fashioned. It is one +of the first poems in which the philosophy of religion, and not either +its doctrine, feeling, or history, predominates. It is, as a whole, poor, +chiefly from its being so loosely written. There are men, and men whose +thoughts are of great worth, to whom it never seems to occur that they +may utter very largely and convey very little; that what is clear to +themselves is in their speech obscure as a late twilight. Their utterance +is rarely articulate: their spiritual mouth talks with but half-movements +of its lips; it does not model their thoughts into clear-cut shapes, such +as the spiritual ear can distinguish as they enter it. Of such is Lord +Brooke. These few stanzas, however, my readers will be glad to have: + + What is the chain which draws us back again, + And lifts man up unto his first creation? + Nothing in him his own heart can restrain; + His reason lives a captive to temptation; + Example is corrupt; precepts are mixed; + All fleshly knowledge frail, and never fixed. + + It is a light, a gift, a grace inspired; + A spark of power, a goodness of the Good; + Desire in him, that never is desired; + An unity, where desolation stood; + In us, not of us, a Spirit not of earth, + Fashioning the mortal to immortal birth. + + * * * * * + + Sense of this God, by fear, the sensual have, + Distresséd Nature crying unto Grace; + For sovereign reason then becomes a slave, + And yields to servile sense her sovereign place, + When more or other she affects to be + Than seat or shrine of this Eternity. + + Yea, Prince of Earth let Man assume to be, + Nay more--of Man let Man himself be God, + Yet without God, a slave of slaves is he; + To others, wonder; to himself, a rod; + Restless despair, desire, and desolation; + The more secure, the more abomination. + + Then by affecting power, we cannot know him. + By knowing all things else, we know him less. + Nature contains him not. Art cannot show him. + Opinions idols, and not God, express. + Without, in power, we see him everywhere; + Within, we rest not, till we find him there. + + Then seek we must; that course is natural-- + For ownéd souls to find their owner out. + Our free remorses when our natures fall-- + When we do well, our hearts made free from doubt-- + Prove service due to one Omnipotence, + And Nature of religion to have sense. + + Questions again, which in our hearts arise-- + Since loving knowledge, not humility-- + Though they be curious, godless, and unwise, + Yet prove our nature feels a Deity; + For if these strifes rose out of other grounds, + Man were to God as deafness is to sounds. + + * * * * * + + Yet in this strife, this natural remorse, + If we could bend the force of power and wit + To work upon the heart, and make divorce + There from the evil which preventeth it, + In judgment of the truth we should not doubt + Good life would find a good religion out. + +If a fair proportion of it were equal to this, the poem would be a fine +one, not for its poetry, but for its spiritual metaphysics. I think the +fourth and fifth of the stanzas I have given, profound in truth, and +excellent in utterance. They are worth pondering. + +We now descend a decade of the century, to find another group of names +within the immediate threshold of the sixties. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +LORD BACON AND HIS COEVALS. + + +Except it be Milton's, there is not any prose fuller of grand poetic +embodiments than Lord Bacon's. Yet he always writes contemptuously of +poetry, having in his eye no doubt the commonplace kinds of it, which +will always occupy more bulk, and hence be more obtrusive, than that +which is true in its nature and rare in its workmanship. Towards the +latter end of his life, however, being in ill health at the time, he +translated seven of the Psalms of David into verse, dedicating them to +George Herbert. The best of them is Psalm civ.--just the one upon which +we might suppose, from his love to the laws of Nature, he would dwell +with the greatest sympathy. Partly from the wish to hear his voice +amongst the rest of our singers, partly for the merits of the version +itself, which has some remarkable lines, I have resolved to include it +here. It is the first specimen I have given in the heroic couplet. + + Father and King of Powers both high and low, + Whose sounding fame all creatures serve to blow; + My soul shall with the rest strike up thy praise, + And carol of thy works, and wondrous ways. + But who can blaze thy beauties, Lord, aright? + They turn the brittle beams of mortal sight. + Upon thy head thou wear'st a glorious crown, + All set with virtues, polished with renown: + Thence round about a silver veil doth fall + Of crystal light, mother of colours all. + The compass, heaven, smooth without grain or fold, + All set with spangs of glittering stars untold, + And striped with golden beams of power unpent, + Is raiséd up for a removing tent + Vaulted and archéd are his chamber beams + Upon the seas, the waters, and the streams; + The clouds as chariots swift do scour the sky; + The stormy winds upon their wings do fly + His angels spirits are, that wait his will; + As flames of fire his anger they fulfil. + In the beginning, with a mighty hand, + He made the earth by counterpoise to stand, + Never to move, but to be fixed still; + Yet hath no pillars but his sacred will. + This earth, as with a veil, once covered was; + The waters overflowéd all the mass; + But upon his rebuke away they fled, + And then the hills began to show their head; + The vales their hollow bosoms opened plain, + The streams ran trembling down the vales again; + And that the earth no more might drowned be, + He set the sea his bounds of liberty; + And though his waves resound and beat the shore, + Yet it is bridled by his holy lore. + Then did the rivers seek their proper places, + And found their heads, their issues, and their races; + The springs do feed the rivers all the way, + And so the tribute to the sea repay: + Running along through many a pleasant field, + Much fruitfulness unto the earth they yield; + That know the beasts and cattle feeding by, + Which for to slake their thirst do thither hie. + Nay, desert grounds the streams do not forsake, + But through the unknown ways their journey take; + The asses wild that hide in wilderness, + Do thither come, their thirst for to refresh. + The shady trees along their banks do spring, + In which the birds do build, and sit, and sing, + Stroking the gentle air with pleasant notes, + Plaining or chirping through their warbling throats. + The higher grounds, where waters cannot rise, + By rain and dews are watered from the skies, + Causing the earth put forth the grass for beasts, + And garden-herbs, served at the greatest feasts, + And bread that is all viands' firmament, + And gives a firm and solid nourishment; + And wine man's spirits for to recreate, + And oil his face for to exhilarate. + The sappy cedars, tall like stately towers, + High flying birds do harbour in their bowers; + The holy storks that are the travellers, + Choose for to dwell and build within the firs; + The climbing goats hang on steep mountains' side; + The digging conies in the rocks do bide. + The moon, so constant in inconstancy, + Doth rule the monthly seasons orderly; + The sun, eye of the world, doth know his race, + And when to show, and when to hide his face. + Thou makest darkness, that it may be night, + Whenas the savage beasts that fly the light, + As conscious of man's hatred, leave their den, + And range abroad, secured from sight of men. + Then do the forests ring of lions roaring, + That ask their meat of God, their strength restoring; + But when the day appears, they back do fly, + And in their dens again do lurking lie; + Then man goes forth to labour in the field, + Whereby his grounds more rich increase may yield. + O Lord, thy providence sufficeth all; + Thy goodness not restrained but general + Over thy creatures, the whole earth doth flow + With thy great largeness poured forth here below. + Nor is it earth alone exalts thy name, + But seas and streams likewise do spread the same. + The rolling seas unto the lot do fall + Of beasts innumerable, great and small; + There do the stately ships plough up the floods; + The greater navies look like walking woods; + The fishes there far voyages do make, + To divers shores their journey they do take; + There hast thou set the great leviathan, + That makes the seas to seethe like boiling pan: + All these do ask of thee their meat to live, + Which in due season thou to them dost give: + Ope thou thy hand, and then they have good fare; + Shut thou thy hand, and then they troubled are. + All life and spirit from thy breath proceed, + Thy word doth all things generate and feed: + If thou withdraw'st it, then they cease to be, + And straight return to dust and vanity; + But when thy breath thou dost send forth again, + Then all things do renew, and spring amain, + So that the earth but lately desolate + Doth now return unto the former state. + The glorious majesty of God above + Shall ever reign, in mercy and in love; + God shall rejoice all his fair works to see, + For, as they come from him, all perfect be. + The earth shall quake, if aught his wrath provoke; + Let him but touch the mountains, they shall smoke. + As long as life doth last, I hymns will sing, + With cheerful voice, to the Eternal King; + As long as I have being, I will praise + The works of God, and all his wondrous ways. + I know that he my words will not despise: + Thanksgiving is to him a sacrifice. + But as for sinners, they shall be destroyed + From off the earth--their places shall be void. + Let all his works praise him with one accord! + Oh praise the Lord, my soul! Praise ye the Lord! + +His Hundred and Forty-ninth Psalm is likewise good; but I have given +enough of Lord Bacon's verse, and proceed to call up one who was a poet +indeed, although little known as such, being a Roman Catholic, a Jesuit +even, and therefore, in Elizabeth's reign, a traitor, and subject to the +penalties according. Robert Southwell, "thirteen times most cruelly +tortured," could "not be induced to confess anything, not even the colour +of the horse whereon on a certain day he rode, lest from such indication +his adversaries might conjecture in what house, or in company of what +Catholics, he that day was." I quote these words of Lord Burleigh, lest +any of my readers, discovering weakness in his verse, should attribute +weakness to the man himself. + +It was no doubt on political grounds that these tortures, and the death +that followed them, were inflicted. But it was for the truth _as he saw +it_, that is, for the sake of duty, that Southwell thus endured. We must +not impute all the evils of a system to every individual who holds by it. +It may be found that a man has, for the sole sake of self-abnegation, +yielded homage, where, if his object had been personal aggrandizement, he +might have wielded authority. Southwell, if that which comes from within +a man may be taken as the test of his character, was a devout and humble +Christian. In the choir of our singers we only ask: "Dost thou lift up +thine heart?" Southwell's song answers for him: "I lift it up unto the +Lord." + +His chief poem is called _St. Peter's Complaint_. It is of considerable +length--a hundred and thirty-two stanzas. It reminds us of the Countess +of Pembroke's poem, but is far more articulate and far superior in +versification. Perhaps its chief fault is that the pauses are so measured +with the lines as to make every line almost a sentence, the effect of +which is a considerable degree of monotony. Like all writers of the time, +he is, of course, fond of antithesis, and abounds in conceits and +fancies; whence he attributes a multitude of expressions to St. Peter of +which never possibly could the substantial ideas have entered the +Apostle's mind, or probably any other than Southwell's own. There is also +a good deal of sentimentalism in the poem, a fault from which I fear +modern Catholic verse is rarely free. Probably the Italian poetry with +which he must have been familiar in his youth, during his residence in +Rome, accustomed him to such irreverences of expression as this +sentimentalism gives occasion to, and which are very far from indicating +a correspondent state of feeling. Sentiment is a poor ape of love; but +the love is true notwithstanding. Here are a few stanzas from _St. +Peter's Complaint_: + + Titles I make untruths: am I a rock, + That with so soft a gale was overthrown? + Am I fit pastor for the faithful flock + To guide their souls that murdered thus mine own? + A rock of ruin, not a rest to stay; + A pastor,--not to feed, but to betray. + + Parting from Christ my fainting force declined; + With lingering foot I followed him aloof; + Base fear out of my heart his love unshrined, + Huge in high words, but impotent in proof. + My vaunts did seem hatched under Samson's locks, + Yet woman's words did give me murdering knocks + + * * * * * + + At Sorrow's door I knocked: they craved my name + I answered, "One unworthy to be known." + "What one?" say they. "One worthiest of blame." + "But who?" "A wretch not God's, nor yet his own." + "A man?" "Oh, no!" "A beast?" "Much worse." "What creature?" + "A rock." "How called?" "The rock of scandal, Peter." + + * * * * * + + Christ! health of fevered soul, heaven of the mind, + Force of the feeble, nurse of infant loves, + Guide to the wandering foot, light to the blind, + Whom weeping wins, repentant sorrow moves! + Father in care, mother in tender heart, + Revive and save me, slain with sinful dart! + + If King Manasseh, sunk in depth of sin, + With plaints and tears recovered grace and crown, + A worthless worm some mild regard may win, + And lowly creep where flying threw it down. + A poor desire I have to mend my ill; + I should, I would, I dare not say I will. + + I dare not say I will, but wish I may; + My pride is checked: high words the speaker spilt. + My good, O Lord, thy gift--thy strength, my stay-- + Give what thou bidst, and then bid what thou wilt. + Work with me what of me thou dost request; + Then will I dare the worst and love the best. + +Here, from another poem, are two little stanzas worth preserving: + + Yet God's must I remain, + By death, by wrong, by shame; + I cannot blot out of my heart + That grace wrought in his name. + + I cannot set at nought, + Whom I have held so dear; + I cannot make Him seem afar + That is indeed so near. + +The following poem, in style almost as simple as a ballad, is at once of +the quaintest and truest. Common minds, which must always associate a +certain conventional respectability with the forms of religion, will +think it irreverent. I judge its reverence profound, and such none the +less that it is pervaded by a sweet and delicate tone of holy humour. The +very title has a glimmer of the glowing heart of Christianity: + + + NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP. + + Behold a silly,[69] tender babe, + In freezing winter night, + In homely manger trembling lies; + Alas! a piteous sight. + + The inns are full; no man will yield + This little pilgrim bed; + But forced he is with silly beasts + In crib to shroud his head. + + Despise him not for lying there; + First what he is inquire: + An orient pearl is often found + In depth of dirty mire. + + Weigh not his crib, his wooden dish, + Nor beasts that by him feed; + Weigh not his mother's poor attire, + Nor Joseph's simple weed. + + This stable is a prince's court, + The crib his chair of state; + The beasts are parcel of his pomp, + The wooden dish his plate. + + The persons in that poor attire + His royal liveries wear; + The Prince himself is come from heaven: + This pomp is praised there. + + With joy approach, O Christian wight; + Do homage to thy King; + And highly praise this humble pomp, + Which he from heaven doth bring. + +Another, on the same subject, he calls _New Heaven, New War_. It is +fantastic to a degree. One stanza, however, I like much: + + This little babe, so few days old, + Is come to rifle Satan's fold; + All hell doth at his presence quake, + Though he himself for cold do shake; + For in this weak, unarmed wise, + The gates of hell he will surprise. + +There is profoundest truth in the symbolism of this. Here is the latter +half of a poem called _St. Peters Remorse_: + + Did mercy spin the thread + To weave injustice' loom? + Wert then a father to conclude + With dreadful judge's doom? + + It is a small relief + To say I was thy child, + If, as an ill-deserving foe, + From grace I am exiled. + + I was, I had, I could-- + All words importing want; + They are but dust of dead supplies, + Where needful helps are scant. + + Once to have been in bliss + That hardly can return, + Doth but bewray from whence I fell, + And wherefore now I mourn. + + All thoughts of passed hopes + Increase my present cross; + Like ruins of decayed joys, + They still upbraid my loss. + + O mild and mighty Lord! + Amend that is amiss; + My sin my sore, thy love my salve, + Thy cure my comfort is. + + Confirm thy former deed; + Reform that is defiled; + I was, I am, I will remain + Thy charge, thy choice, thy child. + +Here are some neat stanzas from a poem he calls + + + CONTENT AND RICH. + + My conscience is my crown, + Contented thoughts my rest; + My heart is happy in itself, + My bliss is in my breast. + + My wishes are but few, + All easy to fulfil; + I make the limits of my power + The bounds unto my will. + + Sith sails of largest size + The storm doth soonest tear, + I bear so small and low a sail + As freeth me from fear. + + And taught with often proof, + A tempered calm I find + To be most solace to itself, + Best cure for angry mind. + + No chance of Fortune's calms + Can cast my comforts down; + When Fortune smiles I smile to think + How quickly she will frown. + + And when in froward mood + She proves an angry foe: + Small gain I found to let her come, + Less loss to let her go. + +There is just one stanza in a poem of Daniel, who belongs by birth to +this group, which I should like to print by itself, if it were only for +the love Coleridge had to the last two lines of it. It needs little +stretch of scheme to let it show itself amongst religious poems. It +occurs in a fine epistle to the Countess of Cumberland. Daniel's writing +is full of the practical wisdom of the inner life, and the stanza which I +quote has a certain Wordsworthian flavour about it. It will not make a +complete sentence, but must yet stand by itself: + + Knowing the heart of man is set to be + The centre of this world, about the which + These revolutions of disturbances + Still roll; where all th' aspects of misery + Predominate; whose strong effects are such + As he must bear, being powerless to redress; + And that unless above himself he can + Erect himself, how poor a thing is man! + +Later in the decade, comes Sir Henry Wotton. It will be seen that I have +arranged my singers with reference to their birth, not to the point of +time at which this or that poem was written or published. The poetic +influences which work on the shaping fantasy are chiefly felt in youth, +and hence the predominant mode of a poet's utterance will be determined +by what and where and amongst whom he was during that season. The kinds +of the various poems will therefore probably fall into natural sequence +rather after the dates of the youth of the writers than after the years +in which they were written. + +Wotton was better known in his day as a politician than as a poet, and +chiefly in ours as the subject of one of Izaak Walton's biographies. +Something of artistic instinct, rather than finish, is evident in his +verses. Here is the best and the best-known of the few poems recognized +as his: + + + THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE. + + How happy is he born and taught, + That serveth not another's will; + Whose armour is his honest thought, + And silly truth his highest skill; + + Whose passions not his masters are; + Whose soul is still prepared for death, + Untiéd to the world with care + Of prince's grace or vulgar breath; + + Who hath his life from humours freed; + Whose conscience is his strong retreat; + Whose state can neither flatterers feed, + Nor ruin make accusers great; + + Who envieth none whom chance doth raise + Or vice; who never understood + How swords give slighter wounds than praise. + Nor rules of state, but rules of good; + + Who God doth late and early pray + More of his grace than gifts to lend; + And entertains the harmless day + With a well-chosen book or friend. + + This man is free from servile bands + Of hope to rise, or fear to fall: + Lord of himself, though not of lands + And having nothing, yet hath all. + +Some of my readers will observe that in many places I have given a +reading different from that in the best-known copy of the poem. I have +followed a manuscript in the handwriting of Ben Jonson.[70] I cannot +tell whether Jonson has put the master's hand to the amateur's work, but +in every case I find his reading the best. + +Sir John Davies must have been about fifteen years younger than Sir Fulk +Grevill. He was born in 1570, was bred a barrister, and rose to high +position through the favour of James I.--gained, it is said, by the poem +which the author called _Nosce Teipsum_,[71] but which is generally +entitled _On the Immortality of the Soul_, intending by _immortality_ the +spiritual nature of the soul, resulting in continuity of existence. It is +a wonderful instance of what can be done for metaphysics in verse, and by +means of imagination or poetic embodiment generally. Argumentation cannot +of course naturally belong to the region of poetry, however well it may +comport itself when there naturalized; and consequently, although there +are most poetic no less than profound passages in the treatise, a light +scruple arises whether its constituent matter can properly be called +poetry. At all events, however, certain of the more prosaic measures and +stanzas lend themselves readily, and with much favour, to some of the +more complex of logical necessities. And it must be remembered that in +human speech, as in the human mind, there are no absolute divisions: +power shades off into feeling; and the driest logic may find the heroic +couplet render it good service. + +Sir John Davies's treatise is not only far more poetic in image and +utterance than that of Lord Brooke, but is far more clear in argument and +firm in expression as well. Here is a fine invocation: + + O Light, which mak'st the light which makes the day! + Which sett'st the eye without, and mind within; + Lighten my spirit with one clear heavenly ray, + Which now to view itself doth first begin. + + * * * * * + + Thou, like the sun, dost, with an equal ray, + Into the palace and the cottage shine; + And show'st the soul both to the clerk and lay, _learned and + By the clear lamp of th' oracle divine. [unlearned_ + +He is puzzled enough to get the theology of his time into harmony with +his philosophy, and I cannot say that he is always triumphant in the +attempt; but here at least is good argument in justification of the +freedom of man to sin. + + If by His word he had the current stayed + Of Adam's will, which was by nature free, + It had been one as if his word had said, + "I will henceforth that Man no Man shall be." + + * * * * * + + For what is Man without a moving mind, + Which hath a judging wit, and choosing will? + Now, if God's pow'r should her election bind, + Her motions then would cease, and stand all still. + + * * * * * + + So that if Man would be unvariable, + He must be God, or like a rock or tree; + For ev'n the perfect angels were not stable, + But had a fall more desperate than we. + +The poem contains much excellent argument in mental science as well as in +religion and metaphysics; but with that department I have nothing to do. + +I shall now give an outlook from the highest peak of the poem--to any who +are willing to take the trouble necessary for seeing what another would +show them. + +The section from which I have gathered the following stanzas is devoted +to the more immediate proof of the soul's immortality. + + Her only end is never-ending bliss, + Which is the eternal face of God to see, + Who last of ends and first of causes is; + And to do this, she must eternal be. + + Again, how can she but immortal be, + When with the motions of both will and wit, + She still aspireth to eternity, + And never rests till she attains to it? + + Water in conduit-pipes can rise no higher + Than the well-head from whence it first doth spring; + Then since to eternal God she doth aspire, + She cannot but be an eternal thing. + + At first her mother-earth she holdeth dear, + And doth embrace the world and worldly things; + She flies close by the ground, and hovers here, + And mounts not up with her celestial wings. + + Yet under heaven she cannot light on ought + That with her heavenly nature doth agree + She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought, + She cannot in this world contented be. + + For who did ever yet, in honour, wealth, + Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find? + Whoever ceased to wish, when he had health + Or having wisdom, was not vexed in mind + + Then as a bee, which among weeds doth fall, + Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay-- + She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all, + But, pleased with none, doth rise, and soar away; + + So, when the soul finds here no true content, + And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take, + She doth return from whence she first was sent, + And flies to him that first her wings did make. + + Wit, seeking truth, from cause to cause ascends, + And never rests till it the first attain; + Will, seeking good, finds many middle ends, + But never stays till it the last do gain. + + Now God the truth, and first of causes is; + God is the last good end, which lasteth still; + Being Alpha and Omega named for this: + Alpha to wit, Omega to the will. + + Since then her heavenly kind she doth display + In that to God she doth directly move, + And on no mortal thing can make her stay, + She cannot be from hence, but from above. + +One passage more, the conclusion and practical summing up of the whole: + + O ignorant poor man! what dost thou bear, + Locked up within the casket of thy breast? + What jewels and what riches hast thou there! + What heavenly treasure in so weak a chest! + + Think of her worth, and think that God did mean + This worthy mind should worthy things embrace: + Blot not her beauties with thy thoughts unclean, + Nor her dishonour with thy passion base. + + Kill not her quickening power with surfeitings; + Mar not her sense with sensuality; + Cast not her serious wit on idle things; + Make not her free-will slave to vanity. + + And when thou think'st of her eternity, + Think not that death against our nature is; + Think it a birth; and when thou go'st to die, + Sing like a swan, as if thou went'st to bliss. + + And if thou, like a child, didst fear before, + Being in the dark where thou didst nothing see; + Now I have brought thee torch-light, fear no more; + Now when thou diest thou canst not hood-wink'd be. + + And thou, my soul, which turn'st with curious eye + To view the beams of thine own form divine, + Know, that thou canst know nothing perfectly, + While thou art clouded with this flesh of mine. + + Take heed of over-weening, and compare + Thy peacock's feet with thy gay peacock's train: + Study the best and highest things that are, + But of thyself an humble thought retain. + + Cast down thyself, and only strive to raise + The story of thy Maker's sacred name: + Use all thy powers that blessed Power to praise, + Which gives the power to be, and use the same. + +In looking back over our path from the point we have now reached, the +first thought that suggests itself is--How much the reflective has +supplanted the emotional! I do not mean for a moment that the earliest +poems were without thought, or that the latest are without emotion; but +in the former there is more of the skin, as it were--in the latter, more +of the bones of worship; not that in the one the worship is but +skin-deep, or that in the other the bones are dry. + +To look at the change a little more closely: we find in the earliest +time, feeling working on historic fact and on what was received as such, +and the result simple aspiration after goodness. The next stage is good +_doctrine_--I use the word, as St. Paul uses it, for instruction in +righteousness--chiefly by means of allegory, all attempts at analysis +being made through personification of qualities. Here the general form is +frequently more poetic than the matter. After this we have a period +principally of imitation, sometimes good, sometimes indifferent. Next, +with the Reformation and the revival of literature together, come more of +art and more of philosophy, to the detriment of the lyrical expression. +People cannot think and sing: they can only feel and sing. But the +philosophy goes farther in this direction, even to the putting in +abeyance of that from which song takes its rise,--namely, feeling itself. +As to the former, amongst the verse of the period I have given, there is +hardly anything to be called song but Sir Philip Sidney's Psalms, and for +them we are more indebted to King David than to Sir Philip. As to the +latter, even in the case of that most mournful poem of the Countess of +Pembroke, it is, to quite an unhealthy degree, occupied with the attempt +to work upon her own feelings by the contemplation of them, instead of +with the utterance of those aroused by the contemplation of truth. In her +case the metaphysics have begun to prey upon and consume the emotions. +Besides, that age was essentially a dramatic age, as even its command of +language, especially as shown in the pranks it plays with it, would +almost indicate; and the dramatic impulse is less favourable, though not +at all opposed, to lyrical utterance. In the cases of Sir Fulk Grevill +and Sir John Davies, the feeling is assuredly profound; but in form and +expression the philosophy has quite the upper hand. + +We must not therefore suppose, however, that the cause of religious +poetry has been a losing one. The last wave must sink that the next may +rise, and the whole tide flow shorewards. The man must awake through all +his soul, all his strength, all his mind, that he may worship God in +unity, in the one harmonious utterance of his being: his heart must be +united to fear his name. And for this final perfection of the individual +the race must awake. At this season and that season, this power or that +power must be chiefly developed in her elect; and for its sake the growth +of others must for a season be delayed. But the next generation will +inherit all that has gone before; and its elect, if they be themselves +pure in heart, and individual, that is original, in mind, will, more or +less thoroughly, embody the result, in subservience to some new +development, essential in its turn to further progress. Even the fallow +times, which we are so ready to call barren, must have their share in +working the one needful work. They may be to the nation that which +sickness so often is to the man--a time of refreshing from the Lord. A +nation's life does not lie in its utterance any more than in the things +which it possesses: it lies in its action. The utterance is a result, and +therefore a sign, of life; but there may be life without any _such_ sign. +To do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God, is the highest +life of a nation as of an individual; and when the time for speech comes, +it will be such life alone that causes the speech to be strong at once +and harmonious. When at last there are not ten righteous men in Sodom, +Sodom can neither think, act, nor say, and her destruction is at hand. + +While the wave of the dramatic was sinking, the wave of the lyric was +growing in force and rising in height. Especially as regards religious +poetry we are as yet only approaching the lyrical jubilee. Fact and +faith, self-consciousness and metaphysics, all are needful to the lyric +of love. Modesty and art find their grandest, simplest labour in rightly +subordinating each of those to the others. How could we have a George +Herbert without metaphysics? In those poems I have just given, the way of +metaphysics was prepared for him. That which overcolours one age to the +injury of its harmony, will, in the next or the next, fall into its own +place in the seven-chorded rainbow of truth. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +DR. DONNE. + + +We now come to Dr. John Donne, a man of justly great respect and +authority, who, born in the year 1573, the fifteenth of Queen Elizabeth, +died Dean of St. Paul's in the year 1636. But, although even Ben Jonson +addresses him as "the delight of Phoebus and each Muse," we are too far +beyond the power of his social presence and the influence of his public +utterances to feel that admiration of his poems which was so largely +expressed during his lifetime. Of many of those that were written in his +youth, Izaak Walton says Dr. Donne "wished that his own eyes had +witnessed their funerals." Faulty as they are, however, they are not the +less the work of a great and earnest man. + +Bred to the law, but never having practised it, he lost his secretaryship +to the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere through the revenge of Sir George More, +whose daughter Donne had married in secret because of her father's +opposition. Dependent thereafter for years on the generous kindness of +unrelated friends, he yet for conscience' sake refused to take orders +when a good living was offered him; and it was only after prolonged +thought that he yielded to the importunity of King James, who was so +convinced of his surpassing fitness for the church that he would speed +him towards no other goal. When at length he dared hope that God might +have called him to the high office, never man gave himself to its duties +with more of whole-heartedness and devotion, and none have proved +themselves more clean of the sacrilege of serving at the altar for the +sake of the things offered thereon. + +He is represented by Dr. Johnson as one of the chief examples of that +school of poets called by himself the _metaphysical_, an epithet which, +as a definition, is almost false. True it is that Donne and his followers +were always ready to deal with metaphysical subjects, but it was from +their mode, and not their subjects, that Dr. Johnson classed them. What +this mode was we shall see presently, for I shall be justified in setting +forth its strangeness, even absurdity, by the fact that Dr. Donne was the +dear friend of George Herbert, and had much to do with the formation of +his poetic habits. Just twenty years older than Herbert, and the valued +and intimate friend of his mother, Donne was in precisely that relation +of age and circumstance to influence the other in the highest degree. + +The central thought of Dr. Donne is nearly sure to be just: the +subordinate thoughts by means of which he unfolds it are often grotesque, +and so wildly associated as to remind one of the lawlessness of a dream, +wherein mere suggestion without choice or fitness rules the sequence. As +some of the writers of whom I have last spoken would play with words, Dr. +Donne would sport with ideas, and with the visual images or embodiments +of them. Certainly in his case much knowledge reveals itself in the +association of his ideas, and great facility in the management and +utterance of them. True likewise, he says nothing unrelated to the main +idea of the poem; but not the less certainly does the whole resemble the +speech of a child of active imagination, to whom judgment as to the +character of his suggestions is impossible, his taste being equally +gratified with a lovely image and a brilliant absurdity: a butterfly and +a shining potsherd are to him similarly desirable. Whatever wild thing +starts from the thicket of thought, all is worthy game to the hunting +intellect of Dr. Donne, and is followed without question of tone, +keeping, or harmony. In his play with words, Sir Philip Sidney kept good +heed that even that should serve the end in view; in his play with ideas, +Dr. John Donne, so far from serving the end, sometimes obscures it almost +hopelessly: the hart escapes while he follows the squirrels and weasels +and bats. It is not surprising that, their author being so inartistic +with regard to their object, his verses themselves should be harsh and +unmusical beyond the worst that one would imagine fit to be called verse. +He enjoys the unenviable distinction of having no rival in ruggedness of +metric movement and associated sounds. This is clearly the result of +indifference; an indifference, however, which grows very strange to us +when we find that he _can_ write a lovely verse and even an exquisite +stanza. + +Greatly for its own sake, partly for the sake of illustration, I quote a +poem containing at once his best and his worst, the result being such an +incongruity that we wonder whether it might not be called his best _and_ +his worst, because we cannot determine which. He calls it _Hymn to God, +my God, in my Sickness_. The first stanza is worthy of George Herbert in +his best mood. + + Since I am coming to that holy room, + Where with the choir of saints for evermore + I shall be made thy music, as I come + I tune the instrument here at the door, + And what I must do then, think here before. + +To recognize its beauty, leaving aside the depth and truth of the phrase, +"Where I shall be made thy music," we must recall the custom of those +days to send out for "a noise of musicians." Hence he imagines that he +has been summoned as one of a band already gone in to play before the +king of "The High Countries:" he is now at the door, where he is +listening to catch the tone, that he may have his instrument tuned and +ready before he enters. But with what a jar the next stanza breaks on +heart, mind, and ear! + + Whilst my physicians by their love are grown + Cosmographers, and I[72] their map, who lie + Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown + That this is my south-west discovery, + _Per fretum febris_--by these straits to die;-- + +Here, in the midst of comparing himself to a map, and his physicians to +cosmographers consulting the map, he changes without warning into a +navigator whom they are trying to follow upon the map as he passes +through certain straits--namely, those of the fever--towards his +south-west discovery, Death. Grotesque as this is, the absurdity deepens +in the end of the next stanza by a return to the former idea. He is +alternately a map and a man sailing on the map of himself. But the first +half of the stanza is lovely: my reader must remember that the region of +the West was at that time the Land of Promise to England. + + I joy that in these straits I see my West; + For though those currents yield return to none, + What shall my West hurt me? As west and east + In all flat maps (and I am one) are one, + So death doth touch the resurrection. + +It is hardly worth while, except for the strangeness of the phenomenon, +to spend any time in elucidating this. Once more a map, he is that of the +two hemispheres, in which the east of the one touches the west of the +other. Could anything be much more unmusical than the line, "In all flat +maps (and I am one) are one"? But the next stanza is worse. + + Is the Pacific sea my home? Or are + The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem? + Anvan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar? + All straits, and none but straits are ways to them, + Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Sem. + +The meaning of the stanza is this: there is no earthly home: all these +places are only straits that lead home, just as they themselves cannot be +reached but through straits. + +Let my reader now forget all but the first stanza, and take it along with +the following, the last two: + + We think that Paradise and Calvary, + Christ's cross and Adam's tree, stood in one place: + Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me; + As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face, + May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace. + + So, in his purple wrapped, receive me, Lord; + By these his thorns give me his other crown; + And as to others' souls I preached thy word, + Be this my text, my sermon to mine own: + _Therefore, that he may raise, the Lord throws down._ + +Surely these are very fine, especially the middle verse of the former and +the first verse of the latter stanza. The three stanzas together make us +lovingly regret that Dr. Donne should have ridden his Pegasus over quarry +and housetop, instead of teaching him his paces. + +The next I quote is artistic throughout. Perhaps the fact, of which we +are informed by Izaak Walton, "that he caused it to be set to a grave and +solemn tune, and to be often sung to the organ by the choristers of St. +Paul's church in his own hearing, especially at the evening service," may +have something to do with its degree of perfection. There is no sign of +his usual haste about it. It is even elaborately rhymed after Norman +fashion, the rhymes in each stanza being consonant with the rhymes in +every stanza. + + + A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. + + Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, + Which was my sin, though it were done before?[73] + Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,[74] + And do run still, though still I do deplore?-- + When thou hast done, thou hast not done; + For I have more. + + Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won + Others to sin, and made my sins their door?[75] + Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun + A year or two, but wallowed in a score?-- + When thou hast done, thou hast not done; + For I have more. + + I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun + My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; + But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son + Shall shine, as he shines now and heretofore; + And having done that, thou hast done: + I fear no more. + +In those days even a pun might be a serious thing: witness the play in +the last stanza on the words _son_ and _sun_--not a mere pun, for the Son +of the Father is the Sun of Righteousness: he is Life _and_ Light. + +What the Doctor himself says concerning the hymn, appears to me not only +interesting but of practical value. He "did occasionally say to a friend, +'The words of this hymn have restored to me the same thoughts of joy that +possessed my soul in my sickness, when I composed it.'" What a help it +would be to many, if in their more gloomy times they would but recall the +visions of truth they had, and were assured of, in better moments! + +Here is a somewhat strange hymn, which yet possesses, rightly understood, +a real grandeur: + + + A HYMN TO CHRIST + + _At the Author's last going into Germany_.[76] + + In what torn ship soever I embark, + That ship shall be my emblem of thy ark; + What sea soever swallow me, that flood + Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood. + Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise + Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes, + Which, though they turn away sometimes-- + They never will despise. + + I sacrifice this island unto thee, + And all whom I love here and who love me: + When I have put this flood 'twixt them and me, + Put thou thy blood betwixt my sins and thee. + As the tree's sap doth seek the root below + In winter, in my winter[77] now I go + Where none but thee, the eternal root + Of true love, I may know. + + Nor thou, nor thy religion, dost control + The amorousness of an harmonious soul; + But thou wouldst have that love thyself: as thou + Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now. + Thou lov'st not, till from loving more thou free + My soul: who ever gives, takes liberty: + Oh, if thou car'st not whom I love, + Alas, thou lov'st not me! + + Seal then this bill of my divorce to all + On whom those fainter beams of love did fall; + Marry those loves, which in youth scattered be + On face, wit, hopes, (false mistresses), to thee. + Churches are best for prayer that have least light: + To see God only, I go out of sight; + And, to 'scape stormy days, I choose + An everlasting night + +To do justice to this poem, the reader must take some trouble to enter +into the poet's mood. + +It is in a measure distressing that, while I grant with all my heart the +claim of his "Muse's white sincerity," the taste in--I do not say +_of_--some of his best poems should be such that I will not present them. + +Out of twenty-three _Holy Sonnets_, every one of which, I should almost +say, possesses something remarkable, I choose three. Rhymed after the +true Petrarchian fashion, their rhythm is often as bad as it can be to be +called rhythm at all. Yet these are very fine. + + Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay? + Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste; + I run to death, and death meets me as fast, + And all my pleasures are like yesterday. + I dare not move my dim eyes any way, + Despair behind, and death before doth cast + Such terror; and my feeble flesh doth waste + By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh. + Only them art above, and when towards thee + By thy leave I can look, I rise again; + But our old subtle foe so tempteth me, + That not one hour myself I can sustain: + Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art, + And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart. + + If faithful souls be alike glorified + As angels, then my father's soul doth see, + And adds this even to full felicity, + That valiantly I hell's wide mouth o'erstride: + But if our minds to these souls be descried + By circumstances and by signs that be + Apparent in us--not immediately[78]-- + How shall my mind's white truth by them be tried? + They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn, + And, style blasphemous, conjurors to call + On Jesu's name, and pharisaical + Dissemblers feign devotiön. Then turn, + O pensive soul, to God; for he knows best + Thy grief, for he put it into my breast. + + Death, be not proud, though some have calléd thee + Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; + For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, + Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. + From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be, + Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow; + And soonest[79] our best men with thee do go, + Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery! + Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, + And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; + And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, + And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st[80] thou then? + One short sleep past, we wake eternally, + And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die. + +In a poem called _The Cross_, full of fantastic conceits, we find the +following remarkable lines, embodying the profoundest truth. + + As perchance carvers do not faces make, + But that away, which hid them there, do take: + Let crosses so take what hid Christ in thee, + And be his image, or not his, but he. + +One more, and we shall take our leave of Dr. Donne. It is called a +fragment; but it seems to me complete. It will serve as a specimen of his +best and at the same time of his most characteristic mode of presenting +fine thoughts grotesquely attired. + + + RESURRECTION. + + Sleep, sleep, old sun; thou canst not have re-past[81] + As yet the wound thou took'st on Friday last. + Sleep then, and rest: the world may bear thy stay; + A better sun rose before thee to-day; + Who, not content to enlighten all that dwell + On the earth's face as thou, enlightened hell, + And made the dark fires languish in that vale, + As at thy presence here our fires grow pale; + Whose body, having walked on earth and now + Hastening to heaven, would, that he might allow + Himself unto all stations and fill all, + For these three days become a mineral. + He was all gold when he lay down, but rose + All tincture; and doth not alone dispose + Leaden and iron wills to good, but is + Of power to make even sinful flesh like his. + Had one of those, whose credulous piety + Thought that a soul one might discern and see + Go from a body, at this sepulchre been, + And issuing from the sheet this body seen, + He would have justly thought this body a soul, + If not of any man, yet of the whole. + +What a strange mode of saying that he is our head, the captain of our +salvation, the perfect humanity in which our life is hid! Yet it has its +dignity. When one has got over the oddity of these last six lines, the +figure contained in them shows itself almost grand. + +As an individual specimen of the grotesque form holding a fine sense, +regard for a moment the words, + + He was all gold when he lay down, but rose + All tincture; + +which means, that, entirely good when he died, he was something yet +greater when he rose, for he had gained the power of making others good: +the _tincture_ intended here was a substance whose touch would turn the +basest metal into gold. + +Through his poems are scattered many fine passages; but not even his +large influence on the better poets who followed is sufficient to justify +our listening to him longer now. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +BISHOP HALL AND GEORGE SANDYS. + + +Joseph Hall, born in 1574, a year after Dr. Donne, bishop, first of +Exeter, next of Norwich, is best known by his satires. It is not for such +that I can mention him: the most honest satire can claim no place amongst +religious poems. It is doubtful if satire ever did any good. Its very +language is that of the half-brute from which it is well named. + +Here are three poems, however, which the bishop wrote for his choir. + + + ANTHEM FOR THE CATHEDRAL OF EXETER. + + Lord, what am I? A worm, dust, vapour, nothing! + What is my life? A dream, a daily dying! + What is my flesh? My soul's uneasy clothing! + What is my time? A minute ever flying: + My time, my flesh, my life, and I, + What are we, Lord, but vanity? + + Where am I, Lord? Down in a vale of death. + What is my trade? Sin, my dear God offending; + My sport sin too, my stay a puff of breath. + What end of sin? Hell's horror never ending: + My way, my trade, sport, stay, and place, + Help to make up my doleful case. + + Lord, what art thou? Pure life, power, beauty, bliss. + Where dwell'st thou? Up above in perfect light. + What is thy time? Eternity it is. + What state? Attendance of each glorious sprite: + Thyself, thy place, thy days, thy state + Pass all the thoughts of powers create. + + How shall I reach thee, Lord? Oh, soar above, + Ambitious soul. But which way should I fly? + Thou, Lord, art way and end. What wings have I? + Aspiring thoughts--of faith, of hope, of love: + Oh, let these wings, that way alone + Present me to thy blissful throne. + + + FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY. + + Immortal babe, who this dear day + Didst change thine heaven for our clay, + And didst with flesh thy Godhead veil, + Eternal Son of God, all hail! + + Shine, happy star! Ye angels, sing + Glory on high to heaven's king! + Run, shepherds, leave your nightly watch! + See heaven come down to Bethlehem's cratch! _manger._ + + Worship, ye sages of the east, + The king of gods in meanness drest! + O blessed maid, smile, and adore + The God thy womb and arms have bore! + + Star, angels, shepherds, and wise sages! + Thou virgin-glory of all ages! + Restored frame of heaven and earth! + Joy in your dear Redeemer's birth. + + * * * * * + + Leave, O my soul, this baser world below; + O leave this doleful dungeön of woe; + And soar aloft to that supernal rest + That maketh all the saints and angels blest: + Lo, there the Godhead's radiant throne, + Like to ten thousand suns in one! + + Lo, there thy Saviour dear, in glory dight, _dressed._ + Adored of all the powers of heavens bright! + Lo, where that head that bled with thorny wound, + Shines ever with celestÃal honour crowned! + That hand that held the scornful reed + Makes all the fiends infernal dread. + + That back and side that ran with bloody streams + Daunt angels' eyes with their majestic beams; + Those feet, once fastened to the cursed tree, + Trample on Death and Hell, in glorious glee. + Those lips, once drenched with gall, do make + With their dread doom the world to quake. + + Behold those joys thou never canst behold; + Those precious gates of pearl, those streets of gold, + Those streams of life, those trees of Paradise + That never can be seen by mortal eyes! + And when thou seest this state divine, + Think that it is or shall be thine. + + See there the happy troops of purest sprites + That live above in endless true delights! + And see where once thyself shalt rangéd be, + And look and long for immortality! + And now beforehand help to sing + Hallelujahs to heaven's king. + +Polished as these are in comparison to those of Dr. Donne, and fine, too, +as they are intrinsically, there are single phrases in his that are worth +them all--except, indeed, that one splendid line, + + Trample on Death and Hell in glorious glee. + +George Sandys, the son of an archbishop of York, and born in 1577, is +better known by his travels in the east than by his poetry. But his +version of the Psalms is in good and various verse, not unfrequently +graceful, sometimes fine. The following is not only in a popular rhythm, +but is neat and melodious as well. + + + PSALM XCII. + + Thou who art enthroned above, + Thou by whom we live and move, + O how sweet, how excellent + Is't with tongue and heart's consent, + Thankful hearts and joyful tongues, + To renown thy name in songs! + When the morning paints the skies, + When the sparkling stars arise, + Thy high favours to rehearse, + Thy firm faith, in grateful verse! + Take the lute and violin, + Let the solemn harp begin, + Instruments strung with ten strings, + While the silver cymbal rings. + From thy works my joy proceeds; + How I triumph in thy deeds! + Who thy wonders can express? + All thy thoughts are fathomless-- + Hid from men in knowledge blind, + Hid from fools to vice inclined. + Who that tyrant sin obey, + Though they spring like flowers in May-- + Parched with heat, and nipt with frost, + Soon shall fade, for ever lost. + Lord, thou art most great, most high; + Such from all eternity. + Perish shall thy enemies, + Rebels that against thee rise. + All who in their sins delight, + Shall be scattered by thy might + But thou shall exalt my horn + Like a youthful unicorn, + Fresh and fragrant odours shed + On thy crowned prophet's head. + I shall see my foes' defeat, + Shortly hear of their retreat; + But the just like palms shall flourish + Which the plains of Judah nourish, + Like tall cedars mounted on + Cloud-ascending Lebanon. + Plants set in thy court, below + Spread their roots, and upwards grow; + Fruit in their old age shall bring, + Ever fat and flourishing. + This God's justice celebrates: + He, my rock, injustice hates. + + + PSALM CXXIII. + + Thou mover of the rolling spheres, + I, through the glasses of my tears, + To thee my eyes erect. + As servants mark their master's hands, + As maids their mistress's commands, + And liberty expect, + + So we, depressed by enemies + And growing troubles, fix our eyes + On God, who sits on high; + Till he in mercy shall descend, + To give our miseries an end, + And turn our tears to joy. + + O save us, Lord, by all forlorn, + The subject of contempt and scorn: + Defend us from their pride + Who live in fluency and ease, + Who with our woes their malice please, + And miseries deride. + +Here is a part of the 66th Psalm, which makes a complete little song of +itself: + + Bless the Lord. His praise be sung + While an ear can hear a tongue. + He our feet establisheth; + He our souls redeems from death. + Lord, as silver purified, + Thou hast with affliction tried, + Thou hast driven into the net, + Burdens on our shoulders set. + Trod on by their horses' hooves, + Theirs whom pity never moves, + We through fire, with flames embraced, + We through raging floods have passed, + Yet by thy conducting hand, + Brought into a wealthy land. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A FEW OF THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS. + + +From the nature of their adopted mode, we cannot look for much poetry of +a devotional kind from the dramatists. That mode admitting of no +utterance personal to the author, and requiring the scope of a play to +bring out the intended truth, it is no wonder that, even in the dramas of +Shakspere, profound as is the teaching they contain, we should find +nothing immediately suitable to our purpose; while neither has he left +anything in other form approaching in kind what we seek. Ben Jonson, +however, born in 1574, who may be regarded as the sole representative of +learning in the class, has left, amongst a large number of small pieces, +three _Poems of Devotion_, whose merit may not indeed be great, but whose +feeling is, I think, genuine. Whatever were his faults, and they were not +few, hypocrisy was not one of them. His nature was fierce and honest. He +might boast, but he could not pretend. His oscillation between the +reformed and the Romish church can hardly have had other cause than a +vacillating conviction. It could not have served any prudential end that +we can see, to turn catholic in the reign of Elizabeth, while in prison +for killing in a duel a player who had challenged him. + + + THE SINNER'S SACRIFICE. + + 1.--TO THE HOLY TRINITY. + + O holy, blessed, glorious Trinity + Of persons, still one God in Unity, + The faithful man's believed mystery, + Help, help to lift + + Myself up to thee, harrowed, torn, and bruised + By sin and Satan, and my flesh misused. + As my heart lies--in pieces, all confused-- + O take my gift. + + All-gracious God, the sinner's sacrifice, + A broken heart, thou wert not wont despise, + But, 'bove the fat of rams or bulls, to prize + An offering meet + + For thy acceptance: Oh, behold me right, + And take compassion on my grievous plight! + What odour can be, than a heart contrite, + To thee more sweet? + + Eternal Father, God, who didst create + This All of nothing, gav'st it form and fate, + And breath'st into it life and light, with state + To worship thee! + + Eternal God the Son, who not deniedst + To take our nature, becam'st man, and diedst, + To pay our debts, upon thy cross, and criedst + _All's done in me!_ + + Eternal Spirit, God from both proceeding, + Father and Son--the Comforter, in breeding + Pure thoughts in man, with fiery zeal them feeding + For acts of grace! + + Increase those acts, O glorious Trinity + Of persons, still one God in Unity, + Till I attain the longed-for mystery + Of seeing your face, + + Beholding one in three, and three in one, + A Trinity, to shine in Union-- + The gladdest light, dark man can think upon-- + O grant it me, + + Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, you three, + All co-eternal in your majesty, + Distinct in persons, yet in unity + One God to see; + + My Maker, Saviour, and my Sanctifier, + To hear, to mediate,[82] sweeten my desire, + With grace, with love, with cherishing entire! + O then, how blest + + Among thy saints elected to abide, + And with thy angels placéd, side by side! + But in thy presence truly glorified, + Shall I there rest! + + + 2.--AN HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. + + Hear me, O God! + A broken heart + Is my best part: + Use still thy rod, + That I may prove + Therein thy love. + + If thou hadst not + Been stern to me, + But left me free, + I had forgot + Myself and thee. + + For sin's so sweet + As minds ill bent _that._ + Rarely repent + Until they meet + Their punishment. + + Who more can crave + Than thou hast done? + Thou gay'st a Son + + To free a slave, + First made of nought, + With all since bought. + + Sin, death, and hell + His glorious name + Quite overcame; + Yet I rebel, + And slight the same. + + But I'll come in + Before my loss + Me farther toss, + As sure to win + Under his cross. + + + 3.--AN HYMN ON THE NATIVITY OF MY SAVIOUR. + + I sing the birth was born to-night, + The author both of life and light; + The angels so did sound it. + And like the ravished shepherds said, + Who saw the light, and were afraid, + Yet searched, and true they found it. + + The Son of God, the eternal King, + That did us all salvation bring, + And freed the soul from danger; + He whom the whole world could not take, + The Word which heaven and earth did make, + Was now laid in a manger. + + The Father's wisdom willed it so; + The Son's obedience knew no _No;_ + Both wills were in one stature; + And, as that wisdom had decreed, + The Word was now made flesh indeed, + And took on him our nature. + + What comfort by him do we win, + Who made himself the price of sin, + To make us heirs of glory! + To see this babe, all innocence, + A martyr born in our defence!-- + Can man forget this story? + +Somewhat formal and artificial, no doubt; rugged at the same time, like +him who wrote them. When a man would utter that concerning which he has +only felt, not thought, he can express himself only in the forms he has +been taught, conventional or traditional. Let his powers be ever so much +developed in respect of other things, here, where he has not meditated, +he must understand as a child, think as a child, speak as a child. He can +as yet generate no sufficing or worthy form natural to himself. But the +utterance is not therefore untrue. There was no professional bias to +cause the stream of Ben Jonson's verses to flow in that channel. Indeed, +feeling without thought, and the consequent combination of impulse to +speak with lack of matter, is the cause of much of that common-place +utterance concerning things of religion which is so wearisome, but which +therefore it is not always fair to despise as cant. + +About the same age as Ben Jonson, though the date of his birth is +unknown, I now come to mention Thomas Heywood, a most voluminous writer +of plays, who wrote also a book, chiefly in verse, called _The Hierarchy +of the Blessed Angels_, a strange work, in which, amongst much that is +far from poetic, occur the following remarkable metaphysico-religious +verses. He had strong Platonic tendencies, interesting himself chiefly +however in those questions afterwards pursued by Dr. Henry More, +concerning witches and such like subjects, which may be called the shadow +of Platonism. + + I have wandered like a sheep that's lost, + To find Thee out in every coast: + _Without_ I have long seeking bin, _been._ + Whilst thou, the while, abid'st _within_. + Through every broad street and strait lane + Of this world's city, but in vain, + I have enquired. The reason why? + I sought thee ill: for how could I + Find thee _abroad_, when thou, mean space, + Hadst made _within_ thy dwelling-place? + + I sent my messengers about, + To try if they could find thee out; + But all was to no purpose still, + Because indeed they sought thee ill: + For how could they discover thee + That saw not when thou entered'st me? + + Mine eyes could tell me? If he were, + Not coloured, sure he came not there. + If not by sound, my ears could say + He doubtless did not pass my way. + My nose could nothing of him tell, + Because my God he did not smell. + None such I relished, said my taste, + And therefore me he never passed. + My feeling told me that none such + There entered, for he none did touch. + Resolved by them how should I be, + Since none of all these are in thee, + + In thee, my God? Thou hast no hue + That man's frail optic sense can view; + No sound the ear hears; odour none + The smell attracts; all taste is gone + At thy appearance; where doth fail + A body, how can touch prevail? + What even the brute beasts comprehend-- + To think thee such, I should offend. + + Yet when I seek my God, I enquire + For light than sun and moon much higher, + More clear and splendrous, 'bove all light + Which the eye receives not, 'tis so bright. + I seek a voice beyond degree + Of all melodious harmony: + The ear conceives it not; a smell + Which doth all other scents excel: + No flower so sweet, no myrrh, no nard, + Or aloës, with it compared; + Of which the brain not sensible is. + I seek a sweetness--such a bliss + As hath all other sweets surpassed, + And never palate yet could taste. + I seek that to contain and hold + No touch can feel, no embrace enfold. + + So far this light the rays extends, + As that no place it comprehends. + So deep this sound, that though it speak + It cannot by a sense so weak + Be entertained. A redolent grace + The air blows not from place to place. + A pleasant taste, of that delight + It doth confound all appetite. + A strict embrace, not felt, yet leaves + That virtue, where it takes it cleaves. + This light, this sound, this savouring grace, + This tasteful sweet, this strict embrace, + No place contains, no eye can see, + My God is, and there's none but he. + +Very remarkable verses from a dramatist! They indicate substratum enough +for any art if only the art be there. Even those who cannot enter into +the philosophy of them, which ranks him among the mystics of whom I have +yet to speak, will understand a good deal of it symbolically: for how +could he be expected to keep his poetry and his philosophy distinct when +of themselves they were so ready to run into one; or in verse to define +carefully betwixt degree and kind, when kinds themselves may rise by +degrees? To distinguish without separating; to be able to see that what +in their effects upon us are quite different, may yet be a grand flight +of ascending steps, "to stop--no record hath told where," belongs to the +philosopher who is not born mutilated, but is a poet as well. + +John Fletcher, likewise a dramatist, the author of the following poem, +was two years younger than Ben Jonson. It is, so far as I am aware, the +sole non-dramatic voice he has left behind him. Its opening is an +indignant apostrophe to certain men of pretended science, who in his time +were much consulted--the Astrologers. + + + UPON AN HONEST MAN'S FORTUNE. + + You that can look through heaven, and tell the stars; + Observe their kind conjunctions, and their wars; + Find out new lights, and give them where you please-- + To those men honours, pleasures, to those ease; + You that are God's surveyors, and can show + How far, and when, and why the wind doth blow; + Know all the charges of the dreadful thunder, + And when it will shoot over, or fall under; + Tell me--by all your art I conjure ye-- + Yes, and by truth--what shall become of me. + Find out my star, if each one, as you say, + Have his peculiar angel, and his way; + Observe my fate; next fall into your dreams; + Sweep clean your houses, and new-line your schemes;[83] + Then say your worst. Or have I none at all? + Or is it burnt out lately? or did fall? + Or am I poor? not able? no full flame? + My star, like me, unworthy of a name? + Is it your art can only work on those + That deal with dangers, dignities, and clothes, + With love, or new opinions? You all lie: + A fishwife hath a fate, and so have I-- + But far above your finding. He that gives, + Out of his providence, to all that lives-- + And no man knows his treasure, no, not you;-- + + * * * * * + + He that made all the stars you daily read, + And from them filch a knowledge how to feed, + Hath hid this from you. Your conjectures all + Are drunken things, not how, but when they fall: + Man is his own star, and the soul that can + Render an honest, and a perfect man, + Commands all light, all influence, all fate; + Nothing to him falls early, or too late. + Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, + Our fatal shadows that walk by us still; + And when the stars are labouring, we believe + It is not that they govern, but they grieve + For stubborn ignorance. All things that are + Made for our general uses, are at war-- + Even we among ourselves; and from the strife + Your first unlike opinions got a life. + Oh man! thou image of thy Maker's good, + What canst thou fear, when breathed into thy blood + His spirit is that built thee? What dull sense + Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence? + Who made the morning, and who placed the light + Guide to thy labours? Who called up the night, + And bid her fall upon thee like sweet showers + In hollow murmurs, to lock up thy powers? + Who gave thee knowledge? Who so trusted thee, + To let thee grow so near himself, the Tree?[84] + Must he then be distrusted? Shall his frame + Discourse with him why thus and thus I am? + He made the angels thine, thy fellows all; + Nay, even thy servants, when devotions call. + Oh! canst thou be so stupid then, so dim, + To seek a saving influence, and lose him? + Can stars protect thee? Or can poverty, + Which is the light to heaven, put out his eye? + He is my star; in him all truth I find, + All influence, all fate; and when my mind + Is furnished with his fulness, my poor story + Shall outlive all their age, and all their glory. + The hand of danger cannot fall amiss + When I know what, and in whose power it is; + Nor want, the cause[85] of man, shall make me groan: + A holy hermit is a mind alone.[86] + Doth not experience teach us, all we can, + To work ourselves into a glorious man? + + * * * * * + + My mistress then be knowledge and fair truth; + So I enjoy all beauty and all youth! + + * * * * * + + Affliction, when I know it, is but this-- + A deep alloy, whereby man tougher is + To bear the hammer; and the deeper still, + We still arise more image of his will; + Sickness, an humorous cloud 'twixt us and light; + And death, at longest, but another night, + Man is his own star, and that soul that can + Be honest, is the only perfect man. + +There is a tone of contempt in the verses which is not religious; but +they express a true philosophy and a triumph of faith in God. The word +_honest_ is here equivalent to _true_. + +I am not certain whether I may not now be calling up a singer whose song +will appear hardly to justify his presence in the choir. But its teaching +is of high import, namely, of content and cheerfulness and courage, and +being both worthy and melodious, it gravitates heavenward. The singer is +yet another dramatist: I presume him to be Thomas Dekker. I cannot be +certain, because others were concerned with him in the writing of the +drama from which I take it. He it is who, in an often-quoted passage, +styles our Lord "The first true gentleman that ever breathed;" just as +Chaucer, in a poem I have given, calls him "The first stock-father of +gentleness." + +We may call the little lyric + + + A SONG OF LABOUR. + + Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? + Oh, sweet content! + Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed? + Oh, punishment! + Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed + To add to golden numbers, golden numbers? + Oh, sweet content! + _Chorus_.--Work apace, apace, apace, apace; + Honest labour bears a lovely face. + + Canst drink the waters of the crispéd spring? + Oh, sweet content! + Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears? + Oh, punishment! + Then he that patiently want's burden bears, + No burden bears, but is a king, a king! + Oh, sweet content! + _Chorus_.--Work apace, apace, apace, apace; + Honest labour bears a lovely face. + +It is a song of the poor in spirit, whose is the kingdom of heaven. But +if my co-listeners prefer, we will call it the voice, not of one who +sings in the choir, but of one who "tunes his instrument at the door." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +SIR JOHN BEAUMONT AND DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. + + +Sir John Beaumont, born in 1582, elder brother to the dramatist who wrote +along with Fletcher, has left amongst his poems a few fine religious +ones. From them I choose the following: + + + OF THE EPIPHANY. + + Fair eastern star, that art ordained to run + Before the sages, to the rising sun, + Here cease thy course, and wonder that the cloud + Of this poor stable can thy Maker shroud: + Ye, heavenly bodies, glory to be bright, + And are esteemed as ye are rich in light; + But here on earth is taught a different way, + Since under this low roof the highest lay. + Jerusalem erects her stately towers, + Displays her windows, and adorns her bowers; + Yet there thou must not cast a trembling spark: + Let Herod's palace still continue dark; + Each school and synagogue thy force repels, + There Pride, enthroned in misty errors, dwells; + The temple, where the priests maintain their choir, + Shall taste no beam of thy celestial fire, + While this weak cottage all thy splendour takes: + A joyful gate of every chink it makes. + Here shines no golden roof, no ivory stair, + No king exalted in a stately chair, + Girt with attendants, or by heralds styled, + But straw and hay enwrap a speechless child; + Yet Sabae's lords before this babe unfold + Their treasures, offering incense, myrrh, and gold. + The crib becomes an altar: therefore dies + No ox nor sheep; for in their fodder lies + The Prince of Peace, who, thankful for his bed, + Destroys those rites in which their blood was shed: + The quintessence of earth he takes and[87] fees, + And precious gums distilled from weeping trees; + Rich metals and sweet odours now declare + The glorious blessings which his laws prepare, + To clear us from the base and loathsome flood + Of sense, and make us fit for angels' food, + Who lift to God for us the holy smoke + Of fervent prayers with which we him invoke, + And try our actions in that searching fire, + By which the seraphims our lips inspire: + No muddy dross pure minerals shall infect, + We shall exhale our vapours up direct: + No storms shall cross, nor glittering lights deface + Perpetual sighs which seek a happy place. + +The creatures, no longer offered on his altar, standing around the Prince +of Life, to whom they have given a bed, is a lovely idea. The end is +hardly worthy of the rest, though there is fine thought involved in it. + +The following contains an utterance of personal experience, the truth of +which will be recognized by all to whom heavenly aspiration and needful +disappointment are not unknown. + + + IN DESOLATION. + + O thou who sweetly bend'st my stubborn will, + Who send'st thy stripes to teach and not to kill! + Thy cheerful face from me no longer hide; + Withdraw these clouds, the scourges of my pride; + I sink to hell, if I be lower thrown: + I see what man is, being left alone. + My substance, which from nothing did begin, + Is worse than nothing by the weight of sin: + I see myself in such a wretched state + As neither thoughts conceive, nor words relate. + How great a distance parts us! for in thee + Is endless good, and boundless ill in me. + All creatures prove me abject, but how low + Thou only know'st, and teachest me to know. + To paint this baseness, nature is too base; + This darkness yields not but to beams of grace. + Where shall I then this piercing splendour find? + Or found, how shall it guide me, being blind? + Grace is a taste of bliss, a glorious gift, + Which can the soul to heavenly comforts lift: + It will not shine to me, whose mind is drowned + In sorrows, and with worldly troubles bound; + It will not deign within that house to dwell, + Where dryness reigns, and proud distractions swell. + Perhaps it sought me in those lightsome days + Of my first fervour, when few winds did raise + The waves, and ere they could full strength obtain, + Some whispering gale straight charmed them down again; + When all seemed calm, and yet the Virgin's child + On my devotions in his manger smiled; + While then I simply walked, nor heed could take + Of complacence, that sly, deceitful snake; + When yet I had not dangerously refused + So many calls to virtue, nor abused + The spring of life, which I so oft enjoyed, + Nor made so many good intentions void, + Deserving thus that grace should quite depart, + And dreadful hardness should possess my heart: + Yet in that state this only good I found, + That fewer spots did then my conscience wound; + Though who can censure whether, in those times, _judg_ + The want of feeling seemed the want of crimes? + If solid virtues dwell not but in pain, + I will not wish that golden age again + Because it flowed with sensible delights + Of heavenly things: God hath created nights + As well as days, to deck the varied globe; + Grace comes as oft clad in the dusky robe + Of desolation, as in white attire, + Which better fits the bright celestial choir. + Some in foul seasons perish through despair, + But more through boldness when the days are fair. + This then must be the medicine for my woes-- + To yield to what my Saviour shall dispose; + To glory in my baseness; to rejoice + In mine afflictions; to obey his voice, + As well when threatenings my defects reprove, + As when I cherished am with words of love; + To say to him, in every time and place, + "Withdraw thy comforts, so thou leave thy grace." + +Surely this is as genuine an utterance, whatever its merits as a +poem--and those I judge not small--as ever flowed from Christian heart! + +Chiefly for the sake of its beauty, I give the last passage of a poem +written upon occasion of the feasts of the Annunciation and the +Resurrection falling on the same day. + + Let faithful souls this double feast attend + In two processions. Let the first descend + The temple's stairs, and with a downcast eye + Upon the lowest pavement prostrate lie: + In creeping violets, white lilies, shine + Their humble thoughts and every pure design. + The other troop shall climb, with sacred heat, + The rich degrees of Solomon's bright seat: _steps_ + + In glowing roses fervent zeal they bear, + And in the azure flower-de-lis appear + Celestial contemplations, which aspire + Above the sky, up to the immortal choir. + +William Drummond of Hawthornden, a Scotchman, born in 1585, may almost be +looked upon as the harbinger of a fresh outburst of word-music. No doubt +all the great poets have now and then broken forth in lyrical jubilation. +Ponderous Ben Jonson himself, when he takes to song, will sing in the joy +of the very sound; but great men have always so much graver work to do, +that they comparatively seldom indulge in this kind of melody. Drummond +excels in madrigals, or canzonets--baby-odes or songs--which have more of +wing and less of thought than sonnets. Through the greater part of his +verse we hear a certain muffled tone of the sweetest, like the music that +ever threatens to break out clear from the brook, from the pines, from +the rain-shower,--never does break out clear, but remains a suggested, +etherially vanishing tone. His is a _voix voilée_, or veiled voice of +song. It is true that in the time we are now approaching far more +attention was paid not merely to the smoothness but to the melody of +verse than any except the great masters had paid before; but some are at +the door, who, not being great masters, yet do their inferior part nearly +as well as they their higher, uttering a music of marvellous and +individual sweetness, which no mere musical care could secure, but which +springs essentially from music in the thought gathering to itself musical +words in melodious division, and thus fashioning for itself a fitting +body. The melody of their verse is all their own--as original as the +greatest art-forms of the masters. Of Drummond, then, here are two +sonnets on the Nativity; the first spoken by the angels, the second by +the shepherds. + + + _The Angels_. + + Run, shepherds, run where Bethlehem blest appears. + We bring the best of news; be not dismayed: + A Saviour there is born more old than years, + Amidst heaven's rolling height this earth who stayed. + In a poor cottage inned, a virgin maid + A weakling did him bear, who all upbears; + There is he poorly swaddled, in manger laid, + To whom too narrow swaddlings are our spheres: + Run, shepherds, run, and solemnize his birth. + This is that night--no, day, grown great with bliss, + In which the power of Satan broken is: + In heaven be glory, peace unto the earth! + Thus singing, through the air the angels swam, + And cope of stars re-echoëd the same. + + + _The Shepherds_. + + O than the fairest day, thrice fairer night! + Night to best days, in which a sun doth rise + Of which that golden eye which clears the skies + Is but a sparkling ray, a shadow-light! + And blessed ye, in silly pastors' sight, _simple._ + Mild creatures, in whose warm[88] crib now lies + That heaven-sent youngling, holy-maid-born wight, + Midst, end, beginning of our prophecies! + Blest cottage that hath flowers in winter spread! + Though withered--blessed grass, that hath the grace + To deck and be a carpet to that place! + Thus sang, unto the sounds of oaten reed, + Before the babe, the shepherds bowed on knees; + And springs ran nectar, honey dropped from trees. + +No doubt there is a touch of the conventional in these. Especially in the +close of the last there is an attempt to glorify the true by the homage +of the false. But verses which make us feel the marvel afresh--the marvel +visible and credible by the depth of its heart of glory--make us at the +same time easily forget the discord in themselves. + +The following, not a sonnet, although it looks like one, measuring the +lawful fourteen lines, is the closing paragraph of a poem he calls _A +Hymn to the Fairest Fair_. + + O king, whose greatness none can comprehend, + Whose boundless goodness doth to all extend! + Light of all beauty! ocean without ground, + That standing flowest, giving dost abound! + Rich palace, and indweller ever blest, + Never not working, ever yet in rest! + What wit cannot conceive, words say of thee, + Here, where, as in a mirror, we but see + Shadows of shadows, atoms of thy might, + Still owly-eyed while staring on thy light, + Grant that, released from this earthly jail, + And freed of clouds which here our knowledge veil, + In heaven's high temples, where thy praises ring, + I may in sweeter notes hear angels sing. + +That is, "May I in heaven hear angels sing what wit cannot conceive +here." + +Drummond excels in nobility of speech, and especially in the fine line +and phrase, so justly but disproportionately prized in the present day. I +give an instance of each: + + Here do seraphim + Burn with immortal love; there cherubim + _With other noble people of the light_, + As eaglets in the sun, delight their sight. + + * * * * * + + Like to a lightning through the welkin hurled, + _That scores with flames the way_, and every eye + With terror dazzles as it swimmeth by. + +Here are six fine verses, in the heroic couplet, from _An Hymn of the +Resurrection_. + + So a small seed that in the earth lies hid + And dies--reviving bursts her cloddy side; + Adorned with yellow locks, of new is born, + And doth become a mother great with corn; + Of grains bring hundreds with it, which when old + Enrich the furrows with a sea of gold. + +But I must content myself now with a little madrigal, the only one fit +for my purpose. Those which would best support what I have said of his +music are not of the kind we want. Unfortunately, the end of this one is +not equal to the beginning. + + + CHANGE SHOULD BREED CHANGE. + + New doth the sun appear; + The mountains' snows decay; + Crowned with frail flowers comes forth the baby year. + My soul, time posts away; + And thou yet in that frost, + Which flower and fruit hath lost, + As if all here immortal were, dost stay! + For shame! thy powers awake; + Look to that heaven which never night makes black; + And there, at that immortal sun's bright rays, + Deck thee with flowers which fear not rage of days. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE BROTHERS FLETCHER. + + +I now come to make mention of two gifted brothers, Giles and Phineas +Fletcher, both clergymen, the sons of a clergyman and nephews to the +Bishop of Bristol, therefore the cousins of Fletcher the dramatist, a +poem by whom I have already given Giles, the eldest, is supposed to have +been born in 1588. From his poem _Christ's Victory and Triumph_, I select +three passages. + +To understand the first, it is necessary to explain that while Christ is +on earth a dispute between Justice and Mercy, such as is often +represented by the theologians, takes place in heaven. We must allow the +unsuitable fiction attributing distraction to the divine Unity, for the +sake of the words in which Mercy overthrows the arguments of Justice. For +the poet unintentionally nullifies the symbolism of the theologian, +representing Justice as defeated. He forgets that the grandest exercise +of justice is mercy. The confusion comes from the fancy that justice +means _vengeance upon sin_, and not _the doing of what is right_. Justice +can be at no strife with mercy, for not to do what is just would be most +unmerciful. + +Mercy first sums up the arguments Justice has been employing against her, +in the following stanza: + + He was but dust; why feared he not to fall? + And being fallen how can he hope to live? + Cannot the hand destroy him that made all? + Could he not take away as well as give? + Should man deprave, and should not God deprive? + Was it not all the world's deceiving spirit + (That, bladdered up with pride of his own merit, + Fell in his rise) that him of heaven did disinherit? + +To these she then proceeds to make reply: + + He was but dust: how could he stand before him? + And being fallen, why should he fear to die? + Cannot the hand that made him first, restore him? + Depraved of sin, should he deprivéd lie + Of grace? Can he not find infirmity + That gave him strength?--Unworthy the forsaking + He is, whoever weighs (without mistaking) + Or maker of the man or manner of his making.[89] + + Who shall thy temple incense any more, + Or to thy altar crown the sacrifice, + Or strew with idle flowers the hallowed floor? + Or what should prayer deck with herbs and spice, _why._ + Her vials breathing orisons of price, + If all must pay that which all cannot pay? + O first begin with me, and Mercy slay, + And thy thrice honoured Son, that now beneath doth stray. + + But if or he or I may live and speak, + And heaven can joy to see a sinner weep, + Oh! let not Justice' iron sceptre break + A heart already broke, that low doth creep, + And with prone humbless her feet's dust doth sweep. + Must all go by desert? Is nothing free? + Ah! if but those that only worthy be, + None should thee ever see! none should thee ever see! + + What hath man done that man shall not undo + Since God to him is grown so near akin? + Did his foe slay him? He shall slay his foe. + Hath he lost all? He all again shall win. + Is sin his master? He shall master sin. + Too hardy soul, with sin the field to try! + The only way to conquer was to fly; + But thus long death hath lived, and now death's self shall die. + + He is a path, if any be misled; + He is a robe, if any naked be; + If any chance to hunger, he is bread; + If any be a bondman, he is free; + If any be but weak, how strong is he! + To dead men life he is, to sick men health, + To blind men sight, and to the needy wealth; + A pleasure without loss, a treasure without stealth. + + Who can forget--never to be forgot-- + The time that all the world in slumber lies, + When like the stars the singing angels shot + To earth, and heaven awakéd all his eyes + To see another sun at midnight rise? + On earth was never sight of peril fame; _pareil: equal._ + For God before man like himself did frame, + But God himself now like a mortal man became. + + * * * * * + + The angels carolled loud their song of peace; + The cursed oracles were stricken dumb; + To see their Shepherd the poor shepherds press; + To see their King, the kingly Sophies come; + And them to guide unto his master's home, + A star comes dancing up the orient, + That springs for joy over the strawy tent, + Where gold, to make their prince a crown, they all present. + +No doubt there are here touches of execrable taste, such as the punning +trick with _man_ and _manners_, suggesting a false antithesis; or the +opposition of the words _deprave_ and _deprive_; but we have in them only +an instance of how the meretricious may co-exist with the lovely. The +passage is fine and powerful, notwithstanding its faults and obscurities. + +Here is another yet more beautiful: + + So down the silver streams of Eridan,[90] + On either side banked with a lily wall, + Whiter than both, rides the triumphant swan, + And sings his dirge, and prophesies his fall, + Diving into his watery funeral! + But Eridan to Cedron must submit + His flowery shore; nor can he envy it, + If, when Apollo sings, his swans do silent sit.[91] + + That heavenly voice I more delight to hear + Than gentle airs to breathe; or swelling waves + Against the sounding rocks their bosoms tear;[92] + Or whistling reeds that rutty[93] Jordan laves, + And with their verdure his white head embraves; _adorns._ + To chide the winds; or hiving bees that fly + About the laughing blossoms[94] of sallowy,[95] + Rocking asleep the idle grooms[96] that lazy lie. + + And yet how can I hear thee singing go, + When men, incensed with hate, thy death foreset? + Or else, why do I hear thee sighing so, + When thou, inflamed with love, their life dost get,[97] + That love and hate, and sighs and songs are met? + But thus, and only thus, thy love did crave + To send thee singing for us to thy grave, + While we sought thee to kill, and thou sought'st us to save. + + When I remember Christ our burden bears, + I look for glory, but find misery; + I look for joy, but find a sea of tears; + I look that we should live, and find him die; + I look for angels' songs, and hear him cry: + Thus what I look, I cannot find so well; + Or rather, what I find I cannot tell, + These banks so narrow are, those streams so highly swell. + +We would gladly eliminate the few common-place allusions; but we must +take them with the rest of the passage. Besides far higher merits, it is +to my ear most melodious. + +One more passage of two stanzas from Giles Fletcher, concerning the +glories of heaven: I quote them for the sake of earth, not of heaven. + + Gaze but upon the house where man embowers: + With flowers and rushes pavéd is his way; + Where all the creatures are his servitours: + The winds do sweep his chambers every day, + And clouds do wash his rooms; the ceiling gay, + Starréd aloft, the gilded knobs embrave: + If such a house God to another gave, + How shine those glittering courts he for himself will have! + + And if a sullen cloud, as sad as night, + In which the sun may seem embodiéd, + Depured of all his dross, we see so white, + Burning in melted gold his watery head, + Or round with ivory edges silvered; + What lustre super-excellent will he + Lighten on those that shall his sunshine see + In that all-glorious court in which all glories be! + +These brothers were intense admirers of Spenser. To be like him Phineas +must write an allegory; and such an allegory! Of all the strange poems in +existence, surely this is the strangest. The _Purple Island_ is man, +whose body is anatomically described after the allegory of a city, which +is then peopled with all the human faculties personified, each set in +motion by itself. They say the anatomy is correct: the metaphysics are +certainly good. The action of the poem is just another form of the _Holy +War_ of John Bunyan--all the good and bad powers fighting for the +possession of the Purple Island. What renders the conception yet more +amazing is the fact that the whole ponderous mass of anatomy and +metaphysics, nearly as long as the _Paradise Lost_, is put as a song, in +a succession of twelve cantos, in the mouth of a shepherd, who begins a +canto every morning to the shepherds and shepherdesses of the +neighbourhood, and finishes it by folding-time in the evening. And yet +the poem is full of poetry. He triumphs over his difficulties partly by +audacity, partly by seriousness, partly by the enchantment of song. But +the poem will never be read through except by students of English +literature. It is a whole; its members are well-fitted; it is full of +beauties--in parts they swarm like fire-flies; and _yet_ it is not a good +poem. It is like a well-shaped house, built of mud, and stuck full of +precious stones. I do not care, in my limited space, to quote from it. +Never was there a more incongruous dragon of allegory. + +Both brothers were injured, not by their worship of Spenser, but by the +form that worship took--imitation. They seem more pleased to produce a +line or stanza that shall recall a line or stanza of Spenser, than to +produce a fine original of their own. They even copy lines almost word +for word from their great master. This is pure homage: it was their +delight that such adaptations should be recognized--just as it was +Spenser's hope, when he inserted translated stanzas from Tasso's +_Jerusalem Delivered_ in _The Fairy Queen_, to gain the honour of a true +reproduction. Yet, strange fate for imitators! both, but Giles +especially, were imitated by a greater than their worship--even by +Milton. They make Spenser's worse; Milton makes theirs better. They +imitate Spenser, faults and all; Milton glorifies their beauties. + +From the smaller poems of Phineas, I choose the following version of + + + PSALM CXXX. + + From the deeps of grief and fear, + O Lord, to thee my soul repairs: + From thy heaven bow down thine ear; + Let thy mercy meet my prayers. + Oh! if thou mark'st what's done amiss, + What soul so pure can see thy bliss? + + But with thee sweet Mercy stands, + Sealing pardons, working fear. + Wait, my soul, wait on his hands; + Wait, mine eye; oh! wait, mine ear: + If he his eye or tongue affords, + Watch all his looks, catch all his words. + + As a watchman waits for day, + And looks for light, and looks again: + When the night grows old and gray, + To be relieved he calls amain: + So look, so wait, so long, mine eyes, + To see my Lord, my sun, arise. + + Wait, ye saints, wait on our Lord, + For from his tongue sweet mercy flows; + Wait on his cross, wait on his word; + Upon that tree redemption grows: + He will redeem his Israel + From sin and wrath, from death and hell. + +I shall now give two stanzas of his version of the 127th Psalm. + + If God build not the house, and lay + The groundwork sure--whoever build, + It cannot stand one stormy day. + If God be not the city's shield, + If he be not their bars and wall, + In vain is watch-tower, men, and all. + + Though then thou wak'st when others rest, + Though rising thou prevent'st the sun, + Though with lean care thou daily feast, + Thy labour's lost, and thou undone; + But God his child will feed and keep, + And draw the curtains to his sleep. + +Compare this with a version of the same portion by Dr. Henry King, Bishop +of Chichester, who, no great poet, has written some good verse. He was +about the same age as Phineas Fletcher. + + Except the Lord the house sustain, + The builder's labour is in vain; + Except the city he defend, + And to the dwellers safety send, + In vain are sentinels prepared, + Or arméd watchmen for the guard. + + You vainly with the early light + Arise, or sit up late at night + To find support, and daily eat + Your bread with sorrow earned and sweat; + When God, who his beloved keeps, + This plenty gives with quiet sleeps. + +What difference do we find? That the former has the more poetic touch, +the latter the greater truth. The former has just lost the one precious +thing in the psalm; the latter has kept it: that care is as useless as +painful, for God gives us while we sleep, and not while we labour. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +WITHER, HERRICK, AND QUARLES. + + +George Wither, born in 1588, therefore about the same age as Giles +Fletcher, was a very different sort of writer indeed. There could hardly +be a greater contrast. Fancy, and all her motley train, were scarcely +known to Wither, save by the hearing of the ears. + +He became an eager Puritan towards the close of his life, but his poetry +chiefly belongs to the earlier part of it. Throughout it is distinguished +by a certain straightforward simplicity of good English thought and +English word. His hymns remind me, in the form of their speech, of +Gascoigne. I shall quote but little; for, although there is a sweet calm +and a great justice of reflection and feeling, there is hardly anything +of that warming glow, that rousing force, that impressive weight in his +verse, which is the chief virtue of the lofty rhyme. + +The best in a volume of ninety _Hymns and Songs of the Church_, is, I +think, _The Author's Hymn_ at the close, of which I give three stanzas. +They manifest the simplicity and truth of the man, reflecting in their +very tone his faithful, contented, trustful nature. + + By thy grace, those passions, troubles, + And those wants that me opprest, + Have appeared as water-bubbles, + Or as dreams, and things in jest: + For, thy leisure still attending, + I with pleasure saw their ending. + + Those afflictions and those terrors, + Which to others grim appear, + Did but show me where my errors + And my imperfections were; + But distrustful could not make me + Of thy love, nor fright nor shake me. + + Those base hopes that would possess me, + And those thoughts of vain repute + Which do now and then oppress me, + Do not, Lord, to me impute; + And though part they will not from me, + Let them never overcome me. + +He has written another similar volume, but much larger, and of a somewhat +extraordinary character. It consists of no fewer than two hundred and +thirty-three hymns, mostly long, upon an incredible variety of subjects, +comprehending one for every season of nature and of the church, and one +for every occurrence in life of which the author could think as likely to +confront man or woman. Of these subjects I quote a few of the more +remarkable, but even from them my reader can have little conception of +the variety in the book: _A Hymn whilst we are washing_; _In a clear +starry Night_; _A Hymn for a House-warming_; _After a great Frost or +Snow_; _For one whose Beauty is much praised_; _For one upbraided with +Deformity_; _For a Widower or a Widow delivered from a troublesome +Yokefellow_; _For a Cripple_; _For a Jailor_; _For a Poet_. + +Here is a portion of one which I hope may be helpful to some of my +readers. + + + WHEN WE CANNOT SLEEP. + + What ails my heart, that in my breast + It thus unquiet lies; + And that it now of needful rest + Deprives my tiréd eyes? + + Let not vain hopes, griefs, doubts, or fears, + Distemper so my mind; + But cast on God thy thoughtful cares, + And comfort thou shalt find. + + In vain that soul attempteth ought, + And spends her thoughts in vain, + Who by or in herself hath sought + Desiréd peace to gain. + + On thee, O Lord, on thee therefore, + My musings now I place; + Thy free remission I implore, + And thy refreshing grace. + + Forgive thou me, that when my mind + Oppressed began to be, + I sought elsewhere my peace to find, + Before I came to thee. + + And, gracious God, vouchsafe to grant, + Unworthy though I am, + The needful rest which now I want, + That I may praise thy name. + +Before examining the volume, one would say that no man could write so +many hymns without frequent and signal failure. But the marvel here is, +that the hymns are all so very far from bad. He can never have written in +other than a gentle mood. There must have been a fine harmony in his +nature, that _kept_ him, as it were. This peacefulness makes him +interesting in spite of his comparative flatness. I must restrain remark, +however, and give five out of twelve stanzas of another of his hymns. + + + A ROCKING HYMN. + + Sweet baby, sleep; what ails my dear? + What ails my darling thus to cry? + Be still, my child, and lend thine ear + To hear me sing thy lullaby. + My pretty lamb, forbear to weep; + Be still, my dear; sweet baby, sleep. + + Whilst thus thy lullaby I sing, + For thee great blessings ripening be; + Thine eldest brother is a king, + And hath a kingdom bought for thee. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + A little infant once was he, + And strength in weakness then was laid + Upon his virgin mother's knee, + That power to thee might be conveyed. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + Within a manger lodged thy Lord, + Where oxen lay, and asses fed; + Warm rooms we do to thee afford, + An easy cradle or a bed. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + Thou hast, yet more to perfect this, + A promise and an earnest got, + Of gaining everlasting bliss, + Though thou, my babe, perceiv'st it not. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + +I think George Wither's verses will grow upon the reader of them, tame as +they are sure to appear at first. His _Hallelujah, or Britain's Second +Remembrancer_, from which I have been quoting, is well worth possessing, +and can be procured without difficulty. + +We now come to a new sort, both of man and poet--still a clergyman. It is +an especial pleasure to write the name of Robert Herrick amongst the +poets of religion, for the very act records that the jolly, careless +Anacreon of the church, with his head and heart crowded with pleasures, +threw down at length his wine-cup, tore the roses from his head, and +knelt in the dust. + +Nothing bears Herrick's name so unrefined as the things Dr. Donne wrote +in his youth; but the impression made by his earlier poems is of a man of +far shallower nature, and greatly more absorbed in the delights of the +passing hour. In the year 1648, when he was fifty-seven years of age, +being prominent as a Royalist, he was ejected from his living by the +dominant Puritans; and in that same year he published his poems, of which +the latter part and later written is his _Noble Numbers_, or religious +poems. We may wonder at his publishing the _Hesperides_ along with them, +but we must not forget that, while the manners of a time are never to be +taken as a justification of what is wrong, the judgment of men concerning +what is wrong will be greatly influenced by those manners--not +necessarily on the side of laxity. It is but fair to receive his own +testimony concerning himself, offered in these two lines printed at the +close of his _Hesperides_: + + To his book's end this last line he'd have placed: + _Jocund his muse was, but his life was chaste_. + +We find the same artist in the _Noble Numbers_ as in the _Hesperides_, +but hardly the same man. However far he may have been from the model of a +clergyman in the earlier period of his history, partly no doubt from the +society to which his power of song made him acceptable, I cannot believe +that these later poems are the results of mood, still less the results of +mere professional bias, or even sense of professional duty. + +In a good many of his poems he touches the heart of truth; in others, +even those of epigrammatic form, he must be allowed to fail in point as +well as in meaning. As to his art-forms, he is guilty of great offences, +the result of the same passion for lawless figures and similitudes which +Dr. Donne so freely indulged. But his verses are brightened by a certain +almost childishly quaint and innocent humour; while the tenderness of +some of them rises on the reader like the aurora of the coming sun of +George Herbert. I do not forget that, even if some of his poems were +printed in 1639, years before that George Herbert had done his work and +gone home: my figure stands in relation to the order I have adopted. + +Some of his verse is homelier than even George Herbert's homeliest. One +of its most remarkable traits is a quaint thanksgiving for the commonest +things by name--not the less real that it is sometimes even queer. For +instance: + + God gives not only corn for need, + But likewise superabundant seed; + Bread for our service, bread for show; + Meat for our meals, and fragments too: + He gives not poorly, taking some + Between the finger and the thumb, + But for our glut, and for our store, + Fine flour pressed down, and running o'er. + +Here is another, delightful in its oddity. We can fancy the merry yet +gracious poet chuckling over the vision of the child and the fancy of his +words. + + + A GRACE FOR A CHILD. + + Here a little child I stand, + Heaving up my either hand; + Cold as paddocks though they be, _frogs._ + Here I lift them up to thee, + For a benison to fall + On our meat, and on us all. _Amen_. + +I shall now give two or three of his longer poems, which are not long, +and then a few of his short ones. The best known is the following, but it +is not so well known that I must therefore omit it. + + + HIS LITANY TO THE HOLY SPIRIT. + + In the hour of my distress, + When temptations me oppress, + And when I my sins confess, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When I lie within my bed, + Sick in heart, and sick in head, + And with doubts discomforted, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the house doth sigh and weep, + And the world is drowned in sleep, + Yet mine eyes the watch do keep, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the artless doctor sees _without skill._ + No one hope, but of his fees, + And his skill runs on the lees, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When his potion and his pill, + His or none or little skill, + Meet for nothing but to kill, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the passing-bell doth toll, + And the furies in a shoal + Come to fright a parting soul, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the tapers now burn blue, + And the comforters are few, + And that number more than true, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the priest his last hath prayed, + And I nod to what is said, + 'Cause my speech is now decayed, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When God knows I'm tossed about, + Either with despair or doubt, + Yet, before the glass be out, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the tempter me pursu'th + With the sins of all my youth, + And half damns me with untruth, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the flames and hellish cries + Fright mine ears and fright mine eyes, + And all terrors me surprise, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the judgment is revealed, + And that opened which was sealed; + When to thee I have appealed, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + + THE WHITE ISLAND, OR PLACE OF THE BLEST. + + In this world, the Isle of Dreams, + While we sit by sorrow's streams, + Tears and terrors are our themes, + Reciting; + + But when once from hence we fly, + More and more approaching nigh + Unto young eternity, + Uniting; + + In that whiter island, where + Things are evermore sincere; + Candour here and lustre there, + Delighting: + + There no monstrous fancies shall + Out of hell an horror call, + To create, or cause at all, + Affrighting. + + There, in calm and cooling sleep + We our eyes shall never steep, + But eternal watch shall keep, + Attending + + Pleasures such as shall pursue + Me immortalized and you; + And fresh joys, as never too + Have ending. + + + TO DEATH. + + Thou bid'st me come away; + And I'll no longer stay + Than for to shed some tears + For faults of former years; + And to repent some crimes + Done in the present times; + And next, to take a bit + Of bread, and wine with it; + To don my robes of love, + Fit for the place above; + To gird my loins about + With charity throughout, + And so to travel hence + With feet of innocence: + These done, I'll only cry, + "God, mercy!" and so die. + + + ETERNITY. + + O years and age, farewell! + Behold I go + Where I do know + Infinity to dwell. + + And these mine eyes shall see + All times, how they + Are lost i' th' sea + Of vast eternity, + + Where never moon shall sway + The stars; but she + And night shall be + Drowned in one endless day. + + + THE GOODNESS OF HIS GOD. + + When winds and seas do rage, + And threaten to undo me, + Thou dost their wrath assuage, + If I but call unto thee. + + A mighty storm last night + Did seek my soul to swallow; + But by the peep of light + A gentle calm did follow. + + What need I then despair + Though ills stand round about me; + Since mischiefs neither dare + To bark or bite without thee? + + + TO GOD. + + Lord, I am like to mistletoe, + Which has no root, and cannot grow + Or prosper, but by that same tree + It clings about: so I by thee. + What need I then to fear at all + So long as I about thee crawl? + But if that tree should fall and die, + Tumble shall heaven, and down will I. + +Here are now a few chosen from many that--to borrow a term from +Crashaw--might be called + + + DIVINE EPIGRAMS. + + God, when he's angry here with any one, + His wrath is free from perturbation; + And when we think his looks are sour and grim, + The alteration is in us, not him. + + * * * * * + + God can't be wrathful; but we may conclude + Wrathful he may be by similitude: + God's wrathful said to be when he doth do + That without wrath, which wrath doth force us to. + + * * * * * + + 'Tis hard to find God; but to comprehend + Him as he is, is labour without end. + + * * * * * + + God's rod doth watch while men do sleep, and then + The rod doth sleep while vigilant are men. + + * * * * * + + A man's trangression God does then remit, + When man he makes a penitent for it. + + * * * * * + + God, when he takes my goods and chattels hence, + Gives me a portion, giving patience: + What is in God is God: if so it be + He patience gives, he gives himself to me. + + * * * * * + + Humble we must be, if to heaven we go; + High is the roof there, but the gate is low. + + * * * * * + + God who's in heaven, will hear from thence, + If not to the sound, yet to the sense. + + * * * * * + + The same who crowns the conqueror, will be + A coadjutor in the agony. + + * * * * * + + God is so potent, as his power can _that._ + Draw out of bad a sovereign good to man. + + * * * * * + + Paradise is, as from the learn'd I gather, + A choir of blest souls circling in the Father. + + * * * * * + + Heaven is not given for our good works here; + Yet it is given to the labourer. + + * * * * * + +One more for the sake of Martha, smiled at by so many because they are +incapable either of her blame or her sister's praise. + + The repetition of the name, made known + No other than Christ's full affection. + +And so farewell to the very lovable Robert Herrick. + +Francis Quarles was born in 1592. I have not much to say about him, +popular as he was in his own day, for a large portion of his writing +takes the shape of satire, which I consider only an active form of +negation. I doubt much if mere opposition to the false is of any benefit. +Convince a man by argument that the thing he has been taught is false, +and you leave his house empty, swept, and garnished; but the expulsion of +the falsehood is no protection against its re-entrance in another mask, +with seven worse than itself in its company. The right effort of the +teacher is to give the positive--to present, as he may, the vision of +reality, for the perception of which, and not for the discovery of +falsehood, is man created. This will not only cast out the demon, but so +people the house that he will not dare return. If a man might disprove +all the untruths in creation, he would hardly be a hair's breadth nearer +the end of his own making. It is better to hold honestly one fragment of +truth in the midst of immeasurable error, than to sit alone, if that were +possible, in the midst of an absolute vision, clear as the hyaline, but +only repellent of falsehood, not receptive of truth. It is the positive +by which a man shall live. Truth is his life. The refusal of the false is +not the reception of the true. A man may deny himself into a spiritual +lethargy, without denying one truth, simply by spending his strength for +that which is not bread, until he has none left wherewith to search for +the truth, which alone can feed him. Only when subjected to the positive +does the negative find its true vocation. + +I am jealous of the living force cast into the slough of satire. No +doubt, either indignant or loving rebuke has its end and does its work, +but I fear that wit, while rousing the admiration of the spiteful or the +like witty, comes in only to destroy its dignity. At the same time, I am +not sure whether there might not be such a judicious combination of the +elements as to render my remarks inapplicable. + +At all events, poetry favours the positive, and from the _Emblems_ named +of Quarles I shall choose one in which it fully predominates. There is +something in it remarkably fine. + + + PHOSPHOR, BRING THE DAY. + + Will't ne'er be morning? Will that promised light + Ne'er break, and clear those clouds of night? + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day, + Whose conquering ray + May chase these fogs: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + How long, how long shall these benighted eyes + Languish in shades, like feeble flies + Expecting spring? How long shall darkness soil + The face of earth, and thus beguile + Our souls of sprightful action? When, when will day + Begin to dawn, whose new-born ray + May gild the weathercocks of our devotion, + And give our unsouled souls new motion? + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day: + The light will fray + These horrid mists: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + * * * * * + + Let those whose eyes, like owls, abhor the light-- + Let those have night that love the night: + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + How sad delay + Afflicts dull hopes! Sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + Alas! my light-in-vain-expecting eyes + Can find no objects but what rise + From this poor mortal blaze, a dying spark + Of Vulcan's forge, whose flames are dark,-- + A dangerous, dull, blue-burning light, + As melancholy as the night: + Here's all the suns that glister in the sphere + Of earth: Ah me! what comfort's here! + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + Haste, haste away + Heaven's loitering lamp: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + Blow, Ignorance. O thou, whose idle knee + Rocks earth into a lethargy, + And with thy sooty fingers hast benight + The world's fair cheeks, blow, blow thy spite; + Since thou hast puffed our greater taper, do + Puff on, and out the lesser too. + If e'er that breath-exiled flame return, + Thou hast not blown as it will burn. + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day: + Light will repay + The wrongs of night: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + +With honoured, thrice honoured George Herbert waiting at the door, I +cannot ask Francis Quarles to remain longer: I can part with him without +regret, worthy man and fair poet as he is. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +GEORGE HERBERT. + + +But, with my hand on the lock, I shrink from opening the door. Here comes +a poet indeed! and how am I to show him due honour? With his book humbly, +doubtfully offered, with the ashes of the poems of his youth fluttering +in the wind of his priestly garments, he crosses the threshold. Or +rather, for I had forgotten the symbol of my book, let us all go from our +chapel to the choir, and humbly ask him to sing that he may make us +worthy of his song. + +In George Herbert there is poetry enough and to spare: it is the +household bread of his being. If I begin with that which first in the +nature of things ought to be demanded of a poet, namely, Truth, +Revelation--George Herbert offers us measure pressed down and running +over. But let me speak first of that which first in time or order of +appearance we demand of a poet, namely music. For inasmuch as verse is +for the ear, not for the eye, we demand a good hearing first. Let no one +undervalue it. The heart of poetry is indeed truth, but its garments are +music, and the garments come first in the process of revelation. The +music of a poem is its meaning in sound as distinguished from word--its +meaning in solution, as it were, uncrystallized by articulation. The +music goes before the fuller revelation, preparing its way. The sound of +a verse is the harbinger of the truth contained therein. If it be a right +poem, this will be true. Herein Herbert excels. It will be found +impossible to separate the music of his words from the music of the +thought which takes shape in their sound. + + I got me flowers to strow thy way, + I got me boughs off many a tree; + But thou wast up by break of day, + And brought'st thy sweets along with thee. + +And the gift it enwraps at once and reveals is, I have said, truth of the +deepest. Hear this song of divine service. In every song he sings a +spiritual fact will be found its fundamental life, although I may quote +this or that merely to illustrate some peculiarity of mode. + +_The Elixir_ was an imagined liquid sought by the old physical +investigators, in order that by its means they might turn every common +metal into gold, a pursuit not quite so absurd as it has since appeared. +They called this something, when regarded as a solid, _the Philosopher's +Stone_. In the poem it is also called a _tincture_. + + + THE ELIXIR. + + Teach me, my God and King, + In all things thee to see; + And what I do in anything, + To do it as for thee; + + Not rudely, as a beast, + To run into an action; + But still to make thee prepossest, + And give it his perfection. _its._ + + A man that looks on glass, + On it may stay his eye; + Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, + And then the heaven spy. + + All may of thee partake: + Nothing can be so mean, + Which with his tincture--_for thy sake_-- _its._ + Will not grow bright and clean. + + A servant with this clause + Makes drudgery divine: + Who sweeps a room as for thy laws, + Makes that and the action fine. + + This is the famous stone + That turneth all to gold; + For that which God doth touch and own + Cannot for less be told. + +With a conscience tender as a child's, almost diseased in its tenderness, +and a heart loving as a woman's, his intellect is none the less powerful. +Its movements are as the sword-play of an alert, poised, well-knit, +strong-wristed fencer with the rapier, in which the skill impresses one +more than the force, while without the force the skill would be +valueless, even hurtful, to its possessor. There is a graceful humour +with it occasionally, even in his most serious poems adding much to their +charm. To illustrate all this, take the following, the title of which +means _The Retort_. + + + THE QUIP. + + The merry World did on a day + With his train-bands and mates agree + To meet together where I lay, + And all in sport to jeer at me. + + First Beauty crept into a rose; + Which when I plucked not--"Sir," said she, + "Tell me, I pray, whose hands are those?"[98] + _But thou shall answer, Lord, for me._ + + Then Money came, and, chinking still-- + "What tune is this, poor man?" said he: + "I heard in music you had skill." + _But thou shall answer, Lord, for me._ + + Then came brave Glory puffing by + In silks that whistled--who but he? + He scarce allowed me half an eye; + _But thou shall answer, Lord, for me._ + + Then came quick Wit-and-Conversation, + And he would needs a comfort be, + And, to be short, make an oration: + _But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me._ + + Yet when the hour of thy design + To answer these fine things, shall come, + Speak not at large--say I am thine; + And then they have their answer home. + +Here is another instance of his humour. It is the first stanza of a poem +to _Death_. He is glorying over Death as personified in a skeleton. + + Death, thou wast once an uncouth, hideous thing-- + Nothing but bones, + The sad effect of sadder groans: + Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing. + +No writer before him has shown such a love to God, such a childlike +confidence in him. The love is like the love of those whose verses came +first in my volume. But the nation had learned to think more, and new +difficulties had consequently arisen. These, again, had to be undermined +by deeper thought, and the discovery of yet deeper truth had been the +reward. Hence, the love itself, if it had not strengthened, had at least +grown deeper. And George Herbert had had difficulty enough in himself; +for, born of high family, by nature fitted to shine in that society where +elegance of mind, person, carriage, and utterance is most appreciated, +and having indeed enjoyed something of the life of a courtier, he had +forsaken all in obedience to the voice of his higher nature. Hence the +struggle between his tastes and his duties would come and come again, +augmented probably by such austere notions as every conscientious man +must entertain in proportion to his inability to find God in that in +which he might find him. From this inability, inseparable in its varying +degrees from the very nature of growth, springs all the asceticism of +good men, whose love to God will be the greater as their growing insight +reveals him in his world, and their growing faith approaches to the +giving of thanks in everything. + +When we have discovered the truth that whatsoever is not of faith is sin, +the way to meet it is not to forsake the human law, but so to obey it as +to thank God for it. To leave the world and go into the desert is not +thus to give thanks: it may have been the only way for this or that man, +in his blameless blindness, to take. The divine mind of George Herbert, +however, was in the main bent upon discovering God everywhere. + +The poem I give next, powerfully sets forth the struggle between liking +and duty of which I have spoken. It is at the same time an instance of +wonderful art in construction, all the force of the germinal thought kept +in reserve, to burst forth at the last. He calls it--meaning by the word, +_God's Restraint_-- + + + THE COLLAR. + + I struck the board, and cried "No more!-- + I will abroad. + What! shall I ever sigh and pine? + My lines and life are free--free as the road, + Loose as the wind, as large as store. + Shall I be still in suit? + Have I no harvest but a thorn + To let me blood, and not restore + What I have lost with cordial fruit? + Sure there was wine + Before my sighs did dry it! There was corn + Before my tears did drown it! + Is the year only lost to me? + Have I no bays to crown it? + No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted? + All wasted? + Not so, my heart; but there is fruit, + And thou hast hands. + Recover all thy sigh-blown age + On double pleasures. Leave thy cold dispute + Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage, + Thy rope of sands, + Which petty thoughts have made--and made to thee + Good cable, to enforce and draw, + And be thy law, + While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. + Away! Take heed-- + I will abroad. + Call in thy death's-head there. Tie up thy fears. + He that forbears + To suit and serve his need, + Deserves his load." + But as I raved, and grew more fierce and wild + At every word, + Methought I heard one calling "_Child!_" + And I replied, "_My Lord!_" + +Coming now to speak of his art, let me say something first about his use +of homeliest imagery for highest thought. This, I think, is in itself +enough to class him with the highest _kind_ of poets. If my reader will +refer to _The Elixir_, he will see an instance in the third stanza, "You +may look at the glass, or at the sky:" "You may regard your action only, +or that action as the will of God." Again, let him listen to the pathos +and simplicity of this one stanza, from a poem he calls _The Flower_. He +has been in trouble; his times have been evil; he has felt a spiritual +old age creeping upon him; but he is once more awake. + + And now in age[99] I bud again; + After so many deaths I live and write; + I once more smell the dew and rain, + And relish versing. O my only light, + It cannot be + That I am he + On whom thy tempests fell all night! + +Again: + + Some may dream merrily, but when they wake + They dress themselves and come to thee. + +He has an exquisite feeling of lyrical art. Not only does he keep to one +idea in it, but he finishes the poem like a cameo. Here is an instance +wherein he outdoes the elaboration of a Norman trouvère; for not merely +does each line in each stanza end with the same sound as the +corresponding line in every other stanza, but it ends with the very same +word. I shall hardly care to defend this if my reader chooses to call it +a whim; but I do say that a large degree of the peculiar musical effect +of the poem--subservient to the thought, keeping it dimly chiming in the +head until it breaks out clear and triumphant like a silver bell in the +last--is owing to this use of the same column of words at the line-ends +of every stanza. Let him who doubts it, read the poem aloud. + + + AARON. + + Holiness on the head; + Light and perfections on the breast; + Harmonious bells below, raising the dead, + To lead them unto life and rest-- + Thus are true Aarons drest. + + Profaneness in my head; + Defects and darkness in my breast; + A noise of passions ringing me for dead + Unto a place where is no rest-- + Poor priest, thus am I drest! + + Only another head + I have, another heart and breast, + Another music, making live, not dead, + Without whom I could have no rest-- + In him I am well drest. + + Christ is my only head, + My alone only heart and breast, + My only music, striking me even dead, + That to the old man I may rest, + And be in him new drest. + + So, holy in my head, + Perfect and light in my dear breast, + My doctrine turned by Christ, who is not dead, + But lives in me while I do rest-- + Come, people: Aaron's drest. + +Note the flow and the ebb of the lines of each stanza--from six to eight +to ten syllables, and back through eight to six, the number of stanzas +corresponding to the number of lines in each; only the poem itself begins +with the ebb, and ends with a full spring-flow of energy. Note also the +perfect antithesis in their parts between the first and second stanzas, +and how the last line of the poem clenches the whole in revealing its +idea--that for the sake of which it was written. In a word, note the +_unity_. + +Born in 1593, notwithstanding his exquisite art, he could not escape +being influenced by the faulty tendencies of his age, borne in upon his +youth by the example of his mother's friend, Dr. Donne. A man must be a +giant like Shakspere or Milton to cast off his age's faults. Indeed no +man has more of the "quips and cranks and wanton wiles" of the poetic +spirit of his time than George Herbert, but with this difference from the +rest of Dr. Donne's school, that such is the indwelling potency that it +causes even these to shine with a radiance such that we wish them still +to burn and not be consumed. His muse is seldom other than graceful, even +when her motions are grotesque, and he is always a gentleman, which +cannot be said of his master. We could not bear to part with his most +fantastic oddities, they are so interpenetrated with his genius as well +as his art. + +In relation to the use he makes of these faulty forms, and to show that +even herein he has exercised a refraining judgment, though indeed +fancying he has quite discarded in only somewhat reforming it, I +recommend the study of two poems, each of which he calls _Jordan_, though +why I have not yet with certainty discovered. + +It is possible that not many of his readers have observed the following +instances of the freakish in his rhyming art, which however result well. +When I say so, I would not be supposed to approve of the freak, but only +to acknowledge the success of the poet in his immediate intent. They are +related to a certain tendency to mechanical contrivance not seldom +associated with a love of art: it is art operating in the physical +understanding. In the poem called _Home_, every stanza is perfectly +finished till the last: in it, with an access of art or artfulness, he +destroys the rhyme. I shall not quarrel with my reader if he calls it the +latter, and regards it as art run to seed. And yet--and yet--I confess I +have a latent liking for the trick. I shall give one or two stanzas out +of the rather long poem, to lead up to the change in the last. + + Come, Lord; my head doth burn, my heart is sick, + While thou dost ever, ever stay; + Thy long deferrings wound me to the quick; + My spirit gaspeth night and day. + O show thyself to me, + Or take me up to thee. + + Nothing but drought and dearth, but bush and brake, + Which way soe'er I look I see: + Some may dream merrily, but when they wake + They dress themselves and come to thee. + O show thyself to me, + Or take me up to thee. + + Come, dearest Lord, pass not this holy season, + My flesh and bones and joints do pray; + And even my verse, when by the rhyme and reason + The word is _stay_,[100] says ever _come_. + O show thyself to me, + Or take me up to thee. + +Balancing this, my second instance is of the converse. In all the stanzas +but the last, the last line in each hangs unrhymed: in the last the +rhyming is fulfilled. The poem is called _Denial_. I give only a part of +it. + + When my devotions could not pierce + Thy silent ears, + Then was my heart broken as was my verse; + My breast was full of fears + And disorder. + + O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue + To cry to thee, + And then not hear it crying! All day long + My heart was in my knee: + But no hearing! + + Therefore my soul lay out of sight, + Untuned, unstrung; + My feeble spirit, unable to look right, + Like a nipt blossom, hung + Discontented. + + O cheer and tune my heartless breast-- + Defer no time; + That so thy favours granting my request, + They and my mind may chime, + And mend my rhyme. + +It had been hardly worth the space to point out these, were not the +matter itself precious. + +Before making further remark on George Herbert, let me present one of his +poems in which the oddity of the visual fancy is only equalled by the +beauty of the result. + + + THE PULLEY. + + When God at first made man, + Having a glass of blessing standing by, + "Let us," said he, "pour on him all we can: + Let the world's riches, which disperséd lie, + Contract into a span." + + So strength first made a way; + Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honour, pleasure. + When almost all was out, God made a stay, + Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, + _Rest_ in the bottom lay. + + "For if I should," said he, + "Bestow this jewel also on my creature, + He would adore my gifts instead of me, + And rest in nature, not the God of nature: + So both should losers be. + + "Yet let him keep the rest-- + But keep them with repining restlessness: + Let him be rich and weary, that, at least, + If goodness lead him not, yet weariness + May toss him to my breast." + +Is it not the story of the world written with the point of a diamond? + +There can hardly be a doubt that his tendency to unnatural forms was +encouraged by the increase of respect to symbol and ceremony shown at +this period by some of the external powers of the church--Bishop Laud in +particular. Had all, however, who delight in symbols, a power, like +George Herbert's, of setting even within the horn-lanterns of the more +arbitrary of them, such a light of poetry and devotion that their dull +sides vanish in its piercing shine, and we forget the symbol utterly in +the truth which it cannot obscure, then indeed our part would be to take +and be thankful. But there never has been even a living true symbol which +the dulness of those who will see the truth only in the symbol has not +degraded into the very cockatrice-egg of sectarianism. The symbol is by +such always more or less idolized, and the light within more or less +patronized. If the truth, for the sake of which all symbols exist, were +indeed the delight of those who claim it, the sectarianism of the church +would vanish. But men on all sides call that _the truth_ which is but its +form or outward sign--material or verbal, true or arbitrary, it matters +not which--and hence come strifes and divisions. + +Although George Herbert, however, could thus illumine all with his divine +inspiration, we cannot help wondering whether, if he had betaken himself +yet more to vital and less to half artificial symbols, the change would +not have been a breaking of the pitcher and an outshining of the lamp. +For a symbol may remind us of the truth, and at the same time obscure +it--present it, and dull its effect. It is the temple of nature and not +the temple of the church, the things made by the hands of God and not the +things made by the hands of man, that afford the truest symbols of truth. + +I am anxious to be understood. The chief symbol of our faith, _the +Cross_, it may be said, is not one of these natural symbols. I +answer--No; but neither is it an arbitrary symbol. It is not a symbol of +_a truth_ at all, but of _a fact_, of the infinitely grandest fact in the +universe, which is itself the outcome and symbol of the grandest Truth. +_The Cross_ is an historical _sign_, not properly _a symbol_, except +through the facts it reminds us of. On the other hand, _baptism_ and the +_eucharist_ are symbols of the loftiest and profoundest kind, true to +nature and all its meanings, as well as to the facts of which they remind +us. They are in themselves symbols of the truths involved in the facts +they commemorate. + +Of Nature's symbols George Herbert has made large use; but he would have +been yet a greater poet if he had made a larger use of them still. Then +at least we might have got rid of such oddities as the stanzas for steps +up to the church-door, the first at the bottom of the page; of the lines +shaped into ugly altar-form; and of the absurd Easter wings, made of ever +lengthening lines. This would not have been much, I confess, nor the gain +by their loss great; but not to mention the larger supply of images +graceful with the grace of God, who when he had made them said they were +good, it would have led to the further purification of his taste, perhaps +even to the casting out of all that could untimely move our mirth; until +possibly (for illustration), instead of this lovely stanza, he would have +given us even a lovelier: + + Listen, sweet dove, unto my song, + And spread thy golden wings on me; + Hatching my tender heart so long, + Till it get wing, and fly away with thee. + +The stanza is indeed lovely, and true and tender and clever as well; yet +who can help smiling at the notion of the incubation of the heart-egg, +although what the poet means is so good that the smile almost vanishes in +a sigh? + +There is no doubt that the works of man's hands will also afford many +true symbols; but I do think that, in proportion as a man gives himself +to those instead of studying Truth's wardrobe of forms in nature, so will +he decline from the high calling of the poet. George Herbert was too +great to be himself much injured by the narrowness of the field whence he +gathered his symbols; but his song will be the worse for it in the ears +of all but those who, having lost sight of or having never beheld the +oneness of the God whose creation exists in virtue of his redemption, +feel safer in a low-browed crypt than under "the high embowed roof." + +When the desire after system or order degenerates from a need into a +passion, or ruling idea, it closes, as may be seen in many women who are +especial house-keepers, like an unyielding skin over the mind, to the +death of all development from impulse and aspiration. The same thing +holds in the church: anxiety about order and system will kill the life. +This did not go near to being the result with George Herbert: his life +was hid with Christ in God; but the influence of his _profession_, as +distinguished from his work, was hurtful to his calling as a poet. He of +all men would scorn to claim social rank for spiritual service; he of all +men would not commit the blunder of supposing that prayer and praise are +that service of God: they are _prayer_ and _praise_, not _service_; he +knew that God can be served only through loving ministration to his sons +and daughters, all needy of commonest human help: but, as the most devout +of clergymen will be the readiest to confess, there is even a danger to +their souls in the unvarying recurrence of the outward obligations of +their service; and, in like manner, the poet will fare ill if the +conventions from which the holiest system is not free send him soaring +with sealed eyes. George Herbert's were but a little blinded thus; yet +something, we must allow, his poetry was injured by his profession. All +that I say on this point, however, so far from diminishing his praise, +adds thereto, setting forth only that he was such a poet as might have +been greater yet, had the divine gift had free course. But again I rebuke +myself and say, "Thank God for George Herbert." + +To rid our spiritual palates of the clinging flavour of criticism, let me +choose another song from his precious legacy--one less read, I presume, +than many. It shows his tendency to asceticism--the fancy of forsaking +God's world in order to serve him; it has besides many of the faults of +the age, even to that of punning; yet it is a lovely bit of art as well +as a rich embodiment of tenderness. + + + THE THANKSGIVING. + + Oh King of grief! a title strange yet true, + To thee of all kings only due! + Oh King of wounds! how shall I grieve for thee, + Who in all grief preventest me? _goest before me._ + Shall I weep blood? Why, thou hast wept such store, + That all thy body was one gore. + Shall I be scourgéd, flouted, boxéd, sold? + 'Tis but to tell the tale is told. + _My God, my God, why dost thou part from me?_ + Was such a grief as cannot be. + Shall I then sing, skipping thy doleful story, + And side with thy triumphant glory? + Shall thy strokes be my stroking? thorns my flower? + Thy rod, my posy?[101] cross, my bower? + But how then shall I imitate thee, and + Copy thy fair, though bloody hand? + Surely I will revenge me on thy love, + And try who shall victorious prove. + If thou dost give me wealth, I will restore + All back unto thee by the poor. + If thou dost give me honour, men shall see + The honour doth belong to thee. + I will not marry; or if she be mine, + She and her children shall be thine. + My bosom-friend, if he blaspheme thy name, + I will tear thence his love and fame. + One half of me being gone, the rest I give + Unto some chapel--die or live. + As for my Passion[102]--But of that anon, + When with the other I have done. + For thy Predestination, I'll contrive + That, three years hence, if I survive,[103] + I'll build a spital, or mend common ways, + But mend my own without delays. + Then I will use the works of thy creation, + As if I used them but for fashion. + The world and I will quarrel; and the year + Shall not perceive that I am here. + My music shall find thee, and every string + Shall have his attribute to sing, _its._ + That all together may accord in thee, + And prove one God, one harmony. + If thou shall give me wit, it shall appear; + If thou hast given it me, 'tis here. + Nay, I will read thy book,[104] and never move + Till I have found therein thy love-- + Thy art of love, which I'll turn back on thee: + O my dear Saviour, Victory! + Then for my Passion--I will do for that-- + Alas, my God! I know not what. + +With the preceding must be taken the following, which comes immediately +after it. + + + THE REPRISAL. + + I have considered it, and find + There is no dealing with thy mighty Passion; + For though I die for thee, I am behind: + My sins deserve the condemnation. + + O make me innocent, that I + May give a disentangled state and free; + And yet thy wounds still my attempts defy, + For by thy death I die for thee. + + Ah! was it not enough that thou + By thy eternal glory didst outgo me? + Couldst thou not grief's sad conquest me allow, + But in all victories overthrow me? + + Yet by confession will I come + Into the conquest: though I can do nought + Against thee, in thee I will overcome + The man who once against thee fought. + +Even embracing the feet of Jesus, Mary Magdalene or George Herbert must +rise and go forth to do his will. + +It will be observed how much George Herbert goes beyond all that have +preceded him, in the expression of feeling as it flows from individual +conditions, in the analysis of his own moods, in the logic of worship, if +I may say so. His utterance is not merely of personal love and grief, but +of the peculiar love and grief in the heart of George Herbert. There may +be disease in such a mind; but, if there be, it is a disease that will +burn itself out. Such disease is, for men constituted like him, the only +path to health. By health I mean that simple regard to the truth, to the +will of God, which will turn away a man's eyes from his own conditions, +and leave God free to work his perfection in him--free, that is, of the +interference of the man's self-consciousness and anxiety. To this +perfection St. Paul had come when he no longer cried out against the body +of his death, no more judged his own self, but left all to the Father, +caring only to do his will. It was enough to him then that God should +judge him, for his will is the one good thing securing all good things. +Amongst the keener delights of the life which is at the door, I look for +the face of George Herbert, with whom to talk humbly would be in bliss a +higher bliss. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +JOHN MILTON. + + +John Milton, born in 1608, was twenty-four years of age when George +Herbert died. Hardly might two good men present a greater contrast than +these. In power and size, Milton greatly excels. If George Herbert's +utterance is like the sword-play of one skilful with the rapier, that of +Milton is like the sword-play of an old knight, flashing his huge but +keen-cutting blade in lightnings about his head. Compared with Herbert, +Milton was a man in health. He never _shows_, at least, any diseased +regard of himself. His eye is fixed on the truth, and he knows of no +ill-faring. While a man looks thitherward, all the movements of his +spirit reveal themselves only in peace. + +Everything conspired, or, should I not rather say? everything was freely +given, to make Milton a great poet. Leaving the original seed of melody, +the primordial song in the soul which all his life was an effort to +utter, let us regard for a moment the circumstances that favoured its +development. + +[Illustration: + + His volant touch + Fied and pursued transverse the resonant fugue.] + +From childhood he had listened to the sounds of the organ; doubtless +himself often gave breath to the soundboard with his hands on the lever +of the bellows, while his father's + + volant touch, + Instinct through all proportions low and high, + Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue; + +and the father's organ-harmony we yet hear in the son's verse as in none +but his. Those organ-sounds he has taken for the very breath of his +speech, and articulated them. He had education and leisure, freedom to +think, to travel, to observe: he was more than thirty before he had to +earn a mouthful of bread by his own labour. Rushing at length into +freedom's battle, he stood in its storm with his hand on the wheel of the +nation's rudder, shouting many a bold word for God and the Truth, until, +fulfilled of experience as of knowledge, God set up before him a canvas +of utter darkness: he had to fill it with creatures of radiance. God +blinded him with his hand, that, like the nightingale, he might "sing +darkling." Beyond all, his life was pure from his childhood, without +which such poetry as his could never have come to the birth. It is the +pure in heart who shall see God at length; the pure in heart who now hear +his harmonies. More than all yet, he devoted himself from the first to +the will of God, and his prayer that he might write a great poem was +heard. + +The unity of his being is the strength of Milton. He is harmony, sweet +and bold, throughout. Not Philip Sidney, not George Herbert loved words +and their melodies more than he; while in their use he is more serious +than either, and harder to please, uttering a music they have rarely +approached. Yet even when speaking with "most miraculous organ," with a +grandeur never heard till then, he overflows in speech more like that of +other men than theirs--he utters himself more simply, straightforwardly, +dignifiedly, than they. His modes are larger and more human, more near to +the forms of primary thought. Faithful and obedient to his art, he spends +his power in no diversions. Like Shakspere, he can be silent, never +hesitating to sweep away the finest lines should they mar the intent, +progress, and flow of his poem. Even while he sings most abandonedly, it +is ever with a care of his speech, it is ever with ordered words: not one +shall dull the clarity of his verse by unlicensed, that is, needless +presence. But let not my reader fancy that this implies laborious +utterance and strained endeavour. It is weakness only which by the agony +of visible effort enhances the magnitude of victory. The trained athlete +will move with the grace of a child, for he has not to seek how to effect +that which he means to perform. Milton has only to take good heed, and +with no greater effort than it costs the ordinary man to avoid talking +like a fool, he sings like an archangel. + +But I must not enlarge my remarks, for of his verse even I can find room +for only a few lyrics. In them, however, we shall still find the simplest +truth, the absolute of life, the poet's aim. He is ever soaring towards +the region beyond perturbation, the true condition of soul; that is, +wherein a man shall see things even as God would have him see them. He +has no time to droop his pinions, and sit moody even on the highest pine: +the sun is above him; he must fly upwards. + +The youth who at three-and-twenty could write the following sonnet, might +well at five-and-forty be capable of writing the one that follows: + + How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, + Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! + My hasting days fly on with full career, + But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. + Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth + That I to manhood am arrived so near; + And inward ripeness doth much less appear, + That some more timely happy spirits endu'th. + Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, + It shall be still in strictest measure even + To that same lot, however mean or high, + Toward which time leads me and the will of heaven: + All is--if I have grace to use it so + As ever in my great Task-master's eye. + +The _It_ which is the subject of the last six lines is his _Ripeness_: it +will keep pace with his approaching lot; when it arrives he will be ready +for it, whatever it may be. The will of heaven is his happy fate. Even at +three-and-twenty, "he that believeth shall not make haste." Calm and +open-eyed, he works to be ripe, and waits for the work that shall follow. + +At forty-five, then, he writes thus concerning his blindness: + + When I consider how my life is spent + Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, + And that one talent, which is death to hide, + Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent + To serve therewith my Maker, and present + My true account, lest he, returning, chide-- + "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" + I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent _foolishly._ + That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need + Either man's work or his own gifts: who best + Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state + Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed, + And post o'er land and ocean without rest: + They also serve who only stand and wait." + +That is, "stand and wait, ready to go when they are called." Everybody +knows the sonnet, but how could I omit it? Both sonnets will grow more +and more luminous as they are regarded. + +The following I incline to think the finest of his short poems, certainly +the grandest of them. It is a little ode, written _to be set on a +clock-case_. + + + ON TIME. + + Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race. + Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, + Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace, + And glut thyself with what thy womb devours-- + Which is no more than what is false and vain, + And merely mortal dross: + So little is our loss! + So little is thy gain! + For whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed, + And last of all thy greedy self consumed, + Then long eternity shall greet our bliss + With an individual kiss; _that cannot be divided-- + And joy shall overtake us as a flood; [eternal._ + When everything that is sincerely good, + And perfectly divine + With truth and peace and love, shall ever shine + About the supreme throne + Of him to whose happy-making sight alone + When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb, + Then, all this earthy grossness quit, + Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit + Triumphing over Death and Chance and thee, O Time. + +The next I give is likewise an ode--a more _beautiful_ one. Observe in +both the fine effect of the short lines, essential to the nature of the +ode, being that which gives its solemnity the character yet of a song, or +rather, perhaps, of a chant. + +In this he calls upon Voice and Verse to rouse and raise our imagination +until we hear the choral song of heaven, and hearing become able to sing +in tuneful response. + + + AT A SOLEMN MUSIC. + + Blest pair of sirens, pledges of heaven's joy + Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse, + Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ-- + Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce-- + And to our high-raised phantasy present + That undisturbed song of pure concent[105] + Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne + To him that sits thereon, + With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee; + Where the bright seraphim, in burning row, + Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow; + And the cherubic host in thousand choirs, + Touch their immortal harps of golden wires, + With those just spirits that wear victorious palms, + Hymns devout and holy psalms + Singing everlastingly; + That we on earth, with undiscording voice, + May rightly answer that melodious noise-- + As once we did, till disproportioned[106] Sin + Jarred against Nature's chime, and with harsh din + Broke the fair music that all creatures made + To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed + In perfect diapason,[107] whilst they stood + In first obedience and their state of good. + O may we soon again renew that song, + And keep in tune with heaven, till God ere long + To his celestial consort[108] us unite, + To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light! + +Music was the symbol of all Truth to Milton. He would count it falsehood +to write an unmusical verse. I allow that some of his blank lines may +appear unrhythmical; but Experience, especially if she bring with her a +knowledge of Dante, will elucidate all their movements. I exhort my +younger friends to read Milton aloud when they are alone, and thus learn +the worth of word-sounds. They will find him even in this an educating +force. The last ode ought to be thus read for the magnificent dance-march +of its motion, as well as for its melody. + +Show me one who delights in the _Hymn on the Nativity_, and I will show +you one who may never indeed be a singer in this world, but who is +already a listener to the best. But how different it is from anything of +George Herbert's! It sets forth no feeling peculiar to Milton; it is an +outburst of the gladness of the company of believers. Every one has at +least read the glorious poem; but were I to leave it out I should have +lost, not the sapphire of aspiration, not the topaz of praise, not the +emerald of holiness, but the carbuncle of delight from the high priest's +breast-plate. And I must give the introduction too: it is the cloudy +grove of an overture, whence rushes the torrent of song. + + + ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY. + + This is the month, and this the happy morn, + Wherein the son of heaven's eternal king, + Of wedded maid and virgin mother born, + Our great redemption from above did bring; + For so the holy sages once did sing, + That he our deadly forfeit should release, + And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. + + That glorious form, that light insufferable, + And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, + Wherewith he wont[109] at heaven's high council-table + To sit the midst of trinal unity, + He laid aside, and here with us to be, + Forsook the courts of everlasting day, + And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. + + Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein + Afford a present to the infant God? + Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain + To welcome him to this his new abode, + Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod, + Hath took no print of the approaching light, + And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright? + + See how, from far upon the eastern road, + The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet! + O run, prevent them with thy humble ode, + And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; + Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet; + And join thy voice unto the angel choir, + From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire. + + + THE HYMN. + + It was the winter wild + While the heaven-born child + All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; + Nature, in awe to him, + Had doffed her gaudy trim, + With her great master so to sympathize: + It was no season then for her + To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour. + + Only with speeches fair + She woos the gentle air + To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; + And on her naked shame, + Pollute with sinful blame, + The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; + Confounded that her maker's eyes + Should look so near upon her foul deformities. + + But he, her fears to cease, + Sent down the meek-eyed Peace. + She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding + Down through the turning sphere, + His ready harbinger, + With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; + And waving wide her myrtle wand, + She strikes a universal peace through sea and land. + + No war, or battle's sound, + Was heard the world around; + The idle spear and shield were high uphung; + The hookéd chariot stood + Unstained with hostile blood; + The trumpet spake not to the arméd throng; + And kings sat still with awful eye, _awe-filled._ + As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by. + + But peaceful was the night + Wherein the Prince of Light + His reign of peace upon the earth began; + The winds, with wonder whist, _silent._ + Smoothly the water kissed, + Whispering new joys to the mild Oceän, + Who now hath quite forgot to rave, + While birds of calm[110] sit brooding on the charméd wave. + + The stars with deep amaze + Stand fixed in stedfast gaze, + Bending one way their precious influence; + And will not take their flight + For all the morning light, + Or Lucifer,[111] that often warned them thence; + But in their glimmering orbs did glow + Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. + + And though the shady gloom + Had given day her room, + The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, + And hid his head for shame, + As his inferior flame + The new enlightened world no more should need: + He saw a greater sun appear + Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree could bear. + + The shepherds on the lawn, + Or e'er the point of dawn, _ere ever._ + Sat simply chatting in a rustic row: + Full little thought they than _then._ + That the mighty Pan[112] + Was kindly come to live with them below; + Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, + Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. + + When such music sweet + Their hearts and ears did greet + As never was by mortal finger strook-- + Divinely warbled voice + Answering the stringéd noise, + As all their souls in blissful rapture took: + The air, such pleasure loath to lose, + With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. + + Nature, that heard such sound, + Beneath the hollow round + Of Cynthia's seat[113] the airy region thrilling, + Now was almost won + To think her part was done, + And that her reign had here its last fulfilling: + She knew such harmony alone + Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union. + + At last surrounds their sight + A globe of circular light, + That with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed; + The helméd cherubim + And sworded seraphim + Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, + Harping in loud and solemn choir, + With unexpressive[114] notes to heaven's new-born heir. + + Such music, as 'tis said, + Before was never made, + But when of old the sons of morning sung, + While the Creator great + His constellations set, + And the well-balanced world on hinges hung,[115] + And cast the dark foundations deep, + And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. + + Ring out, ye crystal spheres; + Once bless our human ears-- + If ye have power to touch our senses so;[116] + And let your silver chime + Move in melodious time; + And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow; + And, with your ninefold harmony, + Make up full consort[117] to the angelic symphony.[118] + + For if such holy song + Enwrap our fancy long, + Time will run back and fetch the age of gold; + And speckled vanity + Will sicken soon and die;[119] + And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould; + And hell itself will pass away, + And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. + + Yea, truth and justice then + Will down return to men, + Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, + Mercy will sit between, + Throned in celestial sheen, + With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; + And heaven, as at some festival, + Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall. + + But wisest Fate says "No; + This must not yet be so." + The babe lies yet in smiling infancy, + That on the bitter cross + Must redeem our loss, + So both himself and us to glorify. + Yet first, to those y-chained in sleep, + The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, + + With such a horrid clang + As on Mount Sinai rang, + While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake: + The agéd earth, aghast + With terror of that blast, + Shall from the surface to the centre shake, + When, at the world's last sessiön, + The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne. + + And then at last our bliss + Full and perfect is: + But now begins; for from this happy day, + The old dragon, under ground + In straiter limits bound, + Not half so far casts his usurped sway; + And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, + Swinges[120] the scaly horror of his folded tail.[121] + + The oracles are dumb:[122] + No voice or hideous hum + Runs through the archéd roof in words deceiving; + Apollo from his shrine + Can no more divine, + With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving; + No nightly trance, or breathed spell, + Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. + + The lonely mountains o'er, + And the resounding shore, + A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; + From haunted spring and dale, + Edged with poplar pale, + The parting genius[123] is with sighing sent; + With flower-inwoven tresses torn, + The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. + + In consecrated earth, + And on the holy hearth, + The Lars and Lemures[124] moan with midnight plaint; + In urns and altars round, + A drear and dying sound + Affrights the flamens[125] at their service quaint; + And the chill marble seems to sweat, + While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat. + + Peor and Baälim + Forsake their temples dim, + With that twice-battered god of Palestine; + And moonéd Ashtaroth, _the Assyrian Venus_. + Heaven's queen and mother both, + Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; + The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn;[126] + In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz[127] mourn. + + And sullen Moloch, fled, + Hath left in shadows dread + His burning idol, all of blackest hue: + In vain with cymbals' ring + They call the grisly[128] king, + In dismal dance about the furnace blue. + The brutish gods of Nile as fast-- + Isis and Orus and the dog Anubis--haste. + + Nor is Osiris[129] seen + In Memphian grove or green, + Trampling the unshowered[130] grass with lowings loud; + Nor can he be at rest + Within his sacred chest; + Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; + In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark, + The sable-stoléd sorcerers bear his worshipped ark: + + He feels, from Judah's land, + The dreaded infant's hand; + The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn. + Nor all the gods beside + Longer dare abide-- + Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine: + Our babe, to show his Godhead true, + Can in his swaddling bands control the damnéd crew. + + So, when the sun in bed, + Curtained with cloudy red, + Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, + The flocking shadows pale + Troop to the infernal jail-- + Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; + And the yellow-skirted fays + Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. + + But see, the Virgin blest + Hath laid her babe to rest: + Time is our tedious song should here have ending; + Heaven's youngest-teemed star[131] + Hath fixed her polished car, + Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; + And all about the courtly stable + Bright-harnessed[132] angels sit, in order serviceable.[133] + +If my reader should think some of the rhymes bad, and some of the words +oddly used, I would remind him that both pronunciations and meanings have +altered since: the probability is, that the older forms in both are the +better. Milton will not use a wrong word or a bad rhyme. With regard to +the form of the poem, let him observe the variety of length of line in +the stanza, and how skilfully the varied lines are associated--two of six +syllables and one of ten; then the same repeated; then one of eight and +one of twelve--no two, except of the shortest, coming together of the +same length. Its stanza is its own: I do not know another poem written in +the same; and its music is exquisite. The probability is that, if the +reader note any fact in the poem, however trifling it might seem to the +careless eye, it will repay him by unfolding both individual and related +beauty. Then let him ponder the pictures given: the sudden arraying of +the shame-faced night in long beams; the amazed kings silent on their +thrones; the birds brooding on the sea: he will find many such. Let him +consider the clear-cut epithets, so full of meaning. A true poet may be +at once known by the justice and force of the adjectives he uses, +especially when he compounds them,--that is, makes one out of two. Here +are some examples: _meek-eyed Peace; pale-eyed priest; speckled vanity; +smouldering clouds; hideous hum; dismal dance; dusky eyne:_ there are +many such, each almost a poem in itself. The whole is a succession of +pictures set in the loveliest music for the utterance of grandest +thoughts. + +No doubt there are in the poem instances of such faults in style as were +common in the age in which his verse was rooted: for my own part, I never +liked the first two stanzas of the hymn. But such instances are few; +while for a right feeling of the marvel of this poem and of the two +preceding it, we must remember that Milton was only twenty-one when he +wrote them. + +Apparently to make one of a set with the _Nativity_, he began to write an +ode on the _Passion_, but, finding the subject "above the years he had +when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it +unfinished." The fragment is full of unworthy, though skilful, and, for +such, powerful conceits, but is especially interesting as showing how +even Milton, trying to write about what he felt, but without yet having +generated thoughts enow concerning the subject itself, could only fall +back on conventionalities. Happy the young poet the wisdom of whose +earliest years was such that he recognized his mistake almost at the +outset, and dropped the attempt! Amongst the stanzas there is, however, +one of exceeding loveliness: + + He, sovereign priest, stooping his regal head, + That dropped with odorous oil down his fair eyes, + Poor fleshly tabernacle enteréd, + His starry front low-roofed beneath the skies. + Oh what a masque was there! what a disguise! + Yet more! the stroke of death he must abide; + Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethren's side. + +In this it will be seen that he has left the jubilant measure of the +_Hymn_, and returned to the more stately and solemn rhyme-royal of its +overture, as more suited to his subject. Milton could not be wrong in his +music, even when he found the quarry of his thought too hard to work. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +EDMUND WALLER, THOMAS BROWN, AND JEREMY TAYLOR. + + +Edmund Waller, born in 1605, was three years older than Milton; but I had +a fancy for not dividing Herbert and Milton. As a poet he had a high +reputation for many years, gained chiefly, I think, by a regard to +literary proprieties, combined with wit. He is graceful sometimes; but +what in his writings would with many pass for grace, is only smoothness +and the absence of faults. His horses were not difficult to drive. He +dares little and succeeds in proportion--occasionally, however, flashing +out into true song. In politics he had no character--let us hope from +weakness rather than from selfishness; yet, towards the close of his +life, he wrote some poems which reveal a man not unaccustomed to ponder +sacred things, and able to express his thoughts concerning them with +force and justice. From a poem called _Of Divine Love_, I gather the +following very remarkable passages: I wish they had been enforced by +greater nobility of character. Still they are in themselves true. Even +where we have no proof of repentance, we may see plentiful signs of a +growth towards it. We cannot tell how long the truth may of necessity +require to interpenetrate the ramifications of a man's nature. By slow +degrees he discovers that here it is not, and there it is not. Again and +again, and yet again, a man finds that he must be born with a new birth. + + The fear of hell, or aiming to be blest, + Savours too much of private interest: + This moved not Moses, nor the zealous Paul, + Who for their friends abandoned soul and all; + A greater yet from heaven to hell descends, + To save and make his enemies his friends. + + * * * * * + + That early love of creatures yet unmade, + To frame the world the Almighty did persuade. + For love it was that first created light, + Moved on the waters, chased away the night + From the rude chaos; and bestowed new grace + On things disposed of to their proper place-- + Some to rest here, and some to shine above: + Earth, sea, and heaven, were all the effects of love. + + * * * * * + + Not willing terror should his image move, + He gives a pattern of eternal love: + His son descends, to treat a peace with those + Which were, and must have ever been, his foes. + Poor he became, and left his glorious seat, + To make us humble, and to make us great; + His business here was happiness to give + To those whose malice could not let him live. + + * * * * * + + He to proud potentates would not be known: + Of those that loved him, he was hid from none. + Till love appear, we live in anxious doubt; + But smoke will vanish when that flame breaks out: + This is the fire that would consume our dross, + Refine, and make us richer by the loss. + + * * * * * + + Who for himself no miracle would make, + Dispensed with[134] several for the people's sake. + He that, long-fasting, would no wonder show, + Made loaves and fishes, as they eat them, grow. + Of all his power, which boundless was above, + Here he used none but to express his love; + And such a love would make our joy exceed, + Not when our own, but others' mouths we feed. + + * * * * * + + Love as he loved! A love so unconfined + With arms extended would embrace mankind. + Self-love would cease, or be dilated, when + We should behold as many selfs as men; + All of one family, in blood allied, + His precious blood that for our ransom died. + + * * * * * + + Amazed at once and comforted, to find + A boundless power so infinitely kind, + The soul contending to that light to fly + From her dark cell, we practise how to die, + Employing thus the poet's wingéd art + To reach this love, and grave it in our heart. + Joy so complete, so solid, and severe, + Would leave no place for meaner pleasures there: + Pale they would look, as stars that must be gone + When from the east the rising sun comes on. + + * * * * * + +To that and some other poems he adds the following--a kind of epilogue. + + + ON THE FOREGOING DIVINE POEMS. + + When we for age could neither read nor write, + The subject made us able to indite: + The soul with nobler resolutions decked, + The body stooping, does herself erect: + No mortal parts are requisite to raise + Her that unbodied can her Maker praise. + The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er: + So calm are we when passions are no more; + For then we know how vain it was to boast + Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost. + Clouds of affection from our younger eyes _passion._ + Conceal that emptiness which age descries. + + The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, + Lets in new light, through chinks that time has made: + Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, + As they draw near to their eternal home. + Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view + That stand upon the threshold of the new. + +It would be a poor victory where age was the sole conqueror. But I doubt +if age ever gains the victory alone. Let Waller, however, have this +praise: his song soars with his subject. It is a true praise. There are +men who write well until they try the noble, and then they fare like the +falling star, which, when sought where it fell, is, according to an old +fancy, discovered a poor jelly. + +Sir Thomas Brown, a physician, whose prose writings are as peculiar as +they are valuable, was of the same age as Waller. He partakes to a +considerable degree of the mysticism which was so much followed in his +day, only in his case it influences his literature most--his mode of +utterance more than his mode of thought. His _True Christian Morals_ is a +very valuable book, notwithstanding the obscurity that sometimes arises +in that, as in all his writings, from his fondness for Latin words. The +following fine hymn occurs in his _Religio Medici_, in which he gives an +account of his opinions. I am not aware of anything else that he has +published in verse, though he must probably have written more to be able +to write this so well. It occurs in the midst of prose, as the prayer he +says every night before he yields to the death of sleep. I follow it with +the succeeding sentence of the prose. + + The night is come. Like to the day, + Depart not thou, great God, away. + Let not my sins, black as the night, + Eclipse the lustre of thy light. + Keep still in my horizon, for to me + The sun makes not the day but thee. + Thou whose nature cannot sleep, + On my temples sentry keep; + Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes + Whose eyes are open while mine close. + Let no dreams my head infest + But such as Jacob's temples blest. + While I do rest, my soul advance; + Make my sleep a holy trance, + That I may, my rest being wroughtt + Awake into some holy thought, + And with as active vigour run + My course as doth the nimble sun. + Sleep is a death: O make me try + By sleeping what it is to die, + And as gently lay my head + On my grave, as now my bed. + Howe'er I rest, great God, let me + Awake again at least with thee. + And thus assured, behold I lie + Securely, or to wake or die. + These are my drowsy days: in vain + I do now wake to sleep again: + O come that hour when I shall never + Sleep again, but wake for ever. + +"This is the dormitive I take to bedward. I need no other laudanum than +this to make me sleep; after which I close mine eyes in security, content +to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection." + +Jeremy Taylor, born in 1613, was the most poetic of English +prose-writers: if he had written verse equal to his prose, he would have +had a lofty place amongst poets as well as amongst preachers. Taking the +opposite side from Milton, than whom he was five years younger, he was, +like him, conscientious and consistent, suffering while Milton's cause +prospered, and advanced to one of the bishoprics hated of Milton's soul +when the scales of England's politics turned in the other direction. Such +men, however, are divided only by their intellects. When men say, "I must +or I must not, for it is right or it is not right," then are they in +reality so bound together, even should they not acknowledge it +themselves, that no opposing opinions, no conflicting theories concerning +what is or is not right, can really part them. It was not wonderful that +a mind like that of Jeremy Taylor, best fitted for worshipping the beauty +of holiness, should mourn over the disrupted order of his church, or that +a mind like Milton's, best fitted for the law of life, should demand that +every part of that order which had ceased to vibrate responsive to every +throb of the eternal heart of truth, should fall into the ruin which its +death had preceded. The church was hardly dealt with, but the rulers of +the church have to bear the blame. + +Here are those I judge the best of the bishop's _Festival Hymns_, printed +as part of his _Golden Grove_, or _Gide to Devotion_. In the first there +is a little confusion of imagery; and in others of them will be found a +little obscurity. They bear marks of the careless impatience of rhythm +and rhyme of one who though ever bursting into a natural trill of song, +sometimes with more rhymes apparently than he intended, would yet rather +let his thoughts pour themselves out in that unmeasured chant, that +"poetry in solution," which is the natural speech of the prophet-orator. +He is like a full river that must flow, which rejoices in a flood, and +rebels against the constraint of mole or conduit. He exults in utterance +itself, caring little for the mode, which, however, the law of his +indwelling melody guides though never compels. Charmingly diffuse in his +prose, his verse ever sounds as if it would overflow the banks of its +self-imposed restraints. + + + THE SECOND HYMN FOR ADVENT; OR, + CHRIST'S COMING TO JERUSALEM IN TRIUMPH. + + Lord, come away; + Why dost thou stay? + Thy road is ready; and thy paths made straight + With longing expectation wait + The consecration of thy beauteous feet. + Ride on triumphantly: behold we lay + Our lusts and proud wills in thy way. + Hosanna! welcome to our hearts! Lord, here + Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear + As that of Sion, and as full of sin: + Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein. + Enter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor; + Crucify them, that they may never more + Profane that holy place + Where thou hast chose to set thy face. + And then if our stiff tongues shall be + Mute in the praises of thy deity, + The stones out of the temple-wall + Shall cry aloud and call + Hosanna! and thy glorious footsteps greet. + + + HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY; BEING A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THREE SHEPHERDS. + + 1. Where is this blessed babe + That hath made + All the world so full of joy + And expectation; + That glorious boy + That crowns each nation + With a triumphant wreath of blessedness? + + 2. Where should he be but in the throng, + And among + His angel ministers that sing + And take wing + Just as may echo to his voice, + And rejoice, + When wing and tongue and all + May so procure their happiness? + + 3. But he hath other waiters now: + A poor cow + An ox and mule stand and behold, + And wonder + That a stable should enfold + Him that can thunder. + + _Chorus_. O what a gracious God have we! + How good? How great? Even as our misery. + + + A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY. + + Awake, my soul, and come away; + Put on thy best array, + Lest if thou longer stay, + Thou lose some minutes of so blest a day. + + Go run, And bid good-morrow to the sun; + Welcome his safe return To Capricorn, And that great morn Wherein + a God was born, Whose story none can tell But he whose every + word's a miracle. + + To-day Almightiness grew weak; + The Word itself was mute, and could not speak. + + That Jacob's star which made the sun + To dazzle if he durst look on, + Now mantled o'er in Bethlehem's night, + Borrowed a star to show him light. + + He that begirt each zone, + To whom both poles are one, + Who grasped the zodiac in his hand, + And made it move or stand, + Is now by nature man, + By stature but a span; + Eternity is now grown short; + A king is born without a court; + The water thirsts; the fountain's dry; + And life, being born, made apt to die. + + _Chorus._ Then let our praises emulate and vie + With his humility! + Since he's exiled from skies + That we might rise,-- + From low estate of men + Let's sing him up again! + Each man wind up his heart + To bear a part + In that angelic choir, and show + His glory high, as he was low. + Let's sing towards men goodwill and charity, + Peace upon earth, glory to God on high! + Hallelujah! Hallelujah! + + + THE PRAYER. + + My soul doth pant towards thee, + My God, source of eternal life. + Flesh fights with me: + Oh end the strife, + And part us, that in peace I may + Unclay + My wearied spirit, and take + My flight to thy eternal spring, + Where, for his sake + Who is my king, + I may wash all my tears away, + That day. + + Thou conqueror of death, + Glorious triumpher o'er the grave, + Whose holy breath + Was spent to save + Lost mankind, make me to be styled + Thy child, + And take me when I die + And go unto my dust; my soul + Above the sky + With saints enrol, + That in thy arms, for ever, I + May lie. + + +This last is quite regular, that is, the second stanza is arranged +precisely as the first, though such will not appear to be the case +without examination: the disposition of the lines, so various in length, +is confusing though not confused. + +In these poems will be found that love of homeliness which is +characteristic of all true poets--and orators too, in as far as they are +poets. The meeting of the homely and the grand is heaven. One more. + + + A PRAYER FOR CHARITY. + + Full of mercy, full of love, + Look upon us from above; + Thou who taught'st the blind man's night + To entertain a double light, + Thine and the day's--and that thine too: + The lame away his crutches threw; + The parchéd crust of leprosy + Returned unto its infancy; + The dumb amazéd was to hear + His own unchain'd tongue strike his ear; + Thy powerful mercy did even chase + The devil from his usurpéd place, + Where thou thyself shouldst dwell, not he: + Oh let thy love our pattern be; + Let thy mercy teach one brother + To forgive and love another; + That copying thy mercy here, + Thy goodness may hereafter rear + Our souls unto thy glory, when + Our dust shall cease to be with men. _Amen._ + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +HENRY MORE AND RICHARD BAXTER. + + +Dr. Henry More was born in the year 1614. Chiefly known for his mystical +philosophy, which he cultivated in retirement at Cambridge, and taught +not only in prose, but in an elaborate, occasionally poetic poem, of +somewhere about a thousand Spenserian stanzas, called _A Platonic Song of +the Soul_, he has left some smaller poems, from which I shall gather good +store for my readers. Whatever may be thought of his theories, they +belong at least to the highest order of philosophy; and it will be seen +from the poems I give that they must have borne their part in lifting the +soul of the man towards a lofty spiritual condition of faith and +fearlessness. The mystical philosophy seems to me safe enough in the +hands of a poet: with others it may degenerate into dank and dusty +materialism. + + + RESOLUTION. + + Where's now the objects of thy fears, + Needless sighs, and fruitless tears? + They be all gone like idle dream + Suggested from the body's steam. + + * * * * * + + What's plague and prison? Loss of friends? + War, dearth, and death that all things ends? + Mere bugbears for the childish mind; + Pure panic terrors of the blind. + + Collect thy soul unto one sphere + Of light, and 'bove the earth it rear; + Those wild scattered thoughts that erst + Lay loosely in the world dispersed, + Call in:--thy spirit thus knit in one + Fair lucid orb, those fears be gone + Like vain impostures of the night, + That fly before the morning bright. + Then with pure eyes thou shalt behold + How the first goodness doth infold + All things in loving tender arms; + That deeméd mischiefs are no harms, + But sovereign salves and skilful cures + Of greater woes the world endures; + That man's stout soul may win a state + Far raised above the reach of fate. + + Then wilt thou say, _God rules the world_, + Though mountain over mountain hurled + Be pitched amid the foaming main + Which busy winds to wrath constrain; + + * * * * * + + Though pitchy blasts from hell up-born + Stop the outgoings of the morn, + And Nature play her fiery games + In this forced night, with fulgurant flames: + + * * * * * + + All this confusion cannot move + The purgéd mind, freed from the love + Of commerce with her body dear, + Cell of sad thoughts, sole spring of fear. + + Whate'er I feel or hear or see + Threats but these parts that mortal be. + Nought can the honest heart dismay + Unless the love of living clay, + + And long acquaintance with the light + Of this outworld, and what to sight + Those two officious beams[135] discover + Of forms that round about us hover. + + Power, wisdom, goodness, sure did frame + This universe, and still guide the same. + But thoughts from passions sprung, deceive + Vain mortals. No man can contrive + A better course than what's been run + Since the first circuit of the sun. + + He that beholds all from on high + Knows better what to do than I. + I'm not mine own: should I repine + If he dispose of what's not mine? + Purge but thy soul of blind self-will, + Thou straight shall see God doth no ill. + The world he fills with the bright rays + Of his free goodness. He displays + Himself throughout. Like common air + That spirit of life through all doth fare, + Sucked in by them as vital breath + That willingly embrace not death. + But those that with that living law + Be unacquainted, cares do gnaw; + Mistrust of God's good providence + Doth daily vex their wearied sense. + + Now place me on the Libyan soil, + With scorching sun and sands to toil, + Far from the view of spring or tree, + Where neither man nor house I see; + + * * * * * + + Commit me at my next remove + To icy Hyperborean ove; + Confine me to the arctic pole, + Where the numb'd heavens do slowly roll; + To lands where cold raw heavy mist + Sol's kindly warmth and light resists; + Where lowering clouds full fraught with snow + Do sternly scowl; where winds do blow + With bitter blasts, and pierce the skin, + Forcing the vital spirits in, + Which leave the body thus ill bested, + In this chill plight at least half-dead; + Yet by an antiperistasis[136] + My inward heat more kindled is; + And while this flesh her breath expires, + My spirit shall suck celestial fires + By deep-fetched sighs and pure devotion. + Thus waxen hot with holy motion, + At once I'll break forth in a flame; + Above this world and worthless fame + I'll take my flight, careless that men + Know not how, where I die, or when. + + Yea, though the soul should mortal prove, + So be God's life but in me move + To my last breath--I'm satisfied + A lonesome mortal God to have died. + +This last paragraph is magnificent as any single passage I know in +literature. + +Is it lawful, after reading this, to wonder whether Henry More, the +retired, and so far untried, student of Cambridge, would have been able +thus to meet the alternations of suffering which he imagines? It is one +thing to see reasonableness, another to be reasonable when objects have +become circumstances. Would he, then, by spiritual might, have risen +indeed above bodily torture? It is _possible_ for a man to arrive at this +perfection; it is absolutely _necessary_ that a man should some day or +other reach it; and I think the wise doctor would have proved the truth +of his principles. But there are many who would gladly part with their +whole bodies rather than offend, and could not yet so rise above the +invasions of the senses. Here, as in less important things, our business +is not to speculate what we would do in other circumstances, but to +perform the duty of the moment, the one true preparation for the duty to +come. Possibly, however, the right development of our human relations in +the world may be a more difficult and more important task still than this +condition of divine alienation. To find God in others is better than to +grow _solely_ in the discovery of him in ourselves, if indeed the latter +were possible. + + + DEVOTION. + + Good God, when them thy inward grace dost shower + Into my breast, + How full of light and lively power + Is then my soul! + How am I blest! + How can I then all difficulties devour! + Thy might, + Thy spright, + With ease my cumbrous enemy control. + + If thou once turn away thy face and hide + Thy cheerful look, + My feeble flesh may not abide + That dreadful stound; _hour._ + I cannot brook + Thy absence. My heart, with care and grief then gride, + Doth fail, + Doth quail; + My life steals from me at that hidden wound. + + My fancy's then a burden to my mind; + Mine anxious thought + Betrays my reason, makes me blind; + Near dangers drad _dreaded._ + Make me distraught; + Surprised with fear my senses all I find: + In hell + I dwell, + Oppressed with horror, pain, and sorrow sad. + + My former resolutions all are fled-- + Slipped over my tongue; + My faith, my hope, and joy are dead. + Assist my heart, + Rather than my song, + My God, my Saviour! When I'm ill-bested. + Stand by, + And I + Shall bear with courage undeservéd smart. + + + THE PHILOSOPHER'S DEVOTION. + + Sing aloud!--His praise rehearse + Who hath made the universe. + He the boundless heavens has spread, + All the vital orbs has kned, _kneaded._ + He that on Olympus high + Tends his flocks with watchful eye, + And this eye has multiplied _suns, as centres of systems._ + Midst each flock for to reside. + Thus, as round about they stray, + Toucheth[137] each with outstretched ray; + Nimble they hold on their way, + Shaping out their night and day. + Summer, winter, autumn, spring, + Their inclined axes bring. + Never slack they; none respires, + Dancing round their central fires. + + In due order as they move, + Echoes sweet be gently drove + Thorough heaven's vast hollowness, + Which unto all corners press: + Music that the heart of Jove + Moves to joy and sportful love; + Fills the listening sailers' ears + Riding on the wandering spheres: + Neither speech nor language is + Where their voice is not transmiss. + + God is good, is wise, is strong, + Witness all the creature throng, + Is confessed by every tongue; + All things back from whence they sprung, _go back_--a verb. + As the thankful rivers pay + What they borrowed of the sea. + + Now myself I do resign: + Take me whole: I all am thine. + Save me, God, from self-desire-- + Death's pit, dark hell's raging fire--[138] + Envy, hatred, vengeance, ire; + Let not lust my soul bemire. + + Quit from these, thy praise I'll sing, + Loudly sweep the trembling string. + Bear a part, O Wisdom's sons, + Freed from vain religïons! + Lo! from far I you salute, + Sweetly warbling on my lute-- + India, Egypt, Araby, + Asia, Greece, and Tartary, + Carmel-tracts, and Lebanon, + With the Mountains of the Moon, + From whence muddy Nile doth run, + Or wherever else you won: _dwell._ + Breathing in one vital air, + One we are though distant far. + + Rise at once;--let's sacrifice: + Odours sweet perfume the skies; + See how heavenly lightning fires + Hearts inflamed with high aspires! + All the substance of our souls + Up in clouds of incense rolls. + Leave we nothing to ourselves + Save a voice--what need we else! + Or an hand to wear and tire + On the thankful lute or lyre! + + Sing aloud!--His praise rehearse + Who hath made the universe. + +In this _Philosopher's Devotion_ he has clearly imitated one of those +psalms of George Sandys which I have given. + + + CHARITY AND HUMILITY. + + Far have I clambered in my mind, + But nought so great as love I find: + Deep-searching wit, mount-moving might, + Are nought compared to that good sprite. + Life of delight and soul of bliss! + Sure source of lasting happiness! + Higher than heaven! lower than hell! + What is thy tent? Where may'st thou dwell? + + "My mansion hight _Humility_, _is named._ + Heaven's vastest capability. + The further it doth downward tend, + The higher up it doth ascend; + If it go down to utmost nought, + It shall return with that it sought." + + Lord, stretch thy tent in my strait breast; + Enlarge it downward, that sure rest + May there be pight for that pure fire _pitched._ + Wherewith thou wontest to inspire + All self-dead souls: my life is gone; + Sad solitude's my irksome won; _dwelling._ + Cut off from men and all this world, + In Lethe's lonesome ditch I'm hurled; + Nor might nor sight doth ought me move, + Nor do I care to be above. + O feeble rays of mental light, + That best be seen in this dark night, + What are you? What is any strength + If it be not laid in one length + With pride or love? I nought desire + But a new life, or quite to expire. + Could I demolish with mine eye + Strong towers, stop the fleet stars in sky, + Bring down to earth the pale-faced moon, + Or turn black midnight to bright noon; + Though all things were put in my hand-- + As parched, as dry as the Libyan sand + Would be my life, if charity + Were wanting. But humility + Is more than my poor soul durst crave + That lies entombed in lowly grave; + But if 'twere lawful up to send + My voice to heaven, this should it rend: + "Lord, thrust me deeper into dust, + That thou may'st raise me with the just." + +There are strange things and worth pondering in all these. An occasional +classical allusion seems to us quite out of place, but such things we +must pass. The poems are quite different from any we have had before. +There has been only a few of such writers in our nation, but I suspect +those have had a good deal more influence upon the religious life of it +than many thinkers suppose. They are in closest sympathy with the deeper +forms of truth employed by St. Paul and St. John. This last poem, +concerning humility as the house in which charity dwells, is very truth. +A repentant sinner feels that he is making himself little when he prays +to be made humble: the Christian philosopher sees such a glory and +spiritual wealth in humility that it appears to him almost too much to +pray for. + +The very essence of these mystical writers seems to me to be poetry. They +use the largest figures for the largest spiritual ideas--_light_ for +_good, darkness_ for _evil_. Such symbols are the true bodies of the true +ideas. For this service mainly what we term _nature_ was called into +being, namely, to furnish forms for truths, for without form truth cannot +be uttered. Having found their symbols, these writers next proceed to use +them logically; and here begins the peculiar danger. When the logic +leaves the poetry behind, it grows first presumptuous, then hard, then +narrow and untrue to the original breadth of the symbol; the glory of the +symbol vanishes; and the final result is a worship of the symbol, which +has withered into an apple of Sodom. Witness some of the writings of the +European master of the order--Swedenborg: the highest of them are rich in +truth; the lowest are poverty-stricken indeed. + +In 1615 was born Richard Baxter, one of the purest and wisest and +devoutest of men--and no mean poet either. If ever a man sought between +contending parties to do his duty, siding with each as each appeared +right, opposing each as each appeared wrong, surely that man was Baxter. +Hence he fared as all men too wise to be partisans must fare--he pleased +neither Royalists nor Puritans. Dull of heart and sadly unlike a mother +was the Church when, by the Act of Uniformity of Charles II., she drove +from her bosom such a son, with his two thousand brethren of the clergy! + +He has left us a good deal of verse--too much, perhaps, if we consider +the length of the poems and the value of condensation. There is in many +of them a delightful fervour of the simplest love to God, uttered with a +plain half poetic, half logical strength, from which sometimes the poetry +breaks out clear and fine. Much that he writes is of death, from the +dread of which he evidently suffered--a good thing when it drives a man +to renew his confidence in his Saviour's presence. It has with him a very +different origin from the vulgar fancy that to talk about death is +religious. It was refuge from the fear of death he sought, and that is +the part of every man who would not be a slave. The _door of death_ of +which he so often speaks is to him a door out of the fear of death. + +The poem from which the following excerpt is made was evidently written +in view of some imminent suffering for conscience-sake, probably when the +Act of Uniformity was passed: twenty years after, he was imprisoned at +the age of sixty-seven, and lay nearly a year and a half.--I omit many +verses. + + + THE RESOLUTION. + + It's no great matter what men deem, + Whether they count me good or bad: + In their applause and best esteem, + There's no contentment to be had. + Thy steps, Lord, in this dirt I see; + And lest my soul from God should stray, + I'll bear my cross and follow thee: + Let others choose the fairer way. + My face is meeter for the spit; + I am more suitable to shame, + And to the taunts of scornful wit: + It's no great matter for my name. + + My Lord hath taught me how to want + A place wherein to put my head: + While he is mine, I'll be content + To beg or lack my daily bread. + Must I forsake the soil and air + Where first I drew my vital breath? + That way may be as near and fair: + Thence I may come to thee by death. + All countries are my Father's lands; + Thy sun, thy love, doth shine on all; + We may in all lift up pure hands, + And with acceptance on thee call. + + What if in prison I must dwell? + May I not there converse with thee? + Save me from sin, thy wrath, and hell, + Call me thy child, and I am free. + No walls or bars can keep thee out; + None can confine a holy soul; + The streets of heaven it walks about; + None can its liberty control. + This flesh hath drawn my soul to sin: + If it must smart, thy will be done! + O fill me with thy joys within, + And then I'll let it grieve alone. + + Frail, sinful flesh is loath to die; + Sense to the unseen world is strange; + The doubting soul dreads the Most High, + And trembleth at so great a change. + O let me not be strange at home, + Strange to the sun and life of souls, + Choosing this low and darkened room, + Familiar with worms and moles! + Am I the first that go this way? + How many saints are gone before! + How many enter every day + Into thy kingdom by this door! + Christ was once dead, and in a grave; + Yet conquered death, and rose again; + And by this method he will save + His servants that with him shall reign. + The strangeness will be quickly over, + When once the heaven-born soul is there: + One sight of God will it recover + From all this backwardness and fear. + To us, Christ's lowest parts, his feet, + Union and faith must yet suffice + To guide and comfort us: it's meet + We trust our head who hath our eyes. + +We see here that faith in the Lord leads Richard Baxter to the same +conclusions immediately to which his faithful philosophy led Henry More. + +There is much in Baxter's poems that I would gladly quote, but must leave +with regret. Here is a curious, skilful, and, in a homely way, poetic +ballad, embodying a good parable. I give only a few of the stanzas. + + + THE RETURN. + + Who was it that I left behind + When I went last from home, + That now I all disordered find + When to myself I come? + + I left it light, but now all's dark, + And I am fain to grope: + Were it not for one little spark + I should be out of hope. + + My Gospel-book I open left, + Where I the promise saw; + But now I doubt it's lost by theft: + I find none but the Law. + + The stormy rain an entrance hath + Through the uncovered top: + How should I rest when showers of wrath + Upon my conscience drop? + + I locked my jewel in my chest; + I'll search lest that be gone:-- + If this one guest had quit my breast, + I had been quite undone. + + My treacherous Flesh had played its part, + And opened Sin the door; + And they have spoiled and robbed my heart, + And left it sad and poor. + + Yet have I one great trusty friend + That will procure my peace, + And all this loss and ruin mend, + And purchase my release. + + The bellows I'll yet take in hand, + Till this small spark shall flame: + Love shall my heart and tongue command + To praise God's holy name. + + I'll mend the roof; I'll watch the door, + And better keep the key; + I'll trust my treacherous flesh no more, + But force it to obey. + + What have I said? That I'll do this + That am so false and weak, + And have so often done amiss, + And did my covenants break? + + I mean, Lord--all this shall be done + If thou my heart wilt raise; + And as the work must be thine own, + So also shall the praise. + +The allegory is so good that one is absolutely sorry when it breaks down, +and the poem says in plain words that which is the subject of the +figures, bringing truths unmasked into the midst of the maskers who +represent truths--thus interrupting the pleasure of the artistic sense in +the transparent illusion. + +The command of metrical form in Baxter is somewhat remarkable. He has not +much melody, but he keeps good time in a variety of measures. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +CRASHAW AND MARVELL. + + +I come now to one of the loveliest of our angel-birds, Richard Crashaw. +Indeed he was like a bird in more senses than one; for he belongs to that +class of men who seem hardly ever to get foot-hold of this world, but are +ever floating in the upper air of it. + +What I said of a peculiar Æolian word-music in William Drummond applies +with equal truth to Crashaw; while of our own poets, somehow or other, he +reminds me of Shelley, in the silvery shine and bell-like melody both of +his verse and his imagery; and in one of his poems, _Music's Duel_, the +fineness of his phrase reminds me of Keats. But I must not forget that it +is only with his sacred, his best poems too, that I am now concerned. + +The date of his birth is not known with certainty, but it is judged about +1616, the year of Shakspere's death. He was the son of a Protestant +clergyman zealous even to controversy. By a not unnatural reaction +Crashaw, by that time, it is said, a popular preacher, when expelled from +Oxford in 1644 by the Puritan Parliament because of his refusal to sign +their Covenant, became a Roman Catholic. He died about the age of +thirty-four, a canon of the Church of Loretto. There is much in his +verses of that sentimentalism which, I have already said in speaking of +Southwell, is rife in modern Catholic poetry. I will give from Crashaw a +specimen of the kind of it. Avoiding a more sacred object, one stanza +from a poem of thirty-one, most musical, and full of lovely speech +concerning the tears of Mary Magdalen, will suit my purpose. + + Hail, sister springs, + Parents of silver-footed rills! + Ever-bubbling things! + Thawing crystal! Snowy hills, + Still spending, never spent!--I mean + Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene! + +The poem is called _The Weeper_, and is radiant of delicate fancy. But +surely such tones are not worthy of flitting moth-like about the holy +sorrow of a repentant woman! Fantastically beautiful, they but play with +her grief. Sorrow herself would put her shoes off her feet in approaching +the weeping Magdalene. They make much of her indeed, but they show her +little reverence. There is in them, notwithstanding their fervour of +amorous words, a coldness like that which dwells in the ghostly beauty of +icicles shining in the moon. + +But I almost reproach myself for introducing Crashaw thus. I had to point +out the fact, and now having done with it, I could heartily wish I had +room to expatiate on his loveliness even in such poems as _The Weeper_. + +His _Divine Epigrams_ are not the most beautiful, but they are to me the +most valuable of his verses, inasmuch as they make us feel afresh the +truth which he sets forth anew. In them some of the facts of our Lord's +life and teaching look out upon us as from clear windows of the past. As +epigrams, too, they are excellent--pointed as a lance. + + + _Upon the Sepulchre of our Lord._ + + Here, where our Lord once laid his head, + Now the grave lies buriëd. + + + _The Widow's Mites._ + + Two mites, two drops, yet all her house and land, + Fall from a steady heart, though trembling hand; + The other's wanton wealth foams high and brave: + The other cast away--she only gave. + + + _On the Prodigal._ + + Tell me, bright boy! tell me, my golden lad! + Whither away so frolic? Why so glad? + + What! _all_ thy wealth in council? _all_ thy state? + Are husks so dear? Troth, 'tis a mighty rate! + +I value the following as a lovely parable. Mary is not contented: to see +the place is little comfort. The church itself, with all its memories of +the Lord, the gospel-story, and all theory about him, is but his tomb +until we find himself. + + + _Come, see the place-where the Lord lay._ + + Show me himself, himself, bright sir! Oh show + Which way my poor tears to himself may go. + Were it enough to show the place, and say, + "Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay;" + Then could I show these arms of mine, and say, + "Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay." + +From one of eight lines, on the Mother Mary looking on her child in her +lap, I take the last two, complete in themselves, and I think best alone. + + This new guest to her eyes new laws hath given: + 'Twas once _look up_, 'tis now _look down to heaven_. + +And here is perhaps his best. + + + _Two went up into the Temple to pray_. + + Two went to pray? Oh rather say, + One went to brag, the other to pray. + + One stands up close, and treads on high, + Where the other dares not lend his eye. + + One nearer to God's altar trod; + The other to the altar's God. + +This appears to me perfect. Here is the true relation between the forms +and the end of religion. The priesthood, the altar and all its +ceremonies, must vanish from between the sinner and his God. When the +priest forgets his mediation of a servant, his duty of a door-keeper to +the temple of truth, and takes upon him the office of an intercessor, he +stands between man and God, and is a Satan, an adversary. Artistically +considered, the poem could hardly be improved. + +Here is another containing a similar lesson. + + + _I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof._ + + Thy God was making haste into thy roof; + Thy humble faith and fear keeps him aloof. + He'll be thy guest: because he may not be, + He'll come--into thy house? No; into thee. + +The following is a world-wide intercession for them that know not what +they do. Of those that reject the truth, who can be said ever to have +_truly_ seen it? A man must be good to see truth. It is a thought +suggested by our Lord's words, not an irreverent opposition to the truth +of _them_. + + + _But now they have seen and hated._ + + _Seen?_ and yet _hated thee?_ They did not see-- + They saw thee not, that saw and hated thee! + No, no; they saw thee not, O Life! O Love! + Who saw aught in thee that their hate could move. + +We must not be too ready to quarrel with every oddity: an oddity will +sometimes just give the start to an outbreak of song. The strangeness of +the following hymn rises almost into grandeur. + + + EASTER DAY. + + Rise, heir of fresh eternity, + From thy virgin-tomb; + Rise, mighty man of wonders, and thy world with thee; + Thy tomb, the universal East-- + Nature's new womb; + Thy tomb--fair Immortality's perfumed nest. + + Of all the glories[139] make noon gay + This is the morn; + This rock buds forth the fountain of the streams of day; + In joy's white annals lives this hour, + When life was born, + No cloud-scowl on his radiant lids, no tempest-lower. + + Life, by this light's nativity, + All creatures have; + Death only by this day's just doom is forced to die. + Nor is death forced; for, may he lie + Throned in thy grave, + Death will on this condition be content to die. + +When we come, in the writings of one who has revealed masterdom, upon any +passage that seems commonplace, or any figure that suggests nothing true, +the part of wisdom is to brood over that point; for the probability is +that the barrenness lies in us, two factors being necessary for the +result of sight--the thing to be seen and the eye to see it. No doubt the +expression may be inadequate, but if we can compensate the deficiency by +adding more vision, so much the better for us. + +In the second stanza there is a strange combination of images: the rock +buds; and buds a fountain; the fountain is light. But the images are so +much one at the root, that they slide gracefully into each other, and +there is no confusion or incongruity: the result is an inclined plane of +development. + +I now come to the most musical and most graceful, therefore most lyrical, +of his poems. I have left out just three stanzas, because of the +sentimentalism of which I have spoken: I would have left out more if I +could have done so without spoiling the symmetry of the poem. My reader +must be friendly enough to one who is so friendly to him, to let his +peculiarities pass unquestioned--amongst the rest his conceits, as well +as the trifling discord that the shepherds should be called, after the +classical fashion--ill agreeing, from its associations, with Christian +song--Tityrus and Thyrsis. + + + A HYMN OF THE NATIVITY SUNG BY THE SHEPHERDS. + + _Chorus_. Come, we shepherds, whose blest sight + Hath met love's noon in nature's night; + Come, lift we up our loftier song, + And wake the sun that lies too long. + + To all our world of well-stolen[140] joy + He slept, and dreamed of no such thing, + While we found out heaven's fairer eye, + And kissed the cradle of our king: + Tell him he rises now too late + To show us aught worth looking at. + + Tell him we now can show him more + Than he e'er showed to mortal sight-- + Than he himself e'er saw before, + Which to be seen needs not his light: + Tell him, Tityrus, where thou hast been; + Tell him, Thyrsis, what thou hast seen. + + _Tityrus_. Gloomy night embraced the place + Where the noble infant lay: + The babe looked up and showed his face: + In spite of darkness it was day. + It was thy day, sweet, and did rise + Not from the east, but from thy eyes. + _Chorus._ It was thy day, sweet, &c. + + _Thyrsis_. Winter chid aloud, and sent + The angry north to wage his wars: + The north forgot his fierce intent, + And left perfumes instead of scars. + By those sweet eyes' persuasive powers, + Where he meant frosts, he scattered flowers. + _Chorus._ By those sweet eyes', &c. + + _Both_. We saw thee in thy balmy nest, + Young dawn of our eternal day; + We saw thine eyes break from the east, + And chase the trembling shades away. + We saw thee, and we blessed the sight; + We saw thee by thine own sweet light. + _Chorus._ We saw thee, &c. + + _Tityrus_. "Poor world," said I, "what wilt thou do + To entertain this starry stranger? + Is this the best thou canst bestow-- + A cold and not too cleanly manger? + Contend, the powers of heaven and earth, + To fit a bed for this huge birth." + _Chorus._ Contend, the powers, &c. + + _Thyrsis_. "Proud world," said I, "cease your contest, + And let the mighty babe alone: + The phoenix builds the phoenix' nest-- + Love's architecture is his own. + The babe, whose birth embraves this morn, + Made his own bed ere he was born." + _Chorus._ The babe, whose birth, &c. + + _Tityrus_. I saw the curl'd drops, soft and slow, + Come hovering o'er the place's head, + Offering their whitest sheets of snow + To furnish the fair infant's bed: + "Forbear," said I; "be not too bold: + Your fleece is white, but 'tis too cold." + _Chorus._ "Forbear," said I, &c. + + _Thyrsis_. I saw the obsequious seraphim + Their rosy fleece of fire bestow; + For well they now can spare their wings, + Since heaven itself lies here below. + "Well done," said I; "but are you sure + Your down, so warm, will pass for pure?" + _Chorus._ "Well done," said I, &c. + + * * * * * + + _Full Chorus_. Welcome all wonders in one sight! + Eternity shut in a span! + Summer in winter! day in night! + Heaven in earth, and God in man! + Great little one, whose all-embracing birth + Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth! + + * * * * * + + Welcome--though not to those gay flies + Gilded i' th' beams of earthly kings-- + Slippery souls in smiling eyes-- + But to poor shepherds, homespun things, + Whose wealth's their flocks, whose wit's to be + Well read in their simplicity. + + Yet when young April's husband showers + Shall bless the fruitful Maia's bed, + We'll bring the firstborn of her flowers + To kiss thy feet, and crown thy head: + To thee, dear Lamb! whose love must keep + The shepherds while they feed their sheep. + + To thee, meek Majesty, soft king + Of simple graces and sweet loves, + Each of us his lamb will bring, + Each his pair of silver doves. + At last, in fire of thy fair eyes, + Ourselves become our own best sacrifice. + +A splendid line to end with! too good for the preceding one. All temples +and altars, all priesthoods and prayers, must vanish in this one and only +sacrifice. Exquisite, however, as the poem is, we cannot help wishing it +looked less heathenish. Its decorations are certainly meretricious. + +From a few religious poems of Sir Edward Sherburne, another Roman +Catholic, and a firm adherent of Charles I., I choose the following--the +only one I care for. + + + AND THEY LAID HIM IN A MANGER. + + Happy crib, that wert, alone, + To my God, bed, cradle, throne! + Whilst thy glorious vileness I + View with divine fancy's eye, + Sordid filth seems all the cost, + State, and splendour, crowns do boast. + + See heaven's sacred majesty + Humbled beneath poverty; + Swaddled up in homely rags, + On a bed of straw and flags! + He whose hands the heavens displayed, + And the world's foundations laid, + From the world's almost exiled, + Of all ornaments despoiled. + Perfumes bathe him not, new-born; + Persian mantles not adorn; + Nor do the rich roofs look bright + With the jasper's orient light. + + Where, O royal infant, be + The ensigns of thy majesty; + Thy Sire's equalizing state; + And thy sceptre that rules fate? + Where's thy angel-guarded throne, + Whence thy laws thou didst make known-- + Laws which heaven, earth, hell obeyed? + These, ah! these aside he laid; + Would the emblem be--of pride + By humility outvied. + +I pass by Abraham Cowley, mighty reputation as he has had, without +further remark than that he is too vulgar to be admired more than +occasionally, and too artificial almost to be, as a poet, loved at all. + +Andrew Marvell, member of Parliament for Hull both before and after the +Restoration, was twelve years younger than his friend Milton. Any one of +some half-dozen of his few poems is to my mind worth all the verse that +Cowley ever made. It is a pity he wrote so little; but his was a life as +diligent, I presume, as it was honourable. + + + ON A DROP OF DEW. + + See how the orient dew, + Shed from the bosom of the morn + Into the blowing roses, + Yet careless of its mansion new + For the clear region where 'twas born, + Round in itself encloses, _used intransitively._ + And in its little globe's extent, + Frames as it can its native element. + How it the purple flower does slight, + Scarce touching where it lies, + But gazing back upon the skies, + Shines with a mournful light, + Like its own tear, + Because so long divided from the sphere: + Restless it rolls, and unsecure, + Trembling lest it grow impure, + Till the warm sun pity its pain, + And to the skies exhale it back again. + So the soul, that drop, that ray + Of the clear fountain of eternal day, + Could it within the human flower be seen, + Remembering still its former height, + Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green; + And, recollecting its own light, + Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express + The greater heaven in an heaven less. + In how coy a figure wound, + Every way it turns away, + So the world excluding round, + Yet receiving in the day; + Dark beneath but bright above, + Here disdaining, there in love. + How loose and easy hence to go! + How girt and ready to ascend! + Moving but on a point below, + It all about does upwards bend. + Such did the manna's sacred dew distil-- + White and entire,[141] though congealed and chill-- + Congealed on earth, but does, dissolving, run + Into the glories of the almighty sun. + +Surely a lovely fancy of resemblance, exquisitely wrought out; an +instance of the lighter play of the mystical mind, which yet shadows +forth truth. + + + THE CORONET. + + When for the thorns with which I long too long, + With many a piercing wound, + My Saviour's head have crowned, + I seek with garlands to redress that wrong, + Through every garden, every mead + I gather flowers--my fruits are only flowers-- + Dismantling all the fragrant towers + That once adorned my shepherdess's head; + And now, when I have summed up all my store, + Thinking--so I myself deceive-- + So rich a chaplet thence to weave + As never yet the King of glory wore; + Alas! I find the serpent old, + That, twining in his speckled breast, + About the flowers disguised does fold, + With wreaths of fame and interest. + Ah, foolish man that wouldst debase with them + And mortal glory, heaven's diadem! + But thou who only couldst the serpent tame, + Either his slippery knots at once untie, + And disentangle all his winding snare, + Or shatter too with him my curious frame,[142] + And let these wither, that so he may die, + Though set with skill, and chosen out with care; + That they, while thou on both their spoils dost tread, + May crown thy feet that could not crown thy head. + +A true sacrifice of worship, if not a garland of praise! The disciple +would have his works tried by the fire, not only that the gold and the +precious stones may emerge relucent, but that the wood and hay and +stubble may perish. The will of God alone, not what we may have effected, +deserves our care. In the perishing of our deeds they fall at his feet: +in our willing their loss we crown his head. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +A MOUNT OF VISION--HENRY VAUGHAN. + + +We have now arrived at the borders of a long, dreary tract, which, +happily for my readers, I can shorten for them in this my retrospect. +From the heights of Henry Vaughan's verse, I look across a stony region, +with a few feeble oases scattered over it, and a hazy green in the +distance. It does not soften the dreariness that its stones are all laid +in order, that the spaces which should be meadows are skilfully paved. + +Henry Vaughan belongs to the mystical school, but his poetry rules his +theories. You find no more of the mystic than the poet can easily govern; +in fact, scarcely more than is necessary to the highest poetry. He +develops his mysticism upwards, with relation to his higher nature alone: +it blossoms into poetry. His twin-brother Thomas developed his mysticism +downwards in the direction of the material sciences--a true effort still, +but one in which the danger of ceasing to be true increases with +increasing ratio the further it is carried. + +They were born in South Wales in the year 1621. Thomas was a clergyman; +Henry a doctor of medicine. Both were Royalists, and both suffered in the +cause--Thomas by expulsion from his living, Henry by imprisonment. Thomas +died soon after the Restoration; Henry outlived the Revolution. + +Henry Vaughan was then nearly thirty years younger than George Herbert, +whom he consciously and intentionally imitates. His art is not comparable +to that of Herbert: hence Herbert remains the master; for it is not the +thought that makes the poet; it is the utterance of that thought in +worthy presence of speech. He is careless and somewhat rugged. If he can +get his thought dressed, and thus made visible, he does not mind the +dress fitting awkwardly, or even being a little out at elbows. And yet he +has grander lines and phrases than any in Herbert. He has occasionally a +daring success that strikes one with astonishment. In a word, he says +more splendid things than Herbert, though he writes inferior poems. His +thought is profound and just; the harmonies in his soul are true; its +artistic and musical ear is defective. His movements are sometimes grand, +sometimes awkward. Herbert is always gracious--I use the word as meaning +much more than _graceful_. + +The following poem will instance Vaughan's fine mysticism and odd +embodiment: + + + COCK-CROWING. + + Father of lights! what sunny seed, + What glance of day hast thou confined + Into this bird? To all the breed + This busy ray thou hast assigned; + Their magnetism works all night, + And dreams of Paradise and light. + + Their eyes watch for the morning hue; + Their little grain,[143] expelling night, + So shines and sings, as if it knew + The path unto the house of light: + It seems their candle, howe'er done, + Was tined[144] and lighted at the sun. + + If such a tincture, such a touch, + So firm a longing can empower, + Shall thy own image think it much + To watch for thy appearing hour? + If a mere blast so fill the sail, + Shall not the breath of God prevail? + + O thou immortal Light and Heat, + Whose hand so shines through all this frame, + That by the beauty of the seat, + We plainly see who made the same! + Seeing thy seed abides in me, + Dwell thou in it, and I in thee. + + To sleep without thee is to die; + Yea, 'tis a death partakes of hell; + For where thou dost not close the eye, + It never opens, I can tell: + In such a dark, Egyptian border + The shades of death dwell and disorder + + Its joys and hopes and earnest throws, + And hearts whose pulse beats still for light, + Are given to birds, who but thee knows + A love-sick soul's exalted flight? + Can souls be tracked by any eye + But his who gave them wings to fly? + + Only this veil, which thou hast broke, + And must be broken yet in me; + This veil, I say, is all the cloak + And cloud which shadows me from thee. + This veil thy full-eyed love denies, + And only gleams and fractions spies. + + O take it off. Make no delay, + But brush me with thy light, that I + May shine unto a perfect day, + And warm me at thy glorious eye. + O take it off; or, till it flee, + Though with no lily, stay with me. + +I have no room for poems often quoted, therefore not for that lovely one +beginning "They are all gone into the world of light;" but I must not +omit _The Retreat_, for besides its worth, I have another reason for +presenting it. + + + THE RETREAT. + + Happy those early days when I + Shined in my angel-infancy! + Before I understood this place + Appointed for my second race, + Or taught my soul to fancy ought + But a white, celestial thought; + When yet I had not walked above + A mile or two from my first love, + And, looking back, at that short space + Could see a glimpse of his bright face; + When on some gilded cloud or flower + My gazing soul would dwell an hour, + And in those weaker glories spy + Some shadows of eternity; + Before I taught my tongue to wound + My conscience with a sinful sound, + Or had the black art to dispense + A several sin to every sense; + But felt through all this fleshly dress + Bright shoots of everlastingness. + O how I long to travel back, + And tread again that ancient track! + That I might once more reach that plain + Where first I left my glorious train, + From whence the enlightened spirit sees + That shady city of palm-trees. + But ah! my soul with too much stay + Is drunk, and staggers in the way! + Some men a forward motion love, + But I by backward steps would move; + And when this dust falls to the urn, + In that state I came return. + +Let any one who is well acquainted with Wordsworth's grand ode--that on +the _Intimations of Immortality_--turn his mind to a comparison between +that and this: he will find the resemblance remarkable. Whether _The +Retreat_ suggested the form of the _Ode_ is not of much consequence, for +the _Ode_ is the outcome at once and essence of all Wordsworth's +theories; and whatever he may have drawn from _The Retreat_ is glorified +in the _Ode_. Still it is interesting to compare them. Vaughan believes +with Wordsworth and some other great men that this is not our first stage +of existence; that we are haunted by dim memories of a former state. This +belief is not necessary, however, to sympathy with the poem, for whether +the present be our first life or no, we have come from God, and bring +from him conscience and a thousand godlike gifts.--"Happy those early +days," Vaughan begins: "There was a time," begins Wordsworth, "when the +earth seemed apparelled in celestial light." "Before I understood this +place," continues Vaughan: "Blank misgivings of a creature moving about +in worlds not realized," says Wordsworth. "A white celestial thought," +says Vaughan: "Heaven lies about us in our infancy," says Wordsworth. "A +mile or two off, I could see his face," says Vaughan: "Trailing clouds of +glory do we come," says Wordsworth. "On some gilded cloud or flower, my +gazing soul would dwell an hour," says Vaughan: "The hour of splendour in +the grass, of glory in the flower," says Wordsworth. + +Wordsworth's poem is the profounder in its philosophy, as well as far the +grander and lovelier in its poetry; but in the moral relation, Vaughan's +poem is the more definite of the two, and gives us in its close, poor as +that is compared with the rest of it, just what we feel is wanting in +Wordsworth's--the hope of return to the bliss of childhood. We may be +comforted for what we lose by what we gain; but that is not a recompense +large enough to be divine: we want both. Vaughan will be a child again. +For the movements of man's life are in spirals: we go back whence we +came, ever returning on our former traces, only upon a higher level, on +the next upward coil of the spiral, so that it is a going back and a +going forward ever and both at once. Life is, as it were, a constant +repentance, or thinking of it again: the childhood of the kingdom takes +the place of the childhood of the brain, but comprises all that was +lovely in the former delight. The heavenly children will subdue kingdoms, +work righteousness, wax valiant in fight, rout the armies of the aliens, +merry of heart as when in the nursery of this world they fought their +fancied frigates, and defended their toy-battlements. + +Here are the beginning and end of another of similar purport: + + CHILDHOOD. + + I cannot reach it; and my striving eye + Dazzles at it, as at eternity. + Were now that chronicle alive, + Those white designs which children drive, + And the thoughts of each harmless hour, + With their content too in my power, + Quickly would I make my path even, + And by mere playing go to heaven. + + * * * * * + + An age of mysteries! which he + Must live twice that would God's face see; + Which angels guard, and with it play-- + Angels which foul men drive away. + + How do I study now, and scan + Thee more than e'er I studied man, + And only see, through a long night, + Thy edges and thy bordering light! + O for thy centre and mid-day! + For sure that is the narrow way! + +Many a true thought comes out by the help of a fancy or half-playful +exercise of the thinking power. There is a good deal of such fancy in the +following poem, but in the end it rises to the height of the purest and +best mysticism. We must not forget that the deepest man can utter, will +be but the type or symbol of a something deeper yet, of which he can +perceive only a doubtful glimmer. This will serve for general remark upon +the mystical mode, as well as for comment explanatory of the close of the +poem. + + + THE NIGHT. + + JOHN iii. 2. + + Through that pure virgin-shrine, + That sacred veil[145] drawn o'er thy glorious noon, + That men might look and live, as glowworms shine, + And face the moon, + Wise Nicodemus saw such light + As made him know his God by night. + + Most blest believer he, + Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes, + Thy long-expected healing wings could see + When thou didst rise! + And, what can never more be done, + Did at midnight speak with the sun! + + O who will tell me where + He found thee at that dead and silent hour? + What hallowed solitary ground did bear + So rare a flower, + Within whose sacred leaves did lie + The fulness of the Deity? + + No mercy-seat of gold, + No dead and dusty cherub, nor carved stone, + But his own living works did my Lord hold + And lodge alone, + Where trees and herbs did watch and peep + And wonder, while the Jews did sleep. + + Dear night! this world's defeat; + The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb, + The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat + Which none disturb! + Christ's progress, and his prayer time,[146] + The hours to which high heaven doth chime![147] + + God's silent, searching flight;[148] + When my Lord's head is filled with dew, and all + His locks are wet with the clear drops of night, + His still, soft call; + His knocking time;[149] the soul's dumb watch, + When spirits their fair kindred catch. + + Were all my loud, evil[150] days + Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent, + Whose peace but by some angel's wing or voice + Is seldom rent, + Then I in heaven all the long year + Would keep, and never wander here. + + But living where the sun + Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire + Themselves and others, I consent and run + To every mire; + And by this world's ill guiding light, + Err more than I can do by night + + There is in God, some say, + A deep but dazzling darkness; as men here + Say it is late and dusky, because they + See not all clear: + O for that night! where I in him + Might live invisible and dim! + +This is glorious; and its lesson of quiet and retirement we need more +than ever in these hurried days upon which we have fallen. If men would +but be still enough in themselves to hear, through all the noises of the +busy light, the voice that is ever talking on in the dusky chambers of +their hearts! Look at his love for Nature, too; and read the fourth +stanza in connexion with my previous remarks upon symbolism. I think this +poem _grander_ than any of George Herbert's. I use the word with intended +precision. + +Here is one, the end of which is not so good, poetically considered, as +the magnificent beginning, but which contains striking lines +throughout:-- + + + THE DAWNING. + + Ah! what time wilt thou come? When shall that cry, + _The Bridegroom's coming_, fill the sky? + Shall it in the evening run + When our words and works are done? + Or will thy all-surprising light + Break at midnight, + When either sleep or some dark pleasure + Possesseth mad man without measure? + Or shail these early, fragrant hours + Unlock thy bowers,[151] + And with their blush of light descry + Thy locks crowned with eternity? + Indeed, it is the only time + That with thy glory doth best chime: + All now are stirring; every field + Full hymns doth yield; + The whole creation shakes off night, + And for thy shadow looks the light;[152] + Stars now vanish without number; + Sleepy planets set and slumber; + The pursy clouds disband and scatter;-- + All expect some sudden matter; + Not one beam triumphs, but, from far, + That morning-star. + + O, at what time soever thou, + Unknown to us, the heavens wilt bow, + And, with thy angels in the van, + Descend to judge poor careless man, + Grant I may not like puddle lie + In a corrupt security, + Where, if a traveller water crave, + He finds it dead, and in a grave; + But as this restless, vocal spring + All day and night doth run and sing, + And though here born, yet is acquainted + Elsewhere, and, flowing, keeps untainted, + So let me all my busy age + In thy free services engage; + And though, while here, of force,[153] I must + Have commerce sometimes with poor dust,[154] + And in my flesh, though vile and low, + As this doth in her channel, flow, + Yet let my course, my aim, my love, + And chief acquaintance be above. + So when that day and hour shall come, + In which thyself will be the sun, + Thou'lt find me drest and on my way, + Watching the break of thy great day. + +I do not think that description of the dawn has ever been surpassed. The +verse "All expect some sudden matter," is wondrously fine. The water +"dead and in a grave," because stagnant, is a true fancy; and the +"acquainted elsewhere" of the running stream, is a masterly phrase. I +need not point out the symbolism of the poem. + +I do not know a writer, Wordsworth not excepted, who reveals more delight +in the visions of Nature than Henry Vaughan. He is a true forerunner of +Wordsworth, inasmuch as the latter sets forth with only greater +profundity and more art than he, the relations between Nature and Human +Nature; while, on the other hand, he is the forerunner as well of some +one that must yet do what Wordsworth has left almost unattempted, +namely--set forth the sympathy of Nature with the aspirations of the +spirit that is born of God, born again, I mean, in the recognition of the +child's relation to the Father. Both Herbert and Vaughan have thus read +Nature, the latter turning many leaves which few besides have turned. In +this he has struck upon a deeper and richer lode than even Wordsworth, +although he has not wrought it with half his skill. In any history of the +development of the love of the present age for Nature, Vaughan, although +I fear his influence would be found to have been small as yet, must be +represented as the Phosphor of coming dawn. Beside him, Thomson is cold, +artistic, and gray: although larger in scope, he is not to be compared +with him in sympathetic sight. It is this insight that makes Vaughan a +mystic. He can see one thing everywhere, and all things the same--yet +each with a thousand sides that radiate crossing lights, even as the airy +particles around us. For him everything is the expression of, and points +back to, some fact in the Divine Thought. Along the line of every ray he +looks towards its radiating centre--the heart of the Maker. + +I could give many instances of Vaughan's power in reading the heart of +Nature, but I may not dwell upon this phase. Almost all the poems I give +and have given will afford such. + + I walked the other day, to spend my hour, + Into a field, + Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield + A gallant flower; + But winter now had ruffled all the bower + And curious store + I knew there heretofore. + + Yet I whose search loved not to peep and peer + I' th' face of things, + Thought with myself, there might be other springs + Besides this here, + Which, like cold friends, sees us but once a year; + And so the flower + Might have some other bower. + + Then taking up what I could nearest spy, + I digged about + That place where I had seen him to grow out; + And by and by + I saw the warm recluse alone to lie, + Where fresh and green + He lived of us unseen. + + Many a question intricate and rare + Did I there strow; + But all I could extort was, that he now + Did there repair + Such losses as befell him in this air, + And would ere long + Come forth most fair and young. + + This past, I threw the clothes quite o'er his head; + And, stung with fear + Of my own frailty, dropped down many a tear + Upon his bed; + Then sighing, whispered, _Happy are the dead! + What peace doth now + Rock him asleep below!_ + + And yet, how few believe such doctrine springs + From a poor root + Which all the winter sleeps here under foot, + And hath no wings + To raise it to the truth and light of things, + But is still trod + By every wandering clod! + + O thou, whose spirit did at first inflame + And warm the dead! + And by a sacred incubation fed + With life this frame, + Which once had neither being, form, nor name! + Grant I may so + Thy steps track here below, + + That in these masks and shadows I may see + Thy sacred way; + And by those hid ascents climb to that day + Which breaks from thee, + Who art in all things, though invisibly: + Show me thy peace, + Thy mercy, love, and ease. + + And from this care, where dreams and sorrows reign, + Lead me above, + Where light, joy, leisure, and true comforts move + Without all pain: + There, hid in thee, show me his life again + At whose dumb urn + Thus all the year I mourn. + +There are several amongst his poems lamenting, like this, the death of +some dear friend--perhaps his twin-brother, whom he outlived thirty +years. + +According to what a man is capable of seeing in nature, he becomes either +a man of appliance, a man of science, a mystic, or a poet. + +I must now give two that are simple in thought, construction, and music. +The latter ought to be popular, from the nature of its rhythmic movement, +and the holy merriment it carries. But in the former, note how the major +key of gladness changes in the third stanza to the minor key of +aspiration, which has always some sadness in it; a sadness which deepens +to grief in the next stanza at the consciousness of unfitness for +Christ's company, but is lifted by hope almost again to gladness in the +last. + + + CHRIST'S NATIVITY. + + Awake, glad heart! Get up, and sing! + It is the birthday of thy king! + Awake! awake! + The sun doth shake + Light from his locks, and, all the way + Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day. + + Awake! awake! Hark how the wood rings + Winds whisper, and the busy springs + A concert make: + Awake! awake! + Man is their high-priest, and should rise + To offer up the sacrifice. + + I would I were some bird or star, + Fluttering in woods, or lifted far + Above this inn + And road of sin! + Then either star or bird should be + Shining or singing still to thee. + + I would I had in my best part + Fit rooms for thee! or that my heart + Were so clean as + Thy manger was! + But I am all filth, and obscene; + Yet, if thou wilt, thou canst make clean. + + Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no more + This leper haunt and soil thy door. + Cure him, ease him; + O release him! + And let once more, by mystic birth, + The Lord of life be born in earth. + +The fitting companion to this is his + + + EASTER HYMN. + + Death and darkness, get you packing: + Nothing now to man is lacking. + All your triumphs now are ended, + And what Adam marred is mended. + Graves are beds now for the weary; + Death a nap, to wake more merry; + Youth now, full of pious duty, + Seeks in thee for perfect beauty; + The weak and aged, tired with length + Of days, from thee look for new strength; + And infants with thy pangs contest, + As pleasant as if with the breast. + + Then unto him who thus hath thrown + Even to contempt thy kingdom down, + And by his blood did us advance + Unto his own inheritance-- + To him be glory, power, praise, + From this unto the last of days! + +We must now descend from this height of true utterance into the Valley of +Humiliation, and cannot do better than console ourselves by listening to +the boy in mean clothes, of the fresh and well-favoured countenance, whom +Christiana and her fellow-pilgrims hear singing in that valley. + + He that is down, needs fear no fall; + He that is low, no pride; + He that is humble ever shall + Have God to be his guide. + + I am content with what I have, + Little be it or much; + And, Lord, contentment still I crave, + Because thou savest[155] such. + + Fulness to such a burden is + That go on pilgrimage; + Here little, and hereafter bliss, + Is best from age to age. + +I could not have my book without one word in it of John Bunyan, the +tinker, probably the gipsy, who although born only and not made a poet, +like his great brother, John Milton, has uttered in prose a wealth of +poetic thought. He was born in 1628, twenty years after Milton. I must +not, however, remark on this noble Bohemian of literature and prophecy; +but leaving at length these flowery hills and meadows behind me, step on +my way across the desert.--England had now fallen under the influence of +France instead of Italy, and that influence has never been for good to +our literature, at least. Thence its chief aim grew to be a desirable +trimness of speech and logical arrangement of matter--good external +qualities purchased at a fearful price with the loss of all that makes +poetry precious. The poets of England, with John Dryden at their head, +ceased almost for a time to deal with the truths of humanity, and gave +themselves to the facts and relations of society. The nation which could +recall the family of the Stuarts must necessarily fall into such a decay +of spiritual life as should render its literature only respectable at the +best, and its religious utterances essentially vulgar. But the decay is +gradual. + +Bishop Ken, born in 1637, is known chiefly by his hymns for the morning +and evening, deservedly popular. He has, however, written a great many +besides--too many, indeed, for variety or excellence. He seems to have +set himself to write them as acts of worship. They present many signs of +a perversion of taste which, though not in them so remarkable, rose to a +height before long. He annoys us besides by the constant recurrence of +certain phrases, one or two of which are not admirable, and by using, in +the midst of a simple style, odd Latin words. Here are portions of, I +think, one of his best, and good it is. + + + FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS. + + * * * * * + + Lord, 'tis thyself who hast impressed + In native light on human breast, + That their Creator all + Mankind should Father call: + A father's love all mortals know, + And the love filial which they owe. + + Our Father gives us heavenly light, + And to be happy, ghostly sight; + He blesses, guides, sustains; + He eases us in pains; + Abatements for our weakness makes, + And never a true child forsakes. + + He waits till the hard heart relents; + Our self-damnation he laments; + He sweetly them invites + To share in heaven's delights; + His arms he opens to receive + All who for past transgressions grieve. + + My Father! O that name is sweet + To sinners mourning in retreat. + God's heart paternal yearns + When he a change discerns; + He to his favour them restores; + He heals their most inveterate sores. + + * * * * * + + Religious honour, humble awe; + Obedience to our Father's law; + A lively grateful sense + Of tenderness immense; + Full trust on God's paternal cares; + Submission which chastisement bears; + + Grief, when his goodness we offend; + Zeal, to his likeness to ascend; + Will, from the world refined, + To his sole will resigned: + These graces in God's children shine, + Reflections of the love divine. + + * * * * * + + God's Son co-equal taught us all + In prayer his Father ours to call: + With confidence in need, + We to our Father speed: + Of his own Son the language dear + Intenerates the Father's ear. _makes tender._ + + Thou Father art, though to my shame, + I often forfeit that dear name; + But since for sin I grieve, + Me father-like receive; + O melt me into filial tears, + To pay of love my vast arrears. + + * * * * * + + O Spirit of Adoption! spread + Thy wings enamouring o'er my head; + O Filial love immense! + Raise me to love intense; + O Father, source of love divine, + My powers to love and hymn incline! + + While God my Father I revere, + Nor all hell powers, nor death I fear; + I am my Father's care; + His succours present are. + All comes from my loved Father's will, + And that sweet name intends no ill. + + God's Son his soul, when life he closed, + In his dear Father's hands reposed: + I'll, when my last I breathe, + My soul to God bequeath; + And panting for the joys on high, + Invoking Love Paternal, die. + +Born in 1657, one of the later English Platonists, John Norris, who, with +how many incumbents between I do not know, succeeded George Herbert in +the cure of Bemerton, has left a few poems, which would have been better +if he had not been possessed with the common admiration for the +rough-shod rhythms of Abraham Cowley. + +Here is one in which the peculiarities of his theories show themselves +very prominently. There is a constant tendency in such to wander into the +region half-spiritual, half-material. + + + THE ASPIRATION. + + How long, great God, how long must I + Immured in this dark prison lie; + My soul must watch to have intelligence; + Where at the grates and avenues of sense + Where but faint gleams of thee salute my sight, + Like doubtful moonshine in a cloudy night? + When shall I leave this magic sphere, + And be all mind, all eye, all ear? + + How cold this clime! And yet my sense + Perceives even here thy influence. + Even here thy strong magnetic charms I feel, + And pant and tremble like the amorous steel. + To lower good, and beauties less divine, + Sometimes my erroneous needle does decline, + But yet, so strong the sympathy, + It turns, and points again to thee. + + I long to see this excellence + Which at such distance strikes my sense. + My impatient soul struggles to disengage + Her wings from the confinement of her cage. + Wouldst thou, great Love, this prisoner once set free, + How would she hasten to be linked to thee! + She'd for no angels' conduct stay, + But fly, and love on all the way. + + + THE RETURN. + + Dear Contemplation! my divinest joy! + When I thy sacred mount ascend, + What heavenly sweets my soul employ! + Why can't I there my days for ever spend? + When I have conquered thy steep heights with pain, + What pity 'tis that I must down again! + + And yet I must: my passions would rebel + Should I too long continue here: + No, here I must not think to dwell, + But mind the duties of my proper sphere. + So angels, though they heaven's glories know, + Forget not to attend their charge below. + +The old hermits thought to overcome their impulses by retiring from the +world: our Platonist has discovered for himself that the world of duty is +the only sphere in which they can be combated. Never perhaps is a saint +more in danger of giving way to impulse, let it be anger or what it may, +than in the moment when he has just descended from this mount of +contemplation. + +We find ourselves now in the zone of _hymn_-writing. From this period, +that is, from towards the close of the seventeenth century, a large +amount of the fervour of the country finds vent in hymns: they are +innumerable. With them the scope of my book would not permit me to deal, +even had I inclination thitherward, and knowledge enough to undertake +their history. But I am not therefore precluded from presenting any hymn +whose literary excellence makes it worthy. + +It is with especial pleasure that I refer to a little book which was once +a household treasure in a multitude of families,[156] the _Spiritual +Songs_ of John Mason, a clergyman in the county of Buckingham. The date +of his birth does not appear to be known, but the first edition of these +songs[157] was published in 1683. Dr. Watts was very fond of them: would +that he had written with similar modesty of style! A few of them are +still popular in congregational singing. Here is the first in the book: + + + A GENERAL SONG OF PRAISE TO ALMIGHTY GOD. + + How shall I sing that Majesty + Which angels do admire? + Let dust in dust and silence lie; + Sing, sing, ye heavenly choir. + Thousands of thousands stand around + Thy throne, O God most high; + Ten thousand times ten thousand sound + Thy praise; but who am I? + + Thy brightness unto them appears, + Whilst I thy footsteps trace; + A sound of God comes to my ears; + But they behold thy face. + They sing because thou art their sun: + Lord, send a beam on me; + For where heaven is but once begun, + There hallelujahs be. + + Enlighten with faith's light my heart; + Enflame it with love's fire; + Then shall I sing and bear a part + With that celestial choir. + I shall, I fear, be dark and cold, + With all my fire and light; + Yet when thou dost accept their gold, + Lord, treasure up my mite. + + How great a being, Lord, is thine. + Which doth all beings keep! + Thy knowledge is the only line + To sound so vast a deep. + Thou art a sea without a shore, + A sun without a sphere; + Thy time is now and evermore, + Thy place is everywhere. + + How good art thou, whose goodness is + Our parent, nurse, and guide! + Whose streams do water Paradise, + And all the earth beside! + Thine upper and thy nether springs + Make both thy worlds to thrive; + Under thy warm and sheltering wings + Thou keep'st two broods alive. + + Thy arm of might, most mighty king + Both rocks and hearts doth break: + My God, thou canst do everything + But what should show thee weak. + Thou canst not cross thyself, or be + Less than thyself, or poor; + But whatsoever pleaseth thee, + That canst thou do, and more. + + Who would not fear thy searching eye, + Witness to all that's true! + Dark Hell, and deep Hypocrisy + Lie plain before its view. + Motions and thoughts before they grow, + Thy knowledge doth espy; + What unborn ages are to do, + Is done before thine eye. + + Thy wisdom which both makes and mends, + We ever much admire: + Creation all our wit transcends; + Redemption rises higher. + Thy wisdom guides strayed sinners home, + 'Twill make the dead world rise, + And bring those prisoners to their doom: + Its paths are mysteries. + + Great is thy truth, and shall prevail + To unbelievers' shame: + Thy truth and years do never fail; + Thou ever art the same. + Unbelief is a raging wave + Dashing against a rock: + If God doth not his Israel save, + Then let Egyptians mock. + + Most pure and holy are thine eyes, + Most holy is thy name; + Thy saints, and laws, and penalties, + Thy holiness proclaim. + This is the devil's scourge and sting, + This is the angels' song, + Who _holy, holy, holy_ sing, + In heavenly Canaan's tongue. + + Mercy, that shining attribute, + The sinner's hope and plea! + Huge hosts of sins in their pursuit, + Are drowned in thy Red Sea. + Mercy is God's memorial, + And in all ages praised: + My God, thine only Son did fall, + That Mercy might be raised. + + Thy bright back-parts, O God of grace, + I humbly here adore: + Show me thy glory and thy face, + That I may praise thee more. + Since none can see thy face and live, + For me to die is best: + Through Jordan's streams who would not dive, + To land at Canaan's rest? + +To these _Songs of Praise_ is appended another series called _Penitential +Cries_, by the Rev. Thomas Shepherd, who, for a short time a clergyman in +Buckinghamshire, became the minister of the Congregational church at +Northampton, afterwards under the care of Doddridge. Although he was an +imitator of Mason, some of his hymns are admirable. The following I think +one of the best:-- + + + FOR COMMUNION WITH GOD. + + Alas, my God, that we should be + Such strangers to each other! + O that as friends we might agree, + And walk and talk together! + + Thou know'st my soul does dearly love + The place of thine abode; + No music drops so sweet a sound + As these two words, _My God_. + + * * * * * + + May I taste that communion, Lord, + Thy people have with thee? + Thy spirit daily talks with them, + O let it talk with me! + Like Enoch, let me walk with God, + And thus walk out my day, + Attended with the heavenly guards, + Upon the king's highway. + + When wilt thou come unto me, Lord? + O come, my Lord most dear! + Come near, come nearer, nearer still: + I'm well when thou art near. + + * * * * * + + When wilt thou come unto me, Lord? + For, till thou dost appear, + I count each moment for a day, + Each minute for a year. + + * * * * * + + There's no such thing as pleasure here; + My Jesus is my all: + As thou dost shine or disappear, + My pleasures rise and fall. + Come, spread thy savour on my frame-- + No sweetness is so sweet; + Till I get up to sing thy name + Where all thy singers meet. + +In the writings of both we recognize a straight-forwardness of expression +equal to that of Wither, and a quaint simplicity of thought and form like +that of Herrick; while the very charm of some of the best lines is their +spontaneity. The men have just enough mysticism to afford them homeliest +figures for deepest feelings. + +I turn to the accomplished Joseph Addison. + +He was born in 1672. His religious poems are so well known, and are for +the greater part so ordinary in everything but their simplicity of +composition, that I should hardly have cared to choose one, had it not +been that we owe him much gratitude for what he did, in the reigns of +Anne and George I., to purify the moral taste of the English people at a +time when the influence of the clergy was not for elevation, and to teach +the love of a higher literature when Milton was little known and less +esteemed. Especially are we indebted to him for his modest and admirable +criticism of the _Paradise Lost_ in the _Spectator_. + +Of those few poems to which I have referred, I choose the best known, +because it is the best. It has to me a charm for which I can hardly +account. + +Yet I imagine I see in it a sign of the poetic times: a flatness of +spirit, arising from the evanishment of the mystical element, begins to +result in a worship of power. Neither power nor wisdom, though infinite +both, could constitute a God worthy of the worship of a human soul; and +the worship of such a God must sink to the level of that fancied +divinity. Small wonder is it then that the lyric should now droop its +wings and moult the feathers of its praise. I do not say that God's more +glorious attributes are already forgotten, but that the tendency of the +Christian lyric is now to laudation of power--and knowledge, a form of +the same--as _the_ essential of Godhead. This indicates no recalling of +metaphysical questions, such as we have met in foregoing verse, but a +decline towards system; a rising passion--if anything so cold may be +called _a passion_--for the reduction of all things to the forms of the +understanding, a declension which has prepared the way for the present +worship of science, and its refusal, if not denial, of all that cannot be +proved in forms of the intellect. + +The hymn which has led to these remarks is still good, although, like the +loveliness of the red and lowering west, it gives sign of a gray and +cheerless dawn, under whose dreariness the child will first doubt if his +father loves him, and next doubt if he has a father at all, and is not a +mere foundling that Nature has lifted from her path. + + The spacious firmament on high, + With all the blue etherial sky, + And spangled heavens, a shining frame, + Their great Original proclaim. + The unwearied sun from day to day + Does his Creator's power display; + And publishes to every land + The work of an almighty hand. + + Soon as the evening shades prevail, + The moon takes up the wondrous tale; + And nightly to the listening earth + Repeats the story of her birth; + Whilst all the stars that round her burn, + And all the planets, in their turn, + Confirm the tidings as they roll, + And spread the truth from pole to pole. + + What though in solemn silence all + Move round the dark terrestrial ball? + What though no real voice nor sound + Amidst their radiant orbs be found? + In reason's ear they all rejoice, + And utter forth a glorious voice, + For ever singing as they shine: + "The hand that made us is divine." + +The very use of the words _spangled_ and _frame_ seems--to my fancy only, +it may be--to indicate a tendency towards the unworthy and theatrical. +Yet the second stanza is lovely beyond a doubt; and the whole is most +artistic, although after a tame fashion. Whether indeed the heavenly +bodies _teach_ what he says, or whether we should read divinity worthy of +the name in them at all, without the human revelation which healed men, I +doubt much. That divinity is there--_Yes_; that we could read it there +without having seen the face of the Son of Man first, I think--_No_. I do +not therefore dare imagine that no revelation dimly leading towards such +result glimmered in the hearts of God's chosen amongst Jews and Gentiles +before he came. What I say is, that power and order, although of God, and +preparing the way for him, are not his revealers unto men. No doubt King +David compares the perfection of God's law to the glory of the heavens, +but he did not learn that perfection from the heavens, but from the law +itself, revealed in his own heart through the life-teaching of God. When +he had learned it he saw that the heavens were like it. + +To unveil God, only manhood like our own will serve. And he has taken the +form of man that he might reveal the manhood in him from awful eternity. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE PLAIN. + + +But Addison's tameness is wonderfully lovely beside the fervours of a man +of honoured name,--Dr. Isaac Watts, born in 1674. The result must be +dreadful where fervour will poetize without the aidful restraints of art +and modesty. If any man would look upon absurdity in the garb of +sobriety, let him search Dryden's _Annus Mirabilis_: Dr. Watts's _Lyrics_ +are as bad; they are fantastic to utter folly. An admiration of "the +incomparable Mr. Cowley" did the sense of them more injury than the +imitation of his rough-cantering ode could do their rhythm. The +sentimentalities of Roman Catholic writers towards our Lord and his +mother, are not half so offensive as the courtier-like flatteries Dr. +Watts offers to the Most High. To say nothing of the irreverence, the +vulgarity is offensive. He affords another instance amongst thousands how +little the form in which feeling is expressed has to do with the feeling +itself. In him the thought is true, the form of its utterance false; the +feeling lovely, the word, often to a degree, repulsive. The ugly web is +crossed now and then by a fine line, and even damasked with an occasional +good poem: I have found two, and only two, in the whole of his +seventy-five _Lyrics sacred to Devotion_. His objectivity and boldness of +thought, and his freedom of utterance, cause us ever and anon to lament +that he had not the humility and faith of an artist as well as of a +Christian. + +Almost all his symbols indicate a worship of power and of outward show. + +I give the best of the two good poems I have mentioned, and very good it +is. + + + HAPPY FRAILTY. + + "How meanly dwells the immortal mind! + How vile these bodies are! + Why was a clod of earth designed + To enclose a heavenly star? + + "Weak cottage where our souls reside! + This flesh a tottering wall! + With frightful breaches gaping wide, + The building bends to fall. + + "All round it storms of trouble blow, + And waves of sorrow roll; + Cold waves and winter storms beat through, + And pain the tenant-soul. + + "Alas, how frail our state!" said I, + And thus went mourning on; + Till sudden from the cleaving sky + A gleam of glory shone. + + My soul all felt the glory come, + And breathed her native air; + Then she remembered heaven her home, + And she a prisoner here. + + Straight she began to change her key; + And, joyful in her pains, + She sang the frailty of her clay + In pleasurable strains. + + "How weak the prison is where I dwell! + Flesh but a tottering wall! + The breaches cheerfully foretell + The house must shortly fall. + + "No more, my friends, shall I complain, + Though all my heart-strings ache; + Welcome disease, and every pain + That makes the cottage shake! + + "Now let the tempest blow all round, + Now swell the surges high, + And beat this house of bondage down + To let the stranger fly! + + "I have a mansion built above + By the eternal hand; + And should the earth's old basis move, + My heavenly house must stand. + + "Yes, for 'tis there my Saviour reigns-- + I long to see the God-- + And his immortal strength sustains + The courts that cost him blood. + + "Hark! from on high my Saviour calls: + I come, my Lord, my Love! + Devotion breaks the prison-walls, + And speeds my last remove." + +His psalms and hymns are immeasurably better than his lyrics. Dreadful +some of them are; and I doubt if there is one from which we would not +wish stanzas, lines, and words absent. But some are very fine. The man +who could write such verses as these ought not to have written as he has +written:-- + + Had I a glance of thee, my God, + Kingdoms and men would vanish soon; + Vanish as though I saw them not, + As a dim candle dies at noon. + + Then they might fight and rage and rave: + I should perceive the noise no more + Than we can hear a shaking leaf + While rattling thunders round us roar. + +Some of his hymns will be sung, I fancy, so long as men praise God +together; for most heartily do I grant that of all hymns I know he has +produced the best for public use; but these bear a very small proportion +indeed to the mass of his labour. We cannot help wishing that he had +written about the twentieth part. We could not have too much of his best, +such as this: + + Be earth with all her scenes withdrawn; + Let noise and vanity begone: + In secret silence of the mind + My heaven, and there my God, I find; + +but there is no occasion for the best to be so plentiful: a little of it +will go a great way. And as our best moments are so few, how could any +man write six hundred religious poems, and produce quality in proportion +to quantity save in an inverse ratio? + +Dr. Thomas Parnell, the well-known poet, a clergyman, born in Dublin in +1679, has written a few religious verses. The following have a certain +touch of imagination and consequent grace, which distinguishes them above +the swampy level of the time. + + + HYMN FOR EVENING. + + The beam-repelling mists arise, + And evening spreads obscurer skies; + The twilight will the night forerun, + And night itself be soon begun. + Upon thy knees devoutly bow, + And pray the Lord of glory now + To fill thy breast, or deadly sin + May cause a blinder night within. + And whether pleasing vapours rise, + Which gently dim the closing eyes, + Which make the weary members blest + With sweet refreshment in their rest; + Or whether spirits[158] in the brain + Dispel their soft embrace again, + And on my watchful bed I stay, + Forsook by sleep, and waiting day; + Be God for ever in my view, + And never he forsake me too; + But still as day concludes in night, + To break again with new-born light, + His wondrous bounty let me find + With still a more enlightened mind. + + * * * * * + + Thou that hast thy palace far + Above the moon and every star; + Thou that sittest on a throne + To which the night was never known, + Regard my voice, and make me blest + By kindly granting its request. + If thoughts on thee my soul employ, + My darkness will afford me joy, + Till thou shalt call and I shall soar, + And part with darkness evermore. + +Many long and elaborate religious poems I have not even mentioned, +because I cannot favour extracts, especially in heroic couplets or blank +verse. They would only make my book heavy, and destroy the song-idea. I +must here pass by one of the best of such poems, _The Complaint, or Night +Thoughts_ of Dr. Young; nor is there anything else of his I care to +quote. + +I must give just one poem of Pope, born in 1688, the year of the +Revolution. The flamboyant style of his _Messiah_ is to me detestable: +nothing can be more unlike the simplicity of Christianity. All such, +equally with those by whatever hand that would be religious by being +miserable, I reject at once, along with all that are merely commonplace +religious exercises. But this at least is very unlike the rest of Pope's +compositions: it is as simple in utterance as it is large in scope and +practical in bearing. The name _Jove_ may be unpleasant to some ears: it +is to mine--not because it is the name given to their deity by men who +had had little outward revelation, but because of the associations which +the wanton poets, not the good philosophers, have gathered about it. Here +let it stand, as Pope meant it, for one of the names of the Unknown God. + + + THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. + + Father of all! in every age, + In every clime adored, + By saint, by savage, and by sage, + Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! + + Thou great First Cause, least understood! + Who all my sense confined + To know but this, that thou art good, + And that myself am blind + + Yet gave me, in this dark estate, + To see the good from ill; + And, binding Nature fast in Fate, + Left free the human will: + + What Conscience dictates to be done, + Or warns me not to do-- + This, teach me more than hell to shun, + That, more than heaven pursue. + + What blessings thy free bounty gives, + Let me not cast away; + For God is paid when man receives: + To enjoy is to obey. + + Yet not to earth's contracted span + Thy goodness let me bound, + Or think thee Lord alone of man, + When thousand worlds are round. + + Let not this weak, unknowing hand + Presume thy bolts to throw, + And deal damnation round the land + On each I judge thy foe. + + If I am right, thy grace impart + Still in the right to stay; + If I am wrong, O teach my heart + To find that better way. + + Save me alike from foolish pride + Or impious discontent, + At aught thy wisdom has denied, + Or aught thy goodness lent. + + Teach me to feel another's woe, + To hide the fault I see: + That mercy I to others show, + That mercy show to me. + + Mean though I am--not wholly so, + Since quickened by thy breath:-- + O lead me wheresoe'er I go, + Through this day's life or death. + + This day, be bread and peace my lot: + All else beneath the sun + Thou know'st if best bestowed or not, + And let thy will be done. + + To thee, whose temple is all space, + Whose altar, earth, sea, skies, + One chorus let all being raise! + All Nature's incense rise! + +And now we come upon a strange little well in the desert. Few flowers +indeed shine upon its brink, and it flows with a somewhat unmusical +ripple: it is a well of the water of life notwithstanding, for its song +tells of the love and truth which are the grand power of God. + +John Byrom, born in Manchester in the year 1691, a man whose strength of +thought and perception of truth greatly surpassed his poetic gifts, yet +delighted so entirely in the poetic form that he wrote much and chiefly +in it. After leaving Cambridge, he gained his livelihood for some time by +teaching a shorthand of his own invention, but was so distinguished as a +man of learning generally that he was chosen an F.R.S. in 1723. Coming +under the influence, probably through William Law, of the writings of +Jacob Böhme, the marvellous shoemaker of Görlitz in Silesia, who lived in +the time of our Shakspere, and heartily adopting many of his views, he +has left us a number of religious poems, which are seldom so sweet in +music as they are profound in the metaphysics of religion. Here we have +yet again a mystical thread running radiant athwart both warp and woof of +our poetic web: the mystical thinker will ever be found the reviver of +religious poetry; and although some of the seed had come from afar both +in time and space, Byrom's verse is of indigenous growth. Much of the +thought of the present day will be found in his verses. Here is a +specimen of his metrical argumentation. It is taken from a series of +_Meditations for every Day in Passion Week_. + + + WEDNESDAY. + + _Christ satisfieth the justice of God by fulfilling all + righteousness._ + + Justice demandeth satisfaction--yes; + And ought to have it where injustice is: + But there is none in God--it cannot mean + Demand of justice where it has full reign: + To dwell in man it rightfully demands, + Such as he came from his Creator's hands. + + Man had departed from a righteous state, + Which he at first must have, if God create: + 'Tis therefore called God's righteousness, and must + Be satisfied by man's becoming just; + Must exercise good vengeance upon men, + Till it regain its rights in them again. + + This was the justice for which Christ became + A man to satisfy its righteous claim; + Became Redeemer of the human race, + That sin in them to justice might give place: + To satisfy a just and righteous will, + Is neither more nor less than to fulfil. + + * * * * * + +Here are two stanzas of one of more mystical reflection: + + + A PENITENTIAL SOLILOQUY. + + What though no objects strike upon the sight! + Thy sacred presence is an inward light. + What though no sounds shall penetrate the ear! + To listening thought the voice of truth is clear. + Sincere devotion needs no outward shrine; + The centre of an humble soul is thine. + There may I worship! and there mayst thou place + Thy seat of mercy, and thy throne of grace! + Yea, fix, if Christ my advocate appear, + The dread tribunal of thy justice there! + Let each vain thought, let each impure desire + Meet in thy wrath with a consuming fire. + +And here are two of more lyrical favour. + + + THE SOUL'S TENDENCY TOWARDS ITS TRUE CENTRE. + + Stones towards the earth descend; + Rivers to the ocean roll; + Every motion has some end: + What is thine, beloved soul? + + "Mine is, where my Saviour is; + There with him I hope to dwell: + Jesu is the central bliss; + Love the force that doth impel." + + Truly thou hast answered right: + Now may heaven's attractive grace + Towards the source of thy delight + Speed along thy quickening pace! + + "Thank thee for thy generous care: + Heaven, that did the wish inspire, + Through thy instrumental prayer, + Plumes the wings of my desire. + + "Now, methinks, aloft I fly; + Now with angels bear a part: + Glory be to God on high! + Peace to every Christian heart!" + + +THE ANSWER TO THE DESPONDING SOUL. + + Cheer up, desponding soul; + Thy longing pleased I see: + 'Tis part of that great whole + Wherewith I longed for thee. + + Wherewith I longed for thee, + And left my Father's throne, + From death to set thee free, + To claim thee for my own. + + To claim thee for my own, + I suffered on the cross: + O! were my love but known, + No soul could fear its loss. + + No soul could fear its loss, + But, filled with love divine, + Would die on its own cross, + And rise for ever mine. + +Surely there is poetry as well as truth in this. But, certainly in +general, his thought is far in excess of his poetry. + +Here are a few verses which I shall once more entitle + + + DIVINE EPIGRAMS. + + With peaceful mind thy race of duty run + God nothing does, or suffers to be done, + But what thou wouldst thyself, if thou couldst see + Through all events of things as well as he. + + * * * * * + + Think, and be careful what thou art within, + For there is sin in the desire of sin: + Think and be thankful, in a different case, + For there is grace in the desire of grace. + + * * * * * + + An heated fancy or imagination + May be mistaken for an inspiration; + True; but is this conclusion fair to make-- + That inspiration must be all mistake? + A pebble-stone is not a diamond: true; + But must a diamond be a pebble too? + To own a God who does not speak to men, + Is first to own, and then disown again; + Of all idolatry the total sum + Is having gods that are both deaf and dumb. + + * * * * * + + What is more tender than a mother's love + To the sweet infant fondling in her arms? + What arguments need her compassion move + To hear its cries, and help it in its harms? + Now, if the tenderest mother were possessed + Of all the love within her single breast + Of all the mothers since the world began, + 'Tis nothing to the love of God to man. + + * * * * * + + Faith, Hope, and Love were questioned what they thought + Of future glory which Religion taught: + Now Faith believed it firmly to be true, + And Hope expected so to find it too: + Love answered, smiling with a conscious glow, + "Believe? Expect? I _know_ it to be so." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE ROOTS OF THE HILLS. + + +In the poems of James Thomson, we find two hymns to the God of +Creation--one in blank verse, the other in stanzas. They are of the kind +which from him we should look for. The one in blank verse, which is as an +epilogue to his great poem, _The Seasons_, I prefer. + +We owe much to Thomson. Born (in Scotland) in the year 1700, he is the +leading priest in a solemn procession to find God--not in the laws by +which he has ordered his creation, but in the beauty which is the outcome +of those laws. I do not say there is much of the relation of man to +nature in his writing; but thitherward it tends. He is true about the +outsides of God; and in Thomson we begin to feel that the revelation of +God as _meaning_ and therefore _being_ the loveliness of nature, is about +to be recognized. I do not say--to change my simile--that he is the first +visible root in our literature whence we can follow the outburst of the +flowers and foliage of our delight in nature: I could show a hundred +fibres leading from the depths of our old literature up to the great +root. Nor is it surprising that, with his age about him, he too should be +found tending to magnify, not God's Word, but his works, above all his +name: we have beauty for loveliness; beneficence for tenderness. I have +wondered whether one great part of Napoleon's mission was not to wake +people from this idolatry of the power of God to the adoration of his +love. + +The _Hymn_ holds a kind of middle place between the _Morning Hymn_ in the +5th Book of the _Paradise Lost_ and the _Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni_. +It would be interesting and instructive to compare the three; but we have +not time. Thomson has been influenced by Milton, and Coleridge by both. +We have delight in Milton; art in Thomson; heart, including both, in +Coleridge. + + + HYMN. + + These, as they change, Almighty Father, these + Are but the varied God. The rolling year + Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring + Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. + Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; + Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; + And every sense and every heart is joy. + Then comes thy glory in the Summer months, + With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun + Shoots full perfection through the swelling year + And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks, + And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, + By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.[159] + A yellow-floating pomp, thy bounty shines + In Autumn unconfined. Thrown from thy lap, + Profuse o'er nature, falls the lucid shower + Of beamy fruits; and, in a radiant stream, + Into the stores of sterile Winter pours. + In winter awful thou! with clouds and storms + Around thee thrown--tempest o'er tempest rolled. + Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing + Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,[160] + And humblest nature with thy northern blast. + + Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine + Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train, + Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, + Such beauty and beneficence combined! + Shade unperceived so softening into shade! + And all so forming an harmonious whole, + That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. + + * * * * * + + Nature attend! Join, every living soul, + Beneath the spacious temple of the sky-- + In adoration join; and, ardent, raise + One general song! To him, ye vocal gales, + Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes; + Oh! talk of him in solitary glooms, + Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine + Fills the brown shade with a religious awe; + And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, + Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven + The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. + His praise, ye brooks, attune,--ye trembling rills, + And let me catch it as I muse along. + Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound; + Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze + Along the vale; and thou, majestic main, + A secret world of wonders in thyself, + Sound his stupendous praise, whose greater voice + Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. + Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, + In mingled clouds to him whose sun exalts, + Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. + Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave to him; + Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart, + As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. + + * * * * * + + Bleat out afresh, ye hills! ye mossy rocks, + Retain the sound; the broad responsive low, + Ye valleys raise; for the great Shepherd reigns, + And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. + + * * * * * + + Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles, + At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all, + Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast, + Assembled men, to the deep organ join + The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear, + At solemn pauses, through the swelling base; + And, as each mingling flame increases each, + In one united ardour rise to heaven. + + * * * * * + + Should fate command me to the farthest verge + Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, + Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun + Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam + Flames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis nought to me, + Since God is ever present, ever felt, + In the void waste as in the city full; + And where he vital breathes there must be joy. + + * * * * * + +The worship of intellectual power in laws and inventions is the main +delight of the song; not the living presence of creative love, which +never sings its own praises, but spends itself in giving. Still, although +there has passed away a glory from the world of song, although the +fervour of childlike worship has vanished for a season, there are signs +in these verses of a new dawn of devotion. Even the exclusive and +therefore blind worship of science will, when it has turned the coil of +the ascending spiral, result in a new song to "him that made heaven and +earth and the sea and the fountains of waters." But first, for a long +time, the worship of power will go on. There is one sonnet by Kirke +White, eighty-five years younger than Thomson, which is quite pagan in +its mode of glorifying the power of the Deity. + +But about the same time when Thomson's _Seasons_ was published, which was +in 1730, the third year of George II., that life which had burned on in +the hidden corners of the church in spite of the worldliness and +sensuality of its rulers, began to show a flame destined to enlarge and +spread until it should have lighted up the mass with an outburst of +Christian faith and hope. I refer to the movement called Methodism, in +the midst of which, at an early stage of its history, arose the directing +energies of John Wesley, a man sent of God to deepen at once and purify +its motive influences. What he and his friends taught, would, I presume, +in its essence, amount mainly to this: that acquiescence in the doctrines +of the church is no fulfilment of duty--or anything, indeed, short of an +obedient recognition of personal relation to God, who has sent every man +the message of present salvation in his Son. A new life began to bud and +blossom from the dry stem of the church. The spirit moved upon the waters +of feeling, and the new undulation broke on the shores of thought in an +outburst of new song. For while John Wesley roused the hearts of the +people to sing, his brother Charles put songs in their mouths. + +I do not say that many of these songs possess much literary merit, but +many of them are real lyrics: they have that essential element, song, in +them. The following, however, is a very fine poem. That certain +expressions in it may not seem offensive, it is necessary to keep the +allegory of Jacob and the Angel in full view--even better in view, +perhaps, than the writer does himself. + + + WRESTLING JACOB. + + Come, O thou traveller unknown, + Whom still I hold, but cannot see! + My company before is gone, + And I am left alone with thee! + With thee all night I mean to stay, + And wrestle till the break of day! + + I need not tell thee who I am, + My misery or sin declare; + Thyself hast called me by my name: + Look on my hands, and read it there! + But who, I ask thee, who art thou? + Tell me thy name, and tell me now. + + In vain thou struggles! to get free: + I never will unloose my hold. + Art thou the man that died for me? + The secret of thy love unfold. + Wrestling, I will not let thee go + Till I thy name, thy nature know. + + * * * * * + + What though my sinking flesh complain, + And murmur to contend so long! + I rise superior to my pain: + When I am weak, then I am strong; + And when my all of strength shall fail, + I shall with the God-man prevail. + + My strength is gone; my nature dies; + I sink beneath thy weighty hand: + Faint to revive, and fall to rise; + I fall, and yet by faith I stand-- + I stand, and will not let thee go + Till I thy name, thy nature know. + + Yield to me now, for I am weak, + But confident in self-despair; + Speak to my heart, in blessings speak; + Be conquered by my instant[161] prayer. + Speak, or thou never hence shalt move, + And tell me if thy name is Love. + + 'Tis Love! 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me! + I hear thy whisper in my heart! + The morning breaks; the shadows flee: + Pure universal Love thou art! + To me, to all, thy bowels move: + Thy nature and thy name is Love! + + My prayer hath power with God; the grace + Unspeakable I now receive; + Through faith I see thee face to face-- + I see thee face to face, and live: + In vain I have not wept and strove; + Thy nature and thy name is Love. + + I know thee, Saviour--who thou art-- + Jesus, the feeble sinner's friend! + Nor wilt thou with the night depart, + But stay and love me to the end! + Thy mercies never shall remove: + Thy nature and thy name is Love! + + * * * * * + + Contented now, upon my thigh + I halt till life's short journey end; + All helplessness, all weakness, I + On thee alone for strength depend; + Nor have I power from thee to move: + Thy nature and thy name is Love. + + Lame as I am, I take the prey; + Hell, earth, and sin, with ease o'ercome; + I leap for joy, pursue my way, + And as a bounding hart fly home; + Through all eternity to prove + Thy nature and thy name is Love. + +It seems to me that the art with which his very difficult end in the +management of the allegory is reached, is admirable. I have omitted three +stanzas. + +I cannot give much from William Cowper. His poems--graceful always, and +often devout even when playful--have few amongst them that are expressly +religious, while the best of his hymns are known to every reader of such. +Born in 1731, he was greatly influenced by the narrow theology that +prevailed in his circle; and most of his hymns are marred by the +exclusiveness which belonged to the system and not to the man. There is +little of it in the following:-- + + Far from the world, O Lord, I flee, + From strife and tumult far; + From scenes where Satan wages still + His most successful war. + + The calm retreat, the silent shade, + With prayer and praise agree, + And seem by thy sweet bounty made + For those who follow thee. + + There if thy spirit touch the soul, + And grace her mean abode, + Oh with what peace, and joy, and love, + She communes with her God! + + There, like the nightingale, she pours + Her solitary lays, + Nor asks a witness of her song, + Nor thirsts for human praise. + + Author and guardian of my life, + Sweet source of light divine, + And--all harmonious names in one-- + My Saviour, thou art mine! + + What thanks I owe thee, and what love-- + A boundless, endless store-- + Shall echo through the realms above + When time shall be no more. + +Sad as was Cowper's history, with the vapours of a low insanity, if not +always filling his garden, yet ever brooding on the hill-tops of his +horizon, he was, through his faith in God, however darkened by the +introversions of a neat, poverty-stricken theology, yet able to lead his +life to the end. It is delightful to discover that, when science, which +is the anatomy of nature, had poisoned the theology of the country, in +creating a demand for clean-cut theory in infinite affairs, the +loveliness and truth of the countenance of living nature could calm the +mind which this theology had irritated to the very borders of madness, +and give a peace and hope which the man was altogether right in +attributing to the Spirit of God. How many have been thus comforted, who +knew not, like Wordsworth, the immediate channel of their comfort; or +even, with Cowper, recognized its source! God gives while men sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE NEW VISION. + + +William Blake, the painter of many strange and fantastic but often +powerful--sometimes very beautiful pictures--wrote poems of an equally +remarkable kind. Some of them are as lovely as they are careless, while +many present a curious contrast in the apparent incoherence of the +simplest language. He was born in 1757, towards the close of the reign of +George II. Possibly if he had been sent to an age more capable of +understanding him, his genius would not have been tempted to utter itself +with such a wildness as appears to indicate hopeless indifference to +being understood. We cannot tell sometimes whether to attribute the +bewilderment the poems cause in us to a mysticism run wild, or to regard +it as the reflex of madness in the writer. Here is a lyrical gem, +however, although not cut with mathematical precision. + + + DAYBREAK. + + To find the western path, + Right through the gates of wrath + I urge my way; + Sweet morning leads me on: + With soft repentant moan, + I see the break of day + + The war of swords and spears, + Melted by dewy tears, + Exhales on high; + The sun is freed from fears, + And with soft grateful tears, + Ascends the sky. + +The following is full of truth most quaintly expressed, with a homeliness +of phrase quite delicious. It is one of the _Songs of Innocence_, +published, as we learn from Gilchrist's Life of Blake, in the year 1789. +They were engraved on copper with illustrations by Blake, and printed and +bound by his wife. When we consider them in respect of the time when they +were produced, we find them marvellous for their originality and +simplicity. + + + ON ANOTHER'S SORROW. + + Can I see another's woe, + And not be in sorrow too? + Can I see another's grief, + And not seek for kind relief? + + Can I see a falling tear, + And not feel my sorrow's share? + Can a father see his child + Weep, nor be with sorrow filled? + + Can a mother sit and hear + An infant groan, an infant fear? + No, no; never can it be! + Never, never can it be! + + And can he, who smiles on all, + Hear the wren, with sorrows small-- + Hear the small bird's grief and care, + Hear the woes that infants bear, + + And not sit beside the nest, + Pouring pity in their breast? + And not sit the cradle near, + Weeping tear on infant's tear? + + And not sit both night and day, + Wiping all our tears away? + Oh, no! never can it be! + Never, never can it be! + + He doth give his joy to all; + He becomes an infant small; + He becomes a man of woe; + He doth feel the sorrow too. + + Think not thou canst sigh a sigh, + And thy Maker is not by; + Think not thou canst weep a tear, + And thy Maker is not near. + + Oh! he gives to us his joy, + That our grief he may destroy: + Till our grief is fled and gone, + He doth sit by us and moan. + +There is our mystic yet again leading the way. + +A supreme regard for science, and the worship of power, go hand in hand: +that knowledge is power has been esteemed the grandest incitement to +study. Yet the antidote to the disproportionate cultivation of science, +is simply power in its crude form--breaking out, that is, as brute force. +When science, isolated and glorified, has produced a contempt, not only +for vulgar errors, but for the truths which are incapable of scientific +proof, then, as we see in the French Revolution, the wild beast in man +breaks from its den, and chaos returns. But all the noblest minds in +Europe looked for grand things in the aurora of this uprising of the +people. To the terrible disappointment that followed, we are indebted for +the training of Wordsworth to the priesthood of nature's temple. So was +he possessed with the hope of a coming deliverance for the nations, that +he spent many months in France during the Revolution. At length he was +forced to seek safety at home. Dejected even to hopelessness for a time, +he believed in nothing. How could there be a God that ruled in the earth +when such a rising sun of promise was permitted to set in such a sea! +But for man to worship himself is a far more terrible thing than that +blood should flow like water: the righteous plague of God allowed things +to go as they would for a time. But the power of God came upon +Wordsworth--I cannot say as it had never come before, but with an added +insight which made him recognize in the fresh gift all that he had known +and felt of such in the past. To him, as to Cowper, the benignities of +nature restored peace and calmness and hope--sufficient to enable him to +look back and gather wisdom. He was first troubled, then quieted, and +then taught. Such presence of the Father has been an infinitely more +active power in the redemption of men than men have yet become capable of +perceiving. The divine expressions of Nature, that is, the face of the +Father therein visible, began to heal the plague which the worship of +knowledge had bred. And the power of her teaching grew from comfort to +prayer, as will be seen in the poem I shall give. Higher than all that +Nature can do in the way of direct lessoning, is the production of such +holy moods as result in hope, conscience of duty, and supplication. Those +who have never felt it have to be told there is in her such a +power--yielding to which, the meek inherit the earth. + + + NINTH EVENING VOLUNTARY. + + _Composed upon an evening of extraordinary splendour and beauty._ + + I. + + Had this effulgence disappeared + With flying haste, I might have sent + Among the speechless clouds a look + Of blank astonishment; + But 'tis endued with power to stay, + And sanctify one closing day, + That frail Mortality may see-- + What is?--ah no, but what _can_ be! + Time was when field and watery cove + With modulated echoes rang, + While choirs of fervent angels sang + Their vespers in the grove; + Or, crowning, star-like, each some sovereign height, + Warbled, for heaven above and earth below, + Strains suitable to both.--Such holy rite, + Methinks, if audibly repeated now + From hill or valley could not move + Sublimer transport, purer love, + Than doth this silent spectacle--the gleam-- + The shadow--and the peace supreme! + + II. + + No sound is uttered,--but a deep + And solemn harmony pervades + The hollow vale from steep to steep, + And penetrates the glades. + Far distant images draw nigh, + Called forth by wondrous potency + Of beamy radiance, that imbues + Whate'er it strikes with gem-like hues. + In vision exquisitely clear, + Herds range along the mountain side, + And glistening antlers are descried, + And gilded flocks appear. + Thine is the tranquil hour, purpureal Eve! + But long as godlike wish or hope divine + Informs my spirit, ne'er can I believe + That this magnificence is wholly thine! + From worlds nor quickened by the sun + A portion of the gift is won; + An intermingling of heaven's pomp is spread + On ground which British shepherds tread! + + III. + + And if there be whom broken ties + Afflict, or injuries assail, + Yon hazy ridges to their eyes + Present a glorious scale[162] + Climbing suffused with sunny air, + To stop--no record hath told where; + And tempting Fancy to ascend, + And with immortal spirits blend! + --Wings at my shoulders seem to play! + But, rooted here, I stand and gaze + On those bright steps that heavenward raise + Their practicable way. + Come forth, ye drooping old men, look abroad, + And see to what fair countries ye are bound! + And if some traveller, weary of his road, + Hath slept since noontide on the grassy ground, + Ye genii, to his covert speed, + And wake him with such gentle heed + As may attune his soul to meet the dower + Bestowed on this transcendent hour. + + IV. + + Such hues from their celestial urn + Were wont to stream before mine eye + Where'er it wandered in the morn + Of blissful infancy. + This glimpse of glory, why renewed? + Nay, rather speak with gratitude; + For, if a vestige of those gleams + Survived, 'twas only in my dreams. + Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve + No less than nature's threatening voice, + If aught unworthy be my choice, + From THEE if I would swerve; + Oh, let thy grace remind me of the light + Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored; + Which, at this moment, on my waking sight + Appears to shine, by miracle restored: + My soul, though yet confined to earth, + Rejoices in a second birth! + --'Tis past; the visionary splendour fades; + And night approaches with her shades. + + +Although I have mentioned Wordsworth before Coleridge because he was two +years older, yet Coleridge had much to do with the opening of +Wordsworth's eyes to such visions; as, indeed, more than any man in our +times, he has opened the eyes of the English people to see wonderful +things. There is little of a directly religious kind in his poetry; yet +we find in him what we miss in Wordsworth, an inclined plane from the +revelation in nature to the culminating revelation in the Son of Man. +Somehow, I say, perhaps because we find it in his prose, we feel more of +this in Coleridge's verse. + +Coleridge is a sage, and Wordsworth is a seer; yet when the sage sees, +that is, when, like the son of Beor, he falls into a trance having his +eyes open, or, when feeling and sight are one and philosophy is in +abeyance, the ecstasy is even loftier in Coleridge than in Wordsworth. In +their highest moods they seem almost to change places--Wordsworth to +become sage, and Coleridge seer. Perhaps the grandest hymn of praise +which man, the mouth-piece of Nature, utters for her, is the hymn of Mont +Blanc. + + + HYMN + + _Before sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni._ + + Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star + In his steep course--so long he seems to pause + On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc? + The Arve and Arveiron at thy base + Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form! + Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, + How silently! Around thee and above + Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, + An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it + As with a wedge! But when I look again, + It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, + Thy habitation from eternity! + O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee + Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, + Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer + I worshipped the Invisible alone. + + Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, + So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, + Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, + Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy; + Till the dilating soul, enwrapt, transfused, + Into the mighty vision passing--there + As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven! + + Awake, my soul! Not only passive praise + Thou owest! Not alone these swelling tears, + Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, + Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! + Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn. + + Thou first and chief, sole sovran[163] of the Vale! + O struggling with the darkness all the night, + And visited all night by troops of stars,[164] + Or when they climb the sky or when they sink! + Companion of the morning-star at dawn, + Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn[165] + Co-herald! wake, O wake, and utter praise! + Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? + Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? + Who made thee parent of perpetual streams? + + And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! + Who called you forth from night and utter death, + From dark and icy caverns called you forth,[166] + Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, + For ever shattered, and the same for ever? + Who gave you your invulnerable life, + Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, + Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam? + And who commanded--and the silence came-- + Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?[167] + + Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow + Adown enormous ravines slope amain-- + Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, + And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!-- + Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! + Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven + Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun + Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers + Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?-- + _God!_ let the torrents, like a shout of nations, + Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, _God!_ + _God!_ sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! + Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! + And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, + And in their perilous fall shall thunder, _God!_ + Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! + Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! + Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! + Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! + Ye signs and wonders of the element! + Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise. + + Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, + Oft from whose[168] feet the avalanche, unheard, + Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene + Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast-- + Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou + That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low + In adoration--upward from thy base + Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears-- + Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud, + To rise before me! rise, O ever rise; + Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth! + Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills! + Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven! + Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, + And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, + Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. + +Here is one little poem I think most valuable, both from its fulness of +meaning, and the form, as clear as condensed, in which that is embodied. + + + ON AN INFANT + + _Which died before baptism._ + + "_Be_ rather than _be called_ a child of God," + Death whispered. With assenting nod, + Its head upon its mother's breast + The baby bowed without demur-- + Of the kingdom of the blest + Possessor, not inheritor. + +Next the father let me place the gifted son, Hartley Coleridge. He was +born in 1796, and died in 1849. Strange, wayward, and in one respect +faulty, as his life was, his poetry--strange, and exceedingly wayward +too--is often very lovely. The following sonnet is all I can find room +for:-- + + + "SHE LOVED MUCH." + + She sat and wept beside his feet. The weight + Of sin oppressed her heart; for all the blame, + And the poor malice of the worldly shame, + To her was past, extinct, and out of date; + Only the _sin_ remained--the leprous state. + She would be melted by the heat of love, + By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove + And purge the silver ore adulterate. + She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair + Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch; + And he wiped off the soiling of despair + From her sweet soul, because she loved so much. + I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears: + Make me a humble thing of love and tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +THE FERVOUR OF THE IMPLICIT. INSIGHT OF THE HEART. + + +The late Dean Milman, born in 1791, best known by his very valuable +labours in history, may be taken as representing a class of writers in +whom the poetic fire is ever on the point, and only on the point, of +breaking into a flame. His composition is admirable--refined, scholarly, +sometimes rich and even gorgeous in expression--yet lacking that radiance +of the unutterable to which the loftiest words owe their grandest power. +Perhaps the best representative of his style is the hymn on the +Incarnation, in his dramatic poem, _The Fall of Jerusulem_. But as an +extract it is tolerably known. I prefer giving one from his few _Hymns +for Church Service_. + + + EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. + + When God came down from heaven--the living God-- + What signs and wonders marked his stately way? + Brake out the winds in music where he trod? + Shone o'er the heavens a brighter, softer day? + + The dumb began to speak, the blind to see, + And the lame leaped, and pain and paleness fled; + The mourner's sunken eye grew bright with glee, + And from the tomb awoke the wondering dead. + + When God went back to heaven--the living God-- + Rode he the heavens upon a fiery car? + Waved seraph-wings along his glorious road? + Stood still to wonder each bright wandering star? + + Upon the cross he hung, and bowed his head, + And prayed for them that smote, and them that curst; + And, drop by drop, his slow life-blood was shed, + And his last hour of suffering was his worst. + +_The Christian Year_ of the Rev. John Keble (born in 1800) is perhaps +better known in England than any other work of similar church character. +I must confess I have never been able to enter into the enthusiasm of its +admirers. Excellent, both in regard of their literary and religious +merits, true in feeling and thorough in finish, the poems always remind +me of Berlin work in iron--hard and delicate. Here is a portion of one of +the best of them. + + + ST. MATTHEW. + + Ye hermits blest, ye holy maids, + The nearest heaven on earth, + Who talk with God in shadowy glades, + Free from rude care and mirth; + To whom some viewless teacher brings + The secret lore of rural things, + The moral of each fleeting cloud and gale, + The whispers from above, that haunt the twilight vale: + + Say, when in pity ye have gazed + On the wreath'd smoke afar, + That o'er some town, like mist upraised, + Hung hiding sun and star; + Then as ye turned your weary eye + To the green earth and open sky, + Were ye not fain to doubt how Faith could dwell + Amid that dreary glare, in this world's citadel? + + But Love's a flower that will not die + For lack of leafy screen, + And Christian Hope can cheer the eye + That ne'er saw vernal green: + Then be ye sure that Love can bless + Even in this crowded loneliness, + Where ever-moving myriads seem to say, + Go--thou art nought to us, nor we to thee--away! + + There are in this loud stunning tide + Of human care and crime, + With whom the melodies abide + Of the everlasting chime; + Who carry music in their heart + Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, + Plying their daily task with busier feet, + Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat. + +There are here some indications of that strong reaction of the present +century towards ancient forms of church life. This reaction seems to me a +further consequence of that admiration of power of which I have spoken. +For, finding the progress of discovery in the laws of nature constantly +bring an assurance most satisfactory to the intellect, men began to +demand a similar assurance in other matters; and whatever department of +human thought could not be subjected to experiment or did not admit of +logical proof began to be regarded with suspicion. The highest realms of +human thought--where indeed only grand conviction, and that the result +not of research, but of obedience to the voice within, can be had--came +to be by such regarded as regions where, no scientific assurance being +procurable, it was only to his loss that a man should go wandering: the +whole affair was unworthy of him. And if there be no guide of humanity +but the intellect, and nothing worthy of its regard but what that +intellect can isolate and describe in the forms peculiar to its +operations,--that is, if a man has relations to nothing beyond his +definition, is not a creature of the immeasurable,--then these men are +right. But there have appeared along with them other thinkers who could +not thus be satisfied--men who had in their souls a hunger which the +neatest laws of nature could not content, who could not live on +chemistry, or mathematics, or even on geology, without the primal law of +_their_ many dim-dawning wonders--that is, the Being, if such there might +be, who thought their laws first and then embodied them in a world of +aeonian growth. These indeed seek law likewise, but a perfect law--a law +they can believe perfect beyond the comprehension of powers of whose +imperfection they are too painfully conscious. They feel in their highest +moments a helplessness that drives them to search after some Power with a +heart deeper than his power, who cares for the troubled creatures he has +made. But still under the influence of that faithless hunger for +intellectual certainty, they look about and divide into two parties: both +would gladly receive the reported revelation in Jesus, the one if they +could have evidence enough from without, the other if they could only get +rid of the difficulties it raises within. I am aware that I distinguish +in the mass, and that both sides would be found more or less influenced +by the same difficulties--but _more_ and _less_, and therefore thus +classified by the driving predominance. Those of the one party, then, +finding no proof to be had but that in testimony, and anxious to have all +they can--delighting too in a certain holy wilfulness of intellectual +self-immolation, accept the testimony in the mass, and become Roman +Catholics. Nor is it difficult to see how they then find rest. It is not +the dogma, but the contact with Christ the truth, with Christ the man, +which the dogma, in pacifying the troubles of the intellect--if only by a +soporific, has aided them in reaching, that gives them peace: it is the +truth itself that makes them free. + +The worshippers of science will themselves allow, that when they cannot +gain observations enough to satisfy them upon any point in which a law of +nature is involved, they must, if possible, institute experiments. I say +therefore to those whose observation has not satisfied them concerning +the phenomenon Christianity,--"Where is your experiment? Why do you not +thus try the utterance claiming to be the law of life? Call it a +hypothesis, and experiment upon it. Carry into practice, well justified +of your conscience, the words which the Man spoke, for therein he says +himself lies the possibility of your acceptance of his mission; and if, +after reasonable time thus spent, you are not yet convinced enough to +give testimony--I will not annoy you by saying _to facts_, but--to +conviction, I think neither will you be ready to abandon the continuous +experiment." These Roman Catholics have thus met with Jesus, come into +personal contact with him: by the doing of what he tells us, and by +nothing else, are they blessed. What if their theories show to me like a +burning of the temple and a looking for the god in the ashes? They know +in whom they have believed. And if some of us think we have a more +excellent way, we shall be blessed indeed if the result be no less +excellent than in such men as Faber, Newman, and Aubrey de Vere. No man +needs be afraid that to speak the truth concerning such will hasten the +dominance of alien and oppressive powers; the truth is free, and to be +just is to be strong. Should the time come again when Liberty is in +danger, those who have defended the truth even in her adversaries, if +such there be, will be found the readiest to draw the sword for her, and, +hating not, yet smite for the liberty to do even them justice. To give +the justice we claim for ourselves is, if there be a Christ, the law of +Christ, to obey which is eternally better than truest theory. + +I should like to give many of the hymns of Dr. Faber. Some of them are +grand, others very lovely, and some, of course, to my mind considerably +repulsive. He seems to me to go wrong nowhere in originating--he produces +nothing unworthy except when he reproduces what he never could have +entertained but for the pressure of acknowledged authority. Even such +things, however, he has enclosed in pearls, as the oyster its incommoding +sand-grains. + +His hymn on _The Greatness of God_ is profound; that on _The Will of God_ +is very wise; that to _The God of my Childhood_ is full of quite womanly +tenderness: all are most simple in speech, reminding us in this respect +of John Mason. In him, no doubt, as in all of his class, we find traces +of that sentimentalism in the use of epithets--small words, as +distinguished from homely, applied to great things--of which I have +spoken more than once; but criticism is not to be indulged in the +reception of great gifts--of such a gift as this, for instance:-- + + + THE ETERNITY OF GOD. + + O Lord! my heart is sick, + Sick of this everlasting change; + And life runs tediously quick + Through its unresting race and varied range: + Change finds no likeness to itself in Thee, + And wakes no echo in Thy mute eternity. + + Dear Lord! my heart is sick + Of this perpetual lapsing time, + So slow in grief, in joy so quick, + Yet ever casting shadows so sublime: + Time of all creatures is least like to Thee, + And yet it is our share of Thine eternity. + + Oh change and time are storms + For lives so thin and frail as ours; + For change the work of grace deforms + With love that soils, and help that overpowers; + And time is strong, and, like some chafing sea, + It seems to fret the shores of Thine eternity. + + Weak, weak, for ever weak! + We cannot hold what we possess; + Youth cannot find, age will not seek,-- + Oh weakness is the heart's worst weariness: + But weakest hearts can lift their thoughts to Thee; + It makes us strong to think of Thine eternity. + + Thou hadst no youth, great God! + An Unbeginning End Thou art; + Thy glory in itself abode, + And still abides in its own tranquil heart: + No age can heap its outward years on Thee: + Dear God! Thou art Thyself Thine own eternity! + + Without an end or bound + Thy life lies all outspread in light; + Our lives feel Thy life all around, + Making our weakness strong, our darkness bright; + Yet is it neither wilderness nor sea, + But the calm gladness of a full eternity. + + Oh Thou art very great + To set Thyself so far above! + But we partake of Thine estate, + Established in Thy strength and in Thy love: + That love hath made eternal room for me + In the sweet vastness of its own eternity. + + Oh Thou art very meek + To overshade Thy creatures thus! + Thy grandeur is the shade we seek; + To be eternal is Thy use to us: + Ah, Blessed God! what joy it is to me + To lose all thought of self in Thine eternity. + + Self-wearied, Lord! I come; + For I have lived my life too fast: + Now that years bring me nearer home + Grace must be slowly used to make it last; + When my heart beats too quick I think of Thee, + And of the leisure of Thy long eternity. + + Farewell, vain joys of earth! + Farewell, all love that it not His! + Dear God! be Thou my only mirth, + Thy majesty my single timid bliss! + Oh in the bosom of eternity + Thou dost not weary of Thyself, nor we of Thee! + +How easily his words flow, even when he is saying the deepest things! +The poem is full of the elements of the finest mystical metaphysics, and +yet there is no effort in their expression. The tendency to find God +beyond, rather than in our daily human conditions, is discernible; but +only as a tendency. + +What a pity that the sects are so slow to become acquainted with the +grand best in each other! + +I do not find in Dr. Newman either a depth or a precision equal to that +of Dr. Faber. His earlier poems indicate a less healthy condition of +mind. His _Dream of Gerontius_ is, however, a finer, as more ambitious +poem than any of Faber's. In my judgment there are weak passages in it, +with others of real grandeur. But I am perfectly aware of the difficulty, +almost impossibility, of doing justice to men from some of whose forms of +thought I am greatly repelled, who creep from the sunshine into every +ruined archway, attracted by the brilliance with which the light from its +loophole glows in its caverned gloom, and the hope of discovering within +it the first steps of a stair winding up into the blue heaven. I +apologize for the unavoidable rudeness of a critic who would fain be +honest if he might; and I humbly thank all such as Dr. Newman, whose +verses, revealing their saintship, make us long to be holier men. + +Of his, as of Faber's, I have room for no more than one. It was written +off Sardinia. + + + DESOLATION. + + O say not thou art left of God, + Because His tokens in the sky + Thou canst not read: this earth He trod + To teach thee He was ever nigh. + + He sees, beneath the fig-tree green, + Nathaniel con His sacred lore; + Shouldst thou thy chamber seek, unseen + He enters through the unopened door. + + And when thou liest, by slumber bound, + Outwearied in the Christian fight, + In glory, girt with saints around, + He stands above thee through the night. + + When friends to Emmaus bend their course, + He joins, although He holds their eyes: + Or, shouldst thou feel some fever's force, + He takes thy hand, He bids thee rise. + + Or on a voyage, when calms prevail, + And prison thee upon the sea, + He walks the waves, He wings the sail, + The shore is gained, and thou art free. + +Sir Aubrey de Vere is a poet profound in feeling, and gracefully tender +in utterance. I give one short poem and one sonnet. + + + REALITY. + + Love thy God, and love Him only: + And thy breast will ne'er be lonely. + In that one great Spirit meet + All things mighty, grave, and sweet. + Vainly strives the soul to mingle + With a being of our kind: + Vainly hearts with hearts are twined: + For the deepest still is single. + An impalpable resistance + Holds like natures still at distance. + Mortal! love that Holy One! + Or dwell for aye alone. + +I respond most heartily to the last two lines; but I venture to add, with +regard to the preceding six, "Love that holy One, and the impalpable +resistance will vanish; for when thou seest him enter to sup with thy +neighbour, thou wilt love that neighbour as thyself." + + + SONNET. + + Ye praise the humble: of the meek ye say, + "Happy they live among their lowly bowers; + "The mountains, and the mountain-storms are ours." + Thus, self-deceivers, filled with pride alway, + Reluctant homage to the good ye pay, + Mingled with scorn like poison sucked from flowers-- + Revere the humble; godlike are their powers: + No mendicants for praise of men are they. + The child who prays in faith "Thy will be done" + Is blended with that Will Supreme which moves + A wilderness of worlds by Thought untrod; + He shares the starry sceptre, and the throne: + The man who as himself his neighbour loves + Looks down on all things with the eyes of God! + +Is it a fancy that, in the midst of all this devotion and lovely thought, +I hear the mingled mournful tone of such as have cut off a right hand and +plucked out a right eye, which had _not_ caused them to offend? This is +tenfold better than to have spared offending members; but the true +Christian ambition is to fill the divine scheme of humanity--abridging +nothing, ignoring nothing, denying nothing, calling nothing unclean, but +burning everything a thank-offering in the flame of life upon the altar +of absolute devotion to the Father and Saviour of men. We must not throw +away half his gifts, that we may carry the other half in both hands to +his altar. + +But sacred fervour is confined to no sect. Here it is of the profoundest, +and uttered with a homely tenderness equal to that of the earliest +writers. Mrs. Browning, the princess of poets, was no partisan. If my +work were mainly critical, I should feel bound to remark upon her false +theory of English rhyme, and her use of strange words. That she is +careless too in her general utterance I cannot deny; but in idea she is +noble, and in phrase magnificent. Some of her sonnets are worthy of being +ranged with the best in our language--those of Milton and Wordsworth. + + + BEREAVEMENT. + + When some Beloveds, 'neath whose eyelids lay + The sweet lights of my childhood, one by one + Did leave me dark before the natural sun, + And I astonied fell, and could not pray, + A thought within me to myself did say, + "Is God less God that _thou_ art left undone? + Rise, worship, bless Him! in this sackcloth spun, + As in that purple!"--But I answer, Nay! + What child his filial heart in words can loose, + If he behold his tender father raise + The hand that chastens sorely? Can he choose + But sob in silence with an upward gaze? + And _my_ great Father, thinking fit to bruise, + Discerns in speechless tears both prayer and praise. + + + COMFORT. + + Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet, + From out the hallelujahs sweet and low, + Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so, + Who art not missed by any that entreat. + Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet-- + And if no precious gums my hands bestow, + Let my tears drop like amber, while I go + In reach of thy divinest voice complete + In humanest affection--thus, in sooth + To lose the sense of losing! As a child, + Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore, + Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth; + Till sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, + He sleeps the faster that he wept before. + +Gladly would I next give myself to the exposition of several of the poems +of her husband, Robert Browning, especially the _Christmas Eve_ and +_Easter Day_; in the first of which he sets forth in marvellous rhymes +the necessity both for widest sympathy with the varied forms of +Christianity, and for individual choice in regard to communion; in the +latter, what it is to choose the world and lose the life. But this would +take many pages, and would be inconsistent with the plan of my book. + +When I have given two precious stanzas, most wise as well as most lyrical +and lovely, from the poems of our honoured Charles Kingsley, I shall turn +to the other of the classes into which the devout thinkers of the day +have divided. + + + A FAREWELL. + + My fairest child, I have no song to give you; + No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey; + Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you + For every day. + + Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; + Do noble things, not dream them, all day long; + And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever + One grand, sweet song. + +Surely these last, who have not accepted tradition in the mass, who +believe that we must, as our Lord demanded of the Jews, of our own selves +judge what is right, because therein his spirit works with our +spirit,--worship the Truth not less devotedly than they who rejoice in +holy tyranny over their intellects. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE QUESTIONING FERVOUR. + + +And now I turn to the other class--that which, while the former has fled +to tradition for refuge from doubt, sets its face towards the spiritual +east, and in prayer and sorrow and hope looks for a dawn--the noble band +of reverent doubters--as unlike those of the last century who scoffed, as +those of the present who pass on the other side. They too would know; but +they know enough already to know further, that it is from the hills and +not from the mines their aid must come. They know that a perfect +intellectual proof would leave them doubting all the same; that their +high questions cannot be answered to the intellect alone, for their whole +nature is the questioner; that the answers can only come as questioners +and their questions grow towards them. Hence, growing hope, blossoming +ever and anon into the white flower of confidence, is their answer as +yet; their hope--the Beatific Vision--the _happy-making sight_, as Milton +renders the word of the mystics. + +It is strange how gentle a certain large class of the priesthood will be +with those who, believing there is a God, find it hard to trust him, and +how fierce with those who, unable, from the lack of harmony around and in +them, to say they are sure there is a God, would yet, could they find +him, trust him indeed. "Ah, but," answer such of the clergy and their +followers, "you want a God of your own making." "Certainly," the doubters +reply, "we do not want a God of your making: that would be to turn the +universe into a hell, and you into its torturing demons. We want a God +like that man whose name is so often on your lips, but whose spirit you +understand so little--so like him that he shall be the bread of life to +_all_ our hunger--not that hunger only already satisfied in you, who take +the limit of your present consciousness for that of the race, and say, +'This is all the world needs:' we know the bitterness of our own hearts, +and your incapacity for intermeddling with its joy. We + + have another mountain-range, from whence + Bursteth a sun unutterably bright; + +nor for us only, but for you also, who will not have the truth except it +come to you in a system authorized of man." + +I have attributed a general utterance to these men, widely different from +each other as I know they are. + +Here is a voice from one of them, Arthur Hugh Clough, who died in 1861, +well beloved. It follows upon two fine poems, called _The Questioning +Spirit_, and _Bethesda_, in which is represented the condition of many of +the finest minds of the present century. Let us receive it as spoken by +one in the foremost ranks of these doubters, men reviled by their +brethren who dare not doubt for fear of offending the God to whom they +attribute their own jealousy. But God is assuredly pleased with those who +will neither lie for him, quench their dim vision of himself, nor count +_that_ his mind which they would despise in a man of his making. + + Across the sea, along the shore, + In numbers more and ever more, + From lonely hut and busy town, + The valley through, the mountain down, + What was it ye went out to see, + Ye silly folk of Galilee? + The reed that in the wind doth shake? + The weed that washes in the lake? + The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?-- + young man preaching in a boat. + + What was it ye went out to hear + By sea and land, from far and near? + A teacher? Rather seek the feet + Of those who sit in Moses' seat. + Go humbly seek, and bow to them, + Far off in great Jerusalem. + From them that in her courts ye saw, + Her perfect doctors of the law, + What is it came ye here to note?-- + A young man preaching in a boat + + A prophet! Boys and women weak! + Declare, or cease to rave: + Whence is it he hath learned to speak? + Say, who his doctrine gave? + A prophet? Prophet wherefore he + Of all in Israel tribes?-- + _He teacheth with authority, + And not as do the Scribes_. + +Here is another from one who will not be offended if I class him with +this school--the finest of critics as one of the most finished of +poets--Matthew Arnold. Only my reader must remember that of none of my +poets am I free to choose that which is most characteristic: I have the +scope of my volume to restrain me. + + + THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH THE KID. + + He saves the sheep; the goats he doth not save! + So rang Tertullian's sentence, on the side + Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried: + "Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, + Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave!" + So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed, + The infant Church: of love she felt the tide + Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave. + And then she smiled, and in the Catacombs, + With eye suffused but heart inspired true, + On those walls subterranean, where she hid + Her head in ignominy, death, and tombs, + She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew; + And on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid. + +Of these writers, Tennyson is the foremost: he has written _the_ poem of +the hoping doubters, _the_ poem of our age, the grand minor organ-fugue +of _In Memoriam_. It is the cry of the bereaved Psyche into the dark +infinite after the vanished Love. His friend is nowhere in his sight, and +God is silent. Death, God's final compulsion to prayer, in its dread, its +gloom, its utter stillness, its apparent nothingness, urges the cry. +Meanings over the dead are mingled with profoundest questionings of +philosophy, the signs of nature, and the story of Jesus, while now and +then the star of the morning, bright Phosphor, flashes a few rays through +the shifting cloudy dark. And if the sun has not arisen on the close of +the book, yet the Aurora of the coming dawn gives light enough to make +the onward journey possible and hopeful: who dares say that he walks in +the full light? that the counsels of God are to him not a matter of +faith, but of vision? + +Bewildered in the perplexities of nature's enigmas, and driven by an +awful pain of need, Tennyson betakes himself to the God of nature, thus: + + + LIV. + + The wish, that of the living whole + No life may fail beyond the grave; + Derives it not from what we have + The likest God within the soul? + + Are God and Nature then at strife, + That Nature lends such evil dreams, + So careful of the type she seems, + So careless of the single life; + + That I, considering everywhere + Her secret meaning in her deeds, + And finding that of fifty seeds + She often brings but one to bear; + + I falter where I firmly trod, + And falling with my weight of cares + Upon the great world's altar-stairs + That slope thro' darkness up to God; + + I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, + And gather dust and chaff, and call + To what I feel is Lord of all, + And faintly trust the larger hope. + +[Illustration: + + "... he was dead, and there he sits, + And he that brought him back is there."] + +Once more, this is how he uses the gospel-tale: Mary has returned home +from the sepulchre, with Lazarus so late its prey, and her sister and +Jesus:-- + + + XXXII. + + Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, + Nor other thought her mind admits + But, he was dead, and there he sits, + And he that brought him back is there. + + Then one deep love doth supersede + All other, when her ardent gaze + Roves from the living brother's face, + And rests upon the Life indeed. + + All subtle thought, all curious fears, + Borne down by gladness so complete, + She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet + With costly spikenard and with tears. + + Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, + Whose loves in higher love endure; + What souls possess themselves so pure, + Or is there blessedness like theirs? + + * * * * * + +I have thus traced--how slightly!--the course of the religious poetry of +England, from simple song, lovingly regardful of sacred story and legend, +through the chant of philosophy, to the full-toned lyric of adoration. I +have shown how the stream sinks in the sands of an evil taste generated +by the worship of power and knowledge, and that a new growth of the love +of nature--beauty counteracting not contradicting science--has led it by +a fair channel back to the simplicities of faith in some, and to a holy +questioning in others; the one class having for its faith, the other for +its hope, that the heart of the Father is a heart like ours, a heart that +will receive into its noon the song that ascends from the twilighted +hearts of his children. + +Gladly would I have prayed for the voices of many more of the singers of +our country's psalms. Especially do I regret the arrival of the hour, +because of the voices of living men and women. But the time is over and +gone. The twilight has already embrowned the gray glooms of the cathedral +arches, and is driving us forth to part at the door. + +But the singers will yet sing on to him that hath ears to hear. When he +returns to seek them, the shadowy door will open to his touch, the +long-drawn aisles receding will guide his eye to the carven choir, and +there they still stand, the sweet singers, content to repeat ancient +psalm and new song to the prayer of the humblest whose heart would join +in England's Antiphon. + + + + +THE END. + + + + +[1] The rhymes of the first and second and of the fourth and fifth lines +throughout the stanzas, are all, I think, what the French call feminine +rhymes, as in the words "sleeping," "weeping." This I think it better +not to attempt retaining, because the final unaccented syllable is +generally one of those _e_'s which, having first become mute, have since +been dropped from our spelling altogether. + +[2] For the grammatical interpretation of this line, I am indebted to Mr. +Richard Morris. _Shall_ is here used, as it often is, in the sense of +_must_, and _rede_ is a noun; the paraphrase of the whole being, "_Son, +what must be to me for counsel?_" "_What counsel must I follow?_" + +[3] "Do not blame me, it is my nature." + +[4] _Mon_ is used for _man_ or _woman_: human being. It is so used in +Lancashire still: they say _mon_ to a woman. + +[5] "They weep quietly and _becomingly_." I think there must be in this +word something of the sense of _gently,-uncomplainingly_. + +[6] "And are shrunken (_clung_ with fear) _like_ the clay." _So_ here is +the same as _as_. For this interpretation I am indebted to Mr. Morris. + +[7] "It is no wonder though it pleases me very ill." + +[8] I think the poet, wisely anxious to keep his last line just what it +is, was perplexed for a rhyme, and fell on the odd device of saying, for +"both day and night," "both day and the other." + +[9] "All as if it were not never, I wis." + +[10] "So that many men say--True it is, all goeth but God's will." + +[11] I conjecture "All that grain (me) groweth green." + +[12] _Not_ is a contraction for _ne wat, know not_. "For I know not +whither I must go, nor how long here I dwell." I think _y_ is omitted by +mistake before _duelle_. + +[13] This is very poor compared with the original. + +[14] I owe almost all my information on the history of these plays to Mr. +Collier's well-known work on English Dramatic Poetry. + +[15] _Able to suffer_, deserving, subject to, obnoxious to, liable to +death and vengeance. + +[16] The word _harry_ is still used in Scotland, but only in regard to a +bird's nest. + +[17] Do-well, Do-better, and Do-best. + +[18] Complexion. + +[19] Ruddiness--complexion. + +[20] Twig. + +[21] Life (?).--I think _she_ should be _he_. + +[22] Field. + +[23] "Carry you beyond this region." + +[24] For the knowledge of this poem I am indebted to the Early English +Text Society, now printing so many valuable manuscripts. + +[25] The _for_ here is only an intensive. + +[26] _Pref_ is _proof_. _Put in pref_ seems to stand for something more +than _being tested_. Might it not mean _proved to be a pearl of price?_ + +[27] A word acknowledged to be obscure. Mr. Morris suggests _on the left +hand_, as unbelieved. + +[28] "Except that which his sole wit may judge." + +[29] "Be equal to thy possessions:" "fit thy desires to thy means." + +[30] "Ambition has uncertainty." We use the word _ticklish_ still. + +[31] "Is mingled everywhere." + +[32] To relish, to like. "Desire no more than is fitting for thee." + +[33] For. + +[34] "Let thy spiritual and not thine animal nature guide thee." + +[35] "And I dare not falsely judge the reverse." + +[36] A poem so like this that it may have been written immediately after +reading it, is attributed to Robert Henryson, the Scotch poet. It has the +same refrain to every verse as Lydgate's. + +[37] "Mourning for mishaps that I had caught made me almost mad." + +[38] "Led me all one:" "brought me back to peace, unity, harmony." (?) + +[39] "That I read on (it)." + +[40] _Of_ in the original, as in the title. + +[41] Does this mean by contemplation on it? + +[42] "I paid good attention to it." + +[43] "Greeted thee"--_in the very affliction._ + +[44] "For Christ's love let us do the same." + +[45] "Whatever grief or woe enslaves thee." But _thrall_ is a blunder, +for the word ought to have rhymed with _make._ + +[46] "The precious leader that shall judge us." + +[47] "When thou art in sorry plight, think of this." + +[48] "And death, beyond renewal, lay hold upon their life." + +[49] _Sending, message:_ "whatever varying decree God sends thee." + +[50] "Receives his message;" "accepts his will." + +[51] Recently published by the Early English Text Society. S.L. IV. + +[52] "Child born of a bright lady." _Bird, berd, brid, burd_, means +_lady_ originally: thence comes our _bride_. + +[53] In _Chalmers' English Poets_, from which I quote, it is +_selly-worme;_ but I think this must be a mistake. _Silly_ would here +mean _weak_. + +[54] The first poem he wrote, a very fine one, _The Shepheard's +Calender_, is so full of old and provincial words, that the educated +people of his own time required a glossary to assist them in the reading +of it. + +[55] _Eyas_ is a young hawk, whose wings are not fully fledged. + +[56] "What less than that is fitting?" + +[57] _For_, even in Collier's edition, but certainly a blunder. + +[58] _Was_, in the editions; clearly wrong. + +[59] "Of the same mould and hand as we." + +[60] There was no contempt in the use of this word then. + +[61] Simple-hearted, therefore blessed; like the German _selig_. + +[62] A shell plentiful on the coast of Palestine, and worn by pilgrims to +show that they had visited that country. + +[63] _Evil_ was pronounced almost as a monosyllable, and was at last +contracted to _ill_. + +[64] "Come to find a place." The transitive verb _stow_ means to put in a +place: here it is used intransitively. + +[65] The list of servants then kept in large houses, the number of such +being far greater than it is now. + +[66] There has been some blundering in the transcription of the last two +lines of this stanza. In the former of the two I have substituted _doth_ +for _dost_, evidently wrong. In the latter, the word _cradle_ is +doubtful. I suggest _cradled_, but am not satisfied with it. The meaning +is, however, plain enough. + +[67] "The very blessing the soul needed." + +[68] An old English game, still in use in Scotland and America, but +vanishing before cricket. + +[69] _Silly_ means _innocent_, and therefore _blessed_; ignorant of evil, +and in so far helpless. It is easy to see how affection came to apply it +to idiots. It is applied to the ox and ass in the next stanza, and is +often an epithet of shepherds. + +[70] See _Poems by Sir Henry Wotton and others. Edited by the Rev. John +Hannah_. + +[71] "Know thyself." + +[72] "And I have grown their map." + +[73] The guilt of Adam's first sin, supposed by the theologians of Dr. +Donne's time to be imputed to Adam's descendants. + +[74] The past tense: ran. + +[75] Their door to enter into sin--by his example. + +[76] He was sent by James I. to assist an embassy to the Elector +Palatine, who had married his daughter Elizabeth. + +[77] He had lately lost his wife, for whom he had a rare love. + +[78] "If they know us not by intuition, but by judging from circumstances +and signs." + +[79] "With most willingness." + +[80] "Art proud." + +[81] A strange use of the word; but it evidently means _recovered_, and +has some analogy with the French _repasser_. + +[82] _To_ understood: _to sweeten_. + +[83] He plays upon the astrological terms, _houses_ and _schemes_. The +astrologers divided the heavens into twelve _houses_; and the diagrams by +which they represented the relative positions of the heavenly bodies, +they called _schemes_. + +[84] The tree of knowledge. + +[85] Dyce, following Seward, substitutes _curse_. + +[86] A glimmer of that Platonism of which, happily, we have so much more +in the seventeenth century. + +[87] Should this be "_in_ fees;" that is, in acknowledgment of his feudal +sovereignty? + +[88] _Warm_ is here elongated, almost treated as a dissyllable. + +[89] "He ought not to be forsaken: whoever weighs the matter rightly, +will come to this conclusion." + +[90] The _Eridan_ is the _Po_.--As regards classical allusions in +connexion with sacred things, I would remind my reader of the great +reverence our ancestors had for the classics, from the influence they had +had in reviving the literature of the country.--I need hardly remind him +of the commonly-received fancy that the swan does sing once--just as his +death draws nigh. Does this come from the legend of Cycnus changed into a +swan while lamenting the death of his friend Phaeton? or was that legend +founded on the yet older fancy? The glorious bird looks as if he ought to +sing. + +[91] The poet refers to the singing of the hymn before our Lord went to +the garden by the brook Cedron. + +[92] The construction is obscure just from the insertion of the _to_ +before _breathe_, where it ought not to be after the verb _hear_. The +poet does not mean that he delights to hear that voice more than to +breathe gentle airs, but more than to hear gentle airs (to) breathe. _To +hear_, understood, governs all the infinitives that follow; among the +rest, _the winds (to) chide_. + +[93] _Rut_ is used for the sound of the tide in Cheshire. (See +_Halliwell's Dictionary_.) Does _rutty_ mean _roaring?_ or does it +describe the deep, rugged shores of the Jordan? + +[94] A monosyllable, contracted afterwards into _bloom_. + +[95] Willows. + +[96] _Groom_ originally means just _a man_. It was a word much used when +pastoral poetry was the fashion. Spenser has _herd-grooms_ in his +_Shepherd's Calendar_. This last is what it means here: _shepherds_. + +[97] Obtain, save. + +[98] Equivalent to "What are those hands of yours for?" + +[99] He was but thirty-nine when he died. + +[100] To rhyme with _pray_ in the second line. + +[101] Bunch of flowers. He was thinking of Aaron's rod, perhaps. + +[102] To correspond to that of Christ. + +[103] Again a touch of holy humour: to match his Master's predestination, +he will contrive something three years beforehand, with an _if_. + +[104] The _here_ in the preceding line means _his book_; hence the _thy +book_ is antithetical. + +[105] _Concent_ is a singing together, or harmoniously. + +[106] Music depends all on proportions. + +[107] The diapason is the octave. Therefore "all notes true." See note 2, +p. 205. + +[108] An intransitive verb: _he was wont_. + +[109] The birds called _halcyons_ were said to build their nests on the +water, and, while they were brooding, to keep it calm. + +[110] The morning star. + +[111] The God of shepherds especially, but the God of all nature--the All +in all, for _Pan_ means the _All_. + +[112] Milton here uses the old Ptolemaic theory of a succession of solid +crystal concentric spheres, in which the heavenly bodies were fixed, and +which revolving carried these with them. The lowest or innermost of these +spheres was that of the moon. "The hollow round of Cynthia's seat" is, +therefore, this sphere in which the moon sits. + +[113] That cannot be expressed or described. + +[114] By _hinges_ he means the axis of the earth, on which it turns as on +a hinge. The origin of _hinge_ is _hang_. It is what anything hangs on. + +[115] This is an apostrophe to the nine spheres (_see former note_), +which were believed by the ancients to send forth in their revolutions a +grand harmony, too loud for mortals to hear. But no music of the lower +region can make up full harmony without the bass of heaven's organ. The +_music of the spheres_ was to Milton the embodiment of the theory of the +universe. He uses the symbol often. + +[116] _Consort_ is the right word scientifically. It means the _fitting +together_ of sounds according to their nature. _Concert_, however, is not +wrong. It is even more poetic than _consort_, for it means a _striving +together_, which is the idea of all peace: the strife is _together_, and +not of one against the other. All harmony is an ordered, a divine strife. +In the contest of music, every tone restrains its foot and bows its head +to the rest in holy dance. + +[117] _Symphony_ is here used for _chorus_, and quite correctly; for +_symphony_ is a _voicing together_. To this symphony of the angels the +spheres and the heavenly organ are the accompaniment. + +[118] Die of the music. + +[119] Not merely _swings_, but _lashes about_. + +[120] Full of folds or coils. + +[121] The legend concerning this cessation of the oracles associates it +with the Crucifixion. Milton in _The Nativity_ represents it as the +consequence of the very presence of the infant Saviour. War and lying are +banished together. + +[122] The _genius_ is the local god, the god of the place as a place. + +[123] The _Lars_ were the protecting spirits of the ancestors of the +family; the _Lemures_ were evil spirits, spectres, or bad ghosts. But the +notions were somewhat indefinite. + +[124] _Flamen_ was the word used for _priest_ when the Romans spoke of +the priest of any particular divinity. Hence the _peculiar power_ in the +last line of the stanza. + +[125] Jupiter Ammon, worshipped in Libya, in the north of Africa, under +the form of a goat. "He draws in his horn." + +[126] The Syrian Adonis. + +[127] Frightful, horrible, as, _a grisly bear_. + +[128] Isis, Orus, Anubis, and Osiris, all Egyptian divinities--the last +worshipped in the form of a bull. + +[129] No rain falls in Egypt. + +[130] Last-born: the star in the east. + +[131] Bright-armoured. + +[132] Ready for what service may arise. + +[133] The _with_ we should now omit, for when we use it we mean the +opposite of what is meant here. + +[134] It is the light of the soul going out from the eyes, as certainly +as the light of the world coming in at the eyes that makes things seen. + +[135] The action by which a body attacked collects force by opposition. + +[136] Cut roughly through. + +[137] Intransitively used. They touch each other. + +[138] Self-desire, which is death's pit, &c. + +[139] _Which_ understood. + +[140] How unpleasant conceit can become. The joy of seeing the Saviour +was _stolen_ because they gained it in the absence of the sun! + +[141] A trisyllable. + +[142] His garland. + +[143] The "sunny seed" in their hearts. + +[144] From _tine_ or _tind_, to set on fire. Hence _tinder_. + +[145] The body of Jesus. + +[146] Mark i. 35; Luke xxi. 37. The word _time_ must be associated both +with _progress_ and _prayer_--his walking-time and prayer-time. + +[147] This is an allusion to the sphere-music: the great heavens is a +clock whose hours are those when Jesus retires to his Father; and to +these hours the sphere-music gives the chime. + +[148] He continues his poetic synonyms for the night. + +[149] "Behold I stand at the door and knock." + +[150] A monosyllable. + +[151] Often used for _chambers_. + +[152] "The creation looks for the light, thy shadow?" Or, "The light +looks for thy shadow, the sun"? + +[153] _Perforce_: of necessity. + +[154] He does not mean his fellows, but his bodily nature. + +[155] _Savourest?_ + +[156] The first I ever saw of its hymns was on a broad-sheet of Christmas +Carols, with coloured pictures, printed in Seven Dials. + +[157] They passed through twenty editions, not to mention one lately +published (_by Daniel Sedgwick, of 81, Sun-street, Bishopsgate, a man +who, concerning hymns and their writers, knows more than any other man I +have met_), from which, carefully edited, I have gathered all my +_information_, although I had known the book itself for many years. + +[158] The animal _spirits_ of the old physiologists. + +[159] In the following five lines I have adopted the reading of the first +edition, which, although a little florid, I prefer to the scanty two +lines of the later. + +[160] False in feeling, nor like God at all, although a ready pagan +representation of him. There is much of the pagan left in many +Christians--poets too. + +[161] _Insisting--persistent_. + +[162] Great cloudy ridges, one rising above the other, like a grand stair +up to the heavens. _See Wordsworth's note_. + +[163] The mountain. + +[164] These two lines are just the symbol for the life of their author. + +[165] From the rose-light on the snow of its peak. + +[166] They all flow from under the glaciers, fed by their constant +melting. + +[167] Turning for contrast to the glaciers, which he apostrophizes in the +next line. + +[168] Antecedent, _peaks_. + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: In this electronic edition, the footnotes have been +numbered and relocated to the end of the work. In chapter 14, the word +"Iris", which appears in our print copy, seems to be a misprint for +"Isis" and was corrected as such.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of England's Antiphon, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10375 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b18720e --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10375 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10375) diff --git a/old/10375-8.txt b/old/10375-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39206cb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10375-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12036 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of England's Antiphon, by George MacDonald + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: England's Antiphon + +Author: George MacDonald + +Release Date: December 3, 2003 [EBook #10375] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Tom Allen and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +[Illustration: England's Antiphon] + + + +ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON + +BY GEORGE MACDONALD + + + ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON + was originally published in 1868 + + + + +PREFACE + + +In this book I have sought to trace the course of our religious poetry +from an early period of our literary history. + +This could hardly be done without reference to some of the principal +phases of the religious history of the nation. To give anything like a +full history of the religious feeling of a single county, would require a +large book, and--not to mention sermons--would involve a thorough +acquaintance with the hymns of the country,--a very wide subject, which I +have not considered of sufficient importance from a literary point of +view to come within the scope of the volume. + +But if its poetry be the cream of a people's thought, some true +indications of the history of its religious feeling must be found in its +religious verse, and I hope I have not altogether failed in setting forth +these indications. + +My chief aim, however, will show itself to have been the mediating +towards an intelligent and cordial sympathy betwixt my readers and the +writers from whom I have quoted. In this I have some confidence of +success. + +Heartily do I throw this my small pebble at the head of the great +Sabbath-breaker _Schism_. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTION. + + CHAPTER I. + SACRED LYRICS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. + + CHAPTER II. + THE MIRACLE PLAYS, AND OTHER POEMS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. + + CHAPTER III. + THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. + + CHAPTER IV. + INTRODUCTION TO THE ELIZABETHAN ERA. + + CHAPTER V. + SPENSER AND HIS FRIENDS. + + CHAPTER VI. + LORD BACON AND HIS COEVALS. + + CHAPTER VII. + DR. DONNE. + + CHAPTER VIII. + BISHOP HALL AND GEORGE SANDYS. + + CHAPTER IX. + A FEW OF THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS. + + CHAPTER X. + SIR JOHN BEAUMONT AND DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. + + CHAPTER XI. + THE BROTHERS FLETCHER. + + CHAPTER XII. + WITHER, HERRICK, AND QUARLES. + + CHAPTER XIII. + GEORGE HERBERT. + + CHAPTER XIV. + JOHN MILTON. + + CHAPTER XV. + EDMUND WALLER, THOMAS BROWN, AND JEREMY TAYLOR. + + CHAPTER XVI. + HENRY MORE AND RICHARD BAXTER. + + CHAPTER XVII. + CRASHAW AND MARVELL. + + CHAPTER XVIII. + A MOUNT OF VISION--HENRY VAUGHAN. + + CHAPTER XIX. + THE PLAIN. + + CHAPTER XX. + THE ROOTS OF THE HILLS. + + CHAPTER XXI. + THE NEW VISION. + + CHAPTER XXII. + THE FERVOUR OF THE IMPLICIT. INSIGHT OF THE HEART. + + CHAPTER XXIII. + THE QUESTIONING FERVOUR. + + + + +ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +If the act of worship be the highest human condition, it follows that the +highest human art must find material in the modes of worship. The first +poetry of a nation will not be religious poetry: the nation must have a +history at least before it can possess any material capable of being cast +into the mould of religious utterance; but, the nation once possessed of +this material, poetry is the first form religious utterance will assume. + +The earliest form of literature is the ballad, which is the germ of all +subsequent forms of poetry, for it has in itself all their elements: the +_lyric_, for it was first chanted to some stringed instrument; the +_epic_, for it tells a tale, often of solemn and ancient report; the +_dramatic_, for its actors are ever ready to start forward into life, +snatch the word from the mouth of the narrator, and speak in their own +persons. All these forms have been used for the utterance of religious +thought and feeling. Of the lyrical poems of England, religion possesses +the most; of the epic, the best; of the dramatic, the oldest. + +Of each of these I shall have occasion to speak; but, as the title of the +book implies,--for _Antiphon_ means the responsive song of the parted +choir,--I shall have chiefly to do with the lyric or song form. + +For song is the speech of feeling. Even the prose of emotion always +wanders into the rhythmical. Hence, as well as for other reasons +belonging to its nature, it is one chief mode in which men unite to +praise God; for in thus praising they hold communion with each other, and +the praise expands and grows. + +The _individual_ heart, however, must first have been uplifted into +praiseful song, before the common ground and form of feeling, in virtue +of which men might thus meet, could be supplied. But the vocal utterance +or the bodily presence is not at all necessary for this communion. When +we read rejoicingly the true song-speech of one of our singing brethren, +we hold song-worship with him and with all who have thus at any time +shared in his feelings, even if he have passed centuries ago into the +"high countries" of song. + +My object is to erect, as it were, in this book, a little auricle, or +spot of concentrated hearing, where the hearts of my readers may listen, +and join in the song of their country's singing men and singing women. + +I will build it, if I may, like a chapel in the great church of England's +worship, gathering the sounds of its never-ceasing choir, heart after +heart lifting up itself in the music of speech, heart after heart +responding across the ages. Hearing, we worship with them. + +For we must not forget that, although the individual song springs from +the heart of the individual, the song of a country is not merely +cumulative: it is vital in its growth, and therefore composed of +historically dependent members. No man could sing as he has sung, had not +others sung before him. Deep answereth unto deep, face to face, praise to +praise. To the sound of the trumpet the harp returns its own vibrating +response--alike, but how different! The religious song of the country, I +say again, is a growth, rooted deep in all its story. + +Besides the fact that the lyric chiefly will rouse the devotional +feeling, there is another reason why I should principally use it: I wish +to make my book valuable in its parts as in itself. The value of a thing +depends in large measure upon its unity, its wholeness. In a work of +these limits, that form of verse alone can be available for its unity +which is like the song of the bird--a warble and then a stillness. +However valuable an extract may be--and I shall not quite eschew such--an +entire lyric, I had almost said _however inferior_, if worthy of a place +at all, is of greater value, especially if regarded in relation to the +form of setting with which I hope to surround it. + +There is a sense in which I may, without presumption, adopt the name of +Choragus, or leader of the chorus, in relation to these singers: I must +take upon me to order who shall sing, when he shall sing, and which of +his songs he shall sing. But I would rather assume the office of master +of the hearing, for my aim shall be to cause the song to be truly heard; +to set forth worthy points in form, in matter, and in relation; to say +with regard to the singer himself, his time, its modes, its beliefs, such +things as may help to set the song in its true light--its relation, +namely, to the source whence it sprung, which alone can secure its right +reception by the heart of the hearer. For my chief aim will be the heart; +seeing that, although there is no dividing of the one from the other, the +heart can do far more for the intellect than the intellect can do for the +heart. + +We must not now attempt to hear the singers of times so old that their +language is unintelligible without labour. For this there is not room, +even if otherwise it were desirable that such should divide the volume. +We must leave Anglo-Saxon behind us. In Early English, I shall give a few +valuable lyrics, but they shall not be so far removed from our present +speech but that, with a reasonable amount of assistance, the nature and +degree of which I shall set forth, they shall not only present themselves +to the reader's understanding, but commend themselves to his imagination +and judgment. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +SACRED LYRICS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. + + +In the midst of wars and rumours of wars, the strife of king and barons, +and persistent efforts to subdue neighbouring countries, the mere +effervescence of the life of the nation, let us think for a moment of +that to which the poems I am about to present bear good witness--the true +life of the people, growing quietly, slowly, unperceived--the leaven hid +in the meal. For what is the true life of a nation? That, I answer, in +its modes of thought, its manners and habits, which favours the growth +within the individual of that kingdom of heaven for the sake only of +which the kingdoms of earth exist. The true life of the people, as +distinguished from the nation, is simply the growth in its individuals of +those eternal principles of truth, in proportion to whose power in them +they take rank in the kingdom of heaven, the only kingdom that can +endure, all others being but as the mimicries of children playing at +government. + +Little as they then knew of the relations of the wonderful story on which +their faith was built, to everything human, the same truth was at work +then which is now--poor as the recognition of these relations yet +is--slowly setting men free. In the hardest winter the roots are still +alive in the frozen ground. + +In the silence of the monastery, unnatural as that life was, germinated +much of this deeper life. As we must not judge of the life of the nation +by its kings and mighty men, so we must not judge of the life in the +Church by those who are called Rabbi. The very notion of the kingdom of +heaven implies a secret growth, secret from no affectation of mystery, +but because its goings-on are in the depths of the human nature where it +holds communion with the Divine. In the Church, as in society, we often +find that that which shows itself uppermost is but the froth, a sign, it +may be, of life beneath, but in itself worthless. When the man arises +with a servant's heart and a ruler's brain, then is the summer of the +Church's content. But whether the men who wrote the following songs moved +in some shining orbit of rank, or only knelt in some dim chapel, and +walked in some pale cloister, we cannot tell, for they have left no name +behind them. + +My reader will observe that there is little of theory and much of love in +these lyrics. The recognition of a living Master is far more than any +notions about him. In the worship of him a thousand truths are working, +unknown and yet active, which, embodied in theory, and dissociated from +the living mind that was in Christ, will as certainly breed worms as any +omer of hoarded manna. Holding the skirt of his garment in one hand, we +shall in the other hold the key to all the treasures of wisdom and +knowledge. + +I think almost all the earliest religious poetry is about him and his +mother. Their longing after his humanity made them idolize his mother. If +we forget that only through his humanity can we approach his divinity, we +shall soon forget likewise that his mother is blessed among women. + +I take the poems from one of the Percy Society publications, edited by +Mr. Wright from a manuscript in the British Museum. He adjudges them to +the reign of Edward I. Perhaps we may find in them a sign or two that in +cultivating our intellect we have in some measure neglected our heart. + +But first as to the mode in which I present them to my readers: I have +followed these rules:-- + +1. Wherever a word differs from the modern word only in spelling, I have, +for the sake of readier comprehension, substituted the modern form, with +the following exception:--Where the spelling indicates a different +pronunciation, necessary for the rhyme or the measure, I retain such part +of the older form, marking with an acute accent any vowel now silent +which must be sounded. + +2. Where the word used is antique in root, I give the modern synonym in +the margin. Antique phrases I explain in foot-notes. + +It must be borne in mind that our modern pronunciation can hardly fail in +other cases as well to injure the melody of the verses. + +The modern reader will often find it difficult to get a rhythm out of +some of them. This may arise from any of several causes. In the first +place many final _e_'s were then sounded which are now silent; and it is +not easy to tell which of them to sound. Again, some words were +pronounced as dissyllables which we treat as monosyllables, and others as +monosyllables which we treat as dissyllables. I suspect besides, that +some of the old writers were content to allow a prolonged syllable to +stand for two short ones, a mode not without great beauty when sparingly +and judiciously employed. Short supernumerary syllables were likewise +allowed considerable freedom to come and go. A good deal must, however, +be put down to the carelessness and presumption of the transcribers, who +may very well have been incapable of detecting their own blunders. One of +these ancient mechanics of literature caused Chaucer endless annoyance +with his corruptions, as a humorous little poem, the last in his works, +sufficiently indicates. From the same sources no doubt spring as well +most of the variations of text in the manuscripts. + +The first of the poems is chiefly a conversation between the Lord on the +cross and his mother standing at its foot. A few prefatory remarks in +explanation of some of its allusions will help my readers to enjoy it. + +It was at one time a common belief, and the notion has not yet, I think, +altogether vanished, that the dying are held back from repose by the love +that is unwilling to yield them up. Hence, in the third stanza, the Lord +prays his mother to let him die. In the fifth, he reasons against her +overwhelming sorrows on the ground of the deliverance his sufferings will +bring to the human race. But she can only feel her own misery. + +To understand the seventh and eighth, it is necessary to know that, among +other strange things accepted by the early Church, it was believed that +the mother of Jesus had no suffering at his birth. This of course +rendered her incapable of perfect sympathy with other mothers. It is a +lovely invention, then, that he should thus commend mothers to his +mother, telling her to judge of the pains of motherhood by those which +she now endured. Still he fails to turn aside her thoughts. She is +thinking still only of her own and her son's suffering, while he +continues bent on making her think of others, until, at last, forth comes +her prayer for all women. This seems to me a tenderness grand as +exquisite. + +The outburst of the chorus of the Faithful in the last stanza but one,-- + + When he rose, then fell her sorrow, + +is as fine as anything I know in the region of the lyric. + + + "Stand well, mother, under rood;[1] _the cross._ + Behold thy son with gladé mood; _cheerful._ + Blithe mother mayst thou be." + "Son, how should I blithé stand? + I see thy feet, I see thy hand + Nailéd to the hard tree." + + "Mother, do way thy wepynde: _give over thy weeping._ + I tholé death for mankind-- _suffer._ + For my guilt thole I none." + "Son, I feel the dede stounde; _death-pang._ + The sword is at my heart's ground _bottom._ + That me byhet Simeon." _foreshowed._ + + "Mother, mercy! let me die, + For Adam out of hell buy, _for to buy Adam._ + And his kin that is forlore." _lost._ + "Son, what shall me to rede?[2] + My pain paineth me to dede: _death._ + Let me die thee before!" + + "Mother, thou rue all of thy bairn; _rue thou_; _all_ is only expletive + Thou wash away the bloody tern; _wash thou; tears._ + It doth me worse than my ded." _hurts me more; death._ + "Son, how may I terés werne? _turn aside tears._ + I see the bloody streamés erne _flow._ + From thy heart to my fet." _feet._ + + "Mother, now I may thee seye, _say to thee._ + Better is that I one deye _die._ + Than all mankind to hellé go." + "Son, I see thy body byswongen, _lashed._ + Feet and hands throughout stongen: _pierced through and through._ + No wonder though me be woe." _woe be to me._ + + "Mother, now I shall thee tell, + If I not die, thou goest to hell: + I thole death for thy sake." _endure._ + "Son, thou art so meek and mynde, _thoughtful._ + Ne wyt me not, it is my kind[3] + That I for thee this sorrow make." + + "Mother, now thou mayst well leren _learn._ + What sorrow have that children beren, _they have; bear._ + What sorrow it is with childé gon." _to go._ + "Sorrow, I wis! I can thee tell! + But it be the pain of hell _except._ + More sorrow wot I none." + + "Mother, rue of mother-care, _take pity upon._ + For now thou wost of mother-fare, _knowest._ + Though thou be clean maiden mon."[4] + "Soné, help at alle need + Allé those that to me grede, _cry._ + Maiden, wife, and full wymmon." _woman with child._ + + "Mother, may I no longer dwell; + The time is come I shall to hell; + The third day I rise upon." + "Son, I will with thee founden; _set out, go._ + I die, I wis, for thy wounden: + So sorrowful death nes never none." _was not never none._ + + When he rose, then fell her sorrow; + Her bliss sprung the third morrow: + Blithe mother wert thou tho! _then._ + Lady, for that ilké bliss, _same._ + Beseech thy son of sunnés lisse: _for sin's release._ + Thou be our shield against our foe. _Be thou._ + + Blessed be thou, full of bliss! + Let us never heaven miss, + Through thy sweeté Sonés might! + Loverd, for that ilké blood, _Lord,_ + That thou sheddest on the rood, + Thou bring us into heaven's light. AMEN. + + +I think my readers will not be sorry to have another of a similar +character. + + I sigh when I sing + For sorrow that I see, + When I with weeping + Behold upon the tree, + + And see Jesus the sweet + His heart's blood for-lete _yield quite._ + For the love of me. + His woundés waxen wete, _wet._ + They weepen still and mete:[5] + Mary rueth thee. _pitieth._ + + High upon a down, _hill._ + Where all folk it see may, + A mile from each town, + About the mid-day, + The rood is up arearéd; + His friendés are afearéd, + And clingeth so the clay;[6] + The rood stands in stone, + Mary stands her on, + And saith Welaway! + + When I thee behold + With eyen brighté bo, _eyes bright both._ + And thy body cold-- + Thy ble waxeth blo, _colour: livid._ + Thou hangest all of blood _bloody._ + So high upon the rood + Between thieves tuo-- _two._ + Who may sigh more? + Mary weepeth sore, + And sees all this woe. + + The nails be too strong, + The smiths are too sly; _skilful._ + Thou bleedest all too long; + The tree is all too high; + The stones be all wete! _wet._ + Alas, Jesu, the sweet! + For now friend hast thou none, + + But Saint John to-mournynde, _mourning greatly._ + And Mary wepynde, _weeping._ + For pain that thee is on. + + Oft when I sike _sigh._ + And makie my moan, + Well ill though me like, + Wonder is it none.[7] + When I see hang high + And bitter pains dreye, _dree, endure._ + Jesu, my lemmon! _love._ + His woundés sore smart, + The spear all to his heart + And through his side is gone. + + Oft when I syke, _sigh._ + With care I am through-sought; _searched through._ + When I wake I wyke; _languish._ + Of sorrow is all my thought. + Alas! men be wood _mad._ + That swear by the rood _swear by the cross._ + And sell him for nought + That bought us out of sin. + He bring us to wynne, _may he: bliss._ + That hath us dear bought! + + +I add two stanzas of another of like sort. + + Man that is in glory and bliss, + And lieth in shame and sin, + He is more than unwis _unwise._ + That thereof will not blynne. _cease._ + All this world it goeth away, + Me thinketh it nigheth Doomsday; + Now man goes to ground: _perishes._ + Jesus Christ that tholed ded _endured death._ + He may our souls to heaven led _lead._ + Within a little stound. _moment._ + + Jesus, that was mild and free, + Was with spear y-stongen; _stung_ or _pierced._ + He was nailéd to the tree, + With scourges y-swongen. _lashed._ + All for man he tholed shame, _endured._ + Withouten guilt, withouten blame, + Bothé day and other[8]. + Man, full muchel he loved thee, _much._ + When he woldé make thee free, + And become thy brother. + + +The simplicity, the tenderness, the devotion of these lyrics is to me +wonderful. Observe their realism, as, for instance, in the words: "The +stones beoth al wete;" a realism as far removed from the coarseness of a +Rubens as from the irreverence of too many religious teachers, who will +repeat and repeat again the most sacred words for the merest logical ends +until the tympanum of the moral ear hears without hearing the sounds that +ought to be felt as well as held holiest. They bear strongly, too, upon +the outcome of feeling in action, although doubtless there was the same +tendency then as there is now to regard the observance of +church-ordinances as the service of Christ, instead of as a means of +gathering strength wherewith to serve him by being in the world as he was +in the world. + +From a poem of forty-eight stanzas I choose five, partly in order to +manifest that, although there is in it an occasional appearance of what +we should consider sentimentality, allied in nature to that worship of +the Virgin which is more a sort of French gallantry than a feeling of +reverence, the sense of duty to the Master keeps pace with the profession +of devotedness to him. There is so little continuity of thought in it, +that the stanzas might almost be arranged anyhow. + + Jesu, thy love be all my thought; + Of other thing ne reck I nought; _reckon._ + I yearn to have thy will y-wrought, + For thou me hast well dear y-bought. + + Jesu, well may mine hearté see + That mild and meek he must be, + All unthews and lustés flee, _bad habits._ + That feelen will the bliss of thee. _feel._ + + For sinful folk, sweet Jesus, + Thou lightest from the high house; + Poor and low thou wert for us. + Thine heart's love thou sendest us. + + Jesu, therefore beseech I thee + Thy sweet love thou grant me; + That I thereto worthy be, + Make me worthy that art so free. _thou that art._ + + Jesu, thine help at my ending! + And in that dreadful out-wending, _going forth of the spirit._ + Send my soul good weryyng, _guard._ + That I ne dread none evil thing. + + +I shall next present a short lyric, displaying more of art than this +last, giving it now in the old form, and afterwards in a new one, that my +reader may see both how it looks in its original dress, and what it +means. + + Wynter wakeneth al my care, + Nou this leves waxeth bare, + Ofte y sike ant mourne sare, _sigh; sore._ + When hit cometh in my thoht + Of this worldes joie, how hit goth al to noht. + + Now hit is, ant now hit nys, _it is not._ + Also hit ner nere y-wys,[9] + That moni mon seith soth hit ys,[10] + Al goth bote Godes wille, + Alle we shule deye, thah us like ylle. _though it pleases us ill._ + + Al that gren me graueth grene,[11] + Nou hit faleweth al by-dene; _grows yellow: speedily._ + Jhesu, help that hit be sene, _seen._ + Ant shild us from helle; + For y not whider y shal, ne hou longe her duelle.[12] + + +I will now give a modern version of it, in which I have spoiled the +original of course, but I hope as little as well may be. + + Winter wakeneth all my care; + Now the trees are waxing bare; + Oft my sighs my grief declare[13] + When it comes into my thought + Of this world's joy, how it goes all to nought. + + Now it is, and now 'tis not-- + As it ne'er had been, I wot. + Hence many say--it is man's lot: + All goeth but God's will; + We all die, though we like it ill. + + Green about me grows the grain; + Now it yelloweth all again: + Jesus, give us help amain, + And shield us from hell; + For when or whither I go I cannot tell + +There were no doubt many religious poems in a certain amount of +circulation of a different cast from these; some a metrical recounting of +portions of the Bible history--a kind unsuited to our ends; others a +setting forth of the doctrines and duties then believed and taught. Of +the former class is one of the oldest Anglo-Saxon poems we have, that of +Caedmon, and there are many specimens to be found in the fourteenth and +fifteenth centuries. They could, however, have been of little service to +the people, so few of whom could read, or could have procured manuscripts +if they had been able to use them. A long and elaborate composition of +the latter class was written in the reign of Edward II. by William de +Shoreham, vicar of Chart-Sutton in Kent. He probably taught his own +verses to the people at his catechisings. The intention was, no doubt, by +the aid of measure and rhyme to facilitate the remembrance of the facts +and doctrines. It consists of a long poem on the Seven Sacraments; of a +shorter, associating the Canonical Hours with the principal events of the +close of our Lord's life; of an exposition of the Ten Commandments, +followed by a kind of treatise on the Seven Cardinal Sins: the fifth part +describes the different joys of the Virgin; the sixth, in praise of the +Virgin, is perhaps the most poetic; the last is less easy to +characterize. The poem is written in the Kentish dialect, and is +difficult. + +I shall now turn into modern verse a part of "The Canonical Hours," +giving its represented foundation of the various acts of worship in the +Romish Church throughout the day, from early in the morning to the last +service at night. After every fact concerning our Lord, follows an +apostrophe to his mother, which I omit, being compelled to choose. + + Father's wisdom lifted high, + Lord of us aright-- + God and man taken was, + At matin-time by night. + The disciples that were his, + Anon they him forsook; + Sold to Jews and betrayed, + To torture him took. + + At the prime Jesus was led + In presence of Pilate, + Where witnesses, false and fell, + Laughed at him for hate. + In the neck they him smote, + Bound his hands of might; + Spit upon that sweet face + That heaven and earth did light. + + "Crucify him! crucify!" + They cried at nine o'clock; + A purple cloth they put on him-- + To stare at him and mock. + They upon his sweet head + Stuck a thorny crown; + To Calvary his cross he bears. + Pitiful, from the town + + Jesus was nailed on the cross + At the noon-tide; + Strong thieves they hanged up, + One on either side. + In his pain, his strong thirst + Quenched they with gall; + So that God's holy Lamb + From sin washed us all. + + At the nones Jesus Christ + Felt the hard death; + He to his father "Eloi!" cried, + Gan up yield his breath. + A soldier with a sharp spear + Pierced his right side; + The earth shook, the sun grew dim, + The moment that he died. + + He was taken off the cross + At even-song's hour; + The strength left and hid in God + Of our Saviour. + Such death he underwent, + Of life the medicine! + Alas! he was laid adown-- + The crown of bliss in pine! + + At complines, it was borne away + To the burying, + That noble corpse of Jesus Christ, + Hope of life's coming. + Anointed richly it was, + Fulfilled his holy book: + I pray, Lord, thy passion + In my mind lock. + +Childlike simplicity, realism, and tenderness will be evident in this, as +in preceding poems, especially in the choice of adjectives. But indeed +the combination of certain words had become conventional; as "The hard +tree," "The nails great and strong," and such like. + +I know I have spoiled the poem in half-translating it thus; but I have +rendered it intelligible to all my readers, have not wandered from the +original, and have retained a degree of antiqueness both in the tone and +the expression. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE MIRACLE PLAYS AND OTHER POEMS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. + + +The oldest form of regular dramatic representation in England was the +Miracle Plays, improperly called Mysteries, after the French. To these +plays the people of England, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, +owed a very large portion of what religious knowledge they possessed, for +the prayers were in an unknown tongue, the sermons were very few, and +printing was uninvented. The plays themselves, introduced into the +country by the Normans, were, in the foolish endeavour to make Normans of +Anglo-Saxons, represented in Norman French[14] until the year 1338, when +permission was obtained from the Pope to represent them in English. + +The word _Miracle_, in their case, means anything recorded in Scripture. +The Miracle Plays had for their subjects the chief incidents of Old and +New Testament history; not merely, however, of this history as accepted +by the Reformed Church, but of that contained in the Apocryphal Gospels +as well. An entire series of these _Miracles_ consisted of short dramatic +representations of many single passages of the sacred story. The whole +would occupy about three days. It began with the Creation, and ended with +the Judgment. That for which the city of Coventry was famous consists of +forty-two subjects, with a long prologue. Composed by ecclesiastics, the +plays would seem to have been first represented by them only, although +afterwards it was not always considered right for the clergy to be +concerned with them. The hypocritical Franciscan friar, in "Piers +Ploughman's Creed," a poem of the close of the same century, claims as a +virtue for his order-- + + At markets and miracles we meddleth us never. + +They would seem likewise to have been first represented in churches and +chapels, sometimes in churchyards. Later, when the actors chiefly +belonged to city-guilds, they were generally represented in the streets +and squares. + +It must be borne in mind by any who would understand the influence of +these plays upon the people, that much in them appearing to us grotesque, +childish, absurd, and even irreverent, had no such appearance in the eyes +of the spectators. A certain amount of the impression of absurdity is +simply the consequence of antiquity; and even that which is rightly +regarded as absurd in the present age, will not at least have produced +the discomposing effects of absurdity upon the less developed beholders +of that age; just as the quaint pictures with which their churches were +decorated may make us smile, but were by them regarded with awe and +reverence from their infancy. + +It must be confessed that there is in them even occasional coarseness; +but that the devil for instance should always be represented as a baffled +fool, and made to play the buffoon sometimes after a disgusting fashion, +was to them only the treatment he deserved: it was their notion of +"poetic justice;" while most of them were too childish to be shocked at +the discord thus introduced, and many, we may well hope, too childlike to +lose their reverence for the holy because of the proximity of the +ridiculous. + +There seems to me considerably more of poetic worth scattered through +these plays than is generally recognized; and I am glad to be able to do +a little to set forth the fact. I cannot doubt that my readers will be +interested in such fragments as the scope and design of my book will +allow me to offer. Had there been no such passages, I might have regarded +the plays as but remotely connected with my purpose, and mentioned them +merely as a dramatic form of religious versification. I quote from the +_Coventry Miracles_, better known than either of the other two sets in +existence, the Chester Plays and those of Widkirk Abbey. The manuscript +from which they have been edited by Mr. Halliwell, one of those students +of our early literature to whom we are endlessly indebted for putting +valuable things within our reach, is by no means so old as the plays +themselves; it bears date 1468, a hundred and thirty years after they +appeared in their English dress. Their language is considerably +modernized, a process constantly going on where transcription is the +means of transmission--not to mention that the actors would of course +make many changes to the speech of their own time. I shall modernize it a +little further, but only as far as change of spelling will go. + +The first of the course is _The Creation_. God, and angels, and Lucifer +appear. That God should here utter, I cannot say announce, the doctrine +of the Trinity, may be defended on the ground that he does so in a +soliloquy; but when we find afterwards that the same doctrine is one of +the subjects upon which the boy Jesus converses with the doctors in the +Temple, we cannot help remarking the strange anachronism. Two remarkable +lines in the said soliloquy are these: + + And all that ever shall have being + It is closed in my mind. + +The next scene is the _Fall of Man_, which is full of poetic feeling and +expression both. I must content myself with a few passages. + +Here is part of Eve's lamentation, when she is conscious of the death +that has laid hold upon her. + + Alas that ever that speech was spoken + That the false angel said unto me! + Alas! our Maker's bidding is broken, + For I have touched his own dear tree. + Our fleshly eyes are all unlokyn, _unlocked._ + Naked for sin ourself we see; + That sorry apple that we have sokyn _sucked._ + To death hath brought my spouse and me. + +When the voice of God is heard, saying, + + Adam, that with my hands I made, + Where art thou now? what hast thou wrought? + +Adam replies, in two lines, containing the whole truth of man's spiritual +condition ever since: + + Ah, Lord! for sin our flowers do fade: + I hear thy voice, but I see thee nought. + +The vision had vanished, but the voice remained; for they that hear shall +live, and to the pure in heart one day the vision shall be restored, for +"they shall see God." There is something wonderfully touching in the +quaint simplicity of the following words of God to the woman: + + Unwise woman, say me why + That thou hast done this foul folly, + And I made thee a great lady, + In Paradise for to play? + +As they leave the gates, the angel with the flaming sword ends his speech +thus: + + This bliss I spere from you right fast; _bar._ + Herein come ye no more, + Till a child of a maid be born, + And upon the rood rent and torn, + To save all that ye have forlorn, _lost._ + Your wealth for to restore. + +Eve laments bitterly, and at length offers her throat to her husband, +praying him to strangle her: + + Now stumble we on stalk and stone; + My wit away from me is gone; + Writhe on to my neck-bone + With hardness of thine hand. + +Adam replies--not over politely-- + + Wife, thy wit is not worth a rush; + +and goes on to make what excuse for themselves he can in a very simple +and touching manner: + + Our hap was hard, our wit was nesche, _soft, weak,_ still in use in + To Paradise when we were brought: [some provinces. + My weeping shall be long fresh; + Short liking shall be long bought. _pleasure._ + +The scene ends with these words from Eve: + + Alas, that ever we wrought this sin! + Our bodily sustenance for to win, + Ye must delve and I shall spin, + In care to lead our life. + +_Cain and Abel_ follows; then _Noah's Flood_, in which God says, + + They shall not dread the flood's flow; + +then _Abraham's Sacrifice_; then _Moses and the Two Tables_; then _The +Prophets_, each of whom prophesies of the coming Saviour; after which we +find ourselves in the Apocryphal Gospels, in the midst of much nonsense +about Anna and Joachim, the parents of Mary, about Joseph and Mary and +the birth of Jesus, till we arrive at _The Shepherds_ and _The Magi, The +Purification, The Slaughter of the Innocents, The Disputing in the +Temple, The Baptism, The Temptation_, and _The Woman taken in Adultery_, +at which point I pause for the sake of the remarkable tradition embodied +in the scene--that each of the woman's accusers thought Jesus was writing +his individual sins on the ground. While he is writing the second time, +the Pharisee, the Accuser, and the Scribe, who have chiefly sustained the +dialogue hitherto, separate, each going into a different part of the +Temple, and soliloquize thus: + + _Pharisee_. Alas! alas! I am ashamed! + I am afeared that I shall die; + All my sins even properly named + Yon prophet did write before mine eye. + If that my fellows that did espy, + They will tell it both far and wide; + My sinful living if they outcry, + I wot not where my head to hide. + + _Accuser_. Alas! for sorrow mine heart doth bleed, + All my sins yon man did write; + If that my fellows to them took heed, + I cannot me from death acquite. + I would I were hid somewhere out of sight, + That men should me nowhere see nor know; + If I be taken I am aflyght _afraid._ + In mekyl shame I shall be throwe. _much._ + + _Scribe_. Alas the time that this betyd! _happened._ + Right bitter care doth me embrace. + All my sins be now unhid, + Yon man before me them all doth trace. + If I were once out of this place, + To suffer death great and vengeance able,[15] + I will never come before his face, + Though I should die in a stable. + +Upon this follows _The Raising of Lazarus_; next _The Council of the +Jews_, to which the devil appears as a Prologue, dressed in the extreme +of the fashion of the day, which he sets forth minutely enough in his +speech also. _The Entry into Jerusalem; The Last Supper; The Betrayal; +King Herod; The Trial of Christ; Pilate's Wife's Dream_ come next; to the +subject of the last of which the curious but generally accepted origin is +given, that it was inspired by Satan, anxious that Jesus should not be +slain, because he dreaded the mischief he would work when he entered +Hades or Hell, for there is no distinction between them either here or in +the Apocryphal Gospel whence the _Descent into Hell_ is taken. Then +follow _The Crucifixion_ and _The Descent into Hell_--often called the +_Harrowing of Hell_--that is, the _making war upon_ or _despoiling of +hell_,[16] for which the authority is a passage in the Gospel of +Nicodemus, full of a certain florid Eastern grandeur. I need hardly +remind my readers that the Apostles' Creed, as it now stands, contains +the same legend in the form of an article of faith. The allusions to it +are frequent in the early literature of Christendom. + +The soul of Christ comes to the gates of hell, and says: + + Undo your gates of sorwatorie; _place of sorrow._ + On man's soul I have memorie; + There cometh now the king of glory, + These gates for to breke! + Ye devils that are here within, + Hell gates ye shall unpin; + I shall deliver man's kin-- + From woe I will them wreke. _avenge._ + + * * * * * + + Against me it were but waste + To holdyn or to standyn fast; + Hell-lodge may not last + Against the king of glory. + Thy dark door down I throw; + My fair friends now well I know; + I shall them bring, reckoned by row, + Out of their purgatory! + +_The Burial; The Resurrection; The Three Maries; Christ appearing to +Mary; The Pilgrim of Emmaus; The Ascension; The Descent of the Holy +Ghost; The Assumption of the Virgin_; and _Doomsday_, close the series. I +have quoted enough to show that these plays must, in the condition of the +people to whom they were presented, have had much to do with their +religious education. + +This fourteenth century was a wonderful time of outbursting life. +Although we cannot claim the _Miracles_ as entirely English products, +being in all probability translations from the Norman-French, yet the +fact that they were thus translated is one remarkable amongst many in +this dawn of the victory of England over her conquerors. From this time, +English prospered and French decayed. Their own language was now, so far, +authorized as the medium of religious instruction to the people, while a +similar change had passed upon processes at law; and, most significant of +all, the greatest poet of the time, and one of the three greatest poets +as yet of all English time, wrote, although a courtier, in the language +of the people. Before selecting some of Chaucer's religious verses, +however, I must speak of two or three poems by other writers. + +The first of these is _The Vision of William concerning Piers +Plowman_,--a poem of great influence in the same direction as the +writings of Wycliffe. It is a vision and an allegory, wherein the vices +of the time, especially those of the clergy, are unsparingly dealt with. +Towards the close it loses itself in a metaphysical allegory concerning +Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest.[17] I do not find much poetry in it. There is +more, to my mind, in another poem, written some thirty or forty years +later, the author of which is unknown, perhaps because he was an imitator +of William Langland, the author of the _Vision_. It is called _Pierce the +Plough-man's Crede_. Both are written after the fashion of the +Anglo-Saxon poetry, and not after the fashion of the Anglo-Norman, of +which distinction a little more presently. Its object is to contrast the +life and character of the four orders of friars with those of a simple +Christian. There is considerable humour in the working plan of the poem. + +A certain poor man says he has succeeded in learning his A B C, his +Paternoster, and his Ave Mary, but he cannot, do what he will, learn his +Creed. He sets out, therefore, to find some one whose life, according +with his profession, may give him a hope that he will teach him his creed +aright. He applies to the friars. One after another, every order abuses +the other; nor this only, but for money offers either to teach him his +creed, or to absolve him for ignorance of the same. He finds no helper +until he falls in with Pierce the Ploughman, of whose poverty he gives a +most touching description. I shall, however, only quote some lines of +_The Believe_ as taught by the Ploughman, and this principally to show +the nature of the versification: + + Leve thou on our Lord God, that all the world wroughté; _believe._ + Holy heaven upon high wholly he formed; + And is almighty himself over all his workés; + And wrought as his will was, the world and the heaven; + And on gentle Jesus Christ, engendered of himselven, + His own only Son, Lord over all y-knowen. + + * * * * * + + With thorn y-crowned, crucified, and on the cross diéd; + And sythen his blessed body was in a stone buried; _after that._ + And descended adown to the dark hellé, + And fetched out our forefathers; and they full fain weren. _glad._ + The third day readily, himself rose from death, + And on a stone there he stood, he stey up to heaven. _where: ascended._ + +Here there is no rhyme. There is measure--a dance-movement in the verse; +and likewise, in most of the lines, what was essential to Anglo-Saxon +verse--three or more words beginning with the same sound. This is +somewhat of the nature of rhyme, and was all our Anglo-Saxon forefathers +had of the kind. Their Norman conquerors brought in rhyme, regularity of +measure, and division into stanzas, with many refinements of +versification now regarded, with some justice and a little more +injustice, as peurilities. Strange as it may seem, the peculiar rhythmic +movement of the Anglo-Saxon verse is even yet the most popular of all +measures. Its representative is now that kind of verse which is measured +not by the number of syllables, but by the number of _accented_ +syllables. The bulk of the nation is yet Anglo-Saxon in its blind poetic +tastes. + +Before taking my leave of this mode, I would give one fine specimen from +another poem, lately printed, for the first time in full, from Bishop +Percy's manuscript. It may chronologically belong to the beginning of the +next century: its proper place in my volume is here. It is called _Death +and Liffe_. Like Langland's poem, it is a vision; but, short as it is in +comparison, there is far more poetry in it than in _Piers Plowman_. Life +is thus described: + + She was brighter of her blee[18] than was the bright sun; + Her rudd[19] redder than the rose that on the rise[20] hangeth; + Meekly smiling with her mouth, and merry in her looks; + Ever laughing for love, as she like would. + +Everything bursts into life and blossom at her presence, + + And the grass that was grey greened belive. _forthwith._ + +But the finest passage is part of Life's answer to Death, who has been +triumphing over her: + + How didst thou joust at Jerusalem, with Jesu, my Lord, + Where thou deemedst his death in one day's time! _judgedst._ + There wast thou shamed and shent and stripped for aye! _rebuked._ + When thou saw the king come with the cross on his shoulder, + On the top of Calvary thou camest him against; + Like a traitor untrue, treason thou thought; + Thou laid upon my liege lord loathful hands, + Sithen beat him on his body, and buffeted him rightly, _then._ + Till the railing red blood ran from his sides; _pouring down._ + + Sith rent him on the rood with full red wounds: _then._ + To all the woes that him wasted, I wot not few, + Then deemedst (him) to have been dead, and dressed for ever. + But, Death, how didst thou then, with all thy derffe words, _fierce._ + When thou pricked at his pap with the point of a spear, + And touched the tabernacle of his true heart, + Where my bower was bigged to abide for ever? _built._ + When the glory of his Godhead glinted in thy face, + Then wast thou feared of this fare in thy false heart; _affair._ + Then thou hied into hell-hole to hide thee belive; _at once._ + Thy falchion flew out of thy fist, so fast thou thee hied; + Thou durst not blush once back, for better or worse, _look._ + But drew thee down full in that deep hell, + And bade them bar bigly Belzebub his gates. _greatly, strongly._ + Then thou told them tidings, that teened them sore; _grieved._ + How that king came to kithen his strength, _show._ + And how she[21] had beaten thee on thy bent,[22] + and thy brand taken, + With everlasting life that longed him till. _belonged to him._ + +When Life has ended her speech to Death, she turns to her own followers +and says:-- + + Therefore be not abashed, my barnes so dear, _children._ + Of her falchion so fierce, nor of her fell words. + She hath no might, nay, no means, no more you to grieve, + Nor on your comely corses to clap once her hands. + I shall look you full lively, and latch full well, _search for: + And keere ye further of this kithe,[23] above [lay hold of._ + the clear skies. + +I now turn from those poems of national scope and wide social interest, +bearing their share, doubtless, in the growth of the great changes that +showed themselves at length more than a century after, and from the poem +I have just quoted of a yet wider human interest, to one of another tone, +springing from the grief that attends love, and the aspiration born of +the grief. It is, nevertheless, wide in its scope as the conflict between +Death and Life, although dealing with the individual and not with the +race. The former poems named of Pierce Ploughman are the cry of John the +Baptist in the English wilderness; this is the longing of Hannah at home, +having left her little son in the temple. The latter _seems_ a poorer +matter; but it is an easier thing to utter grand words of just +condemnation, than, in the silence of the chamber, or with the well-known +household-life around, forcing upon the consciousness only the law of +things seen, to regard with steadfastness the blank left by a beloved +form, and believe in the unseen, the marvellous, the eternal. In the +midst of "the light of common day," with all the persistently common +things pressing upon the despairing heart, to hold fast, after what +fashion may be possible, the vanishing song that has changed its key, is +indeed a victory over the flesh, however childish the forms in which the +faith may embody itself, however weak the logic with which it may defend +its intrenchments. + +The poem which has led me to make these remarks is in many respects +noteworthy. It is very different in style and language from any I have +yet given. There was little communication to blend the different modes of +speech prevailing in different parts of the country. It belongs,[24] +according to students of English, to the Midland dialect of the +fourteenth century. The author is beyond conjecture. + +It is not merely the antiquity of the language that causes its +difficulty, but the accumulated weight of artistically fantastic and +puzzling requirements which the writer had laid upon himself in its +composition. The nature of these I shall be enabled to show by printing +the first twelve lines almost as they stand in the manuscript. + + Perle plesaunte to prynces paye, + To clanly clos in golde so clere! + Oute of oryent I hardyly saye, + Ne proued I neuer her precios pere; + So rounde, so reken in vche araye, + So smal, so smothe her sydes were! + Quere-so-euer I iugged gemmes gaye, + I sette hyr sengeley in synglure: + Allas! I leste hyr in on erbere, + Thurh gresse to grounde hit fro me yot; + I dewyne for-dolked of luf daungere, + Of that pryuy perle with-outen spot. + +Here it will be observed that the Norman mode--that of rhymes--is +employed, and that there is a far more careful measure in the line that +is found in the poem last quoted. But the rhyming is carried to such an +excess as to involve the necessity of constant invention of phrase to +meet its requirements--a fertile source of obscurity. The most difficult +form of stanza in respect of rhyme now in use is the Spenserian, in +which, consisting of nine lines, four words rhyme together, three words, +and two words. But the stanza in the poem before us consists of twelve +lines, six of which, two of which, four of which, rhyme together. This we +should count hard enough; but it does not nearly exhaust the tyranny of +the problem the author has undertaken. I have already said that one of +the essentials of the poetic form in Anglo-Saxon was the commencement of +three or more words in the line with the same sound: this peculiarity he +has exaggerated: every line has as many words as possible commencing with +the same sound. In the first line, for instance,--and it must be +remembered that the author's line is much shorter than the Anglo-Saxon +line,--there are four words beginning with _p_; in the second, three +beginning with _cl_, and so on. This, of course, necessitates much not +merely of circumlocution, but of contrivance, involving endless +obscurity. + +He has gone on to exaggerate the peculiarities of Norman verse as well; +but I think it better not to run the risk of wearying my reader by +pointing out more of his oddities. I will now betake myself to what is +far more interesting as well as valuable. + +The poem sets forth the grief and consolation of a father who has lost +his daughter. It is called _The Pearl_. Here is a literal rendering, line +for line, into modern English words, not modern English speech, of the +stanza which I have already given in its original form: + + Pearl pleasant to prince's pleasure, + Most cleanly closed in gold so clear! + Out of the Orient, I boldly say, + I never proved her precious equal; + So round, so beautiful in every point! + So small, so smooth, her sides were! + + Wheresoever I judged gemmes gay + I set her singly in singleness. + Alas! I lost her in an arbour; + Through the grass to the ground it from me went. + I pine, sorely wounded by dangerous love + Of that especial pearl without spot. + +The father calls himself a jeweller; the pearl is his daughter. He has +lost the pearl in the grass; it has gone to the ground, and he cannot +find it; that is, his daughter is dead and buried. Perhaps the most +touching line is one in which he says to the grave: + + O moul, thou marrez a myry mele. + (O mould, thou marrest a merry talk.) + +The poet, who is surely the father himself, cannot always keep up the +allegory; his heart burns holes in it constantly; at one time he says +_she_, at another _it_, and, between the girl and the pearl, the poem is +bewildered. But the allegory helps him out with what he means +notwithstanding; for although the highest aim of poetry is to say the +deepest things in the simplest manner, humanity must turn from mode to +mode, and try a thousand, ere it finds the best. The individual, in his +new endeavour to make "the word cousin to the deed," must take up the +forms his fathers have left him, and add to them, if he may, new forms of +his own. In both the great revivals of literature, the very material of +poetry was allegory. + +The father falls asleep on his child's grave, and has a dream, or rather +a vision, of a country where everything--after the childish imagination +which invents differences instead of discovering harmonies--is +super-naturally beautiful: rich rocks with a gleaming glory, crystal +cliffs, woods with blue trunks and leaves of burnished silver, gravel of +precious Orient pearls, form the landscape, in which are delicious +fruits, and birds of flaming colours and sweet songs: its loveliness no +man with a tongue is worthy to describe. He comes to the bank of a river: + + Swinging sweet the water did sweep + With a whispering speech flowing adown; + (Wyth a rownande rourde raykande aryght) + +and the stones at the bottom were shining like stars. It is a noteworthy +specimen of the mode in which the imagination works when invention is +dissociated from observation and faith. But the sort of way in which some +would improve the world now, if they might, is not so very far in advance +of this would-be glorification of Nature. The barest heath and sky have +lovelinesses infinitely beyond the most gorgeous of such phantasmagoric +idealization of her beauties; and the most wretched condition of humanity +struggling for existence contains elements of worth and future +development inappreciable by the philanthropy that would elevate them by +cultivating their self-love. + +At the foot of a crystal cliff, on the opposite side of the river, which +he cannot cross, he sees a maiden sitting, clothed and crowned with +pearls, and wearing one pearl of surpassing wonder and spotlessness upon +her breast. I now make the spelling and forms of the words as modern as I +may, altering the text no further. + + + "O pearl," quoth I, "in perlés pight, _pitched, dressed._ + Art thou my pearl that I have plained? _mourned._ + Regretted by myn one, on night? _by myself._ + Much longing have I for thee layned _hidden._ + Since into grass thou me a-glyghte; _didst glide from me._ + Pensive, payred, I am for-pained,[25] _pined away._ + And thou in a life of liking light _bright pleasure._ + In Paradise-earth, of strife unstrained! _untortured with strife._ + What wyrde hath hither my jewel vayned, _destiny: carried off._ + And done me in this del and great danger? _sorrow._ + Fro we in twain were towen and twayned, _since: pulled: divided._ + I have been a joyless jeweller." + + That jewel then in gemmés gente, _gracious._ + Vered up her vyse with even gray, _turned: face._ + Set on her crown of pearl orient, + And soberly after then gan she say: + + "Sir, ye have your tale myse-tente, _mistaken._ + To say your pearl is all away, + That is in coffer so comely clente _clenched._ + As in this garden gracious gay, + Herein to lenge for ever and play, _abide._ + There mys nor mourning come never--here, _where: wrong._ + Here was a forser for thee in faye, _strong-box: faith._ + If thou wert a gentle jeweller. + + "But jeweller gente, if thou shalt lose + Thy joy for a gem that thee was lef, _had left thee._ + Me thinks thee put in a mad purpose, + And busiest thee about a reason bref. _poor object._ + For that thou lostest was but a rose, + That flowered and failed as kynd hit gef. _nature gave it._ + Now through kind of the chest that it gan close, _nature._ + To a pearl of price it is put in pref;[26] + And thou hast called thy wyrde a thef, _doom, fate: theft._ + That ought of nought has made thee, clear! _something of nothing._ + Thou blamest the bote of thy mischef: _remedy: hurt._ + Thou art no kyndé jeweller." _natural, reasonable._ + +When the father pours out his gladness at the sight of her, she rejoins +in these words: + + "I hold that jeweller little to praise + That loves well that he sees with eye; + And much to blame, and uncortoyse, _uncourteous._ + That leves our Lord would make a lie, _believes._ + That lelly hyghte your life to raise _who truly promised._ + Though fortune did your flesh to die; _caused._ + To set his words full westernays[27] + That love no thing but ye it syghe! _see._ + And that is a point of surquedrie, _presumption._ + That each good man may evil beseem, _ill become._ + To leve no tale be true to tryghe, _trust in._ + But that his one skill may deme."[28] + +Much conversation follows, the glorified daughter rebuking and +instructing her father. He prays for a sight of the heavenly city of +which she has been speaking, and she tells him to walk along the bank +until he comes to a hill. In recording what he saw from the hill, he +follows the description of the New Jerusalem given in the Book of the +Revelation. He sees the Lamb and all his company, and with them again his +lost Pearl. But it was not his prince's pleasure that he should cross the +stream; for when his eyes and ears were so filled with delight that he +could no longer restrain the attempt, he awoke out of his dream. + + My head upon that hill was laid + There where my pearl to groundé strayed. + I wrestled and fell in great affray, _fear._ + And sighing to myself I said, + "Now all be to that prince's paye." _pleasure._ + +After this, he holds him to that prince's will, and yearns after no more +than he grants him. + + "As in water face is to face, so the heart of man." + Out of the far past comes the cry of bereavement + mingled with the prayer for hope: we hear, and lo! + it is the cry and the prayer of a man like ourselves. + +From the words of the greatest man of his age, let me now gather two rich +blossoms of utterance, presenting an embodiment of religious duty and +aspiration, after a very practical fashion. I refer to two short lyrics, +little noted, although full of wisdom and truth. They must be accepted as +the conclusions of as large a knowledge of life in diversified mode as +ever fell to the lot of man. + + + GOOD COUNSEL OF CHAUCER. + + Fly from the press, and dwell with soothfastness; _truthfulness._ + Suffice[29] unto thy good, though it be small; + For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness;[30] + Praise hath envy, and weal is blent over all.[31] + Savour[32] no more than thee behové shall. + Rede well thyself that other folk shall rede; _counsel._ + And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede. _there is no doubt._ + + Paine thee not each crooked to redress, _every crooked thing._ + In trust of her that turneth as a ball: Fortune. + Great rest standeth in little busi-ness. + Beware also to spurn against a nail; _nail--to kick against + Strive not as doth a crocké with a wall. [the pricks._ + Demé thyself that demest others' deed; _judge._ + And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede. + + That thee is sent receive in buxomness: _submission_ + The wrestling of this world asketh a fall. _tempts destruction_ + Here is no home, here is but wilderness: + Forth, pilgrim, forth!--beast, out of thy stall! + Look up on high, and thanké God of[33] all. + Waivé thy lusts, and let thy ghost[34] thee lead, + And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede. + +This needs no comment. Even the remark that every line is worth +meditation may well appear superfluous. One little fact only with regard +to the rhymes, common to this and the next poem, and usual enough in +Norman verse, may be pointed out, namely, that every line in the stanza +ends with the same rhyme-sound as the corresponding line in each of the +other stanzas. A reference to either of the poems will at once show what +I mean. + +The second is superior, inasmuch as it carries one thought through the +three stanzas. It is entitled _A Balade made by Chaucer, teaching what is +gentilnesse, or whom is worthy to be called gentill._ + + The first stock-father of gentleness-- _ancestor of the race + What man desireth gentle for to be [of the gentle._ + Must follow his trace, and all his wittés dress _track, footsteps: + Virtue to love and vices for to flee; [apply._ + For unto virtue longeth dignity, _belongeth._ + And not the reverse falsely dare I deem,[35] + All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. _although he wear._ + + The first stock was full of righteousness; _the progenitor._ + True of his word, sober, piteous, and free; + Clean of his ghost, and loved busi-ness, _pure in his spirit._ + Against the vice of sloth in honesty; + + And but his heir love virtue as did he, _except._ + He is not gentle, though he rich seem, + All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. + + Vicesse may well be heir to old Richesse, _Vice: Riches._ + But there may no man, as men may well see, + Bequeath his heir his virtue's nobleness; + That is appropried unto no degree, _rank._ + But to the first father in majesty, + That maketh his heirés them that him queme, _please him._ + All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. + +I can come to no other conclusion than that by _the first stock-father_ +Chaucer means our Lord Jesus. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. + + +After the birth of a Chaucer, a Shakspere, or a Milton, it is long before +the genial force of a nation can again culminate in such a triumph: time +is required for the growth of the conditions. Between the birth of +Chaucer and the birth of Shakspere, his sole equal, a period of more than +two centuries had to elapse. It is but small compensation for this, that +the more original, that is simple, natural, and true to his own nature a +man is, the more certain is he to have a crowd of imitators. I do not say +that such are of no use in the world. They do not indeed advance art, but +they widen the sphere of its operation; for many will talk with the man +who know nothing of the master. Too often intending but their own glory, +they point the way to the source of it, and are straightway themselves +forgotten. + +Very little of the poetry of the fifteenth century is worthy of a +different fate from that which has befallen it. Possibly the Wars of the +Roses may in some measure account for the barrenness of the time; but I +do not think they will explain it. In the midst of the commotions of the +seventeenth century we find Milton, the only English poet of whom we are +yet sure as worthy of being named with Chaucer and Shakspere. + +It is in quality, however, and not in quantity that the period is +deficient. It had a good many writers of poetry, some of them prolific. +John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, a great imitator of Chaucer, was the +principal of these, and wrote an enormous quantity of verse. We shall +find for our use enough as it were to keep us alive in passing through +this desert to the Paradise of the sixteenth century--a land indeed +flowing with milk and honey. For even in the desert of the fifteenth are +spots luxuriant with the rich grass of language, although they greet the +eye with few flowers of individual thought or graphic speech. + +Rather than give portions of several of Lydgate's poems, I will give one +entire--the best I know. It is entitled, _Thonke God of alle_.[36] + + + THANK GOD FOR ALL. + + By a way wandering as I went, + Well sore I sorrowed, for sighing sad; + Of hard haps that I had hent + Mourning me made almost mad;[37] + + Till a letter all one me lad[38], + That well was written on a wall, + A blissful word that on I rad[39], + That alway said, 'Thank God for[40] all.' + + And yet I read furthermore[41]-- + Full good intent I took there till[42]: + Christ may well your state restore; + Nought is to strive against his will; _it is useless._ + He may us spare and also spill: + Think right well we be his thrall. _slaves._ + What sorrow we suffer, loud or still, + Alway thank God for all. + + Though thou be both blind and lame, + Or any sickness be on thee set, + Thou think right well it is no shame-- _think thou._ + The grace of God it hath thee gret[43]. + In sorrow or care though ye be knit, _snared._ + And worldés weal be from thee fall, _fallen._ + I cannot say thou mayst do bet, _better._ + But alway thank God for all. + + Though thou wield this world's good, + And royally lead thy life in rest, + Well shaped of bone and blood, + None the like by east nor west; + Think God thee sent as him lest; _as it pleased him._ + Riches turneth as a ball; + In all manner it is the best _in every condition._ + Alway to thank God for all. + + If thy good beginneth to pass, + And thou wax a poor man, + Take good comfort and bear good face, + And think on him that all good wan; _did win._ + + Christ himself forsooth began-- + He may renew both bower and hall: + No better counsel I ne kan _am capable of._ + But alway thank God for all. + + Think on Job that was so rich; + He waxed poor from day to day; + His beastés died in each ditch; + His cattle vanished all away; + He was put in poor array, + Neither in purple nor in pall, + But in simple weed, as clerkes say, _clothes: learned men._ + And alway he thanked God for all. + + For Christés love so do we;[44] + He may both give and take; + In what mischief that we in be, _whatever trouble we + He is mighty enough our sorrow to slake. [be in._ + Full good amends he will us make, + And we to him cry or call: _if._ + What grief or woe that do thee thrall,[45] + Yet alway thank God for all. + + Though thou be in prison cast, + Or any distress men do thee bede, _offer._ + For Christés love yet be steadfast, + And ever have mind on thy creed; + Think he faileth us never at need, + The dearworth duke that deem us shall;[46] + When thou art sorry, thereof take heed,[47] + And alway thank God for all. + + Though thy friendes from thee fail, + And death by rene hend[48] their life, + Why shouldest thou then weep or wail? + It is nought against God to strive: _it is useless._ + + Himself maked both man and wife-- + To his bliss he bring us all: _may he bring._ + However thou thole or thrive, _suffer._ + Alway thank God for all. + + What diverse sonde[49] that God thee send, + Here or in any other place, + Take it with good intent; + The sooner God will send his grace. + Though thy body be brought full base, _low._ + Let not thy heart adown fall, + But think that God is where he was, + And alway thank God for all. + + Though thy neighbour have world at will, + And thou far'st not so well as he, + Be not so mad to think him ill, _wish._ (?) + For his wealth envious to be: + The king of heaven himself can see + Who takes his sonde,[50] great or small; + Thus each man in his degree, + I rede thanké God for all. _counsel._ + + For Cristés love, be not so wild, + But rule thee by reason within and without; + And take in good heart and mind + The sonde that God sent all about; _the gospel._ (?) + Then dare I say withouten doubt, + That in heaven is made thy stall. _place, seat, room._ + Rich and poor that low will lowte, _bow._ + Alway thank God for all. + +I cannot say there is much poetry in this, but there is much truth and +wisdom. There is the finest poetry, however, too, in the line--I give it +now letter for letter:-- + + But think that God ys ther he was. + +There is poetry too in the line, if I interpret it rightly as intending +the gospel-- + + The sonde that God sent al abowte. + +I shall now make a few extracts from poems of the same century whose +authors are unknown.[51] A good many such are extant. With regard to the +similarity of those I choose, I would remark, that not only will the +poems of the same period necessarily resemble each other, but, where the +preservation of any has depended upon the choice and transcription of one +person, these will in all probability resemble each other yet more. Here +are a few verses from a hymn headed _The Sweetness of Jesus_:-- + + If I for kindness should love my kin, _for natural reasons. + Then me thinketh in my thought [Kind is nature,_ + By kindly skill I should begin _by natural judgment._ + At him that hath me made of nought; + His likeness he set my soul within, + And all this world for me hath wrought; + As father he fondid my love to win, _set about._ + For to heaven he hath me brought. + + Our brother and sister he is by skill, _reason._ + For he so said, and lerid us that lore, _taught._ + That whoso wrought his Father's will, + Brethren and sisters to him they wore. _were._ + My kind also he took ther-tille; _my nature also he took + Full truly trust I him therefore [for that purpose._ + That he will never let me spill, _perish._ + But with his mercy salve my sore. + + With lovely lore his works to fill, _fulfil._ + Well ought I, wretch, if I were kind-- _natural._ + Night and day to work his will, + And ever have that Lord in mind. + But ghostly foes grieve me ill, _spiritual._ + And my frail flesh maketh me blind; + Therefore his mercy I take me till, _betake me to._ + For better bote can I none find. _aid._ + +In my choice of stanzas I have to keep in view some measure of +completeness in the result. These poems, however, are mostly very loose +in structure. This, while it renders choice easy, renders closeness of +unity impossible. + +From a poem headed--again from the last line of each stanza--_Be my +comfort, Christ Jesus,_ I choose the following four, each possessing some +remarkable flavour, tone, or single touch. Note the alliteration in the +lovely line, beginning "Bairn y-born." The whole of the stanza in which +we find it, sounds so strangely fresh in the midst of its antiquated +tones, that we can hardly help asking whether it can be only the +quaintness of the expression that makes the feeling appear more real, or +whether in very truth men were not in those days nearer in heart, as well +as in time, to the marvel of the Nativity. + +In the next stanza, how oddly the writer forgets that Jesus himself was a +Jew, when, embodying the detestation of Christian centuries in one line, +he says, + + And tormented with many a Jew! + +In the third stanza, I consider the middle quatrain, that is, the four +lines beginning "Out of this world," perfectly grand. + +The oddness of the last line but one of the fourth stanza is redeemed by +the wonderful reality it gives to the faith of the speaker: "See my +sorrow, and say Ho!" stopping it as one would call after a man and stop +him. + + Jesus, thou art wisdom of wit, _understanding._ + Of thy Father full of might! + Man's soul--to save it, + In poor apparel thou wert pight. _pitched, placed, + Jesus, thou wert in cradle knit, [dressed._ + In weed wrapped both day and night; originally, _dress of + In Bethlehem born, as the gospel writ, [any kind._ + With angels' song, and heaven-light. + Bairn y-born of a beerde bright,[52] + Full courteous was thy comely cus: _kiss._ + Through virtue of that sweet light, + So be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + + Jesus, that wert of yearis young, + Fair and fresh of hide and hue, + When thou wert in thraldom throng, _driven._ + And tormented with many a Jew, + When blood and water were out-wrung, + For beating was thy body blue; + As a clot of clay thou wert for-clong, _shrunk._ + So dead in trough then men thee threw. _coffin._ + But grace from thy grave grew: + Thou rose up quick comfort to us. _living._ + For her love that this counsel knew, + So be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + + Jesus, soothfast God and man, + Two kinds knit in one person, + The wonder-work that thou began + Thou hast fulfilled in flesh and bone. + + Out of this world wightly thou wan, _thou didst win, or make + Lifting up thyself alone; [thy way, powerfully._ + For mightily thou rose and ran + Straight unto thy Father on throne. + Now dare man make no more moan-- + For man it is thou wroughtest thus, + And God with man is made at one; + So be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + + Jesu, my sovereign Saviour, + Almighty God, there ben no mo: _there are no more--thou + Christ, thou be my governor; [art all in all.(?)_ + Thy faith let me not fallen fro. _from_ + Jesu, my joy and my succour, + In my body and soul also, + God, thou be my strongest food, the rhyme fails here. + And wisse thou me when me is woe. _think on me._ + Lord, thou makest friend of foe, + Let me not live in languor thus, + But see my sorrow, and say now "Ho," + And be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + +Of fourteen stanzas called _Richard de Castre's Prayer to Jesus_, I +choose five from the latter half, where the prayer passes from his own +spiritual necessities, very tenderly embodied, to those of others. It +does our hearts good to see the clouded sun of prayer for oneself break +forth in the gladness of blessed entreaty for all men, for them that make +Him angry, for saints in trouble, for the country torn by war, for the +whole body of Christ and its unity. After the stanza-- + + Jesus, for the deadly tears + That thou sheddest for my guilt, + Hear and speed my prayérs + And spare me that I be not spilt; + +the best that is in the suppliant shines out thus + + Jesu, for them I thee beseech + That wrathen thee in any wise; + Withhold from them thy hand of wreche, _vengeance._ + And let them live in thy service. + + Jesu, most comfort for to see + Of thy saintis every one, + Comfort them that careful be, + And help them that be woe-begone. + + Jesu, keep them that be good, + And amend them that have grieved thee; + And send them fruits of earthly food, + As each man needeth in his degree. + + Jesu, that art, withouten lees, _lies._ + Almighty God in trinity, + Cease these wars, and send us peace, + With lasting love and charity. + + Jesu, that art the ghostly stone _spiritual._ + Of all holy church in middle-erde, _the world._ + Bring thy folds and flocks in one, + And rule them rightly with one herd. + +We now approach the second revival of literature, preceded in England by +the arrival of the art of printing; after which we find ourselves walking +in a morning twilight, knowing something of the authors as well as of +their work. + +I have little more to offer from this century. There are a few religious +poems by John Skelton, who was tutor to Henry VIII. But such poetry, +though he was a clergyman, was not much in Skelton's manner of mind. We +have far better of a similar sort already. + +A new sort of dramatic representation had by this time greatly encroached +upon the old Miracle Plays. The fresh growth was called Morals or Moral +Plays. In them we see the losing victory of invention over the +imagination that works with given facts. No doubt in the Moral Plays +there is more exercise of intellect as well as of ingenuity; for they +consist of metaphysical facts turned into individual existences by +personification, and their relations then dramatized by allegory. But +their poetry is greatly inferior both in character and execution to that +of the Miracles. They have a religious tendency, as everything moral must +have, and sometimes they go even farther, as in one, for instance, called +_The Castle of Perseverance_, in which we have all the cardinal virtues +and all the cardinal sins contending for the possession of _Humanum +Genus_, the _Human Race_ being presented as a new-born child, who grows +old and dies in the course of the play; but it was a great stride in art +when human nature and human history began again to be exemplified after a +simple human fashion, in the story, that is, of real men and women, +instead of by allegorical personifications of the analysed and abstracted +constituents of them. Allegory has her place, and a lofty one, in +literature; but when her plants cover the garden and run to seed, +Allegory herself is ashamed of her children: the loveliest among them are +despised for the general obtrusiveness of the family. Imitation not only +brings the thing imitated into disrepute, but tends to destroy what +original faculty the imitator may have possessed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +INTRODUCTION TO THE ELIZABETHAN ERA. + + +Poets now began to write more smoothly--not a great virtue, but +indicative of a growing desire for finish, which, in any art, is a great +virtue. No doubt smoothness is often confounded with, and mistaken for +finish; but you might have a mirror-like polish on the surface of a +statue, for instance, and yet the marble be full of inanity, or +vagueness, or even vulgarity of result--irrespective altogether of its +idea. The influence of Italian poetry reviving once more in the country, +roused such men as Wyat and Surrey to polish the sound of their verses; +but smoothness, I repeat, is not melody, and where the attention paid to +the outside of the form results in flatness, and, still worse, in +obscurity, as is the case with both of these poets, little is gained and +much is lost. + +Each has paraphrased portions of Scripture, but with results of little +value; and there is nothing of a religious nature I care to quote from +either, except these five lines from an epistle of Sir Thomas Wyat's: + + Thyself content with that is thee assigned, + And use it well that is to thee allotted; + + Then seek no more out of thyself to find + The thing that thou hast sought so long before, + For thou shalt feel it sticking in thy mind. + +Students of versification will allow me to remark that Sir Thomas was the +first English poet, so far as I know, who used the _terza rima_, Dante's +chief mode of rhyming: the above is too small a fragment to show that it +belongs to a poem in that manner. It has never been popular in England, +although to my mind it is the finest form of continuous rhyme in any +language. Again, we owe his friend Surrey far more for being the first to +write English blank verse, whether invented by himself or not, than for +any matter he has left us in poetic shape. + +This period is somewhat barren of such poetry as we want. Here is a +portion of the Fifty-first Psalm, translated amongst others into English +verse by John Croke, Master in Chancery, in the reign of Henry VIII. + + Open my lips first to confess + My sin conceived inwardly; + And my mouth after shall express + Thy laud and praises outwardly. + + If I should offer for my sin, + Or sacrifice do unto thee + Of beast or fowl, I should begin + To stir thy wrath more towards me. + + Offer we must for sacrifice + A troubled mind with sorrow's smart: + Canst thou refuse? Nay, nor despise + The humble and the contrite heart. + + To us of Sion that be born, + If thou thy favour wilt renew, + The broken sowle, the temple torn, _threshold._ + The walls and all shall be made new. + + The sacrifice then shall we make + Of justice and of pure intent; + And all things else thou wilt well take + That we shall offer or present. + +In the works of George Gascoigne I find one poem fit for quoting here. He +is not an interesting writer, and, although his verse is very good, there +is little likelihood of its ever being read more than it is now. The date +of his birth is unknown, but probably he was in his teens when Surrey was +beheaded in the year 1547. He is the only poet whose style reminds me of +his, although the _wherefore_ will hardly be evident from my quotation. +It is equally flat, but more articulate. I need not detain my reader with +remarks upon him. The fact is, I am glad to have something, if not "a +cart-load of wholesome instructions," to cast into this Slough of +Despond, should it be only to see it vanish. The poem is called + + + GASCOIGNE'S GOOD MORROW. + + You that have spent the silent night + In sleep and quiet rest, + And joy to see the cheerful light + That riseth in the east; + Now clear your voice, now cheer your heart; + Come help me now to sing; + Each willing wight come bear a part, + To praise the heavenly King. + + And you whom care in prison keeps, + Or sickness doth suppress, + Or secret sorrow breaks your sleeps, + Or dolours do distress; + Yet bear a part in doleful wise; + Yea, think it good accord, + And acceptable sacrifice, + Each sprite to praise the Lord. + + The dreadful night with darksomeness + Had overspread the light, + And sluggish sleep with drowsiness + Had overpressed our might: + A glass wherein you may behold + Each storm that stops our breath, + Our bed the grave, our clothes like mould, + And sleep like dreadful death. + + Yet as this deadly night did last + But for a little space, + And heavenly day, now night is past, + Doth shew his pleasant face; + So must we hope to see God's face + At last in heaven on high, + When we have changed this mortal place + For immortality. + +This is not so bad, but it is enough. There are six stanzas more of it. I +transcribe yet another, that my reader may enjoy a smile in passing. He +is "moralizing" the aspects of morning: + + The carrion crow, that loathsome beast, + Which cries against the rain, + Both for his hue and for the rest, + The Devil resembleth plain; + And as with guns we kill the crow, + For spoiling our relief, + The Devil so must we overthrow, + With gunshot of belief. + +So fares the wit, when it walks abroad to do its business without the +heart that should inspire it. + +Here is one good stanza from his _De Profundis:_ + + But thou art good, and hast of mercy store; + Thou not delight'st to see a sinner fall; + Thou hearkenest first, before we come to call; + Thine ears are set wide open evermore; + Before we knock thou comest to the door. + Thou art more prest to hear a sinner cry, _ready._ + Than he is quick to climb to thee on high. + Thy mighty name be praised then alway: + Let faith and fear + True witness bear + How fast they stand which on thy mercy stay. + +Here follow two of unknown authorship, belonging apparently to the same +period. + + + THAT EACH THING IS HURT OF ITSELF. + + Why fearest thou the outward foe, + When thou thyself thy harm dost feed? + Of grief or hurt, of pain or woe, + Within each thing is sown the seed. + So fine was never yet the cloth, + No smith so hard his iron did beat, + But th' one consuméd was with moth, + Th' other with canker all to-freate. _fretted away._ + + The knotty oak and wainscot old + Within doth eat the silly worm;[53] + Even so a mind in envy rolled + Always within it self doth burn. + Thus every thing that nature wrought, + Within itself his hurt doth bear! + No outward harm need to be sought, + Where enemies be within so near. + +Lest this poem should appear to any one hardly religious enough for the +purpose of this book, I would remark that it reminds me of what our Lord +says about the true source of defilement: it is what is bred in the man +that denies him. Our Lord himself taught a divine morality, which is as +it were the body of love, and is as different from mere morality as«the +living body is from the dead. + + + TOTUS MUNDUS IN MALIGNO POSITUS. + The whole world lieth in the Evil One. + + Complain we may; much is amiss; + Hope is nigh gone to have redress; + These days are ill, nothing sure is; + Kind heart is wrapt in heaviness. + + The stern is broke, the sail is rent, _helm or rudder--the + The ship is given to wind and wave; [thing to steer with._ + All help is gone, the rock present, + That will be lost, what man can save? _that which will be lost._ + + When power lacks care and forceth not, _careth._ + When care is feeble and may not, _is not able._ + When might is slothful and will not, + Weeds may grow where good herbs cannot. + + Wily is witty, brainsick is wise; _wiliness is counted + Truth is folly, and might is right; [prudence._ + Words are reason, and reason is lies; + The bad is good, darkness is light. + + Order is broke in things of weight: + Measure and mean who doth nor flee? _who does not avoid + Two things prevail, money and sleight; [moderation?_ + To seem is better than to be. + + Folly and falsehood prate apace; + Truth under bushel is fain to creep; + Flattery is treble, pride sings the bass, + The mean, the best part, scant doth peep. + + With floods and storms thus be we tost: + Awake, good Lord, to thee we cry; + Our ship is almost sunk and lost; + Thy mercy help our misery. + + Man's strength is weak; man's wit is dull; + Man's reason is blind these things t'amend: + Thy hand, O Lord, of might is full-- + Awake betimes, and help us send. + + In thee we trust, and in no wight; + Save us, as chickens under the hen; + Our crookedness thou canst make right-- + Glory to thee for aye. Amen. + +The apprehensions of the wiser part of the nation have generally been +ahead of its hopes. Every age is born with an ideal; but instead of +beholding that ideal in the future where it lies, it throws it into the +past. Hence the lapse of the nation must appear tremendous, even when she +is making her best progress. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +SPENSER AND HIS FRIENDS. + + +We have now arrived at the period of English history in every way fullest +of marvel--the period of Elizabeth. As in a northern summer the whole +region bursts into blossom at once, so with the thought and feeling of +England in this glorious era. + +The special development of the national mind with which we are now +concerned, however, did not by any means arrive at its largest and +clearest result until the following century. Still its progress is +sufficiently remarkable. For, while everything that bore upon the mental +development of the nation must bear upon its poetry, the fresh vigour +given by the doctrines of the Reformation to the sense of personal +responsibility, and of immediate relation to God, with the grand +influences, both literary and spiritual, of the translated, printed, and +studied Bible, operated more immediately upon its devotional utterance. + +Towards the close of the sixteenth century, we begin to find such verse +as I shall now present to my readers. Only I must first make a few +remarks upon the great poem of the period: I mean, of course, _The Faerie +Queen_. + +I dare not begin to set forth after any fashion the profound religious +truth contained in this poem; for it would require a volume larger than +this to set forth even that of the first book adequately. In this case it +is well to remember that the beginning of comment, as well as of strife, +is like the letting out of water. + +The direction in which the wonderful allegory of the latter moves may be +gathered from the following stanza, the first of the eighth canto: + + Ay me! how many perils do enfold + The righteous man to make him daily fail; + Were not that heavenly grace doth him uphold, _it_ understood. + And steadfast Truth acquit him out of all! + Her love is firm, her care continual, + So oft as he, through his own foolish pride + Or weakness, is to sinful bands made thrall: + Else should this Redcross Knight in bands have died, + For whose deliverance she this Prince doth thither guide. + +Nor do I judge it good to spend much of my space upon remarks personal to +those who have not been especially writers of sacred verse. When we come +to the masters of such song, we cannot speak of their words without +speaking of themselves; but when in the midst of many words those of the +kind we seek are few, the life of the writer does not justify more than a +passing notice here. + +We know but little of Spenser's history: if we might know all, I do not +fear that we should find anything to destroy the impression made by his +verse--that he was a Christian gentleman, a noble and pure-minded man, of +highest purposes and aims. + +His style is injured by the artistic falsehood of producing antique +effects in the midst of modern feeling.[54] It was scarcely more +justifiable, for instance, in Spenser's time than it would be in ours to +use _glitterand_ for _glittering_; or to return to a large use of +alliteration, three, four, sometimes even five words in the same line +beginning with the same consonant sound. Everything should look like what +it is: prose or verse should be written in the language of its own era. +No doubt the wide-spreading roots of poetry gather to it more variety of +expression than prose can employ; and the very nature of verse will make +it free of times and seasons, harmonizing many opposites. Hence, through +its mediation, without discord, many fine old words, by the loss of which +the language has grown poorer and feebler, might be honourably enticed to +return even into our prose. But nothing ought to be brought back +_because_ it is old. That it is out of use is a presumptive argument that +it ought to remain out of use: good reasons must be at hand to support +its reappearance. I must not, however, enlarge upon this wide-reaching +question; for of the two portions of Spenser's verse which I shall quote, +one of them is not at all, the other not so much as his great poem, +affected with this whim. + +The first I give is a sonnet, one of eighty-eight which he wrote to his +wife before their marriage. Apparently disappointed in early youth, he +did not fall in love again,--at least there is no sign of it that I +know,--till he was middle-aged. But then--woman was never more grandly +wooed than was his Elizabeth. I know of no marriage-present worthy to be +compared with the Epithalamion which he gave her "in lieu of many +ornaments,"--one of the most stately, melodious, and tender poems in the +world, I fully believe. + +But now for the sonnet--the sixty-eighth of the _Amoretti_: + + Most glorious Lord of Life! that, on this day, + Didst make thy triumph over death and sin, + And having harrowed hell, didst bring away + Captivity thence captive, us to win: + This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin; + And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die, + Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin, + May live for ever in felicity! + And that thy love we weighing worthily, + May likewise love thee for the same again; + And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy, + With love may one another entertain. + So let us love, dear love, like as we ought: + Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught. + +Those who have never felt the need of the divine, entering by the channel +of will and choice and prayer, for the upholding, purifying, and +glorifying of that which itself first created human, will consider this +poem untrue, having its origin in religious affectation. Others will +think otherwise. + +The greater part of what I shall next quote is tolerably known even to +those who have made little study of our earlier literature, yet it may +not be omitted here. It is from _An Hymne of Heavenly Love_, consisting +of forty-one stanzas, written in what was called _Rime Royal_--a +favourite with Milton, and, next to the Spenserian, in my opinion the +finest of stanzas. Its construction will reveal itself. I take two +stanzas from the beginning of the hymn, then one from the heart of it, +and the rest from the close. It gives no feeling of an outburst of song, +but rather of a brooding chant, most quiet in virtue of the depth of its +thoughtfulness. Indeed, all his rhythm is like the melodies of water, and +I could quote at least three passages in which he speaks of rhythmic +movements and watery progressions together. His thoughts, and hence his +words, flow like a full, peaceful stream, diffuse, with plenteousness +unrestrained. + + + AN HYMN OF HEAVENLY LOVE. + + Before this world's great frame, in which all things + Are now contained, found any being place, + Ere flitting Time could wag his eyas[55] wings + About that mighty bound which doth embrace + The rolling spheres, and parts their hours by space, + That high eternal power, which now doth move + In all these things, moved in itself by love. + + It loved itself, because itself was fair, + For fair is loved; and of itself begot + Like to itself his eldest son and heir, + Eternal, pure, and void of sinful blot, + + The firstling of his joy, in whom no jot + Of love's dislike or pride was to be found, + Whom he therefore with equal honour crowned. + + * * * * * + + Out of the bosom of eternal bliss, + In which he reignéd with his glorious Sire, + He down descended, like a most demisse _humble._ + And abject thrall, in flesh's frail attire, + That he for him might pay sin's deadly hire, + And him restore unto that happy state + In which he stood before his hapless fate. + + * * * * * + + O blessed well of love! O flower of grace! + O glorious Morning-Star! O Lamp of Light! + Most lively image of thy Father's face! + Eternal King of Glory, Lord of might! + Meek Lamb of God, before all worlds behight! _promised._ + How can we thee requite for all this good? + Or what can prize that thy most precious blood? _equal in value._ + + Yet nought thou ask'st in lieu of all this love + But love of us for guerdon of thy pain: + Ay me! what can us less than that behove?[56] + Had he required life of[57] us again, + Had it been wrong to ask his own with gain? + He gave us life, he it restored lost; + Then life were least, that us so little cost. + + But he our life hath left unto us free-- + Free that was thrall, and blessed that was banned; _enslaved; cursed._ + Nor aught demands but that we loving be, + As he himself hath loved us aforehand, + And bound thereto with an eternal band-- + Him first to love that us[58] so dearly bought, + And next our brethren, to his image wrought. + + Him first to love great right and reason is, + Who first to us our life and being gave, + And after, when we faréd had amiss, + Us wretches from the second death did save; + And last, the food of life, which now we have, + Even he himself, in his dear sacrament, + To feed our hungry souls, unto us lent. + + Then next, to love our brethren that were made + Of that self mould, and that self Maker's hand, + That[59] we, and to the same again shall fade, + Where they shall have like heritage of land, _the same grave-room._ + However here on higher steps we stand; + Which also were with selfsame price redeemed, + That we, however, of us light esteemed. _as._ + + And were they not, yet since that loving Lord + Commanded us to love them for his sake, + Even for his sake, and for his sacred word, + Which in his last bequest he to us spake, + We should them love, and with their needs partake; _share their + Knowing that, whatsoe'er to them we give, [needs._ + We give to him by whom we all do live. + + Such mercy he by his most holy rede _instruction._ + Unto us taught, and to approve it true, + Ensampled it by his most righteous deed, + Shewing us mercy, miserable crew! + That we the like should to the wretches[60] shew, + And love our brethren; thereby to approve + How much himself that loved us we love. + + Then rouse thyself, O earth! out of thy soil, + In which thou wallowest like to filthy swine, + And dost thy mind in dirty pleasures moyle, _defile._ + Unmindful of that dearest Lord of thine; + Lift up to him thy heavy clouded eyne, + That thou this sovereign bounty mayst behold, + And read through love his mercies manifold. + + Begin from first, where he encradled was + In simple cratch, wrapt in a wad of hay, _a rack or crib._ + Between the toilful ox and humble ass; + And in what rags, and in what base array + The glory of our heavenly riches lay, + When him the silly[61] shepherds came to see, + Whom greatest princes sought on lowest knee. + + From thence read on the story of his life, + His humble carriage, his unfaulty ways, + His cankered foes, his fights, his toil, his strife, + His pains, his poverty, his sharp assays, _temptations_ or _trials._ + Through which he passed his miserable days, + Offending none, and doing good to all, + Yet being maliced both by great and small. + + And look at last, how of most wretched wights + He taken was, betrayed, and false accused; + How with most scornful taunts and fell despites + He was reviled, disgraced, and foul abused; + How scourged, how crowned, how buffeted, how bruised; + And, lastly, how 'twixt robbers crucified, + With bitter wounds through hands, through feet, and side! + + * * * * * + + With sense whereof whilst so thy softened spirit + Is inly touched, and humbled with meek zeal + Through meditation of his endless merit, + Lift up thy mind to th' author of thy weal, + And to his sovereign mercy do appeal; + Learn him to love that lovéd thee so dear, + And in thy breast his blessed image bear. + + With all thy heart, with all thy soul and mind, + Thou must him love, and his behests embrace; _commands._ + All other loves with which the world doth blind + Weak fancies, and stir up affections base, + Thou must renounce and utterly displace, + And give thyself unto him full and free, + That full and freely gave himself to thee. + + * * * * * + + Thenceforth all world's desire will in thee die, + And all earth's glory, on which men do gaze, + Seem dust and dross in thy pure-sighted eye, + Compared to that celestial beauty's blaze, + Whose glorious beams all fleshly sense do daze + With admiration of their passing light, + Blinding the eyes and lumining the sprite. + + Then shalt thy ravished soul inspiréd be + With heavenly thoughts far above human skill, _reason._ + And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainly see + The Idea of his pure glory present still + Before thy face, that all thy spirits shall fill + With sweet enragement of celestial love, + Kindled through sight of those fair things above. + +There is a companion to the poem of which these verses are a portion, +called _An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie_, filled like this, and like two +others on Beauty and Love, with Platonic forms both of thought and +expression; but I have preferred quoting a longer part of the former to +giving portions of both. My reader will recognize in the extract a fuller +force of intellect brought to bear on duty; although it would be unwise +to take a mind like Spenser's for a type of more than the highest class +of the age. Doubtless the division in the country with regard to many of +the Church's doctrines had its part in bringing out and strengthening +this tendency to reasoning which is so essential to progress. Where +religion itself is not the most important thing with the individual, all +reasoning upon it must indeed degenerate into strifes of words, +_vermiculate_ questions, as Lord Bacon calls them--such, namely, as like +the hoarded manna reveal the character of the owner by breeding of +worms--yet on no questions may the light of the candle of the Lord, that +is, the human understanding, be cast with greater hope of discovery than +on those of religion, those, namely, that bear upon man's relation to God +and to his fellow. The most partial illumination of this region, the very +cause of whose mystery is the height and depth of its _truth_, is of more +awful value to the human being than perfect knowledge, if such were +possible, concerning everything else in the universe; while, in fact, in +this very region, discovery may bring with it a higher kind of conviction +than can accompany the results of investigation in any other direction. +In these grandest of all thinkings, the great men of this time showed a +grandeur of thought worthy of their surpassing excellence in other +noblest fields of human labour. They thought greatly because they aspired +greatly. + +Sir Walter Raleigh was a personal friend of Edmund Spenser. They were +almost of the same age, the former born in 1552, the latter in the +following year. A writer of magnificent prose, itself full of religion +and poetry both in thought and expression, he has not distinguished +himself greatly in verse. There is, however, one remarkable poem fit for +my purpose, which I can hardly doubt to be his. It is called _Sir Walter +Raleigh's Pilgrimage_. The probability is that it was written just after +his condemnation in 1603--although many years passed before his sentence +was carried into execution. + + Give me my scallop-shell[62] of Quiet; + My staff of Faith to walk upon; + My scrip of Joy, immortal diet; + My bottle of Salvation; + My gown of Glory, hope's true gage; + And thus I'll take my pilgrimage. + Blood must be my body's balmer,-- + No other balm will there be given-- + Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer, + Travelleth towards the land of Heaven; + Over the silver mountains, + Where spring the nectar fountains-- + There will I kiss + The bowl of Bliss, + And drink mine everlasting fill + Upon every milken hill: + My soul will be a-dry before, + But after, it will thirst no more. + Then by that happy blissful day, + More peaceful pilgrims I shall see, + That have cast off their rags of clay, + And walk apparelled fresh like me: + I'll take them first, + To quench their thirst, + And taste of nectar's suckets, _sweet things--things to suck._ + At those clear wells + Where sweetness dwells, + Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets. + And when our bottles and all we + Are filled with immortality, + Then the blessed paths we'll travel, + Strowed with rubies thick as gravel. + Ceilings of diamonds! sapphire floors! + High walls of coral, and pearly bowers!-- + From thence to Heaven's bribeless hall, + Where no corrupted voices brawl; + No conscience molten into gold; + No forged accuser bought or sold; + No cause deferred; no vain-spent journey; + For there Christ is the King's Attorney, + Who pleads for all without degrees, _irrespective of rank._ + And he hath angels, but no fees. + And when the grand twelve million jury + Of our sins, with direful fury, + 'Gainst our souls black verdicts give, + Christ pleads his death, and then we live. + Be thou my speaker, taintless Pleader, + Unblotted Lawyer, true Proceeder! + Thou giv'st salvation even for alms,-- + Not with a bribéd lawyer's palms. + And this is my eternal plea + To him that made heaven, earth, and sea, + That, since my flesh must die so soon, + And want a head to dine next noon,-- + Just at the stroke, when my veins start and spread, + Set on my soul an everlasting head: + Then am I ready, like a palmer fit, + To tread those blest paths which before I writ. + Of death and judgment, heaven and hell + Who oft doth think, must needs die well. + +This poem is a somewhat strange medley, with a confusion of figure, and a +repeated failure in dignity, which is very far indeed from being worthy +of Raleigh's prose. But it is very remarkable how wretchedly some men +will show, who, doing their own work well, attempt that for which +practice has not--to use a word of the time--_enabled_ them. There is +real power in the poem, however, and the confusion is far more indicative +of the pleased success of an unaccustomed hand than of incapacity for +harmonious work. Some of the imagery, especially the "crystal buckets," +will suggest those grotesque drawings called _Emblems_, which were much +in use before and after this period, and, indeed, were only a putting +into visible shape of such metaphors and similes as some of the most +popular poets of the time, especially Doctor Donne, indulged in; while +the profusion of earthly riches attributed to the heavenly paths and the +places of repose on the journey, may well recall Raleigh's own +descriptions of South American glories. Englishmen of that era believed +in an earthly Paradise beyond the Atlantic, the wonderful reports of +whose magnificence had no doubt a share in lifting the imaginations and +hopes of the people to the height at which they now stood. + +There may be an appearance of irreverence in the way in which he +contrasts the bribeless Hall of Heaven with the proceedings at his own +trial, where he was browbeaten, abused, and, from the very commencement, +treated as a guilty man by Sir Edward Coke, the king's attorney. He even +puns with the words _angels_ and _fees_. Burning from a sense of +injustice, however, and with the solemnity of death before him, he could +not be guilty of _conscious_ irreverence, at least. But there is another +remark I have to make with regard to the matter, which will bear upon +much of the literature of the time: even the great writers of that period +had such a delight in words, and such a command over them, that like +their skilful horsemen, who enjoyed making their steeds show off the +fantastic paces they had taught them, they played with the words as they +passed through their hands, tossing them about as a juggler might his +balls. But even herein the true master of speech showed his masterdom: +his play must not be by-play; it must contribute to the truth of the idea +which was taking form in those words. We shall see this more plainly when +we come to transcribe some of Sir Philip Sidney's work. There is no +irreverence in it. Nor can I take it as any sign of hardness that Raleigh +should treat the visual image of his own anticipated death with so much +coolness, if the writer of a little elegy on his execution, when Raleigh +was fourteen years older than at the presumed date of the foregoing +verses, describes him truly when he says: + + I saw in every stander-by + Pale death, life only in thy eye. + +The following hymn is also attributed to Raleigh. If it has less +brilliance of fancy, it has none of the faults of the preceding, and is +far more artistic in construction and finish, notwithstanding a degree of +irregularity. + + Rise, oh my soul, with thy desires to heaven; + And with divinest contemplation use + Thy time, where time's eternity is given; + And let vain thoughts no more thy thoughts abuse, + But down in darkness let them lie: + So live thy better, let thy worse thoughts die! + + And thou, my soul, inspired with holy flame, + View and review, with most regardful eye, + That holy cross, whence thy salvation came, + On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die! + For in that sacred object is much pleasure, + And in that Saviour is my life, my treasure. + + To thee, O Jesus, I direct my eyes; + To thee my hands, to thee my humble knees, + To thee my heart shall offer sacrifice; + To thee my thoughts, who my thoughts only sees-- + To thee myself,--myself and all I give; + To thee I die; to thee I only live! + +See what an effect of stately composure quiet artistic care produces, and +how it leaves the ear of the mind in a satisfied peace! + +There are a few fine lines in the poem. The last two lines of the first +stanza are admirable; the last two of the second very weak. The last +stanza is good throughout. + +But it would be very unfair to judge Sir Walter by his verse. His prose +is infinitely better, and equally displays the devout tendency of his +mind--a tendency common to all the great men of that age. The worst I +know of him is the selfishly prudent advice he left behind for his son. +No doubt he had his faults, but we must not judge a man even by what he +says in an over-anxiety for the prosperity of his child. + +Another remarkable fact in the history of those great men is that they +were all men of affairs. Raleigh was a soldier, a sailor, a discoverer, a +politician, as well as an author. His friend Spenser was first secretary +to Lord Grey when he was Governor of Ireland, and afterwards Sheriff of +Cork. He has written a large treatise on the state of Ireland. But of all +the men of the age no one was more variously gifted, or exercised those +gifts in more differing directions, than the man who of them all was most +in favour with queen, court, and people--Philip Sidney. I could write +much to set forth the greatness, culture, balance, and scope of this +wonderful man. Renowned over Europe for his person, for his dress, for +his carriage, for his speech, for his skill in arms, for his +horsemanship, for his soldiership, for his statesmanship, for his +learning, he was beloved for his friendship, his generosity, his +steadfastness, his simplicity, his conscientiousness, his religion. +Amongst the lamentations over his death printed in Spenser's works, there +is one poem by Matthew Roydon, a few verses of which I shall quote, being +no vain eulogy. Describing his personal appearance, he says: + + A sweet, attractive kind of grace, + A full assurance given by looks, + Continual comfort in a face, + The lineaments of Gospel books!-- + I trow, that countenance cannot lie + Whose thoughts are legible in the eye. + + Was ever eye did see that face, + Was ever ear did hear that tongue, + Was ever mind did mind his grace + That ever thought the travel long? + But eyes and ears, and every thought, + Were with his sweet perfections caught. + +His _Arcadia_ is a book full of wisdom and beauty. None of his writings +were printed in his lifetime; but the _Arcadia_ was for many years after +his death one of the most popular books in the country. His prose, as +prose, is not equal to his friend Raleigh's, being less condensed and +stately. It is too full of fancy in thought and freak in rhetoric to find +now-a-days more than a very limited number of readers; and a good deal of +the verse that is set in it, is obscure and uninteresting, partly from +some false notions of poetic composition which he and his friend Spenser +entertained when young; but there is often an exquisite art in his other +poems. + +The first I shall transcribe is a sonnet, to which the Latin words +printed below it might be prefixed as a title: _Splendidis longum +valedico nugis._ + + + A LONG FAREWELL TO GLITTERING TRIFLES. + + Leave me, O love, which reachest but to dust; + And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things; + Grow rich in that which never taketh rust: + What ever fades but fading pleasure brings. + Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might + To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be; + Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light + That doth both shine and give us sight to see. + Oh take fast hold; let that light be thy guide, + In this small course which birth draws out to death; + And think how evil[63] becometh him to slide + Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath. + Then farewell, world; thy uttermost I see: + Eternal love, maintain thy life in me. + +Before turning to the treasury of his noblest verse, I shall give six +lines from a poem in the _Arcadia_--chiefly for the sake of instancing +what great questions those mighty men delighted in: + + What essence destiny hath; if fortune be or no; + Whence our immortal souls to mortal earth do stow[64]: + + What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather, + With outward maker's force, or like an inward father. + Such thoughts, me thought, I thought, and strained my single mind, + Then void of nearer cares, the depth of things to find. + +Lord Bacon was not the only one, in such an age, to think upon the mighty +relations of physics and metaphysics, or, as Sidney would say, "of +naturall and supernaturall philosophic." For a man to do his best, he +must be upheld, even in his speculations, by those around him. + +In the specimen just given, we find that our religious poetry has gone +down into the deeps. There are indications of such a tendency in the +older times, but neither then were the questions so articulate, nor were +the questioners so troubled for an answer. The alternative expressed in +the middle couplet seems to me the most imperative of all questions--both +for the individual and for the church: Is man fashioned by the hands of +God, as a potter fashioneth his vessel; or do we indeed come forth from +his heart? Is power or love the making might of the universe? He who +answers this question aright possesses the key to all righteous +questions. + +Sir Philip and his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, made between them a +metrical translation of the Psalms of David. It cannot be determined +which are hers and which are his; but if I may conclude anything from a +poem by the sister, to which I shall by and by refer, I take those I now +give for the brother's work. + +The souls of the following psalms have, in the version I present, +transmigrated into fairer forms than I have found them occupy elsewhere. +Here is a grand hymn for the whole world: _Sing unto the Lord._ + + + PSALM XCVI. + + Sing, and let your song be new, + Unto him that never endeth; + Sing all earth, and all in you-- + Sing to God, and bless his name. + Of the help, the health he sendeth, + Day by day new ditties frame. + + Make each country know his worth: + Of his acts the wondered story + Paint unto each people forth. + For Jehovah great alone, + All the gods, for awe and glory, + Far above doth hold his throne. + + For but idols, what are they + Whom besides mad earth adoreth? + He the skies in frame did lay. + Grace and honour are his guides; + Majesty his temple storeth; + Might in guard about him bides. + + Kindreds come! Jehovah give-- + O give Jehovah all together, + Force and fame whereso you live. + Give his name the glory fit: + Take your off'rings, get you thither, + Where he doth enshrined sit. + + Go, adore him in the place + Where his pomp is most displayed. + Earth, O go with quaking pace, + Go proclaim Jehovah king: + Stayless world shall now be stayed; + Righteous doom his rule shall bring. + + Starry roof and earthy floor, + Sea, and all thy wideness yieldeth, + Now rejoice, and leap, and roar. + Leafy infants of the wood, + Fields, and all that on you feedeth, + Dance, O dance, at such a good! + + For Jehovah cometh, lo! + Lo to reign Jehovah cometh! + Under whom you all shall go. + He the world shall rightly guide-- + Truly, as a king becometh, + For the people's weal provide. + +Attempting to give an ascending scale of excellence--I do not mean in +subject but in execution--I now turn to the national hymn, _God is our +Refuge._ + + + PSALM XLIV. + + God gives us strength, and keeps us sound-- + A present help when dangers call; + Then fear not we, let quake the ground, + And into seas let mountains fall; + Yea so let seas withal + In watery hills arise, + As may the earthly hills appal + With dread and dashing cries. + + For lo, a river, streaming joy, + With purling murmur safely slides, + That city washing from annoy, + In holy shrine where God resides. + God in her centre bides: + What can this city shake? + God early aids and ever guides: + Who can this city take? + + When nations go against her bent, + And kings with siege her walls enround; + The void of air his voice doth rent, + Earth fails their feet with melting ground. + To strength and keep us sound, + The God of armies arms; + Our rock on Jacob's God we found, + Above the reach of harms. + + O come with me, O come, and view + The trophies of Jehovah's hand! + What wrecks from him our foes pursue! + How clearly he hath purged our land! + By him wars silent stand: + He brake the archer's bow, + Made chariot's wheel a fiery brand, + And spear to shivers go. + + Be still, saith he; know, God am I; + Know I will be with conquest crowned + Above all nations--raiséd high, + High raised above this earthly round. + To strength and keep us sound, + The God of armies arms; + Our rock on Jacob's God we found, + Above the reach of harms. + +"The God of armies arms" is a grand line. + +Now let us have a hymn of Nature--a far finer, I think, than either of +the preceding: _Praise waiteth for thee._ + + + PSALM LXV. + + Sion it is where thou art praiséd, + Sion, O God, where vows they pay thee: + There all men's prayers to thee raiséd, + Return possessed of what they pray thee. + There thou my sins, prevailing to my shame, + Dost turn to smoke of sacrificing flame. + + Oh! he of bliss is not deceivéd, _disappointed._ + Whom chosen thou unto thee takest; + And whom into thy court receivéd, + Thou of thy checkrole[65] number makest: + The dainty viands of thy sacred store + Shall feed him so he shall not hunger more. + + From thence it is thy threat'ning thunder-- + Lest we by wrong should be disgracéd-- + Doth strike our foes with fear and wonder, + O thou on whom their hopes are placéd, + Whom either earth doth stedfastly sustain, + Or cradle rocks the restless wavy plain. + + Thy virtue stays the mighty mountains, _power._ + Girded with power, with strength abounding. + The roaring dam of watery fountains _the "dam of fountains" + Thy beck doth make surcease her sounding. [is the ocean._ + When stormy uproars toss the people's brain, + That civil sea to calm thou bring'st again. _political, as opposed + [to natural._ + + Where earth doth end with endless ending, + All such as dwell, thy signs affright them; + And in thy praise their voices spending, + Both houses of the sun delight them--- + Both whence he comes, when early he awakes, + And where he goes, when evening rest he takes. + + Thy eye from heaven this land beholdeth, + Such fruitful dews down on it raining, + That storehouse-like her lap enfoldeth + Assuréd hope of ploughman's gaining: + Thy flowing streams her drought doth temper so, + That buried seed through yielding grave doth grow. + + Drunk is each ridge of thy cup drinking; + Each clod relenteth at thy dressing; _groweth soft._ + Thy cloud-borne waters inly sinking, + Fair spring sprouts forth, blest with thy blessing. + The fertile year is with thy bounty crowned; + And where thou go'st, thy goings fat the ground. + + Plenty bedews the desert places; + A hedge of mirth the hills encloseth; + The fields with flocks have hid their faces; + A robe of corn the valleys clotheth. + Deserts, and hills, and fields, and valleys all, + Rejoice, shout, sing, and on thy name do call. + +The first stanza seems to me very fine, especially the verse, "Return +possessed of what they pray thee." The third stanza might have been +written after the Spanish Philip's Armada, but both King David and Sir +Philip Sidney were dead before God brake that archer's bow.[66] The +fourth line of the next stanza is a noteworthy instance of the sense +gathering to itself the sound, and is in lovely contrast with the closing +line of the same stanza. + +One of the most remarkable specimens I know of the play with words of +which I have already spoken as common even in the serious writings of +this century, is to be found in the next line: "Where earth doth end with +endless ending." David, regarding the world as a flat disc, speaks of the +_ends_ of the earth: Sidney, knowing it to be a globe, uses the word of +the Psalmist, but re-moulds and changes the form of it, with a power +fantastic, almost capricious in its wilfulness, yet causing it to express +the fact with a marvel of precision. We _see_ that the earth ends; we +cannot reach the end we see; therefore the "earth doth end with endless +ending." It is a case of that contradiction in the form of the words +used, which brings out a truth in another plane as it were;--a paradox in +words, not in meaning, for the words can bear no meaning but the one +which reveals its own reality. + +The following little psalm, _The Lord reigneth_, is a thunderous +organ-blast of praise. The repetition of words in the beginning of the +second stanza produces a remarkably fine effect. + + + PSALM XCIII. + + Clothed with state, and girt with might, + Monarch-like Jehovah reigns; + He who earth's foundation pight-- _pitched._ + Pight at first, and yet sustains; + He whose stable throne disdains + Motion's shock and age's flight; + He who endless one remains + One, the same, in changeless plight. + + Rivers--yea, though rivers roar, + Roaring though sea-billows rise, + Vex the deep, and break the shore-- + Stronger art thou, Lord of skies! + Firm and true thy promise lies + Now and still as heretofore: + Holy worship never dies + In thy house where we adore. + +I close my selections from Sidney with one which I consider the best of +all: it is the first half of _Lord, thou hast searched me._ + + + PSALM CXXXIX. + + O Lord, in me there lieth nought + But to thy search revealed lies; + For when I sit + Thou markest it; + No less thou notest when I rise: + Yea, closest closet of my thought + Hath open windows to thine eyes. + + Thou walkest with me when I walk + When to my bed for rest I go, + I find thee there, + And every where: + Not youngest thought in me doth grow, + No, not one word I cast to talk + But, yet unuttered, thou dost know. + + If forth I march, thou goest before; + If back I turn, thou com'st behind: + So forth nor back + Thy guard I lack; + Nay, on me too thy hand I find. + Well I thy wisdom may adore, + But never reach with earthy mind. + + To shun thy notice, leave thine eye, + O whither might I take my way? + To starry sphere? + Thy throne is there. + To dead men's undelightsome stay? + There is thy walk, and there to lie + Unknown, in vain I should assay. + + O sun, whom light nor flight can match! + Suppose thy lightful flightful wings + Thou lend to me, + And I could flee + As far as thee the evening brings: + Ev'n led to west he would me catch, + Nor should I lurk with western things. + + Do thou thy best, O secret night, + In sable veil to cover me: + Thy sable veil + Shall vainly fail: + With day unmasked my night shall be; + For night is day, and darkness light, + O father of all lights, to thee. + +Note the most musical play with the words _light_ and _flight_ in the +fifth stanza. There is hardly a line that is not delightful. + +They were a wonderful family those Sidneys. Mary, for whom Philip wrote +his chief work, thence called "The Countess of Pembroke's _Arcadia,_" was +a woman of rare gifts. The chief poem known to be hers is called _Our +Saviour's Passion_. It is full of the faults of the age. Sir Philip's +sport with words is so graceful and ordered as to subserve the utterance +of the thought: his sister's fanciful convolutions appear to be there for +their own sake--certainly are there to the obscuration of the sense. The +difficulty of the poem arises in part, I believe, from corruption, but +chiefly from a certain fantastic way of dealing with thought as well as +word of which I shall have occasion to say more when we descend a little +further. It is, in the main, a lamentation over our Saviour's sufferings, +in which the countess is largely guilty of the very feminine fault of +seeking to convey the intensity of her emotions by forcing words, +accumulating forms, and exaggerating descriptions. This may indeed +convince as to the presence of feeling, but cannot communicate the +feeling itself. _The_ right word will at once generate a sympathy of +which all agonies of utterance will only render the willing mind more and +more incapable. + +The poem is likewise very diffuse--again a common fault with women of +power; for indeed the faculty of compressing thought into crystalline +form is one of the rarest gifts of artistic genius. It consists of a +hundred and ten stanzas, from which I shall gather and arrange a few. + + He placed all rest, and had no resting place; + He healed each pain, yet lived in sore distress; + Deserved all good, yet lived in great disgrace; + Gave all hearts joy, himself in heaviness; + Suffered them live, by whom himself was slain: + Lord, who can live to see such love again? + + Whose mansion heaven, yet lay within a manger; + Who gave all food, yet sucked a virgin's breast; + Who could have killed, yet fled a threatening danger; + Who sought all quiet by his own unrest; + Who died for them that highly did offend him, + And lives for them that cannot comprehend him. + + Who came no further than his Father sent him, + And did fulfil but what he did command him; + Who prayed for them that proudly did torment him + For telling truly of what they did demand him; + Who did all good that humbly did intreat him, + And bare their blows, that did unkindly beat him. + + Had I but seen him as his servants did, + At sea, at land, in city, or in field, + Though in himself he had his glory hid, + That in his grace the light of glory held, + Then might my sorrow somewhat be appeaséd, + That once my soul had in his sight been pleaséd. + + No! I have run the way of wickedness, + Forgetting what my faith should follow most; + I did not think upon thy holiness, + Nor by my sins what sweetness I have lost. + Oh sin! for sin hath compassed me about, + That, Lord, I know not where to find thee out. + + Where he that sits on the supernal throne, + In majesty most glorious to behold, + And holds the sceptre of the world alone, + Hath not his garments of imbroidered gold, + But he is clothed with truth and righteousness, + Where angels all do sing with joyfulness, + + Where heavenly love is cause of holy life, + And holy life increaseth heavenly love; + Where peace established without fear or strife, + Doth prove the blessing of the soul's behove;[67] + Where thirst nor hunger, grief nor sorrow dwelleth, + But peace in joy, and joy in peace excelleth. + +Had all the poem been like these stanzas, I should not have spoken so +strongly concerning its faults. There are a few more such in it. It +closes with a very fantastic use of musical terms, following upon a +curious category of the works of nature as praising God, to which I refer +for the sake of one stanza, or rather of one line in the stanza: + + To see the greyhound course, the hound in chase, + _Whilst little dormouse sleepeth out her eyne;_ + The lambs and rabbits sweetly run at base,[68] + Whilst highest trees the little squirrels climb, + The crawling worms out creeping in the showers, + And how the snails do climb the lofty towers. + +What a love of animated nature there is in the lovely lady! I am all but +confident, however, that second line came to her from watching her +children asleep. She had one child at least: that William Herbert, who is +generally, and with weight, believed the W.H. of Shakspere's Sonnets, a +grander honour than the earldom of Pembroke, or even the having Philip +Sidney to his uncle: I will not say grander than having Mary Sidney to +his _mother_. + +Let me now turn to Sidney's friend, Sir Fulk Grevill, Lord Brooke, who +afterwards wrote his life, "as an intended preface" to all his "Monuments +to the memory of Sir Philip Sidney," the said _monuments_ being Lord +Brooke's own poems. + +My extract is from _A Treatise of Religion_, in which, if the reader do +not find much of poetic form, he will find at least some grand spiritual +philosophy, the stuff whereof all highest poetry is fashioned. It is one +of the first poems in which the philosophy of religion, and not either +its doctrine, feeling, or history, predominates. It is, as a whole, poor, +chiefly from its being so loosely written. There are men, and men whose +thoughts are of great worth, to whom it never seems to occur that they +may utter very largely and convey very little; that what is clear to +themselves is in their speech obscure as a late twilight. Their utterance +is rarely articulate: their spiritual mouth talks with but half-movements +of its lips; it does not model their thoughts into clear-cut shapes, such +as the spiritual ear can distinguish as they enter it. Of such is Lord +Brooke. These few stanzas, however, my readers will be glad to have: + + What is the chain which draws us back again, + And lifts man up unto his first creation? + Nothing in him his own heart can restrain; + His reason lives a captive to temptation; + Example is corrupt; precepts are mixed; + All fleshly knowledge frail, and never fixed. + + It is a light, a gift, a grace inspired; + A spark of power, a goodness of the Good; + Desire in him, that never is desired; + An unity, where desolation stood; + In us, not of us, a Spirit not of earth, + Fashioning the mortal to immortal birth. + + * * * * * + + Sense of this God, by fear, the sensual have, + Distresséd Nature crying unto Grace; + For sovereign reason then becomes a slave, + And yields to servile sense her sovereign place, + When more or other she affects to be + Than seat or shrine of this Eternity. + + Yea, Prince of Earth let Man assume to be, + Nay more--of Man let Man himself be God, + Yet without God, a slave of slaves is he; + To others, wonder; to himself, a rod; + Restless despair, desire, and desolation; + The more secure, the more abomination. + + Then by affecting power, we cannot know him. + By knowing all things else, we know him less. + Nature contains him not. Art cannot show him. + Opinions idols, and not God, express. + Without, in power, we see him everywhere; + Within, we rest not, till we find him there. + + Then seek we must; that course is natural-- + For ownéd souls to find their owner out. + Our free remorses when our natures fall-- + When we do well, our hearts made free from doubt-- + Prove service due to one Omnipotence, + And Nature of religion to have sense. + + Questions again, which in our hearts arise-- + Since loving knowledge, not humility-- + Though they be curious, godless, and unwise, + Yet prove our nature feels a Deity; + For if these strifes rose out of other grounds, + Man were to God as deafness is to sounds. + + * * * * * + + Yet in this strife, this natural remorse, + If we could bend the force of power and wit + To work upon the heart, and make divorce + There from the evil which preventeth it, + In judgment of the truth we should not doubt + Good life would find a good religion out. + +If a fair proportion of it were equal to this, the poem would be a fine +one, not for its poetry, but for its spiritual metaphysics. I think the +fourth and fifth of the stanzas I have given, profound in truth, and +excellent in utterance. They are worth pondering. + +We now descend a decade of the century, to find another group of names +within the immediate threshold of the sixties. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +LORD BACON AND HIS COEVALS. + + +Except it be Milton's, there is not any prose fuller of grand poetic +embodiments than Lord Bacon's. Yet he always writes contemptuously of +poetry, having in his eye no doubt the commonplace kinds of it, which +will always occupy more bulk, and hence be more obtrusive, than that +which is true in its nature and rare in its workmanship. Towards the +latter end of his life, however, being in ill health at the time, he +translated seven of the Psalms of David into verse, dedicating them to +George Herbert. The best of them is Psalm civ.--just the one upon which +we might suppose, from his love to the laws of Nature, he would dwell +with the greatest sympathy. Partly from the wish to hear his voice +amongst the rest of our singers, partly for the merits of the version +itself, which has some remarkable lines, I have resolved to include it +here. It is the first specimen I have given in the heroic couplet. + + Father and King of Powers both high and low, + Whose sounding fame all creatures serve to blow; + My soul shall with the rest strike up thy praise, + And carol of thy works, and wondrous ways. + But who can blaze thy beauties, Lord, aright? + They turn the brittle beams of mortal sight. + Upon thy head thou wear'st a glorious crown, + All set with virtues, polished with renown: + Thence round about a silver veil doth fall + Of crystal light, mother of colours all. + The compass, heaven, smooth without grain or fold, + All set with spangs of glittering stars untold, + And striped with golden beams of power unpent, + Is raiséd up for a removing tent + Vaulted and archéd are his chamber beams + Upon the seas, the waters, and the streams; + The clouds as chariots swift do scour the sky; + The stormy winds upon their wings do fly + His angels spirits are, that wait his will; + As flames of fire his anger they fulfil. + In the beginning, with a mighty hand, + He made the earth by counterpoise to stand, + Never to move, but to be fixed still; + Yet hath no pillars but his sacred will. + This earth, as with a veil, once covered was; + The waters overflowéd all the mass; + But upon his rebuke away they fled, + And then the hills began to show their head; + The vales their hollow bosoms opened plain, + The streams ran trembling down the vales again; + And that the earth no more might drowned be, + He set the sea his bounds of liberty; + And though his waves resound and beat the shore, + Yet it is bridled by his holy lore. + Then did the rivers seek their proper places, + And found their heads, their issues, and their races; + The springs do feed the rivers all the way, + And so the tribute to the sea repay: + Running along through many a pleasant field, + Much fruitfulness unto the earth they yield; + That know the beasts and cattle feeding by, + Which for to slake their thirst do thither hie. + Nay, desert grounds the streams do not forsake, + But through the unknown ways their journey take; + The asses wild that hide in wilderness, + Do thither come, their thirst for to refresh. + The shady trees along their banks do spring, + In which the birds do build, and sit, and sing, + Stroking the gentle air with pleasant notes, + Plaining or chirping through their warbling throats. + The higher grounds, where waters cannot rise, + By rain and dews are watered from the skies, + Causing the earth put forth the grass for beasts, + And garden-herbs, served at the greatest feasts, + And bread that is all viands' firmament, + And gives a firm and solid nourishment; + And wine man's spirits for to recreate, + And oil his face for to exhilarate. + The sappy cedars, tall like stately towers, + High flying birds do harbour in their bowers; + The holy storks that are the travellers, + Choose for to dwell and build within the firs; + The climbing goats hang on steep mountains' side; + The digging conies in the rocks do bide. + The moon, so constant in inconstancy, + Doth rule the monthly seasons orderly; + The sun, eye of the world, doth know his race, + And when to show, and when to hide his face. + Thou makest darkness, that it may be night, + Whenas the savage beasts that fly the light, + As conscious of man's hatred, leave their den, + And range abroad, secured from sight of men. + Then do the forests ring of lions roaring, + That ask their meat of God, their strength restoring; + But when the day appears, they back do fly, + And in their dens again do lurking lie; + Then man goes forth to labour in the field, + Whereby his grounds more rich increase may yield. + O Lord, thy providence sufficeth all; + Thy goodness not restrained but general + Over thy creatures, the whole earth doth flow + With thy great largeness poured forth here below. + Nor is it earth alone exalts thy name, + But seas and streams likewise do spread the same. + The rolling seas unto the lot do fall + Of beasts innumerable, great and small; + There do the stately ships plough up the floods; + The greater navies look like walking woods; + The fishes there far voyages do make, + To divers shores their journey they do take; + There hast thou set the great leviathan, + That makes the seas to seethe like boiling pan: + All these do ask of thee their meat to live, + Which in due season thou to them dost give: + Ope thou thy hand, and then they have good fare; + Shut thou thy hand, and then they troubled are. + All life and spirit from thy breath proceed, + Thy word doth all things generate and feed: + If thou withdraw'st it, then they cease to be, + And straight return to dust and vanity; + But when thy breath thou dost send forth again, + Then all things do renew, and spring amain, + So that the earth but lately desolate + Doth now return unto the former state. + The glorious majesty of God above + Shall ever reign, in mercy and in love; + God shall rejoice all his fair works to see, + For, as they come from him, all perfect be. + The earth shall quake, if aught his wrath provoke; + Let him but touch the mountains, they shall smoke. + As long as life doth last, I hymns will sing, + With cheerful voice, to the Eternal King; + As long as I have being, I will praise + The works of God, and all his wondrous ways. + I know that he my words will not despise: + Thanksgiving is to him a sacrifice. + But as for sinners, they shall be destroyed + From off the earth--their places shall be void. + Let all his works praise him with one accord! + Oh praise the Lord, my soul! Praise ye the Lord! + +His Hundred and Forty-ninth Psalm is likewise good; but I have given +enough of Lord Bacon's verse, and proceed to call up one who was a poet +indeed, although little known as such, being a Roman Catholic, a Jesuit +even, and therefore, in Elizabeth's reign, a traitor, and subject to the +penalties according. Robert Southwell, "thirteen times most cruelly +tortured," could "not be induced to confess anything, not even the colour +of the horse whereon on a certain day he rode, lest from such indication +his adversaries might conjecture in what house, or in company of what +Catholics, he that day was." I quote these words of Lord Burleigh, lest +any of my readers, discovering weakness in his verse, should attribute +weakness to the man himself. + +It was no doubt on political grounds that these tortures, and the death +that followed them, were inflicted. But it was for the truth _as he saw +it_, that is, for the sake of duty, that Southwell thus endured. We must +not impute all the evils of a system to every individual who holds by it. +It may be found that a man has, for the sole sake of self-abnegation, +yielded homage, where, if his object had been personal aggrandizement, he +might have wielded authority. Southwell, if that which comes from within +a man may be taken as the test of his character, was a devout and humble +Christian. In the choir of our singers we only ask: "Dost thou lift up +thine heart?" Southwell's song answers for him: "I lift it up unto the +Lord." + +His chief poem is called _St. Peter's Complaint_. It is of considerable +length--a hundred and thirty-two stanzas. It reminds us of the Countess +of Pembroke's poem, but is far more articulate and far superior in +versification. Perhaps its chief fault is that the pauses are so measured +with the lines as to make every line almost a sentence, the effect of +which is a considerable degree of monotony. Like all writers of the time, +he is, of course, fond of antithesis, and abounds in conceits and +fancies; whence he attributes a multitude of expressions to St. Peter of +which never possibly could the substantial ideas have entered the +Apostle's mind, or probably any other than Southwell's own. There is also +a good deal of sentimentalism in the poem, a fault from which I fear +modern Catholic verse is rarely free. Probably the Italian poetry with +which he must have been familiar in his youth, during his residence in +Rome, accustomed him to such irreverences of expression as this +sentimentalism gives occasion to, and which are very far from indicating +a correspondent state of feeling. Sentiment is a poor ape of love; but +the love is true notwithstanding. Here are a few stanzas from _St. +Peter's Complaint_: + + Titles I make untruths: am I a rock, + That with so soft a gale was overthrown? + Am I fit pastor for the faithful flock + To guide their souls that murdered thus mine own? + A rock of ruin, not a rest to stay; + A pastor,--not to feed, but to betray. + + Parting from Christ my fainting force declined; + With lingering foot I followed him aloof; + Base fear out of my heart his love unshrined, + Huge in high words, but impotent in proof. + My vaunts did seem hatched under Samson's locks, + Yet woman's words did give me murdering knocks + + * * * * * + + At Sorrow's door I knocked: they craved my name + I answered, "One unworthy to be known." + "What one?" say they. "One worthiest of blame." + "But who?" "A wretch not God's, nor yet his own." + "A man?" "Oh, no!" "A beast?" "Much worse." "What creature?" + "A rock." "How called?" "The rock of scandal, Peter." + + * * * * * + + Christ! health of fevered soul, heaven of the mind, + Force of the feeble, nurse of infant loves, + Guide to the wandering foot, light to the blind, + Whom weeping wins, repentant sorrow moves! + Father in care, mother in tender heart, + Revive and save me, slain with sinful dart! + + If King Manasseh, sunk in depth of sin, + With plaints and tears recovered grace and crown, + A worthless worm some mild regard may win, + And lowly creep where flying threw it down. + A poor desire I have to mend my ill; + I should, I would, I dare not say I will. + + I dare not say I will, but wish I may; + My pride is checked: high words the speaker spilt. + My good, O Lord, thy gift--thy strength, my stay-- + Give what thou bidst, and then bid what thou wilt. + Work with me what of me thou dost request; + Then will I dare the worst and love the best. + +Here, from another poem, are two little stanzas worth preserving: + + Yet God's must I remain, + By death, by wrong, by shame; + I cannot blot out of my heart + That grace wrought in his name. + + I cannot set at nought, + Whom I have held so dear; + I cannot make Him seem afar + That is indeed so near. + +The following poem, in style almost as simple as a ballad, is at once of +the quaintest and truest. Common minds, which must always associate a +certain conventional respectability with the forms of religion, will +think it irreverent. I judge its reverence profound, and such none the +less that it is pervaded by a sweet and delicate tone of holy humour. The +very title has a glimmer of the glowing heart of Christianity: + + + NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP. + + Behold a silly,[69] tender babe, + In freezing winter night, + In homely manger trembling lies; + Alas! a piteous sight. + + The inns are full; no man will yield + This little pilgrim bed; + But forced he is with silly beasts + In crib to shroud his head. + + Despise him not for lying there; + First what he is inquire: + An orient pearl is often found + In depth of dirty mire. + + Weigh not his crib, his wooden dish, + Nor beasts that by him feed; + Weigh not his mother's poor attire, + Nor Joseph's simple weed. + + This stable is a prince's court, + The crib his chair of state; + The beasts are parcel of his pomp, + The wooden dish his plate. + + The persons in that poor attire + His royal liveries wear; + The Prince himself is come from heaven: + This pomp is praised there. + + With joy approach, O Christian wight; + Do homage to thy King; + And highly praise this humble pomp, + Which he from heaven doth bring. + +Another, on the same subject, he calls _New Heaven, New War_. It is +fantastic to a degree. One stanza, however, I like much: + + This little babe, so few days old, + Is come to rifle Satan's fold; + All hell doth at his presence quake, + Though he himself for cold do shake; + For in this weak, unarmed wise, + The gates of hell he will surprise. + +There is profoundest truth in the symbolism of this. Here is the latter +half of a poem called _St. Peters Remorse_: + + Did mercy spin the thread + To weave injustice' loom? + Wert then a father to conclude + With dreadful judge's doom? + + It is a small relief + To say I was thy child, + If, as an ill-deserving foe, + From grace I am exiled. + + I was, I had, I could-- + All words importing want; + They are but dust of dead supplies, + Where needful helps are scant. + + Once to have been in bliss + That hardly can return, + Doth but bewray from whence I fell, + And wherefore now I mourn. + + All thoughts of passed hopes + Increase my present cross; + Like ruins of decayed joys, + They still upbraid my loss. + + O mild and mighty Lord! + Amend that is amiss; + My sin my sore, thy love my salve, + Thy cure my comfort is. + + Confirm thy former deed; + Reform that is defiled; + I was, I am, I will remain + Thy charge, thy choice, thy child. + +Here are some neat stanzas from a poem he calls + + + CONTENT AND RICH. + + My conscience is my crown, + Contented thoughts my rest; + My heart is happy in itself, + My bliss is in my breast. + + My wishes are but few, + All easy to fulfil; + I make the limits of my power + The bounds unto my will. + + Sith sails of largest size + The storm doth soonest tear, + I bear so small and low a sail + As freeth me from fear. + + And taught with often proof, + A tempered calm I find + To be most solace to itself, + Best cure for angry mind. + + No chance of Fortune's calms + Can cast my comforts down; + When Fortune smiles I smile to think + How quickly she will frown. + + And when in froward mood + She proves an angry foe: + Small gain I found to let her come, + Less loss to let her go. + +There is just one stanza in a poem of Daniel, who belongs by birth to +this group, which I should like to print by itself, if it were only for +the love Coleridge had to the last two lines of it. It needs little +stretch of scheme to let it show itself amongst religious poems. It +occurs in a fine epistle to the Countess of Cumberland. Daniel's writing +is full of the practical wisdom of the inner life, and the stanza which I +quote has a certain Wordsworthian flavour about it. It will not make a +complete sentence, but must yet stand by itself: + + Knowing the heart of man is set to be + The centre of this world, about the which + These revolutions of disturbances + Still roll; where all th' aspects of misery + Predominate; whose strong effects are such + As he must bear, being powerless to redress; + And that unless above himself he can + Erect himself, how poor a thing is man! + +Later in the decade, comes Sir Henry Wotton. It will be seen that I have +arranged my singers with reference to their birth, not to the point of +time at which this or that poem was written or published. The poetic +influences which work on the shaping fantasy are chiefly felt in youth, +and hence the predominant mode of a poet's utterance will be determined +by what and where and amongst whom he was during that season. The kinds +of the various poems will therefore probably fall into natural sequence +rather after the dates of the youth of the writers than after the years +in which they were written. + +Wotton was better known in his day as a politician than as a poet, and +chiefly in ours as the subject of one of Izaak Walton's biographies. +Something of artistic instinct, rather than finish, is evident in his +verses. Here is the best and the best-known of the few poems recognized +as his: + + + THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE. + + How happy is he born and taught, + That serveth not another's will; + Whose armour is his honest thought, + And silly truth his highest skill; + + Whose passions not his masters are; + Whose soul is still prepared for death, + Untiéd to the world with care + Of prince's grace or vulgar breath; + + Who hath his life from humours freed; + Whose conscience is his strong retreat; + Whose state can neither flatterers feed, + Nor ruin make accusers great; + + Who envieth none whom chance doth raise + Or vice; who never understood + How swords give slighter wounds than praise. + Nor rules of state, but rules of good; + + Who God doth late and early pray + More of his grace than gifts to lend; + And entertains the harmless day + With a well-chosen book or friend. + + This man is free from servile bands + Of hope to rise, or fear to fall: + Lord of himself, though not of lands + And having nothing, yet hath all. + +Some of my readers will observe that in many places I have given a +reading different from that in the best-known copy of the poem. I have +followed a manuscript in the handwriting of Ben Jonson.[70] I cannot +tell whether Jonson has put the master's hand to the amateur's work, but +in every case I find his reading the best. + +Sir John Davies must have been about fifteen years younger than Sir Fulk +Grevill. He was born in 1570, was bred a barrister, and rose to high +position through the favour of James I.--gained, it is said, by the poem +which the author called _Nosce Teipsum_,[71] but which is generally +entitled _On the Immortality of the Soul_, intending by _immortality_ the +spiritual nature of the soul, resulting in continuity of existence. It is +a wonderful instance of what can be done for metaphysics in verse, and by +means of imagination or poetic embodiment generally. Argumentation cannot +of course naturally belong to the region of poetry, however well it may +comport itself when there naturalized; and consequently, although there +are most poetic no less than profound passages in the treatise, a light +scruple arises whether its constituent matter can properly be called +poetry. At all events, however, certain of the more prosaic measures and +stanzas lend themselves readily, and with much favour, to some of the +more complex of logical necessities. And it must be remembered that in +human speech, as in the human mind, there are no absolute divisions: +power shades off into feeling; and the driest logic may find the heroic +couplet render it good service. + +Sir John Davies's treatise is not only far more poetic in image and +utterance than that of Lord Brooke, but is far more clear in argument and +firm in expression as well. Here is a fine invocation: + + O Light, which mak'st the light which makes the day! + Which sett'st the eye without, and mind within; + Lighten my spirit with one clear heavenly ray, + Which now to view itself doth first begin. + + * * * * * + + Thou, like the sun, dost, with an equal ray, + Into the palace and the cottage shine; + And show'st the soul both to the clerk and lay, _learned and + By the clear lamp of th' oracle divine. [unlearned_ + +He is puzzled enough to get the theology of his time into harmony with +his philosophy, and I cannot say that he is always triumphant in the +attempt; but here at least is good argument in justification of the +freedom of man to sin. + + If by His word he had the current stayed + Of Adam's will, which was by nature free, + It had been one as if his word had said, + "I will henceforth that Man no Man shall be." + + * * * * * + + For what is Man without a moving mind, + Which hath a judging wit, and choosing will? + Now, if God's pow'r should her election bind, + Her motions then would cease, and stand all still. + + * * * * * + + So that if Man would be unvariable, + He must be God, or like a rock or tree; + For ev'n the perfect angels were not stable, + But had a fall more desperate than we. + +The poem contains much excellent argument in mental science as well as in +religion and metaphysics; but with that department I have nothing to do. + +I shall now give an outlook from the highest peak of the poem--to any who +are willing to take the trouble necessary for seeing what another would +show them. + +The section from which I have gathered the following stanzas is devoted +to the more immediate proof of the soul's immortality. + + Her only end is never-ending bliss, + Which is the eternal face of God to see, + Who last of ends and first of causes is; + And to do this, she must eternal be. + + Again, how can she but immortal be, + When with the motions of both will and wit, + She still aspireth to eternity, + And never rests till she attains to it? + + Water in conduit-pipes can rise no higher + Than the well-head from whence it first doth spring; + Then since to eternal God she doth aspire, + She cannot but be an eternal thing. + + At first her mother-earth she holdeth dear, + And doth embrace the world and worldly things; + She flies close by the ground, and hovers here, + And mounts not up with her celestial wings. + + Yet under heaven she cannot light on ought + That with her heavenly nature doth agree + She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought, + She cannot in this world contented be. + + For who did ever yet, in honour, wealth, + Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find? + Whoever ceased to wish, when he had health + Or having wisdom, was not vexed in mind + + Then as a bee, which among weeds doth fall, + Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay-- + She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all, + But, pleased with none, doth rise, and soar away; + + So, when the soul finds here no true content, + And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take, + She doth return from whence she first was sent, + And flies to him that first her wings did make. + + Wit, seeking truth, from cause to cause ascends, + And never rests till it the first attain; + Will, seeking good, finds many middle ends, + But never stays till it the last do gain. + + Now God the truth, and first of causes is; + God is the last good end, which lasteth still; + Being Alpha and Omega named for this: + Alpha to wit, Omega to the will. + + Since then her heavenly kind she doth display + In that to God she doth directly move, + And on no mortal thing can make her stay, + She cannot be from hence, but from above. + +One passage more, the conclusion and practical summing up of the whole: + + O ignorant poor man! what dost thou bear, + Locked up within the casket of thy breast? + What jewels and what riches hast thou there! + What heavenly treasure in so weak a chest! + + Think of her worth, and think that God did mean + This worthy mind should worthy things embrace: + Blot not her beauties with thy thoughts unclean, + Nor her dishonour with thy passion base. + + Kill not her quickening power with surfeitings; + Mar not her sense with sensuality; + Cast not her serious wit on idle things; + Make not her free-will slave to vanity. + + And when thou think'st of her eternity, + Think not that death against our nature is; + Think it a birth; and when thou go'st to die, + Sing like a swan, as if thou went'st to bliss. + + And if thou, like a child, didst fear before, + Being in the dark where thou didst nothing see; + Now I have brought thee torch-light, fear no more; + Now when thou diest thou canst not hood-wink'd be. + + And thou, my soul, which turn'st with curious eye + To view the beams of thine own form divine, + Know, that thou canst know nothing perfectly, + While thou art clouded with this flesh of mine. + + Take heed of over-weening, and compare + Thy peacock's feet with thy gay peacock's train: + Study the best and highest things that are, + But of thyself an humble thought retain. + + Cast down thyself, and only strive to raise + The story of thy Maker's sacred name: + Use all thy powers that blessed Power to praise, + Which gives the power to be, and use the same. + +In looking back over our path from the point we have now reached, the +first thought that suggests itself is--How much the reflective has +supplanted the emotional! I do not mean for a moment that the earliest +poems were without thought, or that the latest are without emotion; but +in the former there is more of the skin, as it were--in the latter, more +of the bones of worship; not that in the one the worship is but +skin-deep, or that in the other the bones are dry. + +To look at the change a little more closely: we find in the earliest +time, feeling working on historic fact and on what was received as such, +and the result simple aspiration after goodness. The next stage is good +_doctrine_--I use the word, as St. Paul uses it, for instruction in +righteousness--chiefly by means of allegory, all attempts at analysis +being made through personification of qualities. Here the general form is +frequently more poetic than the matter. After this we have a period +principally of imitation, sometimes good, sometimes indifferent. Next, +with the Reformation and the revival of literature together, come more of +art and more of philosophy, to the detriment of the lyrical expression. +People cannot think and sing: they can only feel and sing. But the +philosophy goes farther in this direction, even to the putting in +abeyance of that from which song takes its rise,--namely, feeling itself. +As to the former, amongst the verse of the period I have given, there is +hardly anything to be called song but Sir Philip Sidney's Psalms, and for +them we are more indebted to King David than to Sir Philip. As to the +latter, even in the case of that most mournful poem of the Countess of +Pembroke, it is, to quite an unhealthy degree, occupied with the attempt +to work upon her own feelings by the contemplation of them, instead of +with the utterance of those aroused by the contemplation of truth. In her +case the metaphysics have begun to prey upon and consume the emotions. +Besides, that age was essentially a dramatic age, as even its command of +language, especially as shown in the pranks it plays with it, would +almost indicate; and the dramatic impulse is less favourable, though not +at all opposed, to lyrical utterance. In the cases of Sir Fulk Grevill +and Sir John Davies, the feeling is assuredly profound; but in form and +expression the philosophy has quite the upper hand. + +We must not therefore suppose, however, that the cause of religious +poetry has been a losing one. The last wave must sink that the next may +rise, and the whole tide flow shorewards. The man must awake through all +his soul, all his strength, all his mind, that he may worship God in +unity, in the one harmonious utterance of his being: his heart must be +united to fear his name. And for this final perfection of the individual +the race must awake. At this season and that season, this power or that +power must be chiefly developed in her elect; and for its sake the growth +of others must for a season be delayed. But the next generation will +inherit all that has gone before; and its elect, if they be themselves +pure in heart, and individual, that is original, in mind, will, more or +less thoroughly, embody the result, in subservience to some new +development, essential in its turn to further progress. Even the fallow +times, which we are so ready to call barren, must have their share in +working the one needful work. They may be to the nation that which +sickness so often is to the man--a time of refreshing from the Lord. A +nation's life does not lie in its utterance any more than in the things +which it possesses: it lies in its action. The utterance is a result, and +therefore a sign, of life; but there may be life without any _such_ sign. +To do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God, is the highest +life of a nation as of an individual; and when the time for speech comes, +it will be such life alone that causes the speech to be strong at once +and harmonious. When at last there are not ten righteous men in Sodom, +Sodom can neither think, act, nor say, and her destruction is at hand. + +While the wave of the dramatic was sinking, the wave of the lyric was +growing in force and rising in height. Especially as regards religious +poetry we are as yet only approaching the lyrical jubilee. Fact and +faith, self-consciousness and metaphysics, all are needful to the lyric +of love. Modesty and art find their grandest, simplest labour in rightly +subordinating each of those to the others. How could we have a George +Herbert without metaphysics? In those poems I have just given, the way of +metaphysics was prepared for him. That which overcolours one age to the +injury of its harmony, will, in the next or the next, fall into its own +place in the seven-chorded rainbow of truth. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +DR. DONNE. + + +We now come to Dr. John Donne, a man of justly great respect and +authority, who, born in the year 1573, the fifteenth of Queen Elizabeth, +died Dean of St. Paul's in the year 1636. But, although even Ben Jonson +addresses him as "the delight of Phoebus and each Muse," we are too far +beyond the power of his social presence and the influence of his public +utterances to feel that admiration of his poems which was so largely +expressed during his lifetime. Of many of those that were written in his +youth, Izaak Walton says Dr. Donne "wished that his own eyes had +witnessed their funerals." Faulty as they are, however, they are not the +less the work of a great and earnest man. + +Bred to the law, but never having practised it, he lost his secretaryship +to the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere through the revenge of Sir George More, +whose daughter Donne had married in secret because of her father's +opposition. Dependent thereafter for years on the generous kindness of +unrelated friends, he yet for conscience' sake refused to take orders +when a good living was offered him; and it was only after prolonged +thought that he yielded to the importunity of King James, who was so +convinced of his surpassing fitness for the church that he would speed +him towards no other goal. When at length he dared hope that God might +have called him to the high office, never man gave himself to its duties +with more of whole-heartedness and devotion, and none have proved +themselves more clean of the sacrilege of serving at the altar for the +sake of the things offered thereon. + +He is represented by Dr. Johnson as one of the chief examples of that +school of poets called by himself the _metaphysical_, an epithet which, +as a definition, is almost false. True it is that Donne and his followers +were always ready to deal with metaphysical subjects, but it was from +their mode, and not their subjects, that Dr. Johnson classed them. What +this mode was we shall see presently, for I shall be justified in setting +forth its strangeness, even absurdity, by the fact that Dr. Donne was the +dear friend of George Herbert, and had much to do with the formation of +his poetic habits. Just twenty years older than Herbert, and the valued +and intimate friend of his mother, Donne was in precisely that relation +of age and circumstance to influence the other in the highest degree. + +The central thought of Dr. Donne is nearly sure to be just: the +subordinate thoughts by means of which he unfolds it are often grotesque, +and so wildly associated as to remind one of the lawlessness of a dream, +wherein mere suggestion without choice or fitness rules the sequence. As +some of the writers of whom I have last spoken would play with words, Dr. +Donne would sport with ideas, and with the visual images or embodiments +of them. Certainly in his case much knowledge reveals itself in the +association of his ideas, and great facility in the management and +utterance of them. True likewise, he says nothing unrelated to the main +idea of the poem; but not the less certainly does the whole resemble the +speech of a child of active imagination, to whom judgment as to the +character of his suggestions is impossible, his taste being equally +gratified with a lovely image and a brilliant absurdity: a butterfly and +a shining potsherd are to him similarly desirable. Whatever wild thing +starts from the thicket of thought, all is worthy game to the hunting +intellect of Dr. Donne, and is followed without question of tone, +keeping, or harmony. In his play with words, Sir Philip Sidney kept good +heed that even that should serve the end in view; in his play with ideas, +Dr. John Donne, so far from serving the end, sometimes obscures it almost +hopelessly: the hart escapes while he follows the squirrels and weasels +and bats. It is not surprising that, their author being so inartistic +with regard to their object, his verses themselves should be harsh and +unmusical beyond the worst that one would imagine fit to be called verse. +He enjoys the unenviable distinction of having no rival in ruggedness of +metric movement and associated sounds. This is clearly the result of +indifference; an indifference, however, which grows very strange to us +when we find that he _can_ write a lovely verse and even an exquisite +stanza. + +Greatly for its own sake, partly for the sake of illustration, I quote a +poem containing at once his best and his worst, the result being such an +incongruity that we wonder whether it might not be called his best _and_ +his worst, because we cannot determine which. He calls it _Hymn to God, +my God, in my Sickness_. The first stanza is worthy of George Herbert in +his best mood. + + Since I am coming to that holy room, + Where with the choir of saints for evermore + I shall be made thy music, as I come + I tune the instrument here at the door, + And what I must do then, think here before. + +To recognize its beauty, leaving aside the depth and truth of the phrase, +"Where I shall be made thy music," we must recall the custom of those +days to send out for "a noise of musicians." Hence he imagines that he +has been summoned as one of a band already gone in to play before the +king of "The High Countries:" he is now at the door, where he is +listening to catch the tone, that he may have his instrument tuned and +ready before he enters. But with what a jar the next stanza breaks on +heart, mind, and ear! + + Whilst my physicians by their love are grown + Cosmographers, and I[72] their map, who lie + Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown + That this is my south-west discovery, + _Per fretum febris_--by these straits to die;-- + +Here, in the midst of comparing himself to a map, and his physicians to +cosmographers consulting the map, he changes without warning into a +navigator whom they are trying to follow upon the map as he passes +through certain straits--namely, those of the fever--towards his +south-west discovery, Death. Grotesque as this is, the absurdity deepens +in the end of the next stanza by a return to the former idea. He is +alternately a map and a man sailing on the map of himself. But the first +half of the stanza is lovely: my reader must remember that the region of +the West was at that time the Land of Promise to England. + + I joy that in these straits I see my West; + For though those currents yield return to none, + What shall my West hurt me? As west and east + In all flat maps (and I am one) are one, + So death doth touch the resurrection. + +It is hardly worth while, except for the strangeness of the phenomenon, +to spend any time in elucidating this. Once more a map, he is that of the +two hemispheres, in which the east of the one touches the west of the +other. Could anything be much more unmusical than the line, "In all flat +maps (and I am one) are one"? But the next stanza is worse. + + Is the Pacific sea my home? Or are + The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem? + Anvan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar? + All straits, and none but straits are ways to them, + Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Sem. + +The meaning of the stanza is this: there is no earthly home: all these +places are only straits that lead home, just as they themselves cannot be +reached but through straits. + +Let my reader now forget all but the first stanza, and take it along with +the following, the last two: + + We think that Paradise and Calvary, + Christ's cross and Adam's tree, stood in one place: + Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me; + As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face, + May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace. + + So, in his purple wrapped, receive me, Lord; + By these his thorns give me his other crown; + And as to others' souls I preached thy word, + Be this my text, my sermon to mine own: + _Therefore, that he may raise, the Lord throws down._ + +Surely these are very fine, especially the middle verse of the former and +the first verse of the latter stanza. The three stanzas together make us +lovingly regret that Dr. Donne should have ridden his Pegasus over quarry +and housetop, instead of teaching him his paces. + +The next I quote is artistic throughout. Perhaps the fact, of which we +are informed by Izaak Walton, "that he caused it to be set to a grave and +solemn tune, and to be often sung to the organ by the choristers of St. +Paul's church in his own hearing, especially at the evening service," may +have something to do with its degree of perfection. There is no sign of +his usual haste about it. It is even elaborately rhymed after Norman +fashion, the rhymes in each stanza being consonant with the rhymes in +every stanza. + + + A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. + + Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, + Which was my sin, though it were done before?[73] + Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,[74] + And do run still, though still I do deplore?-- + When thou hast done, thou hast not done; + For I have more. + + Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won + Others to sin, and made my sins their door?[75] + Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun + A year or two, but wallowed in a score?-- + When thou hast done, thou hast not done; + For I have more. + + I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun + My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; + But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son + Shall shine, as he shines now and heretofore; + And having done that, thou hast done: + I fear no more. + +In those days even a pun might be a serious thing: witness the play in +the last stanza on the words _son_ and _sun_--not a mere pun, for the Son +of the Father is the Sun of Righteousness: he is Life _and_ Light. + +What the Doctor himself says concerning the hymn, appears to me not only +interesting but of practical value. He "did occasionally say to a friend, +'The words of this hymn have restored to me the same thoughts of joy that +possessed my soul in my sickness, when I composed it.'" What a help it +would be to many, if in their more gloomy times they would but recall the +visions of truth they had, and were assured of, in better moments! + +Here is a somewhat strange hymn, which yet possesses, rightly understood, +a real grandeur: + + + A HYMN TO CHRIST + + _At the Author's last going into Germany_.[76] + + In what torn ship soever I embark, + That ship shall be my emblem of thy ark; + What sea soever swallow me, that flood + Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood. + Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise + Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes, + Which, though they turn away sometimes-- + They never will despise. + + I sacrifice this island unto thee, + And all whom I love here and who love me: + When I have put this flood 'twixt them and me, + Put thou thy blood betwixt my sins and thee. + As the tree's sap doth seek the root below + In winter, in my winter[77] now I go + Where none but thee, the eternal root + Of true love, I may know. + + Nor thou, nor thy religion, dost control + The amorousness of an harmonious soul; + But thou wouldst have that love thyself: as thou + Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now. + Thou lov'st not, till from loving more thou free + My soul: who ever gives, takes liberty: + Oh, if thou car'st not whom I love, + Alas, thou lov'st not me! + + Seal then this bill of my divorce to all + On whom those fainter beams of love did fall; + Marry those loves, which in youth scattered be + On face, wit, hopes, (false mistresses), to thee. + Churches are best for prayer that have least light: + To see God only, I go out of sight; + And, to 'scape stormy days, I choose + An everlasting night + +To do justice to this poem, the reader must take some trouble to enter +into the poet's mood. + +It is in a measure distressing that, while I grant with all my heart the +claim of his "Muse's white sincerity," the taste in--I do not say +_of_--some of his best poems should be such that I will not present them. + +Out of twenty-three _Holy Sonnets_, every one of which, I should almost +say, possesses something remarkable, I choose three. Rhymed after the +true Petrarchian fashion, their rhythm is often as bad as it can be to be +called rhythm at all. Yet these are very fine. + + Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay? + Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste; + I run to death, and death meets me as fast, + And all my pleasures are like yesterday. + I dare not move my dim eyes any way, + Despair behind, and death before doth cast + Such terror; and my feeble flesh doth waste + By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh. + Only them art above, and when towards thee + By thy leave I can look, I rise again; + But our old subtle foe so tempteth me, + That not one hour myself I can sustain: + Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art, + And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart. + + If faithful souls be alike glorified + As angels, then my father's soul doth see, + And adds this even to full felicity, + That valiantly I hell's wide mouth o'erstride: + But if our minds to these souls be descried + By circumstances and by signs that be + Apparent in us--not immediately[78]-- + How shall my mind's white truth by them be tried? + They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn, + And, style blasphemous, conjurors to call + On Jesu's name, and pharisaical + Dissemblers feign devotiön. Then turn, + O pensive soul, to God; for he knows best + Thy grief, for he put it into my breast. + + Death, be not proud, though some have calléd thee + Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; + For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, + Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. + From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be, + Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow; + And soonest[79] our best men with thee do go, + Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery! + Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, + And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; + And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, + And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st[80] thou then? + One short sleep past, we wake eternally, + And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die. + +In a poem called _The Cross_, full of fantastic conceits, we find the +following remarkable lines, embodying the profoundest truth. + + As perchance carvers do not faces make, + But that away, which hid them there, do take: + Let crosses so take what hid Christ in thee, + And be his image, or not his, but he. + +One more, and we shall take our leave of Dr. Donne. It is called a +fragment; but it seems to me complete. It will serve as a specimen of his +best and at the same time of his most characteristic mode of presenting +fine thoughts grotesquely attired. + + + RESURRECTION. + + Sleep, sleep, old sun; thou canst not have re-past[81] + As yet the wound thou took'st on Friday last. + Sleep then, and rest: the world may bear thy stay; + A better sun rose before thee to-day; + Who, not content to enlighten all that dwell + On the earth's face as thou, enlightened hell, + And made the dark fires languish in that vale, + As at thy presence here our fires grow pale; + Whose body, having walked on earth and now + Hastening to heaven, would, that he might allow + Himself unto all stations and fill all, + For these three days become a mineral. + He was all gold when he lay down, but rose + All tincture; and doth not alone dispose + Leaden and iron wills to good, but is + Of power to make even sinful flesh like his. + Had one of those, whose credulous piety + Thought that a soul one might discern and see + Go from a body, at this sepulchre been, + And issuing from the sheet this body seen, + He would have justly thought this body a soul, + If not of any man, yet of the whole. + +What a strange mode of saying that he is our head, the captain of our +salvation, the perfect humanity in which our life is hid! Yet it has its +dignity. When one has got over the oddity of these last six lines, the +figure contained in them shows itself almost grand. + +As an individual specimen of the grotesque form holding a fine sense, +regard for a moment the words, + + He was all gold when he lay down, but rose + All tincture; + +which means, that, entirely good when he died, he was something yet +greater when he rose, for he had gained the power of making others good: +the _tincture_ intended here was a substance whose touch would turn the +basest metal into gold. + +Through his poems are scattered many fine passages; but not even his +large influence on the better poets who followed is sufficient to justify +our listening to him longer now. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +BISHOP HALL AND GEORGE SANDYS. + + +Joseph Hall, born in 1574, a year after Dr. Donne, bishop, first of +Exeter, next of Norwich, is best known by his satires. It is not for such +that I can mention him: the most honest satire can claim no place amongst +religious poems. It is doubtful if satire ever did any good. Its very +language is that of the half-brute from which it is well named. + +Here are three poems, however, which the bishop wrote for his choir. + + + ANTHEM FOR THE CATHEDRAL OF EXETER. + + Lord, what am I? A worm, dust, vapour, nothing! + What is my life? A dream, a daily dying! + What is my flesh? My soul's uneasy clothing! + What is my time? A minute ever flying: + My time, my flesh, my life, and I, + What are we, Lord, but vanity? + + Where am I, Lord? Down in a vale of death. + What is my trade? Sin, my dear God offending; + My sport sin too, my stay a puff of breath. + What end of sin? Hell's horror never ending: + My way, my trade, sport, stay, and place, + Help to make up my doleful case. + + Lord, what art thou? Pure life, power, beauty, bliss. + Where dwell'st thou? Up above in perfect light. + What is thy time? Eternity it is. + What state? Attendance of each glorious sprite: + Thyself, thy place, thy days, thy state + Pass all the thoughts of powers create. + + How shall I reach thee, Lord? Oh, soar above, + Ambitious soul. But which way should I fly? + Thou, Lord, art way and end. What wings have I? + Aspiring thoughts--of faith, of hope, of love: + Oh, let these wings, that way alone + Present me to thy blissful throne. + + + FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY. + + Immortal babe, who this dear day + Didst change thine heaven for our clay, + And didst with flesh thy Godhead veil, + Eternal Son of God, all hail! + + Shine, happy star! Ye angels, sing + Glory on high to heaven's king! + Run, shepherds, leave your nightly watch! + See heaven come down to Bethlehem's cratch! _manger._ + + Worship, ye sages of the east, + The king of gods in meanness drest! + O blessed maid, smile, and adore + The God thy womb and arms have bore! + + Star, angels, shepherds, and wise sages! + Thou virgin-glory of all ages! + Restored frame of heaven and earth! + Joy in your dear Redeemer's birth. + + * * * * * + + Leave, O my soul, this baser world below; + O leave this doleful dungeön of woe; + And soar aloft to that supernal rest + That maketh all the saints and angels blest: + Lo, there the Godhead's radiant throne, + Like to ten thousand suns in one! + + Lo, there thy Saviour dear, in glory dight, _dressed._ + Adored of all the powers of heavens bright! + Lo, where that head that bled with thorny wound, + Shines ever with celestíal honour crowned! + That hand that held the scornful reed + Makes all the fiends infernal dread. + + That back and side that ran with bloody streams + Daunt angels' eyes with their majestic beams; + Those feet, once fastened to the cursed tree, + Trample on Death and Hell, in glorious glee. + Those lips, once drenched with gall, do make + With their dread doom the world to quake. + + Behold those joys thou never canst behold; + Those precious gates of pearl, those streets of gold, + Those streams of life, those trees of Paradise + That never can be seen by mortal eyes! + And when thou seest this state divine, + Think that it is or shall be thine. + + See there the happy troops of purest sprites + That live above in endless true delights! + And see where once thyself shalt rangéd be, + And look and long for immortality! + And now beforehand help to sing + Hallelujahs to heaven's king. + +Polished as these are in comparison to those of Dr. Donne, and fine, too, +as they are intrinsically, there are single phrases in his that are worth +them all--except, indeed, that one splendid line, + + Trample on Death and Hell in glorious glee. + +George Sandys, the son of an archbishop of York, and born in 1577, is +better known by his travels in the east than by his poetry. But his +version of the Psalms is in good and various verse, not unfrequently +graceful, sometimes fine. The following is not only in a popular rhythm, +but is neat and melodious as well. + + + PSALM XCII. + + Thou who art enthroned above, + Thou by whom we live and move, + O how sweet, how excellent + Is't with tongue and heart's consent, + Thankful hearts and joyful tongues, + To renown thy name in songs! + When the morning paints the skies, + When the sparkling stars arise, + Thy high favours to rehearse, + Thy firm faith, in grateful verse! + Take the lute and violin, + Let the solemn harp begin, + Instruments strung with ten strings, + While the silver cymbal rings. + From thy works my joy proceeds; + How I triumph in thy deeds! + Who thy wonders can express? + All thy thoughts are fathomless-- + Hid from men in knowledge blind, + Hid from fools to vice inclined. + Who that tyrant sin obey, + Though they spring like flowers in May-- + Parched with heat, and nipt with frost, + Soon shall fade, for ever lost. + Lord, thou art most great, most high; + Such from all eternity. + Perish shall thy enemies, + Rebels that against thee rise. + All who in their sins delight, + Shall be scattered by thy might + But thou shall exalt my horn + Like a youthful unicorn, + Fresh and fragrant odours shed + On thy crowned prophet's head. + I shall see my foes' defeat, + Shortly hear of their retreat; + But the just like palms shall flourish + Which the plains of Judah nourish, + Like tall cedars mounted on + Cloud-ascending Lebanon. + Plants set in thy court, below + Spread their roots, and upwards grow; + Fruit in their old age shall bring, + Ever fat and flourishing. + This God's justice celebrates: + He, my rock, injustice hates. + + + PSALM CXXIII. + + Thou mover of the rolling spheres, + I, through the glasses of my tears, + To thee my eyes erect. + As servants mark their master's hands, + As maids their mistress's commands, + And liberty expect, + + So we, depressed by enemies + And growing troubles, fix our eyes + On God, who sits on high; + Till he in mercy shall descend, + To give our miseries an end, + And turn our tears to joy. + + O save us, Lord, by all forlorn, + The subject of contempt and scorn: + Defend us from their pride + Who live in fluency and ease, + Who with our woes their malice please, + And miseries deride. + +Here is a part of the 66th Psalm, which makes a complete little song of +itself: + + Bless the Lord. His praise be sung + While an ear can hear a tongue. + He our feet establisheth; + He our souls redeems from death. + Lord, as silver purified, + Thou hast with affliction tried, + Thou hast driven into the net, + Burdens on our shoulders set. + Trod on by their horses' hooves, + Theirs whom pity never moves, + We through fire, with flames embraced, + We through raging floods have passed, + Yet by thy conducting hand, + Brought into a wealthy land. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A FEW OF THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS. + + +From the nature of their adopted mode, we cannot look for much poetry of +a devotional kind from the dramatists. That mode admitting of no +utterance personal to the author, and requiring the scope of a play to +bring out the intended truth, it is no wonder that, even in the dramas of +Shakspere, profound as is the teaching they contain, we should find +nothing immediately suitable to our purpose; while neither has he left +anything in other form approaching in kind what we seek. Ben Jonson, +however, born in 1574, who may be regarded as the sole representative of +learning in the class, has left, amongst a large number of small pieces, +three _Poems of Devotion_, whose merit may not indeed be great, but whose +feeling is, I think, genuine. Whatever were his faults, and they were not +few, hypocrisy was not one of them. His nature was fierce and honest. He +might boast, but he could not pretend. His oscillation between the +reformed and the Romish church can hardly have had other cause than a +vacillating conviction. It could not have served any prudential end that +we can see, to turn catholic in the reign of Elizabeth, while in prison +for killing in a duel a player who had challenged him. + + + THE SINNER'S SACRIFICE. + + 1.--TO THE HOLY TRINITY. + + O holy, blessed, glorious Trinity + Of persons, still one God in Unity, + The faithful man's believed mystery, + Help, help to lift + + Myself up to thee, harrowed, torn, and bruised + By sin and Satan, and my flesh misused. + As my heart lies--in pieces, all confused-- + O take my gift. + + All-gracious God, the sinner's sacrifice, + A broken heart, thou wert not wont despise, + But, 'bove the fat of rams or bulls, to prize + An offering meet + + For thy acceptance: Oh, behold me right, + And take compassion on my grievous plight! + What odour can be, than a heart contrite, + To thee more sweet? + + Eternal Father, God, who didst create + This All of nothing, gav'st it form and fate, + And breath'st into it life and light, with state + To worship thee! + + Eternal God the Son, who not deniedst + To take our nature, becam'st man, and diedst, + To pay our debts, upon thy cross, and criedst + _All's done in me!_ + + Eternal Spirit, God from both proceeding, + Father and Son--the Comforter, in breeding + Pure thoughts in man, with fiery zeal them feeding + For acts of grace! + + Increase those acts, O glorious Trinity + Of persons, still one God in Unity, + Till I attain the longed-for mystery + Of seeing your face, + + Beholding one in three, and three in one, + A Trinity, to shine in Union-- + The gladdest light, dark man can think upon-- + O grant it me, + + Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, you three, + All co-eternal in your majesty, + Distinct in persons, yet in unity + One God to see; + + My Maker, Saviour, and my Sanctifier, + To hear, to mediate,[82] sweeten my desire, + With grace, with love, with cherishing entire! + O then, how blest + + Among thy saints elected to abide, + And with thy angels placéd, side by side! + But in thy presence truly glorified, + Shall I there rest! + + + 2.--AN HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. + + Hear me, O God! + A broken heart + Is my best part: + Use still thy rod, + That I may prove + Therein thy love. + + If thou hadst not + Been stern to me, + But left me free, + I had forgot + Myself and thee. + + For sin's so sweet + As minds ill bent _that._ + Rarely repent + Until they meet + Their punishment. + + Who more can crave + Than thou hast done? + Thou gay'st a Son + + To free a slave, + First made of nought, + With all since bought. + + Sin, death, and hell + His glorious name + Quite overcame; + Yet I rebel, + And slight the same. + + But I'll come in + Before my loss + Me farther toss, + As sure to win + Under his cross. + + + 3.--AN HYMN ON THE NATIVITY OF MY SAVIOUR. + + I sing the birth was born to-night, + The author both of life and light; + The angels so did sound it. + And like the ravished shepherds said, + Who saw the light, and were afraid, + Yet searched, and true they found it. + + The Son of God, the eternal King, + That did us all salvation bring, + And freed the soul from danger; + He whom the whole world could not take, + The Word which heaven and earth did make, + Was now laid in a manger. + + The Father's wisdom willed it so; + The Son's obedience knew no _No;_ + Both wills were in one stature; + And, as that wisdom had decreed, + The Word was now made flesh indeed, + And took on him our nature. + + What comfort by him do we win, + Who made himself the price of sin, + To make us heirs of glory! + To see this babe, all innocence, + A martyr born in our defence!-- + Can man forget this story? + +Somewhat formal and artificial, no doubt; rugged at the same time, like +him who wrote them. When a man would utter that concerning which he has +only felt, not thought, he can express himself only in the forms he has +been taught, conventional or traditional. Let his powers be ever so much +developed in respect of other things, here, where he has not meditated, +he must understand as a child, think as a child, speak as a child. He can +as yet generate no sufficing or worthy form natural to himself. But the +utterance is not therefore untrue. There was no professional bias to +cause the stream of Ben Jonson's verses to flow in that channel. Indeed, +feeling without thought, and the consequent combination of impulse to +speak with lack of matter, is the cause of much of that common-place +utterance concerning things of religion which is so wearisome, but which +therefore it is not always fair to despise as cant. + +About the same age as Ben Jonson, though the date of his birth is +unknown, I now come to mention Thomas Heywood, a most voluminous writer +of plays, who wrote also a book, chiefly in verse, called _The Hierarchy +of the Blessed Angels_, a strange work, in which, amongst much that is +far from poetic, occur the following remarkable metaphysico-religious +verses. He had strong Platonic tendencies, interesting himself chiefly +however in those questions afterwards pursued by Dr. Henry More, +concerning witches and such like subjects, which may be called the shadow +of Platonism. + + I have wandered like a sheep that's lost, + To find Thee out in every coast: + _Without_ I have long seeking bin, _been._ + Whilst thou, the while, abid'st _within_. + Through every broad street and strait lane + Of this world's city, but in vain, + I have enquired. The reason why? + I sought thee ill: for how could I + Find thee _abroad_, when thou, mean space, + Hadst made _within_ thy dwelling-place? + + I sent my messengers about, + To try if they could find thee out; + But all was to no purpose still, + Because indeed they sought thee ill: + For how could they discover thee + That saw not when thou entered'st me? + + Mine eyes could tell me? If he were, + Not coloured, sure he came not there. + If not by sound, my ears could say + He doubtless did not pass my way. + My nose could nothing of him tell, + Because my God he did not smell. + None such I relished, said my taste, + And therefore me he never passed. + My feeling told me that none such + There entered, for he none did touch. + Resolved by them how should I be, + Since none of all these are in thee, + + In thee, my God? Thou hast no hue + That man's frail optic sense can view; + No sound the ear hears; odour none + The smell attracts; all taste is gone + At thy appearance; where doth fail + A body, how can touch prevail? + What even the brute beasts comprehend-- + To think thee such, I should offend. + + Yet when I seek my God, I enquire + For light than sun and moon much higher, + More clear and splendrous, 'bove all light + Which the eye receives not, 'tis so bright. + I seek a voice beyond degree + Of all melodious harmony: + The ear conceives it not; a smell + Which doth all other scents excel: + No flower so sweet, no myrrh, no nard, + Or aloës, with it compared; + Of which the brain not sensible is. + I seek a sweetness--such a bliss + As hath all other sweets surpassed, + And never palate yet could taste. + I seek that to contain and hold + No touch can feel, no embrace enfold. + + So far this light the rays extends, + As that no place it comprehends. + So deep this sound, that though it speak + It cannot by a sense so weak + Be entertained. A redolent grace + The air blows not from place to place. + A pleasant taste, of that delight + It doth confound all appetite. + A strict embrace, not felt, yet leaves + That virtue, where it takes it cleaves. + This light, this sound, this savouring grace, + This tasteful sweet, this strict embrace, + No place contains, no eye can see, + My God is, and there's none but he. + +Very remarkable verses from a dramatist! They indicate substratum enough +for any art if only the art be there. Even those who cannot enter into +the philosophy of them, which ranks him among the mystics of whom I have +yet to speak, will understand a good deal of it symbolically: for how +could he be expected to keep his poetry and his philosophy distinct when +of themselves they were so ready to run into one; or in verse to define +carefully betwixt degree and kind, when kinds themselves may rise by +degrees? To distinguish without separating; to be able to see that what +in their effects upon us are quite different, may yet be a grand flight +of ascending steps, "to stop--no record hath told where," belongs to the +philosopher who is not born mutilated, but is a poet as well. + +John Fletcher, likewise a dramatist, the author of the following poem, +was two years younger than Ben Jonson. It is, so far as I am aware, the +sole non-dramatic voice he has left behind him. Its opening is an +indignant apostrophe to certain men of pretended science, who in his time +were much consulted--the Astrologers. + + + UPON AN HONEST MAN'S FORTUNE. + + You that can look through heaven, and tell the stars; + Observe their kind conjunctions, and their wars; + Find out new lights, and give them where you please-- + To those men honours, pleasures, to those ease; + You that are God's surveyors, and can show + How far, and when, and why the wind doth blow; + Know all the charges of the dreadful thunder, + And when it will shoot over, or fall under; + Tell me--by all your art I conjure ye-- + Yes, and by truth--what shall become of me. + Find out my star, if each one, as you say, + Have his peculiar angel, and his way; + Observe my fate; next fall into your dreams; + Sweep clean your houses, and new-line your schemes;[83] + Then say your worst. Or have I none at all? + Or is it burnt out lately? or did fall? + Or am I poor? not able? no full flame? + My star, like me, unworthy of a name? + Is it your art can only work on those + That deal with dangers, dignities, and clothes, + With love, or new opinions? You all lie: + A fishwife hath a fate, and so have I-- + But far above your finding. He that gives, + Out of his providence, to all that lives-- + And no man knows his treasure, no, not you;-- + + * * * * * + + He that made all the stars you daily read, + And from them filch a knowledge how to feed, + Hath hid this from you. Your conjectures all + Are drunken things, not how, but when they fall: + Man is his own star, and the soul that can + Render an honest, and a perfect man, + Commands all light, all influence, all fate; + Nothing to him falls early, or too late. + Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, + Our fatal shadows that walk by us still; + And when the stars are labouring, we believe + It is not that they govern, but they grieve + For stubborn ignorance. All things that are + Made for our general uses, are at war-- + Even we among ourselves; and from the strife + Your first unlike opinions got a life. + Oh man! thou image of thy Maker's good, + What canst thou fear, when breathed into thy blood + His spirit is that built thee? What dull sense + Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence? + Who made the morning, and who placed the light + Guide to thy labours? Who called up the night, + And bid her fall upon thee like sweet showers + In hollow murmurs, to lock up thy powers? + Who gave thee knowledge? Who so trusted thee, + To let thee grow so near himself, the Tree?[84] + Must he then be distrusted? Shall his frame + Discourse with him why thus and thus I am? + He made the angels thine, thy fellows all; + Nay, even thy servants, when devotions call. + Oh! canst thou be so stupid then, so dim, + To seek a saving influence, and lose him? + Can stars protect thee? Or can poverty, + Which is the light to heaven, put out his eye? + He is my star; in him all truth I find, + All influence, all fate; and when my mind + Is furnished with his fulness, my poor story + Shall outlive all their age, and all their glory. + The hand of danger cannot fall amiss + When I know what, and in whose power it is; + Nor want, the cause[85] of man, shall make me groan: + A holy hermit is a mind alone.[86] + Doth not experience teach us, all we can, + To work ourselves into a glorious man? + + * * * * * + + My mistress then be knowledge and fair truth; + So I enjoy all beauty and all youth! + + * * * * * + + Affliction, when I know it, is but this-- + A deep alloy, whereby man tougher is + To bear the hammer; and the deeper still, + We still arise more image of his will; + Sickness, an humorous cloud 'twixt us and light; + And death, at longest, but another night, + Man is his own star, and that soul that can + Be honest, is the only perfect man. + +There is a tone of contempt in the verses which is not religious; but +they express a true philosophy and a triumph of faith in God. The word +_honest_ is here equivalent to _true_. + +I am not certain whether I may not now be calling up a singer whose song +will appear hardly to justify his presence in the choir. But its teaching +is of high import, namely, of content and cheerfulness and courage, and +being both worthy and melodious, it gravitates heavenward. The singer is +yet another dramatist: I presume him to be Thomas Dekker. I cannot be +certain, because others were concerned with him in the writing of the +drama from which I take it. He it is who, in an often-quoted passage, +styles our Lord "The first true gentleman that ever breathed;" just as +Chaucer, in a poem I have given, calls him "The first stock-father of +gentleness." + +We may call the little lyric + + + A SONG OF LABOUR. + + Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? + Oh, sweet content! + Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed? + Oh, punishment! + Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed + To add to golden numbers, golden numbers? + Oh, sweet content! + _Chorus_.--Work apace, apace, apace, apace; + Honest labour bears a lovely face. + + Canst drink the waters of the crispéd spring? + Oh, sweet content! + Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears? + Oh, punishment! + Then he that patiently want's burden bears, + No burden bears, but is a king, a king! + Oh, sweet content! + _Chorus_.--Work apace, apace, apace, apace; + Honest labour bears a lovely face. + +It is a song of the poor in spirit, whose is the kingdom of heaven. But +if my co-listeners prefer, we will call it the voice, not of one who +sings in the choir, but of one who "tunes his instrument at the door." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +SIR JOHN BEAUMONT AND DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. + + +Sir John Beaumont, born in 1582, elder brother to the dramatist who wrote +along with Fletcher, has left amongst his poems a few fine religious +ones. From them I choose the following: + + + OF THE EPIPHANY. + + Fair eastern star, that art ordained to run + Before the sages, to the rising sun, + Here cease thy course, and wonder that the cloud + Of this poor stable can thy Maker shroud: + Ye, heavenly bodies, glory to be bright, + And are esteemed as ye are rich in light; + But here on earth is taught a different way, + Since under this low roof the highest lay. + Jerusalem erects her stately towers, + Displays her windows, and adorns her bowers; + Yet there thou must not cast a trembling spark: + Let Herod's palace still continue dark; + Each school and synagogue thy force repels, + There Pride, enthroned in misty errors, dwells; + The temple, where the priests maintain their choir, + Shall taste no beam of thy celestial fire, + While this weak cottage all thy splendour takes: + A joyful gate of every chink it makes. + Here shines no golden roof, no ivory stair, + No king exalted in a stately chair, + Girt with attendants, or by heralds styled, + But straw and hay enwrap a speechless child; + Yet Sabae's lords before this babe unfold + Their treasures, offering incense, myrrh, and gold. + The crib becomes an altar: therefore dies + No ox nor sheep; for in their fodder lies + The Prince of Peace, who, thankful for his bed, + Destroys those rites in which their blood was shed: + The quintessence of earth he takes and[87] fees, + And precious gums distilled from weeping trees; + Rich metals and sweet odours now declare + The glorious blessings which his laws prepare, + To clear us from the base and loathsome flood + Of sense, and make us fit for angels' food, + Who lift to God for us the holy smoke + Of fervent prayers with which we him invoke, + And try our actions in that searching fire, + By which the seraphims our lips inspire: + No muddy dross pure minerals shall infect, + We shall exhale our vapours up direct: + No storms shall cross, nor glittering lights deface + Perpetual sighs which seek a happy place. + +The creatures, no longer offered on his altar, standing around the Prince +of Life, to whom they have given a bed, is a lovely idea. The end is +hardly worthy of the rest, though there is fine thought involved in it. + +The following contains an utterance of personal experience, the truth of +which will be recognized by all to whom heavenly aspiration and needful +disappointment are not unknown. + + + IN DESOLATION. + + O thou who sweetly bend'st my stubborn will, + Who send'st thy stripes to teach and not to kill! + Thy cheerful face from me no longer hide; + Withdraw these clouds, the scourges of my pride; + I sink to hell, if I be lower thrown: + I see what man is, being left alone. + My substance, which from nothing did begin, + Is worse than nothing by the weight of sin: + I see myself in such a wretched state + As neither thoughts conceive, nor words relate. + How great a distance parts us! for in thee + Is endless good, and boundless ill in me. + All creatures prove me abject, but how low + Thou only know'st, and teachest me to know. + To paint this baseness, nature is too base; + This darkness yields not but to beams of grace. + Where shall I then this piercing splendour find? + Or found, how shall it guide me, being blind? + Grace is a taste of bliss, a glorious gift, + Which can the soul to heavenly comforts lift: + It will not shine to me, whose mind is drowned + In sorrows, and with worldly troubles bound; + It will not deign within that house to dwell, + Where dryness reigns, and proud distractions swell. + Perhaps it sought me in those lightsome days + Of my first fervour, when few winds did raise + The waves, and ere they could full strength obtain, + Some whispering gale straight charmed them down again; + When all seemed calm, and yet the Virgin's child + On my devotions in his manger smiled; + While then I simply walked, nor heed could take + Of complacence, that sly, deceitful snake; + When yet I had not dangerously refused + So many calls to virtue, nor abused + The spring of life, which I so oft enjoyed, + Nor made so many good intentions void, + Deserving thus that grace should quite depart, + And dreadful hardness should possess my heart: + Yet in that state this only good I found, + That fewer spots did then my conscience wound; + Though who can censure whether, in those times, _judg_ + The want of feeling seemed the want of crimes? + If solid virtues dwell not but in pain, + I will not wish that golden age again + Because it flowed with sensible delights + Of heavenly things: God hath created nights + As well as days, to deck the varied globe; + Grace comes as oft clad in the dusky robe + Of desolation, as in white attire, + Which better fits the bright celestial choir. + Some in foul seasons perish through despair, + But more through boldness when the days are fair. + This then must be the medicine for my woes-- + To yield to what my Saviour shall dispose; + To glory in my baseness; to rejoice + In mine afflictions; to obey his voice, + As well when threatenings my defects reprove, + As when I cherished am with words of love; + To say to him, in every time and place, + "Withdraw thy comforts, so thou leave thy grace." + +Surely this is as genuine an utterance, whatever its merits as a +poem--and those I judge not small--as ever flowed from Christian heart! + +Chiefly for the sake of its beauty, I give the last passage of a poem +written upon occasion of the feasts of the Annunciation and the +Resurrection falling on the same day. + + Let faithful souls this double feast attend + In two processions. Let the first descend + The temple's stairs, and with a downcast eye + Upon the lowest pavement prostrate lie: + In creeping violets, white lilies, shine + Their humble thoughts and every pure design. + The other troop shall climb, with sacred heat, + The rich degrees of Solomon's bright seat: _steps_ + + In glowing roses fervent zeal they bear, + And in the azure flower-de-lis appear + Celestial contemplations, which aspire + Above the sky, up to the immortal choir. + +William Drummond of Hawthornden, a Scotchman, born in 1585, may almost be +looked upon as the harbinger of a fresh outburst of word-music. No doubt +all the great poets have now and then broken forth in lyrical jubilation. +Ponderous Ben Jonson himself, when he takes to song, will sing in the joy +of the very sound; but great men have always so much graver work to do, +that they comparatively seldom indulge in this kind of melody. Drummond +excels in madrigals, or canzonets--baby-odes or songs--which have more of +wing and less of thought than sonnets. Through the greater part of his +verse we hear a certain muffled tone of the sweetest, like the music that +ever threatens to break out clear from the brook, from the pines, from +the rain-shower,--never does break out clear, but remains a suggested, +etherially vanishing tone. His is a _voix voilée_, or veiled voice of +song. It is true that in the time we are now approaching far more +attention was paid not merely to the smoothness but to the melody of +verse than any except the great masters had paid before; but some are at +the door, who, not being great masters, yet do their inferior part nearly +as well as they their higher, uttering a music of marvellous and +individual sweetness, which no mere musical care could secure, but which +springs essentially from music in the thought gathering to itself musical +words in melodious division, and thus fashioning for itself a fitting +body. The melody of their verse is all their own--as original as the +greatest art-forms of the masters. Of Drummond, then, here are two +sonnets on the Nativity; the first spoken by the angels, the second by +the shepherds. + + + _The Angels_. + + Run, shepherds, run where Bethlehem blest appears. + We bring the best of news; be not dismayed: + A Saviour there is born more old than years, + Amidst heaven's rolling height this earth who stayed. + In a poor cottage inned, a virgin maid + A weakling did him bear, who all upbears; + There is he poorly swaddled, in manger laid, + To whom too narrow swaddlings are our spheres: + Run, shepherds, run, and solemnize his birth. + This is that night--no, day, grown great with bliss, + In which the power of Satan broken is: + In heaven be glory, peace unto the earth! + Thus singing, through the air the angels swam, + And cope of stars re-echoëd the same. + + + _The Shepherds_. + + O than the fairest day, thrice fairer night! + Night to best days, in which a sun doth rise + Of which that golden eye which clears the skies + Is but a sparkling ray, a shadow-light! + And blessed ye, in silly pastors' sight, _simple._ + Mild creatures, in whose warm[88] crib now lies + That heaven-sent youngling, holy-maid-born wight, + Midst, end, beginning of our prophecies! + Blest cottage that hath flowers in winter spread! + Though withered--blessed grass, that hath the grace + To deck and be a carpet to that place! + Thus sang, unto the sounds of oaten reed, + Before the babe, the shepherds bowed on knees; + And springs ran nectar, honey dropped from trees. + +No doubt there is a touch of the conventional in these. Especially in the +close of the last there is an attempt to glorify the true by the homage +of the false. But verses which make us feel the marvel afresh--the marvel +visible and credible by the depth of its heart of glory--make us at the +same time easily forget the discord in themselves. + +The following, not a sonnet, although it looks like one, measuring the +lawful fourteen lines, is the closing paragraph of a poem he calls _A +Hymn to the Fairest Fair_. + + O king, whose greatness none can comprehend, + Whose boundless goodness doth to all extend! + Light of all beauty! ocean without ground, + That standing flowest, giving dost abound! + Rich palace, and indweller ever blest, + Never not working, ever yet in rest! + What wit cannot conceive, words say of thee, + Here, where, as in a mirror, we but see + Shadows of shadows, atoms of thy might, + Still owly-eyed while staring on thy light, + Grant that, released from this earthly jail, + And freed of clouds which here our knowledge veil, + In heaven's high temples, where thy praises ring, + I may in sweeter notes hear angels sing. + +That is, "May I in heaven hear angels sing what wit cannot conceive +here." + +Drummond excels in nobility of speech, and especially in the fine line +and phrase, so justly but disproportionately prized in the present day. I +give an instance of each: + + Here do seraphim + Burn with immortal love; there cherubim + _With other noble people of the light_, + As eaglets in the sun, delight their sight. + + * * * * * + + Like to a lightning through the welkin hurled, + _That scores with flames the way_, and every eye + With terror dazzles as it swimmeth by. + +Here are six fine verses, in the heroic couplet, from _An Hymn of the +Resurrection_. + + So a small seed that in the earth lies hid + And dies--reviving bursts her cloddy side; + Adorned with yellow locks, of new is born, + And doth become a mother great with corn; + Of grains bring hundreds with it, which when old + Enrich the furrows with a sea of gold. + +But I must content myself now with a little madrigal, the only one fit +for my purpose. Those which would best support what I have said of his +music are not of the kind we want. Unfortunately, the end of this one is +not equal to the beginning. + + + CHANGE SHOULD BREED CHANGE. + + New doth the sun appear; + The mountains' snows decay; + Crowned with frail flowers comes forth the baby year. + My soul, time posts away; + And thou yet in that frost, + Which flower and fruit hath lost, + As if all here immortal were, dost stay! + For shame! thy powers awake; + Look to that heaven which never night makes black; + And there, at that immortal sun's bright rays, + Deck thee with flowers which fear not rage of days. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE BROTHERS FLETCHER. + + +I now come to make mention of two gifted brothers, Giles and Phineas +Fletcher, both clergymen, the sons of a clergyman and nephews to the +Bishop of Bristol, therefore the cousins of Fletcher the dramatist, a +poem by whom I have already given Giles, the eldest, is supposed to have +been born in 1588. From his poem _Christ's Victory and Triumph_, I select +three passages. + +To understand the first, it is necessary to explain that while Christ is +on earth a dispute between Justice and Mercy, such as is often +represented by the theologians, takes place in heaven. We must allow the +unsuitable fiction attributing distraction to the divine Unity, for the +sake of the words in which Mercy overthrows the arguments of Justice. For +the poet unintentionally nullifies the symbolism of the theologian, +representing Justice as defeated. He forgets that the grandest exercise +of justice is mercy. The confusion comes from the fancy that justice +means _vengeance upon sin_, and not _the doing of what is right_. Justice +can be at no strife with mercy, for not to do what is just would be most +unmerciful. + +Mercy first sums up the arguments Justice has been employing against her, +in the following stanza: + + He was but dust; why feared he not to fall? + And being fallen how can he hope to live? + Cannot the hand destroy him that made all? + Could he not take away as well as give? + Should man deprave, and should not God deprive? + Was it not all the world's deceiving spirit + (That, bladdered up with pride of his own merit, + Fell in his rise) that him of heaven did disinherit? + +To these she then proceeds to make reply: + + He was but dust: how could he stand before him? + And being fallen, why should he fear to die? + Cannot the hand that made him first, restore him? + Depraved of sin, should he deprivéd lie + Of grace? Can he not find infirmity + That gave him strength?--Unworthy the forsaking + He is, whoever weighs (without mistaking) + Or maker of the man or manner of his making.[89] + + Who shall thy temple incense any more, + Or to thy altar crown the sacrifice, + Or strew with idle flowers the hallowed floor? + Or what should prayer deck with herbs and spice, _why._ + Her vials breathing orisons of price, + If all must pay that which all cannot pay? + O first begin with me, and Mercy slay, + And thy thrice honoured Son, that now beneath doth stray. + + But if or he or I may live and speak, + And heaven can joy to see a sinner weep, + Oh! let not Justice' iron sceptre break + A heart already broke, that low doth creep, + And with prone humbless her feet's dust doth sweep. + Must all go by desert? Is nothing free? + Ah! if but those that only worthy be, + None should thee ever see! none should thee ever see! + + What hath man done that man shall not undo + Since God to him is grown so near akin? + Did his foe slay him? He shall slay his foe. + Hath he lost all? He all again shall win. + Is sin his master? He shall master sin. + Too hardy soul, with sin the field to try! + The only way to conquer was to fly; + But thus long death hath lived, and now death's self shall die. + + He is a path, if any be misled; + He is a robe, if any naked be; + If any chance to hunger, he is bread; + If any be a bondman, he is free; + If any be but weak, how strong is he! + To dead men life he is, to sick men health, + To blind men sight, and to the needy wealth; + A pleasure without loss, a treasure without stealth. + + Who can forget--never to be forgot-- + The time that all the world in slumber lies, + When like the stars the singing angels shot + To earth, and heaven awakéd all his eyes + To see another sun at midnight rise? + On earth was never sight of peril fame; _pareil: equal._ + For God before man like himself did frame, + But God himself now like a mortal man became. + + * * * * * + + The angels carolled loud their song of peace; + The cursed oracles were stricken dumb; + To see their Shepherd the poor shepherds press; + To see their King, the kingly Sophies come; + And them to guide unto his master's home, + A star comes dancing up the orient, + That springs for joy over the strawy tent, + Where gold, to make their prince a crown, they all present. + +No doubt there are here touches of execrable taste, such as the punning +trick with _man_ and _manners_, suggesting a false antithesis; or the +opposition of the words _deprave_ and _deprive_; but we have in them only +an instance of how the meretricious may co-exist with the lovely. The +passage is fine and powerful, notwithstanding its faults and obscurities. + +Here is another yet more beautiful: + + So down the silver streams of Eridan,[90] + On either side banked with a lily wall, + Whiter than both, rides the triumphant swan, + And sings his dirge, and prophesies his fall, + Diving into his watery funeral! + But Eridan to Cedron must submit + His flowery shore; nor can he envy it, + If, when Apollo sings, his swans do silent sit.[91] + + That heavenly voice I more delight to hear + Than gentle airs to breathe; or swelling waves + Against the sounding rocks their bosoms tear;[92] + Or whistling reeds that rutty[93] Jordan laves, + And with their verdure his white head embraves; _adorns._ + To chide the winds; or hiving bees that fly + About the laughing blossoms[94] of sallowy,[95] + Rocking asleep the idle grooms[96] that lazy lie. + + And yet how can I hear thee singing go, + When men, incensed with hate, thy death foreset? + Or else, why do I hear thee sighing so, + When thou, inflamed with love, their life dost get,[97] + That love and hate, and sighs and songs are met? + But thus, and only thus, thy love did crave + To send thee singing for us to thy grave, + While we sought thee to kill, and thou sought'st us to save. + + When I remember Christ our burden bears, + I look for glory, but find misery; + I look for joy, but find a sea of tears; + I look that we should live, and find him die; + I look for angels' songs, and hear him cry: + Thus what I look, I cannot find so well; + Or rather, what I find I cannot tell, + These banks so narrow are, those streams so highly swell. + +We would gladly eliminate the few common-place allusions; but we must +take them with the rest of the passage. Besides far higher merits, it is +to my ear most melodious. + +One more passage of two stanzas from Giles Fletcher, concerning the +glories of heaven: I quote them for the sake of earth, not of heaven. + + Gaze but upon the house where man embowers: + With flowers and rushes pavéd is his way; + Where all the creatures are his servitours: + The winds do sweep his chambers every day, + And clouds do wash his rooms; the ceiling gay, + Starréd aloft, the gilded knobs embrave: + If such a house God to another gave, + How shine those glittering courts he for himself will have! + + And if a sullen cloud, as sad as night, + In which the sun may seem embodiéd, + Depured of all his dross, we see so white, + Burning in melted gold his watery head, + Or round with ivory edges silvered; + What lustre super-excellent will he + Lighten on those that shall his sunshine see + In that all-glorious court in which all glories be! + +These brothers were intense admirers of Spenser. To be like him Phineas +must write an allegory; and such an allegory! Of all the strange poems in +existence, surely this is the strangest. The _Purple Island_ is man, +whose body is anatomically described after the allegory of a city, which +is then peopled with all the human faculties personified, each set in +motion by itself. They say the anatomy is correct: the metaphysics are +certainly good. The action of the poem is just another form of the _Holy +War_ of John Bunyan--all the good and bad powers fighting for the +possession of the Purple Island. What renders the conception yet more +amazing is the fact that the whole ponderous mass of anatomy and +metaphysics, nearly as long as the _Paradise Lost_, is put as a song, in +a succession of twelve cantos, in the mouth of a shepherd, who begins a +canto every morning to the shepherds and shepherdesses of the +neighbourhood, and finishes it by folding-time in the evening. And yet +the poem is full of poetry. He triumphs over his difficulties partly by +audacity, partly by seriousness, partly by the enchantment of song. But +the poem will never be read through except by students of English +literature. It is a whole; its members are well-fitted; it is full of +beauties--in parts they swarm like fire-flies; and _yet_ it is not a good +poem. It is like a well-shaped house, built of mud, and stuck full of +precious stones. I do not care, in my limited space, to quote from it. +Never was there a more incongruous dragon of allegory. + +Both brothers were injured, not by their worship of Spenser, but by the +form that worship took--imitation. They seem more pleased to produce a +line or stanza that shall recall a line or stanza of Spenser, than to +produce a fine original of their own. They even copy lines almost word +for word from their great master. This is pure homage: it was their +delight that such adaptations should be recognized--just as it was +Spenser's hope, when he inserted translated stanzas from Tasso's +_Jerusalem Delivered_ in _The Fairy Queen_, to gain the honour of a true +reproduction. Yet, strange fate for imitators! both, but Giles +especially, were imitated by a greater than their worship--even by +Milton. They make Spenser's worse; Milton makes theirs better. They +imitate Spenser, faults and all; Milton glorifies their beauties. + +From the smaller poems of Phineas, I choose the following version of + + + PSALM CXXX. + + From the deeps of grief and fear, + O Lord, to thee my soul repairs: + From thy heaven bow down thine ear; + Let thy mercy meet my prayers. + Oh! if thou mark'st what's done amiss, + What soul so pure can see thy bliss? + + But with thee sweet Mercy stands, + Sealing pardons, working fear. + Wait, my soul, wait on his hands; + Wait, mine eye; oh! wait, mine ear: + If he his eye or tongue affords, + Watch all his looks, catch all his words. + + As a watchman waits for day, + And looks for light, and looks again: + When the night grows old and gray, + To be relieved he calls amain: + So look, so wait, so long, mine eyes, + To see my Lord, my sun, arise. + + Wait, ye saints, wait on our Lord, + For from his tongue sweet mercy flows; + Wait on his cross, wait on his word; + Upon that tree redemption grows: + He will redeem his Israel + From sin and wrath, from death and hell. + +I shall now give two stanzas of his version of the 127th Psalm. + + If God build not the house, and lay + The groundwork sure--whoever build, + It cannot stand one stormy day. + If God be not the city's shield, + If he be not their bars and wall, + In vain is watch-tower, men, and all. + + Though then thou wak'st when others rest, + Though rising thou prevent'st the sun, + Though with lean care thou daily feast, + Thy labour's lost, and thou undone; + But God his child will feed and keep, + And draw the curtains to his sleep. + +Compare this with a version of the same portion by Dr. Henry King, Bishop +of Chichester, who, no great poet, has written some good verse. He was +about the same age as Phineas Fletcher. + + Except the Lord the house sustain, + The builder's labour is in vain; + Except the city he defend, + And to the dwellers safety send, + In vain are sentinels prepared, + Or arméd watchmen for the guard. + + You vainly with the early light + Arise, or sit up late at night + To find support, and daily eat + Your bread with sorrow earned and sweat; + When God, who his beloved keeps, + This plenty gives with quiet sleeps. + +What difference do we find? That the former has the more poetic touch, +the latter the greater truth. The former has just lost the one precious +thing in the psalm; the latter has kept it: that care is as useless as +painful, for God gives us while we sleep, and not while we labour. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +WITHER, HERRICK, AND QUARLES. + + +George Wither, born in 1588, therefore about the same age as Giles +Fletcher, was a very different sort of writer indeed. There could hardly +be a greater contrast. Fancy, and all her motley train, were scarcely +known to Wither, save by the hearing of the ears. + +He became an eager Puritan towards the close of his life, but his poetry +chiefly belongs to the earlier part of it. Throughout it is distinguished +by a certain straightforward simplicity of good English thought and +English word. His hymns remind me, in the form of their speech, of +Gascoigne. I shall quote but little; for, although there is a sweet calm +and a great justice of reflection and feeling, there is hardly anything +of that warming glow, that rousing force, that impressive weight in his +verse, which is the chief virtue of the lofty rhyme. + +The best in a volume of ninety _Hymns and Songs of the Church_, is, I +think, _The Author's Hymn_ at the close, of which I give three stanzas. +They manifest the simplicity and truth of the man, reflecting in their +very tone his faithful, contented, trustful nature. + + By thy grace, those passions, troubles, + And those wants that me opprest, + Have appeared as water-bubbles, + Or as dreams, and things in jest: + For, thy leisure still attending, + I with pleasure saw their ending. + + Those afflictions and those terrors, + Which to others grim appear, + Did but show me where my errors + And my imperfections were; + But distrustful could not make me + Of thy love, nor fright nor shake me. + + Those base hopes that would possess me, + And those thoughts of vain repute + Which do now and then oppress me, + Do not, Lord, to me impute; + And though part they will not from me, + Let them never overcome me. + +He has written another similar volume, but much larger, and of a somewhat +extraordinary character. It consists of no fewer than two hundred and +thirty-three hymns, mostly long, upon an incredible variety of subjects, +comprehending one for every season of nature and of the church, and one +for every occurrence in life of which the author could think as likely to +confront man or woman. Of these subjects I quote a few of the more +remarkable, but even from them my reader can have little conception of +the variety in the book: _A Hymn whilst we are washing_; _In a clear +starry Night_; _A Hymn for a House-warming_; _After a great Frost or +Snow_; _For one whose Beauty is much praised_; _For one upbraided with +Deformity_; _For a Widower or a Widow delivered from a troublesome +Yokefellow_; _For a Cripple_; _For a Jailor_; _For a Poet_. + +Here is a portion of one which I hope may be helpful to some of my +readers. + + + WHEN WE CANNOT SLEEP. + + What ails my heart, that in my breast + It thus unquiet lies; + And that it now of needful rest + Deprives my tiréd eyes? + + Let not vain hopes, griefs, doubts, or fears, + Distemper so my mind; + But cast on God thy thoughtful cares, + And comfort thou shalt find. + + In vain that soul attempteth ought, + And spends her thoughts in vain, + Who by or in herself hath sought + Desiréd peace to gain. + + On thee, O Lord, on thee therefore, + My musings now I place; + Thy free remission I implore, + And thy refreshing grace. + + Forgive thou me, that when my mind + Oppressed began to be, + I sought elsewhere my peace to find, + Before I came to thee. + + And, gracious God, vouchsafe to grant, + Unworthy though I am, + The needful rest which now I want, + That I may praise thy name. + +Before examining the volume, one would say that no man could write so +many hymns without frequent and signal failure. But the marvel here is, +that the hymns are all so very far from bad. He can never have written in +other than a gentle mood. There must have been a fine harmony in his +nature, that _kept_ him, as it were. This peacefulness makes him +interesting in spite of his comparative flatness. I must restrain remark, +however, and give five out of twelve stanzas of another of his hymns. + + + A ROCKING HYMN. + + Sweet baby, sleep; what ails my dear? + What ails my darling thus to cry? + Be still, my child, and lend thine ear + To hear me sing thy lullaby. + My pretty lamb, forbear to weep; + Be still, my dear; sweet baby, sleep. + + Whilst thus thy lullaby I sing, + For thee great blessings ripening be; + Thine eldest brother is a king, + And hath a kingdom bought for thee. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + A little infant once was he, + And strength in weakness then was laid + Upon his virgin mother's knee, + That power to thee might be conveyed. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + Within a manger lodged thy Lord, + Where oxen lay, and asses fed; + Warm rooms we do to thee afford, + An easy cradle or a bed. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + Thou hast, yet more to perfect this, + A promise and an earnest got, + Of gaining everlasting bliss, + Though thou, my babe, perceiv'st it not. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + +I think George Wither's verses will grow upon the reader of them, tame as +they are sure to appear at first. His _Hallelujah, or Britain's Second +Remembrancer_, from which I have been quoting, is well worth possessing, +and can be procured without difficulty. + +We now come to a new sort, both of man and poet--still a clergyman. It is +an especial pleasure to write the name of Robert Herrick amongst the +poets of religion, for the very act records that the jolly, careless +Anacreon of the church, with his head and heart crowded with pleasures, +threw down at length his wine-cup, tore the roses from his head, and +knelt in the dust. + +Nothing bears Herrick's name so unrefined as the things Dr. Donne wrote +in his youth; but the impression made by his earlier poems is of a man of +far shallower nature, and greatly more absorbed in the delights of the +passing hour. In the year 1648, when he was fifty-seven years of age, +being prominent as a Royalist, he was ejected from his living by the +dominant Puritans; and in that same year he published his poems, of which +the latter part and later written is his _Noble Numbers_, or religious +poems. We may wonder at his publishing the _Hesperides_ along with them, +but we must not forget that, while the manners of a time are never to be +taken as a justification of what is wrong, the judgment of men concerning +what is wrong will be greatly influenced by those manners--not +necessarily on the side of laxity. It is but fair to receive his own +testimony concerning himself, offered in these two lines printed at the +close of his _Hesperides_: + + To his book's end this last line he'd have placed: + _Jocund his muse was, but his life was chaste_. + +We find the same artist in the _Noble Numbers_ as in the _Hesperides_, +but hardly the same man. However far he may have been from the model of a +clergyman in the earlier period of his history, partly no doubt from the +society to which his power of song made him acceptable, I cannot believe +that these later poems are the results of mood, still less the results of +mere professional bias, or even sense of professional duty. + +In a good many of his poems he touches the heart of truth; in others, +even those of epigrammatic form, he must be allowed to fail in point as +well as in meaning. As to his art-forms, he is guilty of great offences, +the result of the same passion for lawless figures and similitudes which +Dr. Donne so freely indulged. But his verses are brightened by a certain +almost childishly quaint and innocent humour; while the tenderness of +some of them rises on the reader like the aurora of the coming sun of +George Herbert. I do not forget that, even if some of his poems were +printed in 1639, years before that George Herbert had done his work and +gone home: my figure stands in relation to the order I have adopted. + +Some of his verse is homelier than even George Herbert's homeliest. One +of its most remarkable traits is a quaint thanksgiving for the commonest +things by name--not the less real that it is sometimes even queer. For +instance: + + God gives not only corn for need, + But likewise superabundant seed; + Bread for our service, bread for show; + Meat for our meals, and fragments too: + He gives not poorly, taking some + Between the finger and the thumb, + But for our glut, and for our store, + Fine flour pressed down, and running o'er. + +Here is another, delightful in its oddity. We can fancy the merry yet +gracious poet chuckling over the vision of the child and the fancy of his +words. + + + A GRACE FOR A CHILD. + + Here a little child I stand, + Heaving up my either hand; + Cold as paddocks though they be, _frogs._ + Here I lift them up to thee, + For a benison to fall + On our meat, and on us all. _Amen_. + +I shall now give two or three of his longer poems, which are not long, +and then a few of his short ones. The best known is the following, but it +is not so well known that I must therefore omit it. + + + HIS LITANY TO THE HOLY SPIRIT. + + In the hour of my distress, + When temptations me oppress, + And when I my sins confess, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When I lie within my bed, + Sick in heart, and sick in head, + And with doubts discomforted, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the house doth sigh and weep, + And the world is drowned in sleep, + Yet mine eyes the watch do keep, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the artless doctor sees _without skill._ + No one hope, but of his fees, + And his skill runs on the lees, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When his potion and his pill, + His or none or little skill, + Meet for nothing but to kill, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the passing-bell doth toll, + And the furies in a shoal + Come to fright a parting soul, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the tapers now burn blue, + And the comforters are few, + And that number more than true, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the priest his last hath prayed, + And I nod to what is said, + 'Cause my speech is now decayed, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When God knows I'm tossed about, + Either with despair or doubt, + Yet, before the glass be out, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the tempter me pursu'th + With the sins of all my youth, + And half damns me with untruth, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the flames and hellish cries + Fright mine ears and fright mine eyes, + And all terrors me surprise, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the judgment is revealed, + And that opened which was sealed; + When to thee I have appealed, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + + THE WHITE ISLAND, OR PLACE OF THE BLEST. + + In this world, the Isle of Dreams, + While we sit by sorrow's streams, + Tears and terrors are our themes, + Reciting; + + But when once from hence we fly, + More and more approaching nigh + Unto young eternity, + Uniting; + + In that whiter island, where + Things are evermore sincere; + Candour here and lustre there, + Delighting: + + There no monstrous fancies shall + Out of hell an horror call, + To create, or cause at all, + Affrighting. + + There, in calm and cooling sleep + We our eyes shall never steep, + But eternal watch shall keep, + Attending + + Pleasures such as shall pursue + Me immortalized and you; + And fresh joys, as never too + Have ending. + + + TO DEATH. + + Thou bid'st me come away; + And I'll no longer stay + Than for to shed some tears + For faults of former years; + And to repent some crimes + Done in the present times; + And next, to take a bit + Of bread, and wine with it; + To don my robes of love, + Fit for the place above; + To gird my loins about + With charity throughout, + And so to travel hence + With feet of innocence: + These done, I'll only cry, + "God, mercy!" and so die. + + + ETERNITY. + + O years and age, farewell! + Behold I go + Where I do know + Infinity to dwell. + + And these mine eyes shall see + All times, how they + Are lost i' th' sea + Of vast eternity, + + Where never moon shall sway + The stars; but she + And night shall be + Drowned in one endless day. + + + THE GOODNESS OF HIS GOD. + + When winds and seas do rage, + And threaten to undo me, + Thou dost their wrath assuage, + If I but call unto thee. + + A mighty storm last night + Did seek my soul to swallow; + But by the peep of light + A gentle calm did follow. + + What need I then despair + Though ills stand round about me; + Since mischiefs neither dare + To bark or bite without thee? + + + TO GOD. + + Lord, I am like to mistletoe, + Which has no root, and cannot grow + Or prosper, but by that same tree + It clings about: so I by thee. + What need I then to fear at all + So long as I about thee crawl? + But if that tree should fall and die, + Tumble shall heaven, and down will I. + +Here are now a few chosen from many that--to borrow a term from +Crashaw--might be called + + + DIVINE EPIGRAMS. + + God, when he's angry here with any one, + His wrath is free from perturbation; + And when we think his looks are sour and grim, + The alteration is in us, not him. + + * * * * * + + God can't be wrathful; but we may conclude + Wrathful he may be by similitude: + God's wrathful said to be when he doth do + That without wrath, which wrath doth force us to. + + * * * * * + + 'Tis hard to find God; but to comprehend + Him as he is, is labour without end. + + * * * * * + + God's rod doth watch while men do sleep, and then + The rod doth sleep while vigilant are men. + + * * * * * + + A man's trangression God does then remit, + When man he makes a penitent for it. + + * * * * * + + God, when he takes my goods and chattels hence, + Gives me a portion, giving patience: + What is in God is God: if so it be + He patience gives, he gives himself to me. + + * * * * * + + Humble we must be, if to heaven we go; + High is the roof there, but the gate is low. + + * * * * * + + God who's in heaven, will hear from thence, + If not to the sound, yet to the sense. + + * * * * * + + The same who crowns the conqueror, will be + A coadjutor in the agony. + + * * * * * + + God is so potent, as his power can _that._ + Draw out of bad a sovereign good to man. + + * * * * * + + Paradise is, as from the learn'd I gather, + A choir of blest souls circling in the Father. + + * * * * * + + Heaven is not given for our good works here; + Yet it is given to the labourer. + + * * * * * + +One more for the sake of Martha, smiled at by so many because they are +incapable either of her blame or her sister's praise. + + The repetition of the name, made known + No other than Christ's full affection. + +And so farewell to the very lovable Robert Herrick. + +Francis Quarles was born in 1592. I have not much to say about him, +popular as he was in his own day, for a large portion of his writing +takes the shape of satire, which I consider only an active form of +negation. I doubt much if mere opposition to the false is of any benefit. +Convince a man by argument that the thing he has been taught is false, +and you leave his house empty, swept, and garnished; but the expulsion of +the falsehood is no protection against its re-entrance in another mask, +with seven worse than itself in its company. The right effort of the +teacher is to give the positive--to present, as he may, the vision of +reality, for the perception of which, and not for the discovery of +falsehood, is man created. This will not only cast out the demon, but so +people the house that he will not dare return. If a man might disprove +all the untruths in creation, he would hardly be a hair's breadth nearer +the end of his own making. It is better to hold honestly one fragment of +truth in the midst of immeasurable error, than to sit alone, if that were +possible, in the midst of an absolute vision, clear as the hyaline, but +only repellent of falsehood, not receptive of truth. It is the positive +by which a man shall live. Truth is his life. The refusal of the false is +not the reception of the true. A man may deny himself into a spiritual +lethargy, without denying one truth, simply by spending his strength for +that which is not bread, until he has none left wherewith to search for +the truth, which alone can feed him. Only when subjected to the positive +does the negative find its true vocation. + +I am jealous of the living force cast into the slough of satire. No +doubt, either indignant or loving rebuke has its end and does its work, +but I fear that wit, while rousing the admiration of the spiteful or the +like witty, comes in only to destroy its dignity. At the same time, I am +not sure whether there might not be such a judicious combination of the +elements as to render my remarks inapplicable. + +At all events, poetry favours the positive, and from the _Emblems_ named +of Quarles I shall choose one in which it fully predominates. There is +something in it remarkably fine. + + + PHOSPHOR, BRING THE DAY. + + Will't ne'er be morning? Will that promised light + Ne'er break, and clear those clouds of night? + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day, + Whose conquering ray + May chase these fogs: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + How long, how long shall these benighted eyes + Languish in shades, like feeble flies + Expecting spring? How long shall darkness soil + The face of earth, and thus beguile + Our souls of sprightful action? When, when will day + Begin to dawn, whose new-born ray + May gild the weathercocks of our devotion, + And give our unsouled souls new motion? + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day: + The light will fray + These horrid mists: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + * * * * * + + Let those whose eyes, like owls, abhor the light-- + Let those have night that love the night: + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + How sad delay + Afflicts dull hopes! Sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + Alas! my light-in-vain-expecting eyes + Can find no objects but what rise + From this poor mortal blaze, a dying spark + Of Vulcan's forge, whose flames are dark,-- + A dangerous, dull, blue-burning light, + As melancholy as the night: + Here's all the suns that glister in the sphere + Of earth: Ah me! what comfort's here! + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + Haste, haste away + Heaven's loitering lamp: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + Blow, Ignorance. O thou, whose idle knee + Rocks earth into a lethargy, + And with thy sooty fingers hast benight + The world's fair cheeks, blow, blow thy spite; + Since thou hast puffed our greater taper, do + Puff on, and out the lesser too. + If e'er that breath-exiled flame return, + Thou hast not blown as it will burn. + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day: + Light will repay + The wrongs of night: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + +With honoured, thrice honoured George Herbert waiting at the door, I +cannot ask Francis Quarles to remain longer: I can part with him without +regret, worthy man and fair poet as he is. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +GEORGE HERBERT. + + +But, with my hand on the lock, I shrink from opening the door. Here comes +a poet indeed! and how am I to show him due honour? With his book humbly, +doubtfully offered, with the ashes of the poems of his youth fluttering +in the wind of his priestly garments, he crosses the threshold. Or +rather, for I had forgotten the symbol of my book, let us all go from our +chapel to the choir, and humbly ask him to sing that he may make us +worthy of his song. + +In George Herbert there is poetry enough and to spare: it is the +household bread of his being. If I begin with that which first in the +nature of things ought to be demanded of a poet, namely, Truth, +Revelation--George Herbert offers us measure pressed down and running +over. But let me speak first of that which first in time or order of +appearance we demand of a poet, namely music. For inasmuch as verse is +for the ear, not for the eye, we demand a good hearing first. Let no one +undervalue it. The heart of poetry is indeed truth, but its garments are +music, and the garments come first in the process of revelation. The +music of a poem is its meaning in sound as distinguished from word--its +meaning in solution, as it were, uncrystallized by articulation. The +music goes before the fuller revelation, preparing its way. The sound of +a verse is the harbinger of the truth contained therein. If it be a right +poem, this will be true. Herein Herbert excels. It will be found +impossible to separate the music of his words from the music of the +thought which takes shape in their sound. + + I got me flowers to strow thy way, + I got me boughs off many a tree; + But thou wast up by break of day, + And brought'st thy sweets along with thee. + +And the gift it enwraps at once and reveals is, I have said, truth of the +deepest. Hear this song of divine service. In every song he sings a +spiritual fact will be found its fundamental life, although I may quote +this or that merely to illustrate some peculiarity of mode. + +_The Elixir_ was an imagined liquid sought by the old physical +investigators, in order that by its means they might turn every common +metal into gold, a pursuit not quite so absurd as it has since appeared. +They called this something, when regarded as a solid, _the Philosopher's +Stone_. In the poem it is also called a _tincture_. + + + THE ELIXIR. + + Teach me, my God and King, + In all things thee to see; + And what I do in anything, + To do it as for thee; + + Not rudely, as a beast, + To run into an action; + But still to make thee prepossest, + And give it his perfection. _its._ + + A man that looks on glass, + On it may stay his eye; + Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, + And then the heaven spy. + + All may of thee partake: + Nothing can be so mean, + Which with his tincture--_for thy sake_-- _its._ + Will not grow bright and clean. + + A servant with this clause + Makes drudgery divine: + Who sweeps a room as for thy laws, + Makes that and the action fine. + + This is the famous stone + That turneth all to gold; + For that which God doth touch and own + Cannot for less be told. + +With a conscience tender as a child's, almost diseased in its tenderness, +and a heart loving as a woman's, his intellect is none the less powerful. +Its movements are as the sword-play of an alert, poised, well-knit, +strong-wristed fencer with the rapier, in which the skill impresses one +more than the force, while without the force the skill would be +valueless, even hurtful, to its possessor. There is a graceful humour +with it occasionally, even in his most serious poems adding much to their +charm. To illustrate all this, take the following, the title of which +means _The Retort_. + + + THE QUIP. + + The merry World did on a day + With his train-bands and mates agree + To meet together where I lay, + And all in sport to jeer at me. + + First Beauty crept into a rose; + Which when I plucked not--"Sir," said she, + "Tell me, I pray, whose hands are those?"[98] + _But thou shall answer, Lord, for me._ + + Then Money came, and, chinking still-- + "What tune is this, poor man?" said he: + "I heard in music you had skill." + _But thou shall answer, Lord, for me._ + + Then came brave Glory puffing by + In silks that whistled--who but he? + He scarce allowed me half an eye; + _But thou shall answer, Lord, for me._ + + Then came quick Wit-and-Conversation, + And he would needs a comfort be, + And, to be short, make an oration: + _But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me._ + + Yet when the hour of thy design + To answer these fine things, shall come, + Speak not at large--say I am thine; + And then they have their answer home. + +Here is another instance of his humour. It is the first stanza of a poem +to _Death_. He is glorying over Death as personified in a skeleton. + + Death, thou wast once an uncouth, hideous thing-- + Nothing but bones, + The sad effect of sadder groans: + Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing. + +No writer before him has shown such a love to God, such a childlike +confidence in him. The love is like the love of those whose verses came +first in my volume. But the nation had learned to think more, and new +difficulties had consequently arisen. These, again, had to be undermined +by deeper thought, and the discovery of yet deeper truth had been the +reward. Hence, the love itself, if it had not strengthened, had at least +grown deeper. And George Herbert had had difficulty enough in himself; +for, born of high family, by nature fitted to shine in that society where +elegance of mind, person, carriage, and utterance is most appreciated, +and having indeed enjoyed something of the life of a courtier, he had +forsaken all in obedience to the voice of his higher nature. Hence the +struggle between his tastes and his duties would come and come again, +augmented probably by such austere notions as every conscientious man +must entertain in proportion to his inability to find God in that in +which he might find him. From this inability, inseparable in its varying +degrees from the very nature of growth, springs all the asceticism of +good men, whose love to God will be the greater as their growing insight +reveals him in his world, and their growing faith approaches to the +giving of thanks in everything. + +When we have discovered the truth that whatsoever is not of faith is sin, +the way to meet it is not to forsake the human law, but so to obey it as +to thank God for it. To leave the world and go into the desert is not +thus to give thanks: it may have been the only way for this or that man, +in his blameless blindness, to take. The divine mind of George Herbert, +however, was in the main bent upon discovering God everywhere. + +The poem I give next, powerfully sets forth the struggle between liking +and duty of which I have spoken. It is at the same time an instance of +wonderful art in construction, all the force of the germinal thought kept +in reserve, to burst forth at the last. He calls it--meaning by the word, +_God's Restraint_-- + + + THE COLLAR. + + I struck the board, and cried "No more!-- + I will abroad. + What! shall I ever sigh and pine? + My lines and life are free--free as the road, + Loose as the wind, as large as store. + Shall I be still in suit? + Have I no harvest but a thorn + To let me blood, and not restore + What I have lost with cordial fruit? + Sure there was wine + Before my sighs did dry it! There was corn + Before my tears did drown it! + Is the year only lost to me? + Have I no bays to crown it? + No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted? + All wasted? + Not so, my heart; but there is fruit, + And thou hast hands. + Recover all thy sigh-blown age + On double pleasures. Leave thy cold dispute + Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage, + Thy rope of sands, + Which petty thoughts have made--and made to thee + Good cable, to enforce and draw, + And be thy law, + While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. + Away! Take heed-- + I will abroad. + Call in thy death's-head there. Tie up thy fears. + He that forbears + To suit and serve his need, + Deserves his load." + But as I raved, and grew more fierce and wild + At every word, + Methought I heard one calling "_Child!_" + And I replied, "_My Lord!_" + +Coming now to speak of his art, let me say something first about his use +of homeliest imagery for highest thought. This, I think, is in itself +enough to class him with the highest _kind_ of poets. If my reader will +refer to _The Elixir_, he will see an instance in the third stanza, "You +may look at the glass, or at the sky:" "You may regard your action only, +or that action as the will of God." Again, let him listen to the pathos +and simplicity of this one stanza, from a poem he calls _The Flower_. He +has been in trouble; his times have been evil; he has felt a spiritual +old age creeping upon him; but he is once more awake. + + And now in age[99] I bud again; + After so many deaths I live and write; + I once more smell the dew and rain, + And relish versing. O my only light, + It cannot be + That I am he + On whom thy tempests fell all night! + +Again: + + Some may dream merrily, but when they wake + They dress themselves and come to thee. + +He has an exquisite feeling of lyrical art. Not only does he keep to one +idea in it, but he finishes the poem like a cameo. Here is an instance +wherein he outdoes the elaboration of a Norman trouvère; for not merely +does each line in each stanza end with the same sound as the +corresponding line in every other stanza, but it ends with the very same +word. I shall hardly care to defend this if my reader chooses to call it +a whim; but I do say that a large degree of the peculiar musical effect +of the poem--subservient to the thought, keeping it dimly chiming in the +head until it breaks out clear and triumphant like a silver bell in the +last--is owing to this use of the same column of words at the line-ends +of every stanza. Let him who doubts it, read the poem aloud. + + + AARON. + + Holiness on the head; + Light and perfections on the breast; + Harmonious bells below, raising the dead, + To lead them unto life and rest-- + Thus are true Aarons drest. + + Profaneness in my head; + Defects and darkness in my breast; + A noise of passions ringing me for dead + Unto a place where is no rest-- + Poor priest, thus am I drest! + + Only another head + I have, another heart and breast, + Another music, making live, not dead, + Without whom I could have no rest-- + In him I am well drest. + + Christ is my only head, + My alone only heart and breast, + My only music, striking me even dead, + That to the old man I may rest, + And be in him new drest. + + So, holy in my head, + Perfect and light in my dear breast, + My doctrine turned by Christ, who is not dead, + But lives in me while I do rest-- + Come, people: Aaron's drest. + +Note the flow and the ebb of the lines of each stanza--from six to eight +to ten syllables, and back through eight to six, the number of stanzas +corresponding to the number of lines in each; only the poem itself begins +with the ebb, and ends with a full spring-flow of energy. Note also the +perfect antithesis in their parts between the first and second stanzas, +and how the last line of the poem clenches the whole in revealing its +idea--that for the sake of which it was written. In a word, note the +_unity_. + +Born in 1593, notwithstanding his exquisite art, he could not escape +being influenced by the faulty tendencies of his age, borne in upon his +youth by the example of his mother's friend, Dr. Donne. A man must be a +giant like Shakspere or Milton to cast off his age's faults. Indeed no +man has more of the "quips and cranks and wanton wiles" of the poetic +spirit of his time than George Herbert, but with this difference from the +rest of Dr. Donne's school, that such is the indwelling potency that it +causes even these to shine with a radiance such that we wish them still +to burn and not be consumed. His muse is seldom other than graceful, even +when her motions are grotesque, and he is always a gentleman, which +cannot be said of his master. We could not bear to part with his most +fantastic oddities, they are so interpenetrated with his genius as well +as his art. + +In relation to the use he makes of these faulty forms, and to show that +even herein he has exercised a refraining judgment, though indeed +fancying he has quite discarded in only somewhat reforming it, I +recommend the study of two poems, each of which he calls _Jordan_, though +why I have not yet with certainty discovered. + +It is possible that not many of his readers have observed the following +instances of the freakish in his rhyming art, which however result well. +When I say so, I would not be supposed to approve of the freak, but only +to acknowledge the success of the poet in his immediate intent. They are +related to a certain tendency to mechanical contrivance not seldom +associated with a love of art: it is art operating in the physical +understanding. In the poem called _Home_, every stanza is perfectly +finished till the last: in it, with an access of art or artfulness, he +destroys the rhyme. I shall not quarrel with my reader if he calls it the +latter, and regards it as art run to seed. And yet--and yet--I confess I +have a latent liking for the trick. I shall give one or two stanzas out +of the rather long poem, to lead up to the change in the last. + + Come, Lord; my head doth burn, my heart is sick, + While thou dost ever, ever stay; + Thy long deferrings wound me to the quick; + My spirit gaspeth night and day. + O show thyself to me, + Or take me up to thee. + + Nothing but drought and dearth, but bush and brake, + Which way soe'er I look I see: + Some may dream merrily, but when they wake + They dress themselves and come to thee. + O show thyself to me, + Or take me up to thee. + + Come, dearest Lord, pass not this holy season, + My flesh and bones and joints do pray; + And even my verse, when by the rhyme and reason + The word is _stay_,[100] says ever _come_. + O show thyself to me, + Or take me up to thee. + +Balancing this, my second instance is of the converse. In all the stanzas +but the last, the last line in each hangs unrhymed: in the last the +rhyming is fulfilled. The poem is called _Denial_. I give only a part of +it. + + When my devotions could not pierce + Thy silent ears, + Then was my heart broken as was my verse; + My breast was full of fears + And disorder. + + O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue + To cry to thee, + And then not hear it crying! All day long + My heart was in my knee: + But no hearing! + + Therefore my soul lay out of sight, + Untuned, unstrung; + My feeble spirit, unable to look right, + Like a nipt blossom, hung + Discontented. + + O cheer and tune my heartless breast-- + Defer no time; + That so thy favours granting my request, + They and my mind may chime, + And mend my rhyme. + +It had been hardly worth the space to point out these, were not the +matter itself precious. + +Before making further remark on George Herbert, let me present one of his +poems in which the oddity of the visual fancy is only equalled by the +beauty of the result. + + + THE PULLEY. + + When God at first made man, + Having a glass of blessing standing by, + "Let us," said he, "pour on him all we can: + Let the world's riches, which disperséd lie, + Contract into a span." + + So strength first made a way; + Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honour, pleasure. + When almost all was out, God made a stay, + Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, + _Rest_ in the bottom lay. + + "For if I should," said he, + "Bestow this jewel also on my creature, + He would adore my gifts instead of me, + And rest in nature, not the God of nature: + So both should losers be. + + "Yet let him keep the rest-- + But keep them with repining restlessness: + Let him be rich and weary, that, at least, + If goodness lead him not, yet weariness + May toss him to my breast." + +Is it not the story of the world written with the point of a diamond? + +There can hardly be a doubt that his tendency to unnatural forms was +encouraged by the increase of respect to symbol and ceremony shown at +this period by some of the external powers of the church--Bishop Laud in +particular. Had all, however, who delight in symbols, a power, like +George Herbert's, of setting even within the horn-lanterns of the more +arbitrary of them, such a light of poetry and devotion that their dull +sides vanish in its piercing shine, and we forget the symbol utterly in +the truth which it cannot obscure, then indeed our part would be to take +and be thankful. But there never has been even a living true symbol which +the dulness of those who will see the truth only in the symbol has not +degraded into the very cockatrice-egg of sectarianism. The symbol is by +such always more or less idolized, and the light within more or less +patronized. If the truth, for the sake of which all symbols exist, were +indeed the delight of those who claim it, the sectarianism of the church +would vanish. But men on all sides call that _the truth_ which is but its +form or outward sign--material or verbal, true or arbitrary, it matters +not which--and hence come strifes and divisions. + +Although George Herbert, however, could thus illumine all with his divine +inspiration, we cannot help wondering whether, if he had betaken himself +yet more to vital and less to half artificial symbols, the change would +not have been a breaking of the pitcher and an outshining of the lamp. +For a symbol may remind us of the truth, and at the same time obscure +it--present it, and dull its effect. It is the temple of nature and not +the temple of the church, the things made by the hands of God and not the +things made by the hands of man, that afford the truest symbols of truth. + +I am anxious to be understood. The chief symbol of our faith, _the +Cross_, it may be said, is not one of these natural symbols. I +answer--No; but neither is it an arbitrary symbol. It is not a symbol of +_a truth_ at all, but of _a fact_, of the infinitely grandest fact in the +universe, which is itself the outcome and symbol of the grandest Truth. +_The Cross_ is an historical _sign_, not properly _a symbol_, except +through the facts it reminds us of. On the other hand, _baptism_ and the +_eucharist_ are symbols of the loftiest and profoundest kind, true to +nature and all its meanings, as well as to the facts of which they remind +us. They are in themselves symbols of the truths involved in the facts +they commemorate. + +Of Nature's symbols George Herbert has made large use; but he would have +been yet a greater poet if he had made a larger use of them still. Then +at least we might have got rid of such oddities as the stanzas for steps +up to the church-door, the first at the bottom of the page; of the lines +shaped into ugly altar-form; and of the absurd Easter wings, made of ever +lengthening lines. This would not have been much, I confess, nor the gain +by their loss great; but not to mention the larger supply of images +graceful with the grace of God, who when he had made them said they were +good, it would have led to the further purification of his taste, perhaps +even to the casting out of all that could untimely move our mirth; until +possibly (for illustration), instead of this lovely stanza, he would have +given us even a lovelier: + + Listen, sweet dove, unto my song, + And spread thy golden wings on me; + Hatching my tender heart so long, + Till it get wing, and fly away with thee. + +The stanza is indeed lovely, and true and tender and clever as well; yet +who can help smiling at the notion of the incubation of the heart-egg, +although what the poet means is so good that the smile almost vanishes in +a sigh? + +There is no doubt that the works of man's hands will also afford many +true symbols; but I do think that, in proportion as a man gives himself +to those instead of studying Truth's wardrobe of forms in nature, so will +he decline from the high calling of the poet. George Herbert was too +great to be himself much injured by the narrowness of the field whence he +gathered his symbols; but his song will be the worse for it in the ears +of all but those who, having lost sight of or having never beheld the +oneness of the God whose creation exists in virtue of his redemption, +feel safer in a low-browed crypt than under "the high embowed roof." + +When the desire after system or order degenerates from a need into a +passion, or ruling idea, it closes, as may be seen in many women who are +especial house-keepers, like an unyielding skin over the mind, to the +death of all development from impulse and aspiration. The same thing +holds in the church: anxiety about order and system will kill the life. +This did not go near to being the result with George Herbert: his life +was hid with Christ in God; but the influence of his _profession_, as +distinguished from his work, was hurtful to his calling as a poet. He of +all men would scorn to claim social rank for spiritual service; he of all +men would not commit the blunder of supposing that prayer and praise are +that service of God: they are _prayer_ and _praise_, not _service_; he +knew that God can be served only through loving ministration to his sons +and daughters, all needy of commonest human help: but, as the most devout +of clergymen will be the readiest to confess, there is even a danger to +their souls in the unvarying recurrence of the outward obligations of +their service; and, in like manner, the poet will fare ill if the +conventions from which the holiest system is not free send him soaring +with sealed eyes. George Herbert's were but a little blinded thus; yet +something, we must allow, his poetry was injured by his profession. All +that I say on this point, however, so far from diminishing his praise, +adds thereto, setting forth only that he was such a poet as might have +been greater yet, had the divine gift had free course. But again I rebuke +myself and say, "Thank God for George Herbert." + +To rid our spiritual palates of the clinging flavour of criticism, let me +choose another song from his precious legacy--one less read, I presume, +than many. It shows his tendency to asceticism--the fancy of forsaking +God's world in order to serve him; it has besides many of the faults of +the age, even to that of punning; yet it is a lovely bit of art as well +as a rich embodiment of tenderness. + + + THE THANKSGIVING. + + Oh King of grief! a title strange yet true, + To thee of all kings only due! + Oh King of wounds! how shall I grieve for thee, + Who in all grief preventest me? _goest before me._ + Shall I weep blood? Why, thou hast wept such store, + That all thy body was one gore. + Shall I be scourgéd, flouted, boxéd, sold? + 'Tis but to tell the tale is told. + _My God, my God, why dost thou part from me?_ + Was such a grief as cannot be. + Shall I then sing, skipping thy doleful story, + And side with thy triumphant glory? + Shall thy strokes be my stroking? thorns my flower? + Thy rod, my posy?[101] cross, my bower? + But how then shall I imitate thee, and + Copy thy fair, though bloody hand? + Surely I will revenge me on thy love, + And try who shall victorious prove. + If thou dost give me wealth, I will restore + All back unto thee by the poor. + If thou dost give me honour, men shall see + The honour doth belong to thee. + I will not marry; or if she be mine, + She and her children shall be thine. + My bosom-friend, if he blaspheme thy name, + I will tear thence his love and fame. + One half of me being gone, the rest I give + Unto some chapel--die or live. + As for my Passion[102]--But of that anon, + When with the other I have done. + For thy Predestination, I'll contrive + That, three years hence, if I survive,[103] + I'll build a spital, or mend common ways, + But mend my own without delays. + Then I will use the works of thy creation, + As if I used them but for fashion. + The world and I will quarrel; and the year + Shall not perceive that I am here. + My music shall find thee, and every string + Shall have his attribute to sing, _its._ + That all together may accord in thee, + And prove one God, one harmony. + If thou shall give me wit, it shall appear; + If thou hast given it me, 'tis here. + Nay, I will read thy book,[104] and never move + Till I have found therein thy love-- + Thy art of love, which I'll turn back on thee: + O my dear Saviour, Victory! + Then for my Passion--I will do for that-- + Alas, my God! I know not what. + +With the preceding must be taken the following, which comes immediately +after it. + + + THE REPRISAL. + + I have considered it, and find + There is no dealing with thy mighty Passion; + For though I die for thee, I am behind: + My sins deserve the condemnation. + + O make me innocent, that I + May give a disentangled state and free; + And yet thy wounds still my attempts defy, + For by thy death I die for thee. + + Ah! was it not enough that thou + By thy eternal glory didst outgo me? + Couldst thou not grief's sad conquest me allow, + But in all victories overthrow me? + + Yet by confession will I come + Into the conquest: though I can do nought + Against thee, in thee I will overcome + The man who once against thee fought. + +Even embracing the feet of Jesus, Mary Magdalene or George Herbert must +rise and go forth to do his will. + +It will be observed how much George Herbert goes beyond all that have +preceded him, in the expression of feeling as it flows from individual +conditions, in the analysis of his own moods, in the logic of worship, if +I may say so. His utterance is not merely of personal love and grief, but +of the peculiar love and grief in the heart of George Herbert. There may +be disease in such a mind; but, if there be, it is a disease that will +burn itself out. Such disease is, for men constituted like him, the only +path to health. By health I mean that simple regard to the truth, to the +will of God, which will turn away a man's eyes from his own conditions, +and leave God free to work his perfection in him--free, that is, of the +interference of the man's self-consciousness and anxiety. To this +perfection St. Paul had come when he no longer cried out against the body +of his death, no more judged his own self, but left all to the Father, +caring only to do his will. It was enough to him then that God should +judge him, for his will is the one good thing securing all good things. +Amongst the keener delights of the life which is at the door, I look for +the face of George Herbert, with whom to talk humbly would be in bliss a +higher bliss. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +JOHN MILTON. + + +John Milton, born in 1608, was twenty-four years of age when George +Herbert died. Hardly might two good men present a greater contrast than +these. In power and size, Milton greatly excels. If George Herbert's +utterance is like the sword-play of one skilful with the rapier, that of +Milton is like the sword-play of an old knight, flashing his huge but +keen-cutting blade in lightnings about his head. Compared with Herbert, +Milton was a man in health. He never _shows_, at least, any diseased +regard of himself. His eye is fixed on the truth, and he knows of no +ill-faring. While a man looks thitherward, all the movements of his +spirit reveal themselves only in peace. + +Everything conspired, or, should I not rather say? everything was freely +given, to make Milton a great poet. Leaving the original seed of melody, +the primordial song in the soul which all his life was an effort to +utter, let us regard for a moment the circumstances that favoured its +development. + +[Illustration: + + His volant touch + Fied and pursued transverse the resonant fugue.] + +From childhood he had listened to the sounds of the organ; doubtless +himself often gave breath to the soundboard with his hands on the lever +of the bellows, while his father's + + volant touch, + Instinct through all proportions low and high, + Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue; + +and the father's organ-harmony we yet hear in the son's verse as in none +but his. Those organ-sounds he has taken for the very breath of his +speech, and articulated them. He had education and leisure, freedom to +think, to travel, to observe: he was more than thirty before he had to +earn a mouthful of bread by his own labour. Rushing at length into +freedom's battle, he stood in its storm with his hand on the wheel of the +nation's rudder, shouting many a bold word for God and the Truth, until, +fulfilled of experience as of knowledge, God set up before him a canvas +of utter darkness: he had to fill it with creatures of radiance. God +blinded him with his hand, that, like the nightingale, he might "sing +darkling." Beyond all, his life was pure from his childhood, without +which such poetry as his could never have come to the birth. It is the +pure in heart who shall see God at length; the pure in heart who now hear +his harmonies. More than all yet, he devoted himself from the first to +the will of God, and his prayer that he might write a great poem was +heard. + +The unity of his being is the strength of Milton. He is harmony, sweet +and bold, throughout. Not Philip Sidney, not George Herbert loved words +and their melodies more than he; while in their use he is more serious +than either, and harder to please, uttering a music they have rarely +approached. Yet even when speaking with "most miraculous organ," with a +grandeur never heard till then, he overflows in speech more like that of +other men than theirs--he utters himself more simply, straightforwardly, +dignifiedly, than they. His modes are larger and more human, more near to +the forms of primary thought. Faithful and obedient to his art, he spends +his power in no diversions. Like Shakspere, he can be silent, never +hesitating to sweep away the finest lines should they mar the intent, +progress, and flow of his poem. Even while he sings most abandonedly, it +is ever with a care of his speech, it is ever with ordered words: not one +shall dull the clarity of his verse by unlicensed, that is, needless +presence. But let not my reader fancy that this implies laborious +utterance and strained endeavour. It is weakness only which by the agony +of visible effort enhances the magnitude of victory. The trained athlete +will move with the grace of a child, for he has not to seek how to effect +that which he means to perform. Milton has only to take good heed, and +with no greater effort than it costs the ordinary man to avoid talking +like a fool, he sings like an archangel. + +But I must not enlarge my remarks, for of his verse even I can find room +for only a few lyrics. In them, however, we shall still find the simplest +truth, the absolute of life, the poet's aim. He is ever soaring towards +the region beyond perturbation, the true condition of soul; that is, +wherein a man shall see things even as God would have him see them. He +has no time to droop his pinions, and sit moody even on the highest pine: +the sun is above him; he must fly upwards. + +The youth who at three-and-twenty could write the following sonnet, might +well at five-and-forty be capable of writing the one that follows: + + How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, + Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! + My hasting days fly on with full career, + But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. + Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth + That I to manhood am arrived so near; + And inward ripeness doth much less appear, + That some more timely happy spirits endu'th. + Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, + It shall be still in strictest measure even + To that same lot, however mean or high, + Toward which time leads me and the will of heaven: + All is--if I have grace to use it so + As ever in my great Task-master's eye. + +The _It_ which is the subject of the last six lines is his _Ripeness_: it +will keep pace with his approaching lot; when it arrives he will be ready +for it, whatever it may be. The will of heaven is his happy fate. Even at +three-and-twenty, "he that believeth shall not make haste." Calm and +open-eyed, he works to be ripe, and waits for the work that shall follow. + +At forty-five, then, he writes thus concerning his blindness: + + When I consider how my life is spent + Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, + And that one talent, which is death to hide, + Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent + To serve therewith my Maker, and present + My true account, lest he, returning, chide-- + "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" + I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent _foolishly._ + That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need + Either man's work or his own gifts: who best + Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state + Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed, + And post o'er land and ocean without rest: + They also serve who only stand and wait." + +That is, "stand and wait, ready to go when they are called." Everybody +knows the sonnet, but how could I omit it? Both sonnets will grow more +and more luminous as they are regarded. + +The following I incline to think the finest of his short poems, certainly +the grandest of them. It is a little ode, written _to be set on a +clock-case_. + + + ON TIME. + + Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race. + Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, + Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace, + And glut thyself with what thy womb devours-- + Which is no more than what is false and vain, + And merely mortal dross: + So little is our loss! + So little is thy gain! + For whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed, + And last of all thy greedy self consumed, + Then long eternity shall greet our bliss + With an individual kiss; _that cannot be divided-- + And joy shall overtake us as a flood; [eternal._ + When everything that is sincerely good, + And perfectly divine + With truth and peace and love, shall ever shine + About the supreme throne + Of him to whose happy-making sight alone + When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb, + Then, all this earthy grossness quit, + Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit + Triumphing over Death and Chance and thee, O Time. + +The next I give is likewise an ode--a more _beautiful_ one. Observe in +both the fine effect of the short lines, essential to the nature of the +ode, being that which gives its solemnity the character yet of a song, or +rather, perhaps, of a chant. + +In this he calls upon Voice and Verse to rouse and raise our imagination +until we hear the choral song of heaven, and hearing become able to sing +in tuneful response. + + + AT A SOLEMN MUSIC. + + Blest pair of sirens, pledges of heaven's joy + Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse, + Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ-- + Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce-- + And to our high-raised phantasy present + That undisturbed song of pure concent[105] + Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne + To him that sits thereon, + With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee; + Where the bright seraphim, in burning row, + Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow; + And the cherubic host in thousand choirs, + Touch their immortal harps of golden wires, + With those just spirits that wear victorious palms, + Hymns devout and holy psalms + Singing everlastingly; + That we on earth, with undiscording voice, + May rightly answer that melodious noise-- + As once we did, till disproportioned[106] Sin + Jarred against Nature's chime, and with harsh din + Broke the fair music that all creatures made + To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed + In perfect diapason,[107] whilst they stood + In first obedience and their state of good. + O may we soon again renew that song, + And keep in tune with heaven, till God ere long + To his celestial consort[108] us unite, + To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light! + +Music was the symbol of all Truth to Milton. He would count it falsehood +to write an unmusical verse. I allow that some of his blank lines may +appear unrhythmical; but Experience, especially if she bring with her a +knowledge of Dante, will elucidate all their movements. I exhort my +younger friends to read Milton aloud when they are alone, and thus learn +the worth of word-sounds. They will find him even in this an educating +force. The last ode ought to be thus read for the magnificent dance-march +of its motion, as well as for its melody. + +Show me one who delights in the _Hymn on the Nativity_, and I will show +you one who may never indeed be a singer in this world, but who is +already a listener to the best. But how different it is from anything of +George Herbert's! It sets forth no feeling peculiar to Milton; it is an +outburst of the gladness of the company of believers. Every one has at +least read the glorious poem; but were I to leave it out I should have +lost, not the sapphire of aspiration, not the topaz of praise, not the +emerald of holiness, but the carbuncle of delight from the high priest's +breast-plate. And I must give the introduction too: it is the cloudy +grove of an overture, whence rushes the torrent of song. + + + ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY. + + This is the month, and this the happy morn, + Wherein the son of heaven's eternal king, + Of wedded maid and virgin mother born, + Our great redemption from above did bring; + For so the holy sages once did sing, + That he our deadly forfeit should release, + And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. + + That glorious form, that light insufferable, + And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, + Wherewith he wont[109] at heaven's high council-table + To sit the midst of trinal unity, + He laid aside, and here with us to be, + Forsook the courts of everlasting day, + And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. + + Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein + Afford a present to the infant God? + Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain + To welcome him to this his new abode, + Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod, + Hath took no print of the approaching light, + And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright? + + See how, from far upon the eastern road, + The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet! + O run, prevent them with thy humble ode, + And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; + Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet; + And join thy voice unto the angel choir, + From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire. + + + THE HYMN. + + It was the winter wild + While the heaven-born child + All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; + Nature, in awe to him, + Had doffed her gaudy trim, + With her great master so to sympathize: + It was no season then for her + To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour. + + Only with speeches fair + She woos the gentle air + To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; + And on her naked shame, + Pollute with sinful blame, + The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; + Confounded that her maker's eyes + Should look so near upon her foul deformities. + + But he, her fears to cease, + Sent down the meek-eyed Peace. + She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding + Down through the turning sphere, + His ready harbinger, + With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; + And waving wide her myrtle wand, + She strikes a universal peace through sea and land. + + No war, or battle's sound, + Was heard the world around; + The idle spear and shield were high uphung; + The hookéd chariot stood + Unstained with hostile blood; + The trumpet spake not to the arméd throng; + And kings sat still with awful eye, _awe-filled._ + As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by. + + But peaceful was the night + Wherein the Prince of Light + His reign of peace upon the earth began; + The winds, with wonder whist, _silent._ + Smoothly the water kissed, + Whispering new joys to the mild Oceän, + Who now hath quite forgot to rave, + While birds of calm[110] sit brooding on the charméd wave. + + The stars with deep amaze + Stand fixed in stedfast gaze, + Bending one way their precious influence; + And will not take their flight + For all the morning light, + Or Lucifer,[111] that often warned them thence; + But in their glimmering orbs did glow + Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. + + And though the shady gloom + Had given day her room, + The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, + And hid his head for shame, + As his inferior flame + The new enlightened world no more should need: + He saw a greater sun appear + Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree could bear. + + The shepherds on the lawn, + Or e'er the point of dawn, _ere ever._ + Sat simply chatting in a rustic row: + Full little thought they than _then._ + That the mighty Pan[112] + Was kindly come to live with them below; + Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, + Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. + + When such music sweet + Their hearts and ears did greet + As never was by mortal finger strook-- + Divinely warbled voice + Answering the stringéd noise, + As all their souls in blissful rapture took: + The air, such pleasure loath to lose, + With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. + + Nature, that heard such sound, + Beneath the hollow round + Of Cynthia's seat[113] the airy region thrilling, + Now was almost won + To think her part was done, + And that her reign had here its last fulfilling: + She knew such harmony alone + Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union. + + At last surrounds their sight + A globe of circular light, + That with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed; + The helméd cherubim + And sworded seraphim + Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, + Harping in loud and solemn choir, + With unexpressive[114] notes to heaven's new-born heir. + + Such music, as 'tis said, + Before was never made, + But when of old the sons of morning sung, + While the Creator great + His constellations set, + And the well-balanced world on hinges hung,[115] + And cast the dark foundations deep, + And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. + + Ring out, ye crystal spheres; + Once bless our human ears-- + If ye have power to touch our senses so;[116] + And let your silver chime + Move in melodious time; + And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow; + And, with your ninefold harmony, + Make up full consort[117] to the angelic symphony.[118] + + For if such holy song + Enwrap our fancy long, + Time will run back and fetch the age of gold; + And speckled vanity + Will sicken soon and die;[119] + And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould; + And hell itself will pass away, + And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. + + Yea, truth and justice then + Will down return to men, + Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, + Mercy will sit between, + Throned in celestial sheen, + With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; + And heaven, as at some festival, + Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall. + + But wisest Fate says "No; + This must not yet be so." + The babe lies yet in smiling infancy, + That on the bitter cross + Must redeem our loss, + So both himself and us to glorify. + Yet first, to those y-chained in sleep, + The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, + + With such a horrid clang + As on Mount Sinai rang, + While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake: + The agéd earth, aghast + With terror of that blast, + Shall from the surface to the centre shake, + When, at the world's last sessiön, + The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne. + + And then at last our bliss + Full and perfect is: + But now begins; for from this happy day, + The old dragon, under ground + In straiter limits bound, + Not half so far casts his usurped sway; + And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, + Swinges[120] the scaly horror of his folded tail.[121] + + The oracles are dumb:[122] + No voice or hideous hum + Runs through the archéd roof in words deceiving; + Apollo from his shrine + Can no more divine, + With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving; + No nightly trance, or breathed spell, + Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. + + The lonely mountains o'er, + And the resounding shore, + A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; + From haunted spring and dale, + Edged with poplar pale, + The parting genius[123] is with sighing sent; + With flower-inwoven tresses torn, + The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. + + In consecrated earth, + And on the holy hearth, + The Lars and Lemures[124] moan with midnight plaint; + In urns and altars round, + A drear and dying sound + Affrights the flamens[125] at their service quaint; + And the chill marble seems to sweat, + While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat. + + Peor and Baälim + Forsake their temples dim, + With that twice-battered god of Palestine; + And moonéd Ashtaroth, _the Assyrian Venus_. + Heaven's queen and mother both, + Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; + The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn;[126] + In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz[127] mourn. + + And sullen Moloch, fled, + Hath left in shadows dread + His burning idol, all of blackest hue: + In vain with cymbals' ring + They call the grisly[128] king, + In dismal dance about the furnace blue. + The brutish gods of Nile as fast-- + Isis and Orus and the dog Anubis--haste. + + Nor is Osiris[129] seen + In Memphian grove or green, + Trampling the unshowered[130] grass with lowings loud; + Nor can he be at rest + Within his sacred chest; + Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; + In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark, + The sable-stoléd sorcerers bear his worshipped ark: + + He feels, from Judah's land, + The dreaded infant's hand; + The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn. + Nor all the gods beside + Longer dare abide-- + Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine: + Our babe, to show his Godhead true, + Can in his swaddling bands control the damnéd crew. + + So, when the sun in bed, + Curtained with cloudy red, + Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, + The flocking shadows pale + Troop to the infernal jail-- + Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; + And the yellow-skirted fays + Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. + + But see, the Virgin blest + Hath laid her babe to rest: + Time is our tedious song should here have ending; + Heaven's youngest-teemed star[131] + Hath fixed her polished car, + Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; + And all about the courtly stable + Bright-harnessed[132] angels sit, in order serviceable.[133] + +If my reader should think some of the rhymes bad, and some of the words +oddly used, I would remind him that both pronunciations and meanings have +altered since: the probability is, that the older forms in both are the +better. Milton will not use a wrong word or a bad rhyme. With regard to +the form of the poem, let him observe the variety of length of line in +the stanza, and how skilfully the varied lines are associated--two of six +syllables and one of ten; then the same repeated; then one of eight and +one of twelve--no two, except of the shortest, coming together of the +same length. Its stanza is its own: I do not know another poem written in +the same; and its music is exquisite. The probability is that, if the +reader note any fact in the poem, however trifling it might seem to the +careless eye, it will repay him by unfolding both individual and related +beauty. Then let him ponder the pictures given: the sudden arraying of +the shame-faced night in long beams; the amazed kings silent on their +thrones; the birds brooding on the sea: he will find many such. Let him +consider the clear-cut epithets, so full of meaning. A true poet may be +at once known by the justice and force of the adjectives he uses, +especially when he compounds them,--that is, makes one out of two. Here +are some examples: _meek-eyed Peace; pale-eyed priest; speckled vanity; +smouldering clouds; hideous hum; dismal dance; dusky eyne:_ there are +many such, each almost a poem in itself. The whole is a succession of +pictures set in the loveliest music for the utterance of grandest +thoughts. + +No doubt there are in the poem instances of such faults in style as were +common in the age in which his verse was rooted: for my own part, I never +liked the first two stanzas of the hymn. But such instances are few; +while for a right feeling of the marvel of this poem and of the two +preceding it, we must remember that Milton was only twenty-one when he +wrote them. + +Apparently to make one of a set with the _Nativity_, he began to write an +ode on the _Passion_, but, finding the subject "above the years he had +when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it +unfinished." The fragment is full of unworthy, though skilful, and, for +such, powerful conceits, but is especially interesting as showing how +even Milton, trying to write about what he felt, but without yet having +generated thoughts enow concerning the subject itself, could only fall +back on conventionalities. Happy the young poet the wisdom of whose +earliest years was such that he recognized his mistake almost at the +outset, and dropped the attempt! Amongst the stanzas there is, however, +one of exceeding loveliness: + + He, sovereign priest, stooping his regal head, + That dropped with odorous oil down his fair eyes, + Poor fleshly tabernacle enteréd, + His starry front low-roofed beneath the skies. + Oh what a masque was there! what a disguise! + Yet more! the stroke of death he must abide; + Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethren's side. + +In this it will be seen that he has left the jubilant measure of the +_Hymn_, and returned to the more stately and solemn rhyme-royal of its +overture, as more suited to his subject. Milton could not be wrong in his +music, even when he found the quarry of his thought too hard to work. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +EDMUND WALLER, THOMAS BROWN, AND JEREMY TAYLOR. + + +Edmund Waller, born in 1605, was three years older than Milton; but I had +a fancy for not dividing Herbert and Milton. As a poet he had a high +reputation for many years, gained chiefly, I think, by a regard to +literary proprieties, combined with wit. He is graceful sometimes; but +what in his writings would with many pass for grace, is only smoothness +and the absence of faults. His horses were not difficult to drive. He +dares little and succeeds in proportion--occasionally, however, flashing +out into true song. In politics he had no character--let us hope from +weakness rather than from selfishness; yet, towards the close of his +life, he wrote some poems which reveal a man not unaccustomed to ponder +sacred things, and able to express his thoughts concerning them with +force and justice. From a poem called _Of Divine Love_, I gather the +following very remarkable passages: I wish they had been enforced by +greater nobility of character. Still they are in themselves true. Even +where we have no proof of repentance, we may see plentiful signs of a +growth towards it. We cannot tell how long the truth may of necessity +require to interpenetrate the ramifications of a man's nature. By slow +degrees he discovers that here it is not, and there it is not. Again and +again, and yet again, a man finds that he must be born with a new birth. + + The fear of hell, or aiming to be blest, + Savours too much of private interest: + This moved not Moses, nor the zealous Paul, + Who for their friends abandoned soul and all; + A greater yet from heaven to hell descends, + To save and make his enemies his friends. + + * * * * * + + That early love of creatures yet unmade, + To frame the world the Almighty did persuade. + For love it was that first created light, + Moved on the waters, chased away the night + From the rude chaos; and bestowed new grace + On things disposed of to their proper place-- + Some to rest here, and some to shine above: + Earth, sea, and heaven, were all the effects of love. + + * * * * * + + Not willing terror should his image move, + He gives a pattern of eternal love: + His son descends, to treat a peace with those + Which were, and must have ever been, his foes. + Poor he became, and left his glorious seat, + To make us humble, and to make us great; + His business here was happiness to give + To those whose malice could not let him live. + + * * * * * + + He to proud potentates would not be known: + Of those that loved him, he was hid from none. + Till love appear, we live in anxious doubt; + But smoke will vanish when that flame breaks out: + This is the fire that would consume our dross, + Refine, and make us richer by the loss. + + * * * * * + + Who for himself no miracle would make, + Dispensed with[134] several for the people's sake. + He that, long-fasting, would no wonder show, + Made loaves and fishes, as they eat them, grow. + Of all his power, which boundless was above, + Here he used none but to express his love; + And such a love would make our joy exceed, + Not when our own, but others' mouths we feed. + + * * * * * + + Love as he loved! A love so unconfined + With arms extended would embrace mankind. + Self-love would cease, or be dilated, when + We should behold as many selfs as men; + All of one family, in blood allied, + His precious blood that for our ransom died. + + * * * * * + + Amazed at once and comforted, to find + A boundless power so infinitely kind, + The soul contending to that light to fly + From her dark cell, we practise how to die, + Employing thus the poet's wingéd art + To reach this love, and grave it in our heart. + Joy so complete, so solid, and severe, + Would leave no place for meaner pleasures there: + Pale they would look, as stars that must be gone + When from the east the rising sun comes on. + + * * * * * + +To that and some other poems he adds the following--a kind of epilogue. + + + ON THE FOREGOING DIVINE POEMS. + + When we for age could neither read nor write, + The subject made us able to indite: + The soul with nobler resolutions decked, + The body stooping, does herself erect: + No mortal parts are requisite to raise + Her that unbodied can her Maker praise. + The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er: + So calm are we when passions are no more; + For then we know how vain it was to boast + Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost. + Clouds of affection from our younger eyes _passion._ + Conceal that emptiness which age descries. + + The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, + Lets in new light, through chinks that time has made: + Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, + As they draw near to their eternal home. + Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view + That stand upon the threshold of the new. + +It would be a poor victory where age was the sole conqueror. But I doubt +if age ever gains the victory alone. Let Waller, however, have this +praise: his song soars with his subject. It is a true praise. There are +men who write well until they try the noble, and then they fare like the +falling star, which, when sought where it fell, is, according to an old +fancy, discovered a poor jelly. + +Sir Thomas Brown, a physician, whose prose writings are as peculiar as +they are valuable, was of the same age as Waller. He partakes to a +considerable degree of the mysticism which was so much followed in his +day, only in his case it influences his literature most--his mode of +utterance more than his mode of thought. His _True Christian Morals_ is a +very valuable book, notwithstanding the obscurity that sometimes arises +in that, as in all his writings, from his fondness for Latin words. The +following fine hymn occurs in his _Religio Medici_, in which he gives an +account of his opinions. I am not aware of anything else that he has +published in verse, though he must probably have written more to be able +to write this so well. It occurs in the midst of prose, as the prayer he +says every night before he yields to the death of sleep. I follow it with +the succeeding sentence of the prose. + + The night is come. Like to the day, + Depart not thou, great God, away. + Let not my sins, black as the night, + Eclipse the lustre of thy light. + Keep still in my horizon, for to me + The sun makes not the day but thee. + Thou whose nature cannot sleep, + On my temples sentry keep; + Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes + Whose eyes are open while mine close. + Let no dreams my head infest + But such as Jacob's temples blest. + While I do rest, my soul advance; + Make my sleep a holy trance, + That I may, my rest being wroughtt + Awake into some holy thought, + And with as active vigour run + My course as doth the nimble sun. + Sleep is a death: O make me try + By sleeping what it is to die, + And as gently lay my head + On my grave, as now my bed. + Howe'er I rest, great God, let me + Awake again at least with thee. + And thus assured, behold I lie + Securely, or to wake or die. + These are my drowsy days: in vain + I do now wake to sleep again: + O come that hour when I shall never + Sleep again, but wake for ever. + +"This is the dormitive I take to bedward. I need no other laudanum than +this to make me sleep; after which I close mine eyes in security, content +to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection." + +Jeremy Taylor, born in 1613, was the most poetic of English +prose-writers: if he had written verse equal to his prose, he would have +had a lofty place amongst poets as well as amongst preachers. Taking the +opposite side from Milton, than whom he was five years younger, he was, +like him, conscientious and consistent, suffering while Milton's cause +prospered, and advanced to one of the bishoprics hated of Milton's soul +when the scales of England's politics turned in the other direction. Such +men, however, are divided only by their intellects. When men say, "I must +or I must not, for it is right or it is not right," then are they in +reality so bound together, even should they not acknowledge it +themselves, that no opposing opinions, no conflicting theories concerning +what is or is not right, can really part them. It was not wonderful that +a mind like that of Jeremy Taylor, best fitted for worshipping the beauty +of holiness, should mourn over the disrupted order of his church, or that +a mind like Milton's, best fitted for the law of life, should demand that +every part of that order which had ceased to vibrate responsive to every +throb of the eternal heart of truth, should fall into the ruin which its +death had preceded. The church was hardly dealt with, but the rulers of +the church have to bear the blame. + +Here are those I judge the best of the bishop's _Festival Hymns_, printed +as part of his _Golden Grove_, or _Gide to Devotion_. In the first there +is a little confusion of imagery; and in others of them will be found a +little obscurity. They bear marks of the careless impatience of rhythm +and rhyme of one who though ever bursting into a natural trill of song, +sometimes with more rhymes apparently than he intended, would yet rather +let his thoughts pour themselves out in that unmeasured chant, that +"poetry in solution," which is the natural speech of the prophet-orator. +He is like a full river that must flow, which rejoices in a flood, and +rebels against the constraint of mole or conduit. He exults in utterance +itself, caring little for the mode, which, however, the law of his +indwelling melody guides though never compels. Charmingly diffuse in his +prose, his verse ever sounds as if it would overflow the banks of its +self-imposed restraints. + + + THE SECOND HYMN FOR ADVENT; OR, + CHRIST'S COMING TO JERUSALEM IN TRIUMPH. + + Lord, come away; + Why dost thou stay? + Thy road is ready; and thy paths made straight + With longing expectation wait + The consecration of thy beauteous feet. + Ride on triumphantly: behold we lay + Our lusts and proud wills in thy way. + Hosanna! welcome to our hearts! Lord, here + Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear + As that of Sion, and as full of sin: + Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein. + Enter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor; + Crucify them, that they may never more + Profane that holy place + Where thou hast chose to set thy face. + And then if our stiff tongues shall be + Mute in the praises of thy deity, + The stones out of the temple-wall + Shall cry aloud and call + Hosanna! and thy glorious footsteps greet. + + + HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY; BEING A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THREE SHEPHERDS. + + 1. Where is this blessed babe + That hath made + All the world so full of joy + And expectation; + That glorious boy + That crowns each nation + With a triumphant wreath of blessedness? + + 2. Where should he be but in the throng, + And among + His angel ministers that sing + And take wing + Just as may echo to his voice, + And rejoice, + When wing and tongue and all + May so procure their happiness? + + 3. But he hath other waiters now: + A poor cow + An ox and mule stand and behold, + And wonder + That a stable should enfold + Him that can thunder. + + _Chorus_. O what a gracious God have we! + How good? How great? Even as our misery. + + + A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY. + + Awake, my soul, and come away; + Put on thy best array, + Lest if thou longer stay, + Thou lose some minutes of so blest a day. + + Go run, And bid good-morrow to the sun; + Welcome his safe return To Capricorn, And that great morn Wherein + a God was born, Whose story none can tell But he whose every + word's a miracle. + + To-day Almightiness grew weak; + The Word itself was mute, and could not speak. + + That Jacob's star which made the sun + To dazzle if he durst look on, + Now mantled o'er in Bethlehem's night, + Borrowed a star to show him light. + + He that begirt each zone, + To whom both poles are one, + Who grasped the zodiac in his hand, + And made it move or stand, + Is now by nature man, + By stature but a span; + Eternity is now grown short; + A king is born without a court; + The water thirsts; the fountain's dry; + And life, being born, made apt to die. + + _Chorus._ Then let our praises emulate and vie + With his humility! + Since he's exiled from skies + That we might rise,-- + From low estate of men + Let's sing him up again! + Each man wind up his heart + To bear a part + In that angelic choir, and show + His glory high, as he was low. + Let's sing towards men goodwill and charity, + Peace upon earth, glory to God on high! + Hallelujah! Hallelujah! + + + THE PRAYER. + + My soul doth pant towards thee, + My God, source of eternal life. + Flesh fights with me: + Oh end the strife, + And part us, that in peace I may + Unclay + My wearied spirit, and take + My flight to thy eternal spring, + Where, for his sake + Who is my king, + I may wash all my tears away, + That day. + + Thou conqueror of death, + Glorious triumpher o'er the grave, + Whose holy breath + Was spent to save + Lost mankind, make me to be styled + Thy child, + And take me when I die + And go unto my dust; my soul + Above the sky + With saints enrol, + That in thy arms, for ever, I + May lie. + + +This last is quite regular, that is, the second stanza is arranged +precisely as the first, though such will not appear to be the case +without examination: the disposition of the lines, so various in length, +is confusing though not confused. + +In these poems will be found that love of homeliness which is +characteristic of all true poets--and orators too, in as far as they are +poets. The meeting of the homely and the grand is heaven. One more. + + + A PRAYER FOR CHARITY. + + Full of mercy, full of love, + Look upon us from above; + Thou who taught'st the blind man's night + To entertain a double light, + Thine and the day's--and that thine too: + The lame away his crutches threw; + The parchéd crust of leprosy + Returned unto its infancy; + The dumb amazéd was to hear + His own unchain'd tongue strike his ear; + Thy powerful mercy did even chase + The devil from his usurpéd place, + Where thou thyself shouldst dwell, not he: + Oh let thy love our pattern be; + Let thy mercy teach one brother + To forgive and love another; + That copying thy mercy here, + Thy goodness may hereafter rear + Our souls unto thy glory, when + Our dust shall cease to be with men. _Amen._ + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +HENRY MORE AND RICHARD BAXTER. + + +Dr. Henry More was born in the year 1614. Chiefly known for his mystical +philosophy, which he cultivated in retirement at Cambridge, and taught +not only in prose, but in an elaborate, occasionally poetic poem, of +somewhere about a thousand Spenserian stanzas, called _A Platonic Song of +the Soul_, he has left some smaller poems, from which I shall gather good +store for my readers. Whatever may be thought of his theories, they +belong at least to the highest order of philosophy; and it will be seen +from the poems I give that they must have borne their part in lifting the +soul of the man towards a lofty spiritual condition of faith and +fearlessness. The mystical philosophy seems to me safe enough in the +hands of a poet: with others it may degenerate into dank and dusty +materialism. + + + RESOLUTION. + + Where's now the objects of thy fears, + Needless sighs, and fruitless tears? + They be all gone like idle dream + Suggested from the body's steam. + + * * * * * + + What's plague and prison? Loss of friends? + War, dearth, and death that all things ends? + Mere bugbears for the childish mind; + Pure panic terrors of the blind. + + Collect thy soul unto one sphere + Of light, and 'bove the earth it rear; + Those wild scattered thoughts that erst + Lay loosely in the world dispersed, + Call in:--thy spirit thus knit in one + Fair lucid orb, those fears be gone + Like vain impostures of the night, + That fly before the morning bright. + Then with pure eyes thou shalt behold + How the first goodness doth infold + All things in loving tender arms; + That deeméd mischiefs are no harms, + But sovereign salves and skilful cures + Of greater woes the world endures; + That man's stout soul may win a state + Far raised above the reach of fate. + + Then wilt thou say, _God rules the world_, + Though mountain over mountain hurled + Be pitched amid the foaming main + Which busy winds to wrath constrain; + + * * * * * + + Though pitchy blasts from hell up-born + Stop the outgoings of the morn, + And Nature play her fiery games + In this forced night, with fulgurant flames: + + * * * * * + + All this confusion cannot move + The purgéd mind, freed from the love + Of commerce with her body dear, + Cell of sad thoughts, sole spring of fear. + + Whate'er I feel or hear or see + Threats but these parts that mortal be. + Nought can the honest heart dismay + Unless the love of living clay, + + And long acquaintance with the light + Of this outworld, and what to sight + Those two officious beams[135] discover + Of forms that round about us hover. + + Power, wisdom, goodness, sure did frame + This universe, and still guide the same. + But thoughts from passions sprung, deceive + Vain mortals. No man can contrive + A better course than what's been run + Since the first circuit of the sun. + + He that beholds all from on high + Knows better what to do than I. + I'm not mine own: should I repine + If he dispose of what's not mine? + Purge but thy soul of blind self-will, + Thou straight shall see God doth no ill. + The world he fills with the bright rays + Of his free goodness. He displays + Himself throughout. Like common air + That spirit of life through all doth fare, + Sucked in by them as vital breath + That willingly embrace not death. + But those that with that living law + Be unacquainted, cares do gnaw; + Mistrust of God's good providence + Doth daily vex their wearied sense. + + Now place me on the Libyan soil, + With scorching sun and sands to toil, + Far from the view of spring or tree, + Where neither man nor house I see; + + * * * * * + + Commit me at my next remove + To icy Hyperborean ove; + Confine me to the arctic pole, + Where the numb'd heavens do slowly roll; + To lands where cold raw heavy mist + Sol's kindly warmth and light resists; + Where lowering clouds full fraught with snow + Do sternly scowl; where winds do blow + With bitter blasts, and pierce the skin, + Forcing the vital spirits in, + Which leave the body thus ill bested, + In this chill plight at least half-dead; + Yet by an antiperistasis[136] + My inward heat more kindled is; + And while this flesh her breath expires, + My spirit shall suck celestial fires + By deep-fetched sighs and pure devotion. + Thus waxen hot with holy motion, + At once I'll break forth in a flame; + Above this world and worthless fame + I'll take my flight, careless that men + Know not how, where I die, or when. + + Yea, though the soul should mortal prove, + So be God's life but in me move + To my last breath--I'm satisfied + A lonesome mortal God to have died. + +This last paragraph is magnificent as any single passage I know in +literature. + +Is it lawful, after reading this, to wonder whether Henry More, the +retired, and so far untried, student of Cambridge, would have been able +thus to meet the alternations of suffering which he imagines? It is one +thing to see reasonableness, another to be reasonable when objects have +become circumstances. Would he, then, by spiritual might, have risen +indeed above bodily torture? It is _possible_ for a man to arrive at this +perfection; it is absolutely _necessary_ that a man should some day or +other reach it; and I think the wise doctor would have proved the truth +of his principles. But there are many who would gladly part with their +whole bodies rather than offend, and could not yet so rise above the +invasions of the senses. Here, as in less important things, our business +is not to speculate what we would do in other circumstances, but to +perform the duty of the moment, the one true preparation for the duty to +come. Possibly, however, the right development of our human relations in +the world may be a more difficult and more important task still than this +condition of divine alienation. To find God in others is better than to +grow _solely_ in the discovery of him in ourselves, if indeed the latter +were possible. + + + DEVOTION. + + Good God, when them thy inward grace dost shower + Into my breast, + How full of light and lively power + Is then my soul! + How am I blest! + How can I then all difficulties devour! + Thy might, + Thy spright, + With ease my cumbrous enemy control. + + If thou once turn away thy face and hide + Thy cheerful look, + My feeble flesh may not abide + That dreadful stound; _hour._ + I cannot brook + Thy absence. My heart, with care and grief then gride, + Doth fail, + Doth quail; + My life steals from me at that hidden wound. + + My fancy's then a burden to my mind; + Mine anxious thought + Betrays my reason, makes me blind; + Near dangers drad _dreaded._ + Make me distraught; + Surprised with fear my senses all I find: + In hell + I dwell, + Oppressed with horror, pain, and sorrow sad. + + My former resolutions all are fled-- + Slipped over my tongue; + My faith, my hope, and joy are dead. + Assist my heart, + Rather than my song, + My God, my Saviour! When I'm ill-bested. + Stand by, + And I + Shall bear with courage undeservéd smart. + + + THE PHILOSOPHER'S DEVOTION. + + Sing aloud!--His praise rehearse + Who hath made the universe. + He the boundless heavens has spread, + All the vital orbs has kned, _kneaded._ + He that on Olympus high + Tends his flocks with watchful eye, + And this eye has multiplied _suns, as centres of systems._ + Midst each flock for to reside. + Thus, as round about they stray, + Toucheth[137] each with outstretched ray; + Nimble they hold on their way, + Shaping out their night and day. + Summer, winter, autumn, spring, + Their inclined axes bring. + Never slack they; none respires, + Dancing round their central fires. + + In due order as they move, + Echoes sweet be gently drove + Thorough heaven's vast hollowness, + Which unto all corners press: + Music that the heart of Jove + Moves to joy and sportful love; + Fills the listening sailers' ears + Riding on the wandering spheres: + Neither speech nor language is + Where their voice is not transmiss. + + God is good, is wise, is strong, + Witness all the creature throng, + Is confessed by every tongue; + All things back from whence they sprung, _go back_--a verb. + As the thankful rivers pay + What they borrowed of the sea. + + Now myself I do resign: + Take me whole: I all am thine. + Save me, God, from self-desire-- + Death's pit, dark hell's raging fire--[138] + Envy, hatred, vengeance, ire; + Let not lust my soul bemire. + + Quit from these, thy praise I'll sing, + Loudly sweep the trembling string. + Bear a part, O Wisdom's sons, + Freed from vain religïons! + Lo! from far I you salute, + Sweetly warbling on my lute-- + India, Egypt, Araby, + Asia, Greece, and Tartary, + Carmel-tracts, and Lebanon, + With the Mountains of the Moon, + From whence muddy Nile doth run, + Or wherever else you won: _dwell._ + Breathing in one vital air, + One we are though distant far. + + Rise at once;--let's sacrifice: + Odours sweet perfume the skies; + See how heavenly lightning fires + Hearts inflamed with high aspires! + All the substance of our souls + Up in clouds of incense rolls. + Leave we nothing to ourselves + Save a voice--what need we else! + Or an hand to wear and tire + On the thankful lute or lyre! + + Sing aloud!--His praise rehearse + Who hath made the universe. + +In this _Philosopher's Devotion_ he has clearly imitated one of those +psalms of George Sandys which I have given. + + + CHARITY AND HUMILITY. + + Far have I clambered in my mind, + But nought so great as love I find: + Deep-searching wit, mount-moving might, + Are nought compared to that good sprite. + Life of delight and soul of bliss! + Sure source of lasting happiness! + Higher than heaven! lower than hell! + What is thy tent? Where may'st thou dwell? + + "My mansion hight _Humility_, _is named._ + Heaven's vastest capability. + The further it doth downward tend, + The higher up it doth ascend; + If it go down to utmost nought, + It shall return with that it sought." + + Lord, stretch thy tent in my strait breast; + Enlarge it downward, that sure rest + May there be pight for that pure fire _pitched._ + Wherewith thou wontest to inspire + All self-dead souls: my life is gone; + Sad solitude's my irksome won; _dwelling._ + Cut off from men and all this world, + In Lethe's lonesome ditch I'm hurled; + Nor might nor sight doth ought me move, + Nor do I care to be above. + O feeble rays of mental light, + That best be seen in this dark night, + What are you? What is any strength + If it be not laid in one length + With pride or love? I nought desire + But a new life, or quite to expire. + Could I demolish with mine eye + Strong towers, stop the fleet stars in sky, + Bring down to earth the pale-faced moon, + Or turn black midnight to bright noon; + Though all things were put in my hand-- + As parched, as dry as the Libyan sand + Would be my life, if charity + Were wanting. But humility + Is more than my poor soul durst crave + That lies entombed in lowly grave; + But if 'twere lawful up to send + My voice to heaven, this should it rend: + "Lord, thrust me deeper into dust, + That thou may'st raise me with the just." + +There are strange things and worth pondering in all these. An occasional +classical allusion seems to us quite out of place, but such things we +must pass. The poems are quite different from any we have had before. +There has been only a few of such writers in our nation, but I suspect +those have had a good deal more influence upon the religious life of it +than many thinkers suppose. They are in closest sympathy with the deeper +forms of truth employed by St. Paul and St. John. This last poem, +concerning humility as the house in which charity dwells, is very truth. +A repentant sinner feels that he is making himself little when he prays +to be made humble: the Christian philosopher sees such a glory and +spiritual wealth in humility that it appears to him almost too much to +pray for. + +The very essence of these mystical writers seems to me to be poetry. They +use the largest figures for the largest spiritual ideas--_light_ for +_good, darkness_ for _evil_. Such symbols are the true bodies of the true +ideas. For this service mainly what we term _nature_ was called into +being, namely, to furnish forms for truths, for without form truth cannot +be uttered. Having found their symbols, these writers next proceed to use +them logically; and here begins the peculiar danger. When the logic +leaves the poetry behind, it grows first presumptuous, then hard, then +narrow and untrue to the original breadth of the symbol; the glory of the +symbol vanishes; and the final result is a worship of the symbol, which +has withered into an apple of Sodom. Witness some of the writings of the +European master of the order--Swedenborg: the highest of them are rich in +truth; the lowest are poverty-stricken indeed. + +In 1615 was born Richard Baxter, one of the purest and wisest and +devoutest of men--and no mean poet either. If ever a man sought between +contending parties to do his duty, siding with each as each appeared +right, opposing each as each appeared wrong, surely that man was Baxter. +Hence he fared as all men too wise to be partisans must fare--he pleased +neither Royalists nor Puritans. Dull of heart and sadly unlike a mother +was the Church when, by the Act of Uniformity of Charles II., she drove +from her bosom such a son, with his two thousand brethren of the clergy! + +He has left us a good deal of verse--too much, perhaps, if we consider +the length of the poems and the value of condensation. There is in many +of them a delightful fervour of the simplest love to God, uttered with a +plain half poetic, half logical strength, from which sometimes the poetry +breaks out clear and fine. Much that he writes is of death, from the +dread of which he evidently suffered--a good thing when it drives a man +to renew his confidence in his Saviour's presence. It has with him a very +different origin from the vulgar fancy that to talk about death is +religious. It was refuge from the fear of death he sought, and that is +the part of every man who would not be a slave. The _door of death_ of +which he so often speaks is to him a door out of the fear of death. + +The poem from which the following excerpt is made was evidently written +in view of some imminent suffering for conscience-sake, probably when the +Act of Uniformity was passed: twenty years after, he was imprisoned at +the age of sixty-seven, and lay nearly a year and a half.--I omit many +verses. + + + THE RESOLUTION. + + It's no great matter what men deem, + Whether they count me good or bad: + In their applause and best esteem, + There's no contentment to be had. + Thy steps, Lord, in this dirt I see; + And lest my soul from God should stray, + I'll bear my cross and follow thee: + Let others choose the fairer way. + My face is meeter for the spit; + I am more suitable to shame, + And to the taunts of scornful wit: + It's no great matter for my name. + + My Lord hath taught me how to want + A place wherein to put my head: + While he is mine, I'll be content + To beg or lack my daily bread. + Must I forsake the soil and air + Where first I drew my vital breath? + That way may be as near and fair: + Thence I may come to thee by death. + All countries are my Father's lands; + Thy sun, thy love, doth shine on all; + We may in all lift up pure hands, + And with acceptance on thee call. + + What if in prison I must dwell? + May I not there converse with thee? + Save me from sin, thy wrath, and hell, + Call me thy child, and I am free. + No walls or bars can keep thee out; + None can confine a holy soul; + The streets of heaven it walks about; + None can its liberty control. + This flesh hath drawn my soul to sin: + If it must smart, thy will be done! + O fill me with thy joys within, + And then I'll let it grieve alone. + + Frail, sinful flesh is loath to die; + Sense to the unseen world is strange; + The doubting soul dreads the Most High, + And trembleth at so great a change. + O let me not be strange at home, + Strange to the sun and life of souls, + Choosing this low and darkened room, + Familiar with worms and moles! + Am I the first that go this way? + How many saints are gone before! + How many enter every day + Into thy kingdom by this door! + Christ was once dead, and in a grave; + Yet conquered death, and rose again; + And by this method he will save + His servants that with him shall reign. + The strangeness will be quickly over, + When once the heaven-born soul is there: + One sight of God will it recover + From all this backwardness and fear. + To us, Christ's lowest parts, his feet, + Union and faith must yet suffice + To guide and comfort us: it's meet + We trust our head who hath our eyes. + +We see here that faith in the Lord leads Richard Baxter to the same +conclusions immediately to which his faithful philosophy led Henry More. + +There is much in Baxter's poems that I would gladly quote, but must leave +with regret. Here is a curious, skilful, and, in a homely way, poetic +ballad, embodying a good parable. I give only a few of the stanzas. + + + THE RETURN. + + Who was it that I left behind + When I went last from home, + That now I all disordered find + When to myself I come? + + I left it light, but now all's dark, + And I am fain to grope: + Were it not for one little spark + I should be out of hope. + + My Gospel-book I open left, + Where I the promise saw; + But now I doubt it's lost by theft: + I find none but the Law. + + The stormy rain an entrance hath + Through the uncovered top: + How should I rest when showers of wrath + Upon my conscience drop? + + I locked my jewel in my chest; + I'll search lest that be gone:-- + If this one guest had quit my breast, + I had been quite undone. + + My treacherous Flesh had played its part, + And opened Sin the door; + And they have spoiled and robbed my heart, + And left it sad and poor. + + Yet have I one great trusty friend + That will procure my peace, + And all this loss and ruin mend, + And purchase my release. + + The bellows I'll yet take in hand, + Till this small spark shall flame: + Love shall my heart and tongue command + To praise God's holy name. + + I'll mend the roof; I'll watch the door, + And better keep the key; + I'll trust my treacherous flesh no more, + But force it to obey. + + What have I said? That I'll do this + That am so false and weak, + And have so often done amiss, + And did my covenants break? + + I mean, Lord--all this shall be done + If thou my heart wilt raise; + And as the work must be thine own, + So also shall the praise. + +The allegory is so good that one is absolutely sorry when it breaks down, +and the poem says in plain words that which is the subject of the +figures, bringing truths unmasked into the midst of the maskers who +represent truths--thus interrupting the pleasure of the artistic sense in +the transparent illusion. + +The command of metrical form in Baxter is somewhat remarkable. He has not +much melody, but he keeps good time in a variety of measures. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +CRASHAW AND MARVELL. + + +I come now to one of the loveliest of our angel-birds, Richard Crashaw. +Indeed he was like a bird in more senses than one; for he belongs to that +class of men who seem hardly ever to get foot-hold of this world, but are +ever floating in the upper air of it. + +What I said of a peculiar Æolian word-music in William Drummond applies +with equal truth to Crashaw; while of our own poets, somehow or other, he +reminds me of Shelley, in the silvery shine and bell-like melody both of +his verse and his imagery; and in one of his poems, _Music's Duel_, the +fineness of his phrase reminds me of Keats. But I must not forget that it +is only with his sacred, his best poems too, that I am now concerned. + +The date of his birth is not known with certainty, but it is judged about +1616, the year of Shakspere's death. He was the son of a Protestant +clergyman zealous even to controversy. By a not unnatural reaction +Crashaw, by that time, it is said, a popular preacher, when expelled from +Oxford in 1644 by the Puritan Parliament because of his refusal to sign +their Covenant, became a Roman Catholic. He died about the age of +thirty-four, a canon of the Church of Loretto. There is much in his +verses of that sentimentalism which, I have already said in speaking of +Southwell, is rife in modern Catholic poetry. I will give from Crashaw a +specimen of the kind of it. Avoiding a more sacred object, one stanza +from a poem of thirty-one, most musical, and full of lovely speech +concerning the tears of Mary Magdalen, will suit my purpose. + + Hail, sister springs, + Parents of silver-footed rills! + Ever-bubbling things! + Thawing crystal! Snowy hills, + Still spending, never spent!--I mean + Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene! + +The poem is called _The Weeper_, and is radiant of delicate fancy. But +surely such tones are not worthy of flitting moth-like about the holy +sorrow of a repentant woman! Fantastically beautiful, they but play with +her grief. Sorrow herself would put her shoes off her feet in approaching +the weeping Magdalene. They make much of her indeed, but they show her +little reverence. There is in them, notwithstanding their fervour of +amorous words, a coldness like that which dwells in the ghostly beauty of +icicles shining in the moon. + +But I almost reproach myself for introducing Crashaw thus. I had to point +out the fact, and now having done with it, I could heartily wish I had +room to expatiate on his loveliness even in such poems as _The Weeper_. + +His _Divine Epigrams_ are not the most beautiful, but they are to me the +most valuable of his verses, inasmuch as they make us feel afresh the +truth which he sets forth anew. In them some of the facts of our Lord's +life and teaching look out upon us as from clear windows of the past. As +epigrams, too, they are excellent--pointed as a lance. + + + _Upon the Sepulchre of our Lord._ + + Here, where our Lord once laid his head, + Now the grave lies buriëd. + + + _The Widow's Mites._ + + Two mites, two drops, yet all her house and land, + Fall from a steady heart, though trembling hand; + The other's wanton wealth foams high and brave: + The other cast away--she only gave. + + + _On the Prodigal._ + + Tell me, bright boy! tell me, my golden lad! + Whither away so frolic? Why so glad? + + What! _all_ thy wealth in council? _all_ thy state? + Are husks so dear? Troth, 'tis a mighty rate! + +I value the following as a lovely parable. Mary is not contented: to see +the place is little comfort. The church itself, with all its memories of +the Lord, the gospel-story, and all theory about him, is but his tomb +until we find himself. + + + _Come, see the place-where the Lord lay._ + + Show me himself, himself, bright sir! Oh show + Which way my poor tears to himself may go. + Were it enough to show the place, and say, + "Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay;" + Then could I show these arms of mine, and say, + "Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay." + +From one of eight lines, on the Mother Mary looking on her child in her +lap, I take the last two, complete in themselves, and I think best alone. + + This new guest to her eyes new laws hath given: + 'Twas once _look up_, 'tis now _look down to heaven_. + +And here is perhaps his best. + + + _Two went up into the Temple to pray_. + + Two went to pray? Oh rather say, + One went to brag, the other to pray. + + One stands up close, and treads on high, + Where the other dares not lend his eye. + + One nearer to God's altar trod; + The other to the altar's God. + +This appears to me perfect. Here is the true relation between the forms +and the end of religion. The priesthood, the altar and all its +ceremonies, must vanish from between the sinner and his God. When the +priest forgets his mediation of a servant, his duty of a door-keeper to +the temple of truth, and takes upon him the office of an intercessor, he +stands between man and God, and is a Satan, an adversary. Artistically +considered, the poem could hardly be improved. + +Here is another containing a similar lesson. + + + _I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof._ + + Thy God was making haste into thy roof; + Thy humble faith and fear keeps him aloof. + He'll be thy guest: because he may not be, + He'll come--into thy house? No; into thee. + +The following is a world-wide intercession for them that know not what +they do. Of those that reject the truth, who can be said ever to have +_truly_ seen it? A man must be good to see truth. It is a thought +suggested by our Lord's words, not an irreverent opposition to the truth +of _them_. + + + _But now they have seen and hated._ + + _Seen?_ and yet _hated thee?_ They did not see-- + They saw thee not, that saw and hated thee! + No, no; they saw thee not, O Life! O Love! + Who saw aught in thee that their hate could move. + +We must not be too ready to quarrel with every oddity: an oddity will +sometimes just give the start to an outbreak of song. The strangeness of +the following hymn rises almost into grandeur. + + + EASTER DAY. + + Rise, heir of fresh eternity, + From thy virgin-tomb; + Rise, mighty man of wonders, and thy world with thee; + Thy tomb, the universal East-- + Nature's new womb; + Thy tomb--fair Immortality's perfumed nest. + + Of all the glories[139] make noon gay + This is the morn; + This rock buds forth the fountain of the streams of day; + In joy's white annals lives this hour, + When life was born, + No cloud-scowl on his radiant lids, no tempest-lower. + + Life, by this light's nativity, + All creatures have; + Death only by this day's just doom is forced to die. + Nor is death forced; for, may he lie + Throned in thy grave, + Death will on this condition be content to die. + +When we come, in the writings of one who has revealed masterdom, upon any +passage that seems commonplace, or any figure that suggests nothing true, +the part of wisdom is to brood over that point; for the probability is +that the barrenness lies in us, two factors being necessary for the +result of sight--the thing to be seen and the eye to see it. No doubt the +expression may be inadequate, but if we can compensate the deficiency by +adding more vision, so much the better for us. + +In the second stanza there is a strange combination of images: the rock +buds; and buds a fountain; the fountain is light. But the images are so +much one at the root, that they slide gracefully into each other, and +there is no confusion or incongruity: the result is an inclined plane of +development. + +I now come to the most musical and most graceful, therefore most lyrical, +of his poems. I have left out just three stanzas, because of the +sentimentalism of which I have spoken: I would have left out more if I +could have done so without spoiling the symmetry of the poem. My reader +must be friendly enough to one who is so friendly to him, to let his +peculiarities pass unquestioned--amongst the rest his conceits, as well +as the trifling discord that the shepherds should be called, after the +classical fashion--ill agreeing, from its associations, with Christian +song--Tityrus and Thyrsis. + + + A HYMN OF THE NATIVITY SUNG BY THE SHEPHERDS. + + _Chorus_. Come, we shepherds, whose blest sight + Hath met love's noon in nature's night; + Come, lift we up our loftier song, + And wake the sun that lies too long. + + To all our world of well-stolen[140] joy + He slept, and dreamed of no such thing, + While we found out heaven's fairer eye, + And kissed the cradle of our king: + Tell him he rises now too late + To show us aught worth looking at. + + Tell him we now can show him more + Than he e'er showed to mortal sight-- + Than he himself e'er saw before, + Which to be seen needs not his light: + Tell him, Tityrus, where thou hast been; + Tell him, Thyrsis, what thou hast seen. + + _Tityrus_. Gloomy night embraced the place + Where the noble infant lay: + The babe looked up and showed his face: + In spite of darkness it was day. + It was thy day, sweet, and did rise + Not from the east, but from thy eyes. + _Chorus._ It was thy day, sweet, &c. + + _Thyrsis_. Winter chid aloud, and sent + The angry north to wage his wars: + The north forgot his fierce intent, + And left perfumes instead of scars. + By those sweet eyes' persuasive powers, + Where he meant frosts, he scattered flowers. + _Chorus._ By those sweet eyes', &c. + + _Both_. We saw thee in thy balmy nest, + Young dawn of our eternal day; + We saw thine eyes break from the east, + And chase the trembling shades away. + We saw thee, and we blessed the sight; + We saw thee by thine own sweet light. + _Chorus._ We saw thee, &c. + + _Tityrus_. "Poor world," said I, "what wilt thou do + To entertain this starry stranger? + Is this the best thou canst bestow-- + A cold and not too cleanly manger? + Contend, the powers of heaven and earth, + To fit a bed for this huge birth." + _Chorus._ Contend, the powers, &c. + + _Thyrsis_. "Proud world," said I, "cease your contest, + And let the mighty babe alone: + The phoenix builds the phoenix' nest-- + Love's architecture is his own. + The babe, whose birth embraves this morn, + Made his own bed ere he was born." + _Chorus._ The babe, whose birth, &c. + + _Tityrus_. I saw the curl'd drops, soft and slow, + Come hovering o'er the place's head, + Offering their whitest sheets of snow + To furnish the fair infant's bed: + "Forbear," said I; "be not too bold: + Your fleece is white, but 'tis too cold." + _Chorus._ "Forbear," said I, &c. + + _Thyrsis_. I saw the obsequious seraphim + Their rosy fleece of fire bestow; + For well they now can spare their wings, + Since heaven itself lies here below. + "Well done," said I; "but are you sure + Your down, so warm, will pass for pure?" + _Chorus._ "Well done," said I, &c. + + * * * * * + + _Full Chorus_. Welcome all wonders in one sight! + Eternity shut in a span! + Summer in winter! day in night! + Heaven in earth, and God in man! + Great little one, whose all-embracing birth + Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth! + + * * * * * + + Welcome--though not to those gay flies + Gilded i' th' beams of earthly kings-- + Slippery souls in smiling eyes-- + But to poor shepherds, homespun things, + Whose wealth's their flocks, whose wit's to be + Well read in their simplicity. + + Yet when young April's husband showers + Shall bless the fruitful Maia's bed, + We'll bring the firstborn of her flowers + To kiss thy feet, and crown thy head: + To thee, dear Lamb! whose love must keep + The shepherds while they feed their sheep. + + To thee, meek Majesty, soft king + Of simple graces and sweet loves, + Each of us his lamb will bring, + Each his pair of silver doves. + At last, in fire of thy fair eyes, + Ourselves become our own best sacrifice. + +A splendid line to end with! too good for the preceding one. All temples +and altars, all priesthoods and prayers, must vanish in this one and only +sacrifice. Exquisite, however, as the poem is, we cannot help wishing it +looked less heathenish. Its decorations are certainly meretricious. + +From a few religious poems of Sir Edward Sherburne, another Roman +Catholic, and a firm adherent of Charles I., I choose the following--the +only one I care for. + + + AND THEY LAID HIM IN A MANGER. + + Happy crib, that wert, alone, + To my God, bed, cradle, throne! + Whilst thy glorious vileness I + View with divine fancy's eye, + Sordid filth seems all the cost, + State, and splendour, crowns do boast. + + See heaven's sacred majesty + Humbled beneath poverty; + Swaddled up in homely rags, + On a bed of straw and flags! + He whose hands the heavens displayed, + And the world's foundations laid, + From the world's almost exiled, + Of all ornaments despoiled. + Perfumes bathe him not, new-born; + Persian mantles not adorn; + Nor do the rich roofs look bright + With the jasper's orient light. + + Where, O royal infant, be + The ensigns of thy majesty; + Thy Sire's equalizing state; + And thy sceptre that rules fate? + Where's thy angel-guarded throne, + Whence thy laws thou didst make known-- + Laws which heaven, earth, hell obeyed? + These, ah! these aside he laid; + Would the emblem be--of pride + By humility outvied. + +I pass by Abraham Cowley, mighty reputation as he has had, without +further remark than that he is too vulgar to be admired more than +occasionally, and too artificial almost to be, as a poet, loved at all. + +Andrew Marvell, member of Parliament for Hull both before and after the +Restoration, was twelve years younger than his friend Milton. Any one of +some half-dozen of his few poems is to my mind worth all the verse that +Cowley ever made. It is a pity he wrote so little; but his was a life as +diligent, I presume, as it was honourable. + + + ON A DROP OF DEW. + + See how the orient dew, + Shed from the bosom of the morn + Into the blowing roses, + Yet careless of its mansion new + For the clear region where 'twas born, + Round in itself encloses, _used intransitively._ + And in its little globe's extent, + Frames as it can its native element. + How it the purple flower does slight, + Scarce touching where it lies, + But gazing back upon the skies, + Shines with a mournful light, + Like its own tear, + Because so long divided from the sphere: + Restless it rolls, and unsecure, + Trembling lest it grow impure, + Till the warm sun pity its pain, + And to the skies exhale it back again. + So the soul, that drop, that ray + Of the clear fountain of eternal day, + Could it within the human flower be seen, + Remembering still its former height, + Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green; + And, recollecting its own light, + Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express + The greater heaven in an heaven less. + In how coy a figure wound, + Every way it turns away, + So the world excluding round, + Yet receiving in the day; + Dark beneath but bright above, + Here disdaining, there in love. + How loose and easy hence to go! + How girt and ready to ascend! + Moving but on a point below, + It all about does upwards bend. + Such did the manna's sacred dew distil-- + White and entire,[141] though congealed and chill-- + Congealed on earth, but does, dissolving, run + Into the glories of the almighty sun. + +Surely a lovely fancy of resemblance, exquisitely wrought out; an +instance of the lighter play of the mystical mind, which yet shadows +forth truth. + + + THE CORONET. + + When for the thorns with which I long too long, + With many a piercing wound, + My Saviour's head have crowned, + I seek with garlands to redress that wrong, + Through every garden, every mead + I gather flowers--my fruits are only flowers-- + Dismantling all the fragrant towers + That once adorned my shepherdess's head; + And now, when I have summed up all my store, + Thinking--so I myself deceive-- + So rich a chaplet thence to weave + As never yet the King of glory wore; + Alas! I find the serpent old, + That, twining in his speckled breast, + About the flowers disguised does fold, + With wreaths of fame and interest. + Ah, foolish man that wouldst debase with them + And mortal glory, heaven's diadem! + But thou who only couldst the serpent tame, + Either his slippery knots at once untie, + And disentangle all his winding snare, + Or shatter too with him my curious frame,[142] + And let these wither, that so he may die, + Though set with skill, and chosen out with care; + That they, while thou on both their spoils dost tread, + May crown thy feet that could not crown thy head. + +A true sacrifice of worship, if not a garland of praise! The disciple +would have his works tried by the fire, not only that the gold and the +precious stones may emerge relucent, but that the wood and hay and +stubble may perish. The will of God alone, not what we may have effected, +deserves our care. In the perishing of our deeds they fall at his feet: +in our willing their loss we crown his head. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +A MOUNT OF VISION--HENRY VAUGHAN. + + +We have now arrived at the borders of a long, dreary tract, which, +happily for my readers, I can shorten for them in this my retrospect. +From the heights of Henry Vaughan's verse, I look across a stony region, +with a few feeble oases scattered over it, and a hazy green in the +distance. It does not soften the dreariness that its stones are all laid +in order, that the spaces which should be meadows are skilfully paved. + +Henry Vaughan belongs to the mystical school, but his poetry rules his +theories. You find no more of the mystic than the poet can easily govern; +in fact, scarcely more than is necessary to the highest poetry. He +develops his mysticism upwards, with relation to his higher nature alone: +it blossoms into poetry. His twin-brother Thomas developed his mysticism +downwards in the direction of the material sciences--a true effort still, +but one in which the danger of ceasing to be true increases with +increasing ratio the further it is carried. + +They were born in South Wales in the year 1621. Thomas was a clergyman; +Henry a doctor of medicine. Both were Royalists, and both suffered in the +cause--Thomas by expulsion from his living, Henry by imprisonment. Thomas +died soon after the Restoration; Henry outlived the Revolution. + +Henry Vaughan was then nearly thirty years younger than George Herbert, +whom he consciously and intentionally imitates. His art is not comparable +to that of Herbert: hence Herbert remains the master; for it is not the +thought that makes the poet; it is the utterance of that thought in +worthy presence of speech. He is careless and somewhat rugged. If he can +get his thought dressed, and thus made visible, he does not mind the +dress fitting awkwardly, or even being a little out at elbows. And yet he +has grander lines and phrases than any in Herbert. He has occasionally a +daring success that strikes one with astonishment. In a word, he says +more splendid things than Herbert, though he writes inferior poems. His +thought is profound and just; the harmonies in his soul are true; its +artistic and musical ear is defective. His movements are sometimes grand, +sometimes awkward. Herbert is always gracious--I use the word as meaning +much more than _graceful_. + +The following poem will instance Vaughan's fine mysticism and odd +embodiment: + + + COCK-CROWING. + + Father of lights! what sunny seed, + What glance of day hast thou confined + Into this bird? To all the breed + This busy ray thou hast assigned; + Their magnetism works all night, + And dreams of Paradise and light. + + Their eyes watch for the morning hue; + Their little grain,[143] expelling night, + So shines and sings, as if it knew + The path unto the house of light: + It seems their candle, howe'er done, + Was tined[144] and lighted at the sun. + + If such a tincture, such a touch, + So firm a longing can empower, + Shall thy own image think it much + To watch for thy appearing hour? + If a mere blast so fill the sail, + Shall not the breath of God prevail? + + O thou immortal Light and Heat, + Whose hand so shines through all this frame, + That by the beauty of the seat, + We plainly see who made the same! + Seeing thy seed abides in me, + Dwell thou in it, and I in thee. + + To sleep without thee is to die; + Yea, 'tis a death partakes of hell; + For where thou dost not close the eye, + It never opens, I can tell: + In such a dark, Egyptian border + The shades of death dwell and disorder + + Its joys and hopes and earnest throws, + And hearts whose pulse beats still for light, + Are given to birds, who but thee knows + A love-sick soul's exalted flight? + Can souls be tracked by any eye + But his who gave them wings to fly? + + Only this veil, which thou hast broke, + And must be broken yet in me; + This veil, I say, is all the cloak + And cloud which shadows me from thee. + This veil thy full-eyed love denies, + And only gleams and fractions spies. + + O take it off. Make no delay, + But brush me with thy light, that I + May shine unto a perfect day, + And warm me at thy glorious eye. + O take it off; or, till it flee, + Though with no lily, stay with me. + +I have no room for poems often quoted, therefore not for that lovely one +beginning "They are all gone into the world of light;" but I must not +omit _The Retreat_, for besides its worth, I have another reason for +presenting it. + + + THE RETREAT. + + Happy those early days when I + Shined in my angel-infancy! + Before I understood this place + Appointed for my second race, + Or taught my soul to fancy ought + But a white, celestial thought; + When yet I had not walked above + A mile or two from my first love, + And, looking back, at that short space + Could see a glimpse of his bright face; + When on some gilded cloud or flower + My gazing soul would dwell an hour, + And in those weaker glories spy + Some shadows of eternity; + Before I taught my tongue to wound + My conscience with a sinful sound, + Or had the black art to dispense + A several sin to every sense; + But felt through all this fleshly dress + Bright shoots of everlastingness. + O how I long to travel back, + And tread again that ancient track! + That I might once more reach that plain + Where first I left my glorious train, + From whence the enlightened spirit sees + That shady city of palm-trees. + But ah! my soul with too much stay + Is drunk, and staggers in the way! + Some men a forward motion love, + But I by backward steps would move; + And when this dust falls to the urn, + In that state I came return. + +Let any one who is well acquainted with Wordsworth's grand ode--that on +the _Intimations of Immortality_--turn his mind to a comparison between +that and this: he will find the resemblance remarkable. Whether _The +Retreat_ suggested the form of the _Ode_ is not of much consequence, for +the _Ode_ is the outcome at once and essence of all Wordsworth's +theories; and whatever he may have drawn from _The Retreat_ is glorified +in the _Ode_. Still it is interesting to compare them. Vaughan believes +with Wordsworth and some other great men that this is not our first stage +of existence; that we are haunted by dim memories of a former state. This +belief is not necessary, however, to sympathy with the poem, for whether +the present be our first life or no, we have come from God, and bring +from him conscience and a thousand godlike gifts.--"Happy those early +days," Vaughan begins: "There was a time," begins Wordsworth, "when the +earth seemed apparelled in celestial light." "Before I understood this +place," continues Vaughan: "Blank misgivings of a creature moving about +in worlds not realized," says Wordsworth. "A white celestial thought," +says Vaughan: "Heaven lies about us in our infancy," says Wordsworth. "A +mile or two off, I could see his face," says Vaughan: "Trailing clouds of +glory do we come," says Wordsworth. "On some gilded cloud or flower, my +gazing soul would dwell an hour," says Vaughan: "The hour of splendour in +the grass, of glory in the flower," says Wordsworth. + +Wordsworth's poem is the profounder in its philosophy, as well as far the +grander and lovelier in its poetry; but in the moral relation, Vaughan's +poem is the more definite of the two, and gives us in its close, poor as +that is compared with the rest of it, just what we feel is wanting in +Wordsworth's--the hope of return to the bliss of childhood. We may be +comforted for what we lose by what we gain; but that is not a recompense +large enough to be divine: we want both. Vaughan will be a child again. +For the movements of man's life are in spirals: we go back whence we +came, ever returning on our former traces, only upon a higher level, on +the next upward coil of the spiral, so that it is a going back and a +going forward ever and both at once. Life is, as it were, a constant +repentance, or thinking of it again: the childhood of the kingdom takes +the place of the childhood of the brain, but comprises all that was +lovely in the former delight. The heavenly children will subdue kingdoms, +work righteousness, wax valiant in fight, rout the armies of the aliens, +merry of heart as when in the nursery of this world they fought their +fancied frigates, and defended their toy-battlements. + +Here are the beginning and end of another of similar purport: + + CHILDHOOD. + + I cannot reach it; and my striving eye + Dazzles at it, as at eternity. + Were now that chronicle alive, + Those white designs which children drive, + And the thoughts of each harmless hour, + With their content too in my power, + Quickly would I make my path even, + And by mere playing go to heaven. + + * * * * * + + An age of mysteries! which he + Must live twice that would God's face see; + Which angels guard, and with it play-- + Angels which foul men drive away. + + How do I study now, and scan + Thee more than e'er I studied man, + And only see, through a long night, + Thy edges and thy bordering light! + O for thy centre and mid-day! + For sure that is the narrow way! + +Many a true thought comes out by the help of a fancy or half-playful +exercise of the thinking power. There is a good deal of such fancy in the +following poem, but in the end it rises to the height of the purest and +best mysticism. We must not forget that the deepest man can utter, will +be but the type or symbol of a something deeper yet, of which he can +perceive only a doubtful glimmer. This will serve for general remark upon +the mystical mode, as well as for comment explanatory of the close of the +poem. + + + THE NIGHT. + + JOHN iii. 2. + + Through that pure virgin-shrine, + That sacred veil[145] drawn o'er thy glorious noon, + That men might look and live, as glowworms shine, + And face the moon, + Wise Nicodemus saw such light + As made him know his God by night. + + Most blest believer he, + Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes, + Thy long-expected healing wings could see + When thou didst rise! + And, what can never more be done, + Did at midnight speak with the sun! + + O who will tell me where + He found thee at that dead and silent hour? + What hallowed solitary ground did bear + So rare a flower, + Within whose sacred leaves did lie + The fulness of the Deity? + + No mercy-seat of gold, + No dead and dusty cherub, nor carved stone, + But his own living works did my Lord hold + And lodge alone, + Where trees and herbs did watch and peep + And wonder, while the Jews did sleep. + + Dear night! this world's defeat; + The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb, + The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat + Which none disturb! + Christ's progress, and his prayer time,[146] + The hours to which high heaven doth chime![147] + + God's silent, searching flight;[148] + When my Lord's head is filled with dew, and all + His locks are wet with the clear drops of night, + His still, soft call; + His knocking time;[149] the soul's dumb watch, + When spirits their fair kindred catch. + + Were all my loud, evil[150] days + Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent, + Whose peace but by some angel's wing or voice + Is seldom rent, + Then I in heaven all the long year + Would keep, and never wander here. + + But living where the sun + Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire + Themselves and others, I consent and run + To every mire; + And by this world's ill guiding light, + Err more than I can do by night + + There is in God, some say, + A deep but dazzling darkness; as men here + Say it is late and dusky, because they + See not all clear: + O for that night! where I in him + Might live invisible and dim! + +This is glorious; and its lesson of quiet and retirement we need more +than ever in these hurried days upon which we have fallen. If men would +but be still enough in themselves to hear, through all the noises of the +busy light, the voice that is ever talking on in the dusky chambers of +their hearts! Look at his love for Nature, too; and read the fourth +stanza in connexion with my previous remarks upon symbolism. I think this +poem _grander_ than any of George Herbert's. I use the word with intended +precision. + +Here is one, the end of which is not so good, poetically considered, as +the magnificent beginning, but which contains striking lines +throughout:-- + + + THE DAWNING. + + Ah! what time wilt thou come? When shall that cry, + _The Bridegroom's coming_, fill the sky? + Shall it in the evening run + When our words and works are done? + Or will thy all-surprising light + Break at midnight, + When either sleep or some dark pleasure + Possesseth mad man without measure? + Or shail these early, fragrant hours + Unlock thy bowers,[151] + And with their blush of light descry + Thy locks crowned with eternity? + Indeed, it is the only time + That with thy glory doth best chime: + All now are stirring; every field + Full hymns doth yield; + The whole creation shakes off night, + And for thy shadow looks the light;[152] + Stars now vanish without number; + Sleepy planets set and slumber; + The pursy clouds disband and scatter;-- + All expect some sudden matter; + Not one beam triumphs, but, from far, + That morning-star. + + O, at what time soever thou, + Unknown to us, the heavens wilt bow, + And, with thy angels in the van, + Descend to judge poor careless man, + Grant I may not like puddle lie + In a corrupt security, + Where, if a traveller water crave, + He finds it dead, and in a grave; + But as this restless, vocal spring + All day and night doth run and sing, + And though here born, yet is acquainted + Elsewhere, and, flowing, keeps untainted, + So let me all my busy age + In thy free services engage; + And though, while here, of force,[153] I must + Have commerce sometimes with poor dust,[154] + And in my flesh, though vile and low, + As this doth in her channel, flow, + Yet let my course, my aim, my love, + And chief acquaintance be above. + So when that day and hour shall come, + In which thyself will be the sun, + Thou'lt find me drest and on my way, + Watching the break of thy great day. + +I do not think that description of the dawn has ever been surpassed. The +verse "All expect some sudden matter," is wondrously fine. The water +"dead and in a grave," because stagnant, is a true fancy; and the +"acquainted elsewhere" of the running stream, is a masterly phrase. I +need not point out the symbolism of the poem. + +I do not know a writer, Wordsworth not excepted, who reveals more delight +in the visions of Nature than Henry Vaughan. He is a true forerunner of +Wordsworth, inasmuch as the latter sets forth with only greater +profundity and more art than he, the relations between Nature and Human +Nature; while, on the other hand, he is the forerunner as well of some +one that must yet do what Wordsworth has left almost unattempted, +namely--set forth the sympathy of Nature with the aspirations of the +spirit that is born of God, born again, I mean, in the recognition of the +child's relation to the Father. Both Herbert and Vaughan have thus read +Nature, the latter turning many leaves which few besides have turned. In +this he has struck upon a deeper and richer lode than even Wordsworth, +although he has not wrought it with half his skill. In any history of the +development of the love of the present age for Nature, Vaughan, although +I fear his influence would be found to have been small as yet, must be +represented as the Phosphor of coming dawn. Beside him, Thomson is cold, +artistic, and gray: although larger in scope, he is not to be compared +with him in sympathetic sight. It is this insight that makes Vaughan a +mystic. He can see one thing everywhere, and all things the same--yet +each with a thousand sides that radiate crossing lights, even as the airy +particles around us. For him everything is the expression of, and points +back to, some fact in the Divine Thought. Along the line of every ray he +looks towards its radiating centre--the heart of the Maker. + +I could give many instances of Vaughan's power in reading the heart of +Nature, but I may not dwell upon this phase. Almost all the poems I give +and have given will afford such. + + I walked the other day, to spend my hour, + Into a field, + Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield + A gallant flower; + But winter now had ruffled all the bower + And curious store + I knew there heretofore. + + Yet I whose search loved not to peep and peer + I' th' face of things, + Thought with myself, there might be other springs + Besides this here, + Which, like cold friends, sees us but once a year; + And so the flower + Might have some other bower. + + Then taking up what I could nearest spy, + I digged about + That place where I had seen him to grow out; + And by and by + I saw the warm recluse alone to lie, + Where fresh and green + He lived of us unseen. + + Many a question intricate and rare + Did I there strow; + But all I could extort was, that he now + Did there repair + Such losses as befell him in this air, + And would ere long + Come forth most fair and young. + + This past, I threw the clothes quite o'er his head; + And, stung with fear + Of my own frailty, dropped down many a tear + Upon his bed; + Then sighing, whispered, _Happy are the dead! + What peace doth now + Rock him asleep below!_ + + And yet, how few believe such doctrine springs + From a poor root + Which all the winter sleeps here under foot, + And hath no wings + To raise it to the truth and light of things, + But is still trod + By every wandering clod! + + O thou, whose spirit did at first inflame + And warm the dead! + And by a sacred incubation fed + With life this frame, + Which once had neither being, form, nor name! + Grant I may so + Thy steps track here below, + + That in these masks and shadows I may see + Thy sacred way; + And by those hid ascents climb to that day + Which breaks from thee, + Who art in all things, though invisibly: + Show me thy peace, + Thy mercy, love, and ease. + + And from this care, where dreams and sorrows reign, + Lead me above, + Where light, joy, leisure, and true comforts move + Without all pain: + There, hid in thee, show me his life again + At whose dumb urn + Thus all the year I mourn. + +There are several amongst his poems lamenting, like this, the death of +some dear friend--perhaps his twin-brother, whom he outlived thirty +years. + +According to what a man is capable of seeing in nature, he becomes either +a man of appliance, a man of science, a mystic, or a poet. + +I must now give two that are simple in thought, construction, and music. +The latter ought to be popular, from the nature of its rhythmic movement, +and the holy merriment it carries. But in the former, note how the major +key of gladness changes in the third stanza to the minor key of +aspiration, which has always some sadness in it; a sadness which deepens +to grief in the next stanza at the consciousness of unfitness for +Christ's company, but is lifted by hope almost again to gladness in the +last. + + + CHRIST'S NATIVITY. + + Awake, glad heart! Get up, and sing! + It is the birthday of thy king! + Awake! awake! + The sun doth shake + Light from his locks, and, all the way + Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day. + + Awake! awake! Hark how the wood rings + Winds whisper, and the busy springs + A concert make: + Awake! awake! + Man is their high-priest, and should rise + To offer up the sacrifice. + + I would I were some bird or star, + Fluttering in woods, or lifted far + Above this inn + And road of sin! + Then either star or bird should be + Shining or singing still to thee. + + I would I had in my best part + Fit rooms for thee! or that my heart + Were so clean as + Thy manger was! + But I am all filth, and obscene; + Yet, if thou wilt, thou canst make clean. + + Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no more + This leper haunt and soil thy door. + Cure him, ease him; + O release him! + And let once more, by mystic birth, + The Lord of life be born in earth. + +The fitting companion to this is his + + + EASTER HYMN. + + Death and darkness, get you packing: + Nothing now to man is lacking. + All your triumphs now are ended, + And what Adam marred is mended. + Graves are beds now for the weary; + Death a nap, to wake more merry; + Youth now, full of pious duty, + Seeks in thee for perfect beauty; + The weak and aged, tired with length + Of days, from thee look for new strength; + And infants with thy pangs contest, + As pleasant as if with the breast. + + Then unto him who thus hath thrown + Even to contempt thy kingdom down, + And by his blood did us advance + Unto his own inheritance-- + To him be glory, power, praise, + From this unto the last of days! + +We must now descend from this height of true utterance into the Valley of +Humiliation, and cannot do better than console ourselves by listening to +the boy in mean clothes, of the fresh and well-favoured countenance, whom +Christiana and her fellow-pilgrims hear singing in that valley. + + He that is down, needs fear no fall; + He that is low, no pride; + He that is humble ever shall + Have God to be his guide. + + I am content with what I have, + Little be it or much; + And, Lord, contentment still I crave, + Because thou savest[155] such. + + Fulness to such a burden is + That go on pilgrimage; + Here little, and hereafter bliss, + Is best from age to age. + +I could not have my book without one word in it of John Bunyan, the +tinker, probably the gipsy, who although born only and not made a poet, +like his great brother, John Milton, has uttered in prose a wealth of +poetic thought. He was born in 1628, twenty years after Milton. I must +not, however, remark on this noble Bohemian of literature and prophecy; +but leaving at length these flowery hills and meadows behind me, step on +my way across the desert.--England had now fallen under the influence of +France instead of Italy, and that influence has never been for good to +our literature, at least. Thence its chief aim grew to be a desirable +trimness of speech and logical arrangement of matter--good external +qualities purchased at a fearful price with the loss of all that makes +poetry precious. The poets of England, with John Dryden at their head, +ceased almost for a time to deal with the truths of humanity, and gave +themselves to the facts and relations of society. The nation which could +recall the family of the Stuarts must necessarily fall into such a decay +of spiritual life as should render its literature only respectable at the +best, and its religious utterances essentially vulgar. But the decay is +gradual. + +Bishop Ken, born in 1637, is known chiefly by his hymns for the morning +and evening, deservedly popular. He has, however, written a great many +besides--too many, indeed, for variety or excellence. He seems to have +set himself to write them as acts of worship. They present many signs of +a perversion of taste which, though not in them so remarkable, rose to a +height before long. He annoys us besides by the constant recurrence of +certain phrases, one or two of which are not admirable, and by using, in +the midst of a simple style, odd Latin words. Here are portions of, I +think, one of his best, and good it is. + + + FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS. + + * * * * * + + Lord, 'tis thyself who hast impressed + In native light on human breast, + That their Creator all + Mankind should Father call: + A father's love all mortals know, + And the love filial which they owe. + + Our Father gives us heavenly light, + And to be happy, ghostly sight; + He blesses, guides, sustains; + He eases us in pains; + Abatements for our weakness makes, + And never a true child forsakes. + + He waits till the hard heart relents; + Our self-damnation he laments; + He sweetly them invites + To share in heaven's delights; + His arms he opens to receive + All who for past transgressions grieve. + + My Father! O that name is sweet + To sinners mourning in retreat. + God's heart paternal yearns + When he a change discerns; + He to his favour them restores; + He heals their most inveterate sores. + + * * * * * + + Religious honour, humble awe; + Obedience to our Father's law; + A lively grateful sense + Of tenderness immense; + Full trust on God's paternal cares; + Submission which chastisement bears; + + Grief, when his goodness we offend; + Zeal, to his likeness to ascend; + Will, from the world refined, + To his sole will resigned: + These graces in God's children shine, + Reflections of the love divine. + + * * * * * + + God's Son co-equal taught us all + In prayer his Father ours to call: + With confidence in need, + We to our Father speed: + Of his own Son the language dear + Intenerates the Father's ear. _makes tender._ + + Thou Father art, though to my shame, + I often forfeit that dear name; + But since for sin I grieve, + Me father-like receive; + O melt me into filial tears, + To pay of love my vast arrears. + + * * * * * + + O Spirit of Adoption! spread + Thy wings enamouring o'er my head; + O Filial love immense! + Raise me to love intense; + O Father, source of love divine, + My powers to love and hymn incline! + + While God my Father I revere, + Nor all hell powers, nor death I fear; + I am my Father's care; + His succours present are. + All comes from my loved Father's will, + And that sweet name intends no ill. + + God's Son his soul, when life he closed, + In his dear Father's hands reposed: + I'll, when my last I breathe, + My soul to God bequeath; + And panting for the joys on high, + Invoking Love Paternal, die. + +Born in 1657, one of the later English Platonists, John Norris, who, with +how many incumbents between I do not know, succeeded George Herbert in +the cure of Bemerton, has left a few poems, which would have been better +if he had not been possessed with the common admiration for the +rough-shod rhythms of Abraham Cowley. + +Here is one in which the peculiarities of his theories show themselves +very prominently. There is a constant tendency in such to wander into the +region half-spiritual, half-material. + + + THE ASPIRATION. + + How long, great God, how long must I + Immured in this dark prison lie; + My soul must watch to have intelligence; + Where at the grates and avenues of sense + Where but faint gleams of thee salute my sight, + Like doubtful moonshine in a cloudy night? + When shall I leave this magic sphere, + And be all mind, all eye, all ear? + + How cold this clime! And yet my sense + Perceives even here thy influence. + Even here thy strong magnetic charms I feel, + And pant and tremble like the amorous steel. + To lower good, and beauties less divine, + Sometimes my erroneous needle does decline, + But yet, so strong the sympathy, + It turns, and points again to thee. + + I long to see this excellence + Which at such distance strikes my sense. + My impatient soul struggles to disengage + Her wings from the confinement of her cage. + Wouldst thou, great Love, this prisoner once set free, + How would she hasten to be linked to thee! + She'd for no angels' conduct stay, + But fly, and love on all the way. + + + THE RETURN. + + Dear Contemplation! my divinest joy! + When I thy sacred mount ascend, + What heavenly sweets my soul employ! + Why can't I there my days for ever spend? + When I have conquered thy steep heights with pain, + What pity 'tis that I must down again! + + And yet I must: my passions would rebel + Should I too long continue here: + No, here I must not think to dwell, + But mind the duties of my proper sphere. + So angels, though they heaven's glories know, + Forget not to attend their charge below. + +The old hermits thought to overcome their impulses by retiring from the +world: our Platonist has discovered for himself that the world of duty is +the only sphere in which they can be combated. Never perhaps is a saint +more in danger of giving way to impulse, let it be anger or what it may, +than in the moment when he has just descended from this mount of +contemplation. + +We find ourselves now in the zone of _hymn_-writing. From this period, +that is, from towards the close of the seventeenth century, a large +amount of the fervour of the country finds vent in hymns: they are +innumerable. With them the scope of my book would not permit me to deal, +even had I inclination thitherward, and knowledge enough to undertake +their history. But I am not therefore precluded from presenting any hymn +whose literary excellence makes it worthy. + +It is with especial pleasure that I refer to a little book which was once +a household treasure in a multitude of families,[156] the _Spiritual +Songs_ of John Mason, a clergyman in the county of Buckingham. The date +of his birth does not appear to be known, but the first edition of these +songs[157] was published in 1683. Dr. Watts was very fond of them: would +that he had written with similar modesty of style! A few of them are +still popular in congregational singing. Here is the first in the book: + + + A GENERAL SONG OF PRAISE TO ALMIGHTY GOD. + + How shall I sing that Majesty + Which angels do admire? + Let dust in dust and silence lie; + Sing, sing, ye heavenly choir. + Thousands of thousands stand around + Thy throne, O God most high; + Ten thousand times ten thousand sound + Thy praise; but who am I? + + Thy brightness unto them appears, + Whilst I thy footsteps trace; + A sound of God comes to my ears; + But they behold thy face. + They sing because thou art their sun: + Lord, send a beam on me; + For where heaven is but once begun, + There hallelujahs be. + + Enlighten with faith's light my heart; + Enflame it with love's fire; + Then shall I sing and bear a part + With that celestial choir. + I shall, I fear, be dark and cold, + With all my fire and light; + Yet when thou dost accept their gold, + Lord, treasure up my mite. + + How great a being, Lord, is thine. + Which doth all beings keep! + Thy knowledge is the only line + To sound so vast a deep. + Thou art a sea without a shore, + A sun without a sphere; + Thy time is now and evermore, + Thy place is everywhere. + + How good art thou, whose goodness is + Our parent, nurse, and guide! + Whose streams do water Paradise, + And all the earth beside! + Thine upper and thy nether springs + Make both thy worlds to thrive; + Under thy warm and sheltering wings + Thou keep'st two broods alive. + + Thy arm of might, most mighty king + Both rocks and hearts doth break: + My God, thou canst do everything + But what should show thee weak. + Thou canst not cross thyself, or be + Less than thyself, or poor; + But whatsoever pleaseth thee, + That canst thou do, and more. + + Who would not fear thy searching eye, + Witness to all that's true! + Dark Hell, and deep Hypocrisy + Lie plain before its view. + Motions and thoughts before they grow, + Thy knowledge doth espy; + What unborn ages are to do, + Is done before thine eye. + + Thy wisdom which both makes and mends, + We ever much admire: + Creation all our wit transcends; + Redemption rises higher. + Thy wisdom guides strayed sinners home, + 'Twill make the dead world rise, + And bring those prisoners to their doom: + Its paths are mysteries. + + Great is thy truth, and shall prevail + To unbelievers' shame: + Thy truth and years do never fail; + Thou ever art the same. + Unbelief is a raging wave + Dashing against a rock: + If God doth not his Israel save, + Then let Egyptians mock. + + Most pure and holy are thine eyes, + Most holy is thy name; + Thy saints, and laws, and penalties, + Thy holiness proclaim. + This is the devil's scourge and sting, + This is the angels' song, + Who _holy, holy, holy_ sing, + In heavenly Canaan's tongue. + + Mercy, that shining attribute, + The sinner's hope and plea! + Huge hosts of sins in their pursuit, + Are drowned in thy Red Sea. + Mercy is God's memorial, + And in all ages praised: + My God, thine only Son did fall, + That Mercy might be raised. + + Thy bright back-parts, O God of grace, + I humbly here adore: + Show me thy glory and thy face, + That I may praise thee more. + Since none can see thy face and live, + For me to die is best: + Through Jordan's streams who would not dive, + To land at Canaan's rest? + +To these _Songs of Praise_ is appended another series called _Penitential +Cries_, by the Rev. Thomas Shepherd, who, for a short time a clergyman in +Buckinghamshire, became the minister of the Congregational church at +Northampton, afterwards under the care of Doddridge. Although he was an +imitator of Mason, some of his hymns are admirable. The following I think +one of the best:-- + + + FOR COMMUNION WITH GOD. + + Alas, my God, that we should be + Such strangers to each other! + O that as friends we might agree, + And walk and talk together! + + Thou know'st my soul does dearly love + The place of thine abode; + No music drops so sweet a sound + As these two words, _My God_. + + * * * * * + + May I taste that communion, Lord, + Thy people have with thee? + Thy spirit daily talks with them, + O let it talk with me! + Like Enoch, let me walk with God, + And thus walk out my day, + Attended with the heavenly guards, + Upon the king's highway. + + When wilt thou come unto me, Lord? + O come, my Lord most dear! + Come near, come nearer, nearer still: + I'm well when thou art near. + + * * * * * + + When wilt thou come unto me, Lord? + For, till thou dost appear, + I count each moment for a day, + Each minute for a year. + + * * * * * + + There's no such thing as pleasure here; + My Jesus is my all: + As thou dost shine or disappear, + My pleasures rise and fall. + Come, spread thy savour on my frame-- + No sweetness is so sweet; + Till I get up to sing thy name + Where all thy singers meet. + +In the writings of both we recognize a straight-forwardness of expression +equal to that of Wither, and a quaint simplicity of thought and form like +that of Herrick; while the very charm of some of the best lines is their +spontaneity. The men have just enough mysticism to afford them homeliest +figures for deepest feelings. + +I turn to the accomplished Joseph Addison. + +He was born in 1672. His religious poems are so well known, and are for +the greater part so ordinary in everything but their simplicity of +composition, that I should hardly have cared to choose one, had it not +been that we owe him much gratitude for what he did, in the reigns of +Anne and George I., to purify the moral taste of the English people at a +time when the influence of the clergy was not for elevation, and to teach +the love of a higher literature when Milton was little known and less +esteemed. Especially are we indebted to him for his modest and admirable +criticism of the _Paradise Lost_ in the _Spectator_. + +Of those few poems to which I have referred, I choose the best known, +because it is the best. It has to me a charm for which I can hardly +account. + +Yet I imagine I see in it a sign of the poetic times: a flatness of +spirit, arising from the evanishment of the mystical element, begins to +result in a worship of power. Neither power nor wisdom, though infinite +both, could constitute a God worthy of the worship of a human soul; and +the worship of such a God must sink to the level of that fancied +divinity. Small wonder is it then that the lyric should now droop its +wings and moult the feathers of its praise. I do not say that God's more +glorious attributes are already forgotten, but that the tendency of the +Christian lyric is now to laudation of power--and knowledge, a form of +the same--as _the_ essential of Godhead. This indicates no recalling of +metaphysical questions, such as we have met in foregoing verse, but a +decline towards system; a rising passion--if anything so cold may be +called _a passion_--for the reduction of all things to the forms of the +understanding, a declension which has prepared the way for the present +worship of science, and its refusal, if not denial, of all that cannot be +proved in forms of the intellect. + +The hymn which has led to these remarks is still good, although, like the +loveliness of the red and lowering west, it gives sign of a gray and +cheerless dawn, under whose dreariness the child will first doubt if his +father loves him, and next doubt if he has a father at all, and is not a +mere foundling that Nature has lifted from her path. + + The spacious firmament on high, + With all the blue etherial sky, + And spangled heavens, a shining frame, + Their great Original proclaim. + The unwearied sun from day to day + Does his Creator's power display; + And publishes to every land + The work of an almighty hand. + + Soon as the evening shades prevail, + The moon takes up the wondrous tale; + And nightly to the listening earth + Repeats the story of her birth; + Whilst all the stars that round her burn, + And all the planets, in their turn, + Confirm the tidings as they roll, + And spread the truth from pole to pole. + + What though in solemn silence all + Move round the dark terrestrial ball? + What though no real voice nor sound + Amidst their radiant orbs be found? + In reason's ear they all rejoice, + And utter forth a glorious voice, + For ever singing as they shine: + "The hand that made us is divine." + +The very use of the words _spangled_ and _frame_ seems--to my fancy only, +it may be--to indicate a tendency towards the unworthy and theatrical. +Yet the second stanza is lovely beyond a doubt; and the whole is most +artistic, although after a tame fashion. Whether indeed the heavenly +bodies _teach_ what he says, or whether we should read divinity worthy of +the name in them at all, without the human revelation which healed men, I +doubt much. That divinity is there--_Yes_; that we could read it there +without having seen the face of the Son of Man first, I think--_No_. I do +not therefore dare imagine that no revelation dimly leading towards such +result glimmered in the hearts of God's chosen amongst Jews and Gentiles +before he came. What I say is, that power and order, although of God, and +preparing the way for him, are not his revealers unto men. No doubt King +David compares the perfection of God's law to the glory of the heavens, +but he did not learn that perfection from the heavens, but from the law +itself, revealed in his own heart through the life-teaching of God. When +he had learned it he saw that the heavens were like it. + +To unveil God, only manhood like our own will serve. And he has taken the +form of man that he might reveal the manhood in him from awful eternity. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE PLAIN. + + +But Addison's tameness is wonderfully lovely beside the fervours of a man +of honoured name,--Dr. Isaac Watts, born in 1674. The result must be +dreadful where fervour will poetize without the aidful restraints of art +and modesty. If any man would look upon absurdity in the garb of +sobriety, let him search Dryden's _Annus Mirabilis_: Dr. Watts's _Lyrics_ +are as bad; they are fantastic to utter folly. An admiration of "the +incomparable Mr. Cowley" did the sense of them more injury than the +imitation of his rough-cantering ode could do their rhythm. The +sentimentalities of Roman Catholic writers towards our Lord and his +mother, are not half so offensive as the courtier-like flatteries Dr. +Watts offers to the Most High. To say nothing of the irreverence, the +vulgarity is offensive. He affords another instance amongst thousands how +little the form in which feeling is expressed has to do with the feeling +itself. In him the thought is true, the form of its utterance false; the +feeling lovely, the word, often to a degree, repulsive. The ugly web is +crossed now and then by a fine line, and even damasked with an occasional +good poem: I have found two, and only two, in the whole of his +seventy-five _Lyrics sacred to Devotion_. His objectivity and boldness of +thought, and his freedom of utterance, cause us ever and anon to lament +that he had not the humility and faith of an artist as well as of a +Christian. + +Almost all his symbols indicate a worship of power and of outward show. + +I give the best of the two good poems I have mentioned, and very good it +is. + + + HAPPY FRAILTY. + + "How meanly dwells the immortal mind! + How vile these bodies are! + Why was a clod of earth designed + To enclose a heavenly star? + + "Weak cottage where our souls reside! + This flesh a tottering wall! + With frightful breaches gaping wide, + The building bends to fall. + + "All round it storms of trouble blow, + And waves of sorrow roll; + Cold waves and winter storms beat through, + And pain the tenant-soul. + + "Alas, how frail our state!" said I, + And thus went mourning on; + Till sudden from the cleaving sky + A gleam of glory shone. + + My soul all felt the glory come, + And breathed her native air; + Then she remembered heaven her home, + And she a prisoner here. + + Straight she began to change her key; + And, joyful in her pains, + She sang the frailty of her clay + In pleasurable strains. + + "How weak the prison is where I dwell! + Flesh but a tottering wall! + The breaches cheerfully foretell + The house must shortly fall. + + "No more, my friends, shall I complain, + Though all my heart-strings ache; + Welcome disease, and every pain + That makes the cottage shake! + + "Now let the tempest blow all round, + Now swell the surges high, + And beat this house of bondage down + To let the stranger fly! + + "I have a mansion built above + By the eternal hand; + And should the earth's old basis move, + My heavenly house must stand. + + "Yes, for 'tis there my Saviour reigns-- + I long to see the God-- + And his immortal strength sustains + The courts that cost him blood. + + "Hark! from on high my Saviour calls: + I come, my Lord, my Love! + Devotion breaks the prison-walls, + And speeds my last remove." + +His psalms and hymns are immeasurably better than his lyrics. Dreadful +some of them are; and I doubt if there is one from which we would not +wish stanzas, lines, and words absent. But some are very fine. The man +who could write such verses as these ought not to have written as he has +written:-- + + Had I a glance of thee, my God, + Kingdoms and men would vanish soon; + Vanish as though I saw them not, + As a dim candle dies at noon. + + Then they might fight and rage and rave: + I should perceive the noise no more + Than we can hear a shaking leaf + While rattling thunders round us roar. + +Some of his hymns will be sung, I fancy, so long as men praise God +together; for most heartily do I grant that of all hymns I know he has +produced the best for public use; but these bear a very small proportion +indeed to the mass of his labour. We cannot help wishing that he had +written about the twentieth part. We could not have too much of his best, +such as this: + + Be earth with all her scenes withdrawn; + Let noise and vanity begone: + In secret silence of the mind + My heaven, and there my God, I find; + +but there is no occasion for the best to be so plentiful: a little of it +will go a great way. And as our best moments are so few, how could any +man write six hundred religious poems, and produce quality in proportion +to quantity save in an inverse ratio? + +Dr. Thomas Parnell, the well-known poet, a clergyman, born in Dublin in +1679, has written a few religious verses. The following have a certain +touch of imagination and consequent grace, which distinguishes them above +the swampy level of the time. + + + HYMN FOR EVENING. + + The beam-repelling mists arise, + And evening spreads obscurer skies; + The twilight will the night forerun, + And night itself be soon begun. + Upon thy knees devoutly bow, + And pray the Lord of glory now + To fill thy breast, or deadly sin + May cause a blinder night within. + And whether pleasing vapours rise, + Which gently dim the closing eyes, + Which make the weary members blest + With sweet refreshment in their rest; + Or whether spirits[158] in the brain + Dispel their soft embrace again, + And on my watchful bed I stay, + Forsook by sleep, and waiting day; + Be God for ever in my view, + And never he forsake me too; + But still as day concludes in night, + To break again with new-born light, + His wondrous bounty let me find + With still a more enlightened mind. + + * * * * * + + Thou that hast thy palace far + Above the moon and every star; + Thou that sittest on a throne + To which the night was never known, + Regard my voice, and make me blest + By kindly granting its request. + If thoughts on thee my soul employ, + My darkness will afford me joy, + Till thou shalt call and I shall soar, + And part with darkness evermore. + +Many long and elaborate religious poems I have not even mentioned, +because I cannot favour extracts, especially in heroic couplets or blank +verse. They would only make my book heavy, and destroy the song-idea. I +must here pass by one of the best of such poems, _The Complaint, or Night +Thoughts_ of Dr. Young; nor is there anything else of his I care to +quote. + +I must give just one poem of Pope, born in 1688, the year of the +Revolution. The flamboyant style of his _Messiah_ is to me detestable: +nothing can be more unlike the simplicity of Christianity. All such, +equally with those by whatever hand that would be religious by being +miserable, I reject at once, along with all that are merely commonplace +religious exercises. But this at least is very unlike the rest of Pope's +compositions: it is as simple in utterance as it is large in scope and +practical in bearing. The name _Jove_ may be unpleasant to some ears: it +is to mine--not because it is the name given to their deity by men who +had had little outward revelation, but because of the associations which +the wanton poets, not the good philosophers, have gathered about it. Here +let it stand, as Pope meant it, for one of the names of the Unknown God. + + + THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. + + Father of all! in every age, + In every clime adored, + By saint, by savage, and by sage, + Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! + + Thou great First Cause, least understood! + Who all my sense confined + To know but this, that thou art good, + And that myself am blind + + Yet gave me, in this dark estate, + To see the good from ill; + And, binding Nature fast in Fate, + Left free the human will: + + What Conscience dictates to be done, + Or warns me not to do-- + This, teach me more than hell to shun, + That, more than heaven pursue. + + What blessings thy free bounty gives, + Let me not cast away; + For God is paid when man receives: + To enjoy is to obey. + + Yet not to earth's contracted span + Thy goodness let me bound, + Or think thee Lord alone of man, + When thousand worlds are round. + + Let not this weak, unknowing hand + Presume thy bolts to throw, + And deal damnation round the land + On each I judge thy foe. + + If I am right, thy grace impart + Still in the right to stay; + If I am wrong, O teach my heart + To find that better way. + + Save me alike from foolish pride + Or impious discontent, + At aught thy wisdom has denied, + Or aught thy goodness lent. + + Teach me to feel another's woe, + To hide the fault I see: + That mercy I to others show, + That mercy show to me. + + Mean though I am--not wholly so, + Since quickened by thy breath:-- + O lead me wheresoe'er I go, + Through this day's life or death. + + This day, be bread and peace my lot: + All else beneath the sun + Thou know'st if best bestowed or not, + And let thy will be done. + + To thee, whose temple is all space, + Whose altar, earth, sea, skies, + One chorus let all being raise! + All Nature's incense rise! + +And now we come upon a strange little well in the desert. Few flowers +indeed shine upon its brink, and it flows with a somewhat unmusical +ripple: it is a well of the water of life notwithstanding, for its song +tells of the love and truth which are the grand power of God. + +John Byrom, born in Manchester in the year 1691, a man whose strength of +thought and perception of truth greatly surpassed his poetic gifts, yet +delighted so entirely in the poetic form that he wrote much and chiefly +in it. After leaving Cambridge, he gained his livelihood for some time by +teaching a shorthand of his own invention, but was so distinguished as a +man of learning generally that he was chosen an F.R.S. in 1723. Coming +under the influence, probably through William Law, of the writings of +Jacob Böhme, the marvellous shoemaker of Görlitz in Silesia, who lived in +the time of our Shakspere, and heartily adopting many of his views, he +has left us a number of religious poems, which are seldom so sweet in +music as they are profound in the metaphysics of religion. Here we have +yet again a mystical thread running radiant athwart both warp and woof of +our poetic web: the mystical thinker will ever be found the reviver of +religious poetry; and although some of the seed had come from afar both +in time and space, Byrom's verse is of indigenous growth. Much of the +thought of the present day will be found in his verses. Here is a +specimen of his metrical argumentation. It is taken from a series of +_Meditations for every Day in Passion Week_. + + + WEDNESDAY. + + _Christ satisfieth the justice of God by fulfilling all + righteousness._ + + Justice demandeth satisfaction--yes; + And ought to have it where injustice is: + But there is none in God--it cannot mean + Demand of justice where it has full reign: + To dwell in man it rightfully demands, + Such as he came from his Creator's hands. + + Man had departed from a righteous state, + Which he at first must have, if God create: + 'Tis therefore called God's righteousness, and must + Be satisfied by man's becoming just; + Must exercise good vengeance upon men, + Till it regain its rights in them again. + + This was the justice for which Christ became + A man to satisfy its righteous claim; + Became Redeemer of the human race, + That sin in them to justice might give place: + To satisfy a just and righteous will, + Is neither more nor less than to fulfil. + + * * * * * + +Here are two stanzas of one of more mystical reflection: + + + A PENITENTIAL SOLILOQUY. + + What though no objects strike upon the sight! + Thy sacred presence is an inward light. + What though no sounds shall penetrate the ear! + To listening thought the voice of truth is clear. + Sincere devotion needs no outward shrine; + The centre of an humble soul is thine. + There may I worship! and there mayst thou place + Thy seat of mercy, and thy throne of grace! + Yea, fix, if Christ my advocate appear, + The dread tribunal of thy justice there! + Let each vain thought, let each impure desire + Meet in thy wrath with a consuming fire. + +And here are two of more lyrical favour. + + + THE SOUL'S TENDENCY TOWARDS ITS TRUE CENTRE. + + Stones towards the earth descend; + Rivers to the ocean roll; + Every motion has some end: + What is thine, beloved soul? + + "Mine is, where my Saviour is; + There with him I hope to dwell: + Jesu is the central bliss; + Love the force that doth impel." + + Truly thou hast answered right: + Now may heaven's attractive grace + Towards the source of thy delight + Speed along thy quickening pace! + + "Thank thee for thy generous care: + Heaven, that did the wish inspire, + Through thy instrumental prayer, + Plumes the wings of my desire. + + "Now, methinks, aloft I fly; + Now with angels bear a part: + Glory be to God on high! + Peace to every Christian heart!" + + +THE ANSWER TO THE DESPONDING SOUL. + + Cheer up, desponding soul; + Thy longing pleased I see: + 'Tis part of that great whole + Wherewith I longed for thee. + + Wherewith I longed for thee, + And left my Father's throne, + From death to set thee free, + To claim thee for my own. + + To claim thee for my own, + I suffered on the cross: + O! were my love but known, + No soul could fear its loss. + + No soul could fear its loss, + But, filled with love divine, + Would die on its own cross, + And rise for ever mine. + +Surely there is poetry as well as truth in this. But, certainly in +general, his thought is far in excess of his poetry. + +Here are a few verses which I shall once more entitle + + + DIVINE EPIGRAMS. + + With peaceful mind thy race of duty run + God nothing does, or suffers to be done, + But what thou wouldst thyself, if thou couldst see + Through all events of things as well as he. + + * * * * * + + Think, and be careful what thou art within, + For there is sin in the desire of sin: + Think and be thankful, in a different case, + For there is grace in the desire of grace. + + * * * * * + + An heated fancy or imagination + May be mistaken for an inspiration; + True; but is this conclusion fair to make-- + That inspiration must be all mistake? + A pebble-stone is not a diamond: true; + But must a diamond be a pebble too? + To own a God who does not speak to men, + Is first to own, and then disown again; + Of all idolatry the total sum + Is having gods that are both deaf and dumb. + + * * * * * + + What is more tender than a mother's love + To the sweet infant fondling in her arms? + What arguments need her compassion move + To hear its cries, and help it in its harms? + Now, if the tenderest mother were possessed + Of all the love within her single breast + Of all the mothers since the world began, + 'Tis nothing to the love of God to man. + + * * * * * + + Faith, Hope, and Love were questioned what they thought + Of future glory which Religion taught: + Now Faith believed it firmly to be true, + And Hope expected so to find it too: + Love answered, smiling with a conscious glow, + "Believe? Expect? I _know_ it to be so." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE ROOTS OF THE HILLS. + + +In the poems of James Thomson, we find two hymns to the God of +Creation--one in blank verse, the other in stanzas. They are of the kind +which from him we should look for. The one in blank verse, which is as an +epilogue to his great poem, _The Seasons_, I prefer. + +We owe much to Thomson. Born (in Scotland) in the year 1700, he is the +leading priest in a solemn procession to find God--not in the laws by +which he has ordered his creation, but in the beauty which is the outcome +of those laws. I do not say there is much of the relation of man to +nature in his writing; but thitherward it tends. He is true about the +outsides of God; and in Thomson we begin to feel that the revelation of +God as _meaning_ and therefore _being_ the loveliness of nature, is about +to be recognized. I do not say--to change my simile--that he is the first +visible root in our literature whence we can follow the outburst of the +flowers and foliage of our delight in nature: I could show a hundred +fibres leading from the depths of our old literature up to the great +root. Nor is it surprising that, with his age about him, he too should be +found tending to magnify, not God's Word, but his works, above all his +name: we have beauty for loveliness; beneficence for tenderness. I have +wondered whether one great part of Napoleon's mission was not to wake +people from this idolatry of the power of God to the adoration of his +love. + +The _Hymn_ holds a kind of middle place between the _Morning Hymn_ in the +5th Book of the _Paradise Lost_ and the _Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni_. +It would be interesting and instructive to compare the three; but we have +not time. Thomson has been influenced by Milton, and Coleridge by both. +We have delight in Milton; art in Thomson; heart, including both, in +Coleridge. + + + HYMN. + + These, as they change, Almighty Father, these + Are but the varied God. The rolling year + Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring + Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. + Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; + Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; + And every sense and every heart is joy. + Then comes thy glory in the Summer months, + With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun + Shoots full perfection through the swelling year + And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks, + And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, + By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.[159] + A yellow-floating pomp, thy bounty shines + In Autumn unconfined. Thrown from thy lap, + Profuse o'er nature, falls the lucid shower + Of beamy fruits; and, in a radiant stream, + Into the stores of sterile Winter pours. + In winter awful thou! with clouds and storms + Around thee thrown--tempest o'er tempest rolled. + Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing + Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,[160] + And humblest nature with thy northern blast. + + Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine + Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train, + Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, + Such beauty and beneficence combined! + Shade unperceived so softening into shade! + And all so forming an harmonious whole, + That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. + + * * * * * + + Nature attend! Join, every living soul, + Beneath the spacious temple of the sky-- + In adoration join; and, ardent, raise + One general song! To him, ye vocal gales, + Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes; + Oh! talk of him in solitary glooms, + Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine + Fills the brown shade with a religious awe; + And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, + Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven + The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. + His praise, ye brooks, attune,--ye trembling rills, + And let me catch it as I muse along. + Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound; + Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze + Along the vale; and thou, majestic main, + A secret world of wonders in thyself, + Sound his stupendous praise, whose greater voice + Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. + Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, + In mingled clouds to him whose sun exalts, + Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. + Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave to him; + Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart, + As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. + + * * * * * + + Bleat out afresh, ye hills! ye mossy rocks, + Retain the sound; the broad responsive low, + Ye valleys raise; for the great Shepherd reigns, + And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. + + * * * * * + + Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles, + At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all, + Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast, + Assembled men, to the deep organ join + The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear, + At solemn pauses, through the swelling base; + And, as each mingling flame increases each, + In one united ardour rise to heaven. + + * * * * * + + Should fate command me to the farthest verge + Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, + Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun + Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam + Flames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis nought to me, + Since God is ever present, ever felt, + In the void waste as in the city full; + And where he vital breathes there must be joy. + + * * * * * + +The worship of intellectual power in laws and inventions is the main +delight of the song; not the living presence of creative love, which +never sings its own praises, but spends itself in giving. Still, although +there has passed away a glory from the world of song, although the +fervour of childlike worship has vanished for a season, there are signs +in these verses of a new dawn of devotion. Even the exclusive and +therefore blind worship of science will, when it has turned the coil of +the ascending spiral, result in a new song to "him that made heaven and +earth and the sea and the fountains of waters." But first, for a long +time, the worship of power will go on. There is one sonnet by Kirke +White, eighty-five years younger than Thomson, which is quite pagan in +its mode of glorifying the power of the Deity. + +But about the same time when Thomson's _Seasons_ was published, which was +in 1730, the third year of George II., that life which had burned on in +the hidden corners of the church in spite of the worldliness and +sensuality of its rulers, began to show a flame destined to enlarge and +spread until it should have lighted up the mass with an outburst of +Christian faith and hope. I refer to the movement called Methodism, in +the midst of which, at an early stage of its history, arose the directing +energies of John Wesley, a man sent of God to deepen at once and purify +its motive influences. What he and his friends taught, would, I presume, +in its essence, amount mainly to this: that acquiescence in the doctrines +of the church is no fulfilment of duty--or anything, indeed, short of an +obedient recognition of personal relation to God, who has sent every man +the message of present salvation in his Son. A new life began to bud and +blossom from the dry stem of the church. The spirit moved upon the waters +of feeling, and the new undulation broke on the shores of thought in an +outburst of new song. For while John Wesley roused the hearts of the +people to sing, his brother Charles put songs in their mouths. + +I do not say that many of these songs possess much literary merit, but +many of them are real lyrics: they have that essential element, song, in +them. The following, however, is a very fine poem. That certain +expressions in it may not seem offensive, it is necessary to keep the +allegory of Jacob and the Angel in full view--even better in view, +perhaps, than the writer does himself. + + + WRESTLING JACOB. + + Come, O thou traveller unknown, + Whom still I hold, but cannot see! + My company before is gone, + And I am left alone with thee! + With thee all night I mean to stay, + And wrestle till the break of day! + + I need not tell thee who I am, + My misery or sin declare; + Thyself hast called me by my name: + Look on my hands, and read it there! + But who, I ask thee, who art thou? + Tell me thy name, and tell me now. + + In vain thou struggles! to get free: + I never will unloose my hold. + Art thou the man that died for me? + The secret of thy love unfold. + Wrestling, I will not let thee go + Till I thy name, thy nature know. + + * * * * * + + What though my sinking flesh complain, + And murmur to contend so long! + I rise superior to my pain: + When I am weak, then I am strong; + And when my all of strength shall fail, + I shall with the God-man prevail. + + My strength is gone; my nature dies; + I sink beneath thy weighty hand: + Faint to revive, and fall to rise; + I fall, and yet by faith I stand-- + I stand, and will not let thee go + Till I thy name, thy nature know. + + Yield to me now, for I am weak, + But confident in self-despair; + Speak to my heart, in blessings speak; + Be conquered by my instant[161] prayer. + Speak, or thou never hence shalt move, + And tell me if thy name is Love. + + 'Tis Love! 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me! + I hear thy whisper in my heart! + The morning breaks; the shadows flee: + Pure universal Love thou art! + To me, to all, thy bowels move: + Thy nature and thy name is Love! + + My prayer hath power with God; the grace + Unspeakable I now receive; + Through faith I see thee face to face-- + I see thee face to face, and live: + In vain I have not wept and strove; + Thy nature and thy name is Love. + + I know thee, Saviour--who thou art-- + Jesus, the feeble sinner's friend! + Nor wilt thou with the night depart, + But stay and love me to the end! + Thy mercies never shall remove: + Thy nature and thy name is Love! + + * * * * * + + Contented now, upon my thigh + I halt till life's short journey end; + All helplessness, all weakness, I + On thee alone for strength depend; + Nor have I power from thee to move: + Thy nature and thy name is Love. + + Lame as I am, I take the prey; + Hell, earth, and sin, with ease o'ercome; + I leap for joy, pursue my way, + And as a bounding hart fly home; + Through all eternity to prove + Thy nature and thy name is Love. + +It seems to me that the art with which his very difficult end in the +management of the allegory is reached, is admirable. I have omitted three +stanzas. + +I cannot give much from William Cowper. His poems--graceful always, and +often devout even when playful--have few amongst them that are expressly +religious, while the best of his hymns are known to every reader of such. +Born in 1731, he was greatly influenced by the narrow theology that +prevailed in his circle; and most of his hymns are marred by the +exclusiveness which belonged to the system and not to the man. There is +little of it in the following:-- + + Far from the world, O Lord, I flee, + From strife and tumult far; + From scenes where Satan wages still + His most successful war. + + The calm retreat, the silent shade, + With prayer and praise agree, + And seem by thy sweet bounty made + For those who follow thee. + + There if thy spirit touch the soul, + And grace her mean abode, + Oh with what peace, and joy, and love, + She communes with her God! + + There, like the nightingale, she pours + Her solitary lays, + Nor asks a witness of her song, + Nor thirsts for human praise. + + Author and guardian of my life, + Sweet source of light divine, + And--all harmonious names in one-- + My Saviour, thou art mine! + + What thanks I owe thee, and what love-- + A boundless, endless store-- + Shall echo through the realms above + When time shall be no more. + +Sad as was Cowper's history, with the vapours of a low insanity, if not +always filling his garden, yet ever brooding on the hill-tops of his +horizon, he was, through his faith in God, however darkened by the +introversions of a neat, poverty-stricken theology, yet able to lead his +life to the end. It is delightful to discover that, when science, which +is the anatomy of nature, had poisoned the theology of the country, in +creating a demand for clean-cut theory in infinite affairs, the +loveliness and truth of the countenance of living nature could calm the +mind which this theology had irritated to the very borders of madness, +and give a peace and hope which the man was altogether right in +attributing to the Spirit of God. How many have been thus comforted, who +knew not, like Wordsworth, the immediate channel of their comfort; or +even, with Cowper, recognized its source! God gives while men sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE NEW VISION. + + +William Blake, the painter of many strange and fantastic but often +powerful--sometimes very beautiful pictures--wrote poems of an equally +remarkable kind. Some of them are as lovely as they are careless, while +many present a curious contrast in the apparent incoherence of the +simplest language. He was born in 1757, towards the close of the reign of +George II. Possibly if he had been sent to an age more capable of +understanding him, his genius would not have been tempted to utter itself +with such a wildness as appears to indicate hopeless indifference to +being understood. We cannot tell sometimes whether to attribute the +bewilderment the poems cause in us to a mysticism run wild, or to regard +it as the reflex of madness in the writer. Here is a lyrical gem, +however, although not cut with mathematical precision. + + + DAYBREAK. + + To find the western path, + Right through the gates of wrath + I urge my way; + Sweet morning leads me on: + With soft repentant moan, + I see the break of day + + The war of swords and spears, + Melted by dewy tears, + Exhales on high; + The sun is freed from fears, + And with soft grateful tears, + Ascends the sky. + +The following is full of truth most quaintly expressed, with a homeliness +of phrase quite delicious. It is one of the _Songs of Innocence_, +published, as we learn from Gilchrist's Life of Blake, in the year 1789. +They were engraved on copper with illustrations by Blake, and printed and +bound by his wife. When we consider them in respect of the time when they +were produced, we find them marvellous for their originality and +simplicity. + + + ON ANOTHER'S SORROW. + + Can I see another's woe, + And not be in sorrow too? + Can I see another's grief, + And not seek for kind relief? + + Can I see a falling tear, + And not feel my sorrow's share? + Can a father see his child + Weep, nor be with sorrow filled? + + Can a mother sit and hear + An infant groan, an infant fear? + No, no; never can it be! + Never, never can it be! + + And can he, who smiles on all, + Hear the wren, with sorrows small-- + Hear the small bird's grief and care, + Hear the woes that infants bear, + + And not sit beside the nest, + Pouring pity in their breast? + And not sit the cradle near, + Weeping tear on infant's tear? + + And not sit both night and day, + Wiping all our tears away? + Oh, no! never can it be! + Never, never can it be! + + He doth give his joy to all; + He becomes an infant small; + He becomes a man of woe; + He doth feel the sorrow too. + + Think not thou canst sigh a sigh, + And thy Maker is not by; + Think not thou canst weep a tear, + And thy Maker is not near. + + Oh! he gives to us his joy, + That our grief he may destroy: + Till our grief is fled and gone, + He doth sit by us and moan. + +There is our mystic yet again leading the way. + +A supreme regard for science, and the worship of power, go hand in hand: +that knowledge is power has been esteemed the grandest incitement to +study. Yet the antidote to the disproportionate cultivation of science, +is simply power in its crude form--breaking out, that is, as brute force. +When science, isolated and glorified, has produced a contempt, not only +for vulgar errors, but for the truths which are incapable of scientific +proof, then, as we see in the French Revolution, the wild beast in man +breaks from its den, and chaos returns. But all the noblest minds in +Europe looked for grand things in the aurora of this uprising of the +people. To the terrible disappointment that followed, we are indebted for +the training of Wordsworth to the priesthood of nature's temple. So was +he possessed with the hope of a coming deliverance for the nations, that +he spent many months in France during the Revolution. At length he was +forced to seek safety at home. Dejected even to hopelessness for a time, +he believed in nothing. How could there be a God that ruled in the earth +when such a rising sun of promise was permitted to set in such a sea! +But for man to worship himself is a far more terrible thing than that +blood should flow like water: the righteous plague of God allowed things +to go as they would for a time. But the power of God came upon +Wordsworth--I cannot say as it had never come before, but with an added +insight which made him recognize in the fresh gift all that he had known +and felt of such in the past. To him, as to Cowper, the benignities of +nature restored peace and calmness and hope--sufficient to enable him to +look back and gather wisdom. He was first troubled, then quieted, and +then taught. Such presence of the Father has been an infinitely more +active power in the redemption of men than men have yet become capable of +perceiving. The divine expressions of Nature, that is, the face of the +Father therein visible, began to heal the plague which the worship of +knowledge had bred. And the power of her teaching grew from comfort to +prayer, as will be seen in the poem I shall give. Higher than all that +Nature can do in the way of direct lessoning, is the production of such +holy moods as result in hope, conscience of duty, and supplication. Those +who have never felt it have to be told there is in her such a +power--yielding to which, the meek inherit the earth. + + + NINTH EVENING VOLUNTARY. + + _Composed upon an evening of extraordinary splendour and beauty._ + + I. + + Had this effulgence disappeared + With flying haste, I might have sent + Among the speechless clouds a look + Of blank astonishment; + But 'tis endued with power to stay, + And sanctify one closing day, + That frail Mortality may see-- + What is?--ah no, but what _can_ be! + Time was when field and watery cove + With modulated echoes rang, + While choirs of fervent angels sang + Their vespers in the grove; + Or, crowning, star-like, each some sovereign height, + Warbled, for heaven above and earth below, + Strains suitable to both.--Such holy rite, + Methinks, if audibly repeated now + From hill or valley could not move + Sublimer transport, purer love, + Than doth this silent spectacle--the gleam-- + The shadow--and the peace supreme! + + II. + + No sound is uttered,--but a deep + And solemn harmony pervades + The hollow vale from steep to steep, + And penetrates the glades. + Far distant images draw nigh, + Called forth by wondrous potency + Of beamy radiance, that imbues + Whate'er it strikes with gem-like hues. + In vision exquisitely clear, + Herds range along the mountain side, + And glistening antlers are descried, + And gilded flocks appear. + Thine is the tranquil hour, purpureal Eve! + But long as godlike wish or hope divine + Informs my spirit, ne'er can I believe + That this magnificence is wholly thine! + From worlds nor quickened by the sun + A portion of the gift is won; + An intermingling of heaven's pomp is spread + On ground which British shepherds tread! + + III. + + And if there be whom broken ties + Afflict, or injuries assail, + Yon hazy ridges to their eyes + Present a glorious scale[162] + Climbing suffused with sunny air, + To stop--no record hath told where; + And tempting Fancy to ascend, + And with immortal spirits blend! + --Wings at my shoulders seem to play! + But, rooted here, I stand and gaze + On those bright steps that heavenward raise + Their practicable way. + Come forth, ye drooping old men, look abroad, + And see to what fair countries ye are bound! + And if some traveller, weary of his road, + Hath slept since noontide on the grassy ground, + Ye genii, to his covert speed, + And wake him with such gentle heed + As may attune his soul to meet the dower + Bestowed on this transcendent hour. + + IV. + + Such hues from their celestial urn + Were wont to stream before mine eye + Where'er it wandered in the morn + Of blissful infancy. + This glimpse of glory, why renewed? + Nay, rather speak with gratitude; + For, if a vestige of those gleams + Survived, 'twas only in my dreams. + Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve + No less than nature's threatening voice, + If aught unworthy be my choice, + From THEE if I would swerve; + Oh, let thy grace remind me of the light + Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored; + Which, at this moment, on my waking sight + Appears to shine, by miracle restored: + My soul, though yet confined to earth, + Rejoices in a second birth! + --'Tis past; the visionary splendour fades; + And night approaches with her shades. + + +Although I have mentioned Wordsworth before Coleridge because he was two +years older, yet Coleridge had much to do with the opening of +Wordsworth's eyes to such visions; as, indeed, more than any man in our +times, he has opened the eyes of the English people to see wonderful +things. There is little of a directly religious kind in his poetry; yet +we find in him what we miss in Wordsworth, an inclined plane from the +revelation in nature to the culminating revelation in the Son of Man. +Somehow, I say, perhaps because we find it in his prose, we feel more of +this in Coleridge's verse. + +Coleridge is a sage, and Wordsworth is a seer; yet when the sage sees, +that is, when, like the son of Beor, he falls into a trance having his +eyes open, or, when feeling and sight are one and philosophy is in +abeyance, the ecstasy is even loftier in Coleridge than in Wordsworth. In +their highest moods they seem almost to change places--Wordsworth to +become sage, and Coleridge seer. Perhaps the grandest hymn of praise +which man, the mouth-piece of Nature, utters for her, is the hymn of Mont +Blanc. + + + HYMN + + _Before sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni._ + + Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star + In his steep course--so long he seems to pause + On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc? + The Arve and Arveiron at thy base + Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form! + Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, + How silently! Around thee and above + Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, + An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it + As with a wedge! But when I look again, + It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, + Thy habitation from eternity! + O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee + Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, + Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer + I worshipped the Invisible alone. + + Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, + So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, + Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, + Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy; + Till the dilating soul, enwrapt, transfused, + Into the mighty vision passing--there + As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven! + + Awake, my soul! Not only passive praise + Thou owest! Not alone these swelling tears, + Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, + Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! + Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn. + + Thou first and chief, sole sovran[163] of the Vale! + O struggling with the darkness all the night, + And visited all night by troops of stars,[164] + Or when they climb the sky or when they sink! + Companion of the morning-star at dawn, + Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn[165] + Co-herald! wake, O wake, and utter praise! + Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? + Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? + Who made thee parent of perpetual streams? + + And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! + Who called you forth from night and utter death, + From dark and icy caverns called you forth,[166] + Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, + For ever shattered, and the same for ever? + Who gave you your invulnerable life, + Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, + Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam? + And who commanded--and the silence came-- + Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?[167] + + Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow + Adown enormous ravines slope amain-- + Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, + And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!-- + Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! + Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven + Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun + Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers + Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?-- + _God!_ let the torrents, like a shout of nations, + Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, _God!_ + _God!_ sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! + Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! + And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, + And in their perilous fall shall thunder, _God!_ + Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! + Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! + Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! + Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! + Ye signs and wonders of the element! + Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise. + + Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, + Oft from whose[168] feet the avalanche, unheard, + Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene + Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast-- + Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou + That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low + In adoration--upward from thy base + Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears-- + Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud, + To rise before me! rise, O ever rise; + Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth! + Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills! + Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven! + Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, + And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, + Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. + +Here is one little poem I think most valuable, both from its fulness of +meaning, and the form, as clear as condensed, in which that is embodied. + + + ON AN INFANT + + _Which died before baptism._ + + "_Be_ rather than _be called_ a child of God," + Death whispered. With assenting nod, + Its head upon its mother's breast + The baby bowed without demur-- + Of the kingdom of the blest + Possessor, not inheritor. + +Next the father let me place the gifted son, Hartley Coleridge. He was +born in 1796, and died in 1849. Strange, wayward, and in one respect +faulty, as his life was, his poetry--strange, and exceedingly wayward +too--is often very lovely. The following sonnet is all I can find room +for:-- + + + "SHE LOVED MUCH." + + She sat and wept beside his feet. The weight + Of sin oppressed her heart; for all the blame, + And the poor malice of the worldly shame, + To her was past, extinct, and out of date; + Only the _sin_ remained--the leprous state. + She would be melted by the heat of love, + By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove + And purge the silver ore adulterate. + She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair + Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch; + And he wiped off the soiling of despair + From her sweet soul, because she loved so much. + I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears: + Make me a humble thing of love and tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +THE FERVOUR OF THE IMPLICIT. INSIGHT OF THE HEART. + + +The late Dean Milman, born in 1791, best known by his very valuable +labours in history, may be taken as representing a class of writers in +whom the poetic fire is ever on the point, and only on the point, of +breaking into a flame. His composition is admirable--refined, scholarly, +sometimes rich and even gorgeous in expression--yet lacking that radiance +of the unutterable to which the loftiest words owe their grandest power. +Perhaps the best representative of his style is the hymn on the +Incarnation, in his dramatic poem, _The Fall of Jerusulem_. But as an +extract it is tolerably known. I prefer giving one from his few _Hymns +for Church Service_. + + + EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. + + When God came down from heaven--the living God-- + What signs and wonders marked his stately way? + Brake out the winds in music where he trod? + Shone o'er the heavens a brighter, softer day? + + The dumb began to speak, the blind to see, + And the lame leaped, and pain and paleness fled; + The mourner's sunken eye grew bright with glee, + And from the tomb awoke the wondering dead. + + When God went back to heaven--the living God-- + Rode he the heavens upon a fiery car? + Waved seraph-wings along his glorious road? + Stood still to wonder each bright wandering star? + + Upon the cross he hung, and bowed his head, + And prayed for them that smote, and them that curst; + And, drop by drop, his slow life-blood was shed, + And his last hour of suffering was his worst. + +_The Christian Year_ of the Rev. John Keble (born in 1800) is perhaps +better known in England than any other work of similar church character. +I must confess I have never been able to enter into the enthusiasm of its +admirers. Excellent, both in regard of their literary and religious +merits, true in feeling and thorough in finish, the poems always remind +me of Berlin work in iron--hard and delicate. Here is a portion of one of +the best of them. + + + ST. MATTHEW. + + Ye hermits blest, ye holy maids, + The nearest heaven on earth, + Who talk with God in shadowy glades, + Free from rude care and mirth; + To whom some viewless teacher brings + The secret lore of rural things, + The moral of each fleeting cloud and gale, + The whispers from above, that haunt the twilight vale: + + Say, when in pity ye have gazed + On the wreath'd smoke afar, + That o'er some town, like mist upraised, + Hung hiding sun and star; + Then as ye turned your weary eye + To the green earth and open sky, + Were ye not fain to doubt how Faith could dwell + Amid that dreary glare, in this world's citadel? + + But Love's a flower that will not die + For lack of leafy screen, + And Christian Hope can cheer the eye + That ne'er saw vernal green: + Then be ye sure that Love can bless + Even in this crowded loneliness, + Where ever-moving myriads seem to say, + Go--thou art nought to us, nor we to thee--away! + + There are in this loud stunning tide + Of human care and crime, + With whom the melodies abide + Of the everlasting chime; + Who carry music in their heart + Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, + Plying their daily task with busier feet, + Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat. + +There are here some indications of that strong reaction of the present +century towards ancient forms of church life. This reaction seems to me a +further consequence of that admiration of power of which I have spoken. +For, finding the progress of discovery in the laws of nature constantly +bring an assurance most satisfactory to the intellect, men began to +demand a similar assurance in other matters; and whatever department of +human thought could not be subjected to experiment or did not admit of +logical proof began to be regarded with suspicion. The highest realms of +human thought--where indeed only grand conviction, and that the result +not of research, but of obedience to the voice within, can be had--came +to be by such regarded as regions where, no scientific assurance being +procurable, it was only to his loss that a man should go wandering: the +whole affair was unworthy of him. And if there be no guide of humanity +but the intellect, and nothing worthy of its regard but what that +intellect can isolate and describe in the forms peculiar to its +operations,--that is, if a man has relations to nothing beyond his +definition, is not a creature of the immeasurable,--then these men are +right. But there have appeared along with them other thinkers who could +not thus be satisfied--men who had in their souls a hunger which the +neatest laws of nature could not content, who could not live on +chemistry, or mathematics, or even on geology, without the primal law of +_their_ many dim-dawning wonders--that is, the Being, if such there might +be, who thought their laws first and then embodied them in a world of +aeonian growth. These indeed seek law likewise, but a perfect law--a law +they can believe perfect beyond the comprehension of powers of whose +imperfection they are too painfully conscious. They feel in their highest +moments a helplessness that drives them to search after some Power with a +heart deeper than his power, who cares for the troubled creatures he has +made. But still under the influence of that faithless hunger for +intellectual certainty, they look about and divide into two parties: both +would gladly receive the reported revelation in Jesus, the one if they +could have evidence enough from without, the other if they could only get +rid of the difficulties it raises within. I am aware that I distinguish +in the mass, and that both sides would be found more or less influenced +by the same difficulties--but _more_ and _less_, and therefore thus +classified by the driving predominance. Those of the one party, then, +finding no proof to be had but that in testimony, and anxious to have all +they can--delighting too in a certain holy wilfulness of intellectual +self-immolation, accept the testimony in the mass, and become Roman +Catholics. Nor is it difficult to see how they then find rest. It is not +the dogma, but the contact with Christ the truth, with Christ the man, +which the dogma, in pacifying the troubles of the intellect--if only by a +soporific, has aided them in reaching, that gives them peace: it is the +truth itself that makes them free. + +The worshippers of science will themselves allow, that when they cannot +gain observations enough to satisfy them upon any point in which a law of +nature is involved, they must, if possible, institute experiments. I say +therefore to those whose observation has not satisfied them concerning +the phenomenon Christianity,--"Where is your experiment? Why do you not +thus try the utterance claiming to be the law of life? Call it a +hypothesis, and experiment upon it. Carry into practice, well justified +of your conscience, the words which the Man spoke, for therein he says +himself lies the possibility of your acceptance of his mission; and if, +after reasonable time thus spent, you are not yet convinced enough to +give testimony--I will not annoy you by saying _to facts_, but--to +conviction, I think neither will you be ready to abandon the continuous +experiment." These Roman Catholics have thus met with Jesus, come into +personal contact with him: by the doing of what he tells us, and by +nothing else, are they blessed. What if their theories show to me like a +burning of the temple and a looking for the god in the ashes? They know +in whom they have believed. And if some of us think we have a more +excellent way, we shall be blessed indeed if the result be no less +excellent than in such men as Faber, Newman, and Aubrey de Vere. No man +needs be afraid that to speak the truth concerning such will hasten the +dominance of alien and oppressive powers; the truth is free, and to be +just is to be strong. Should the time come again when Liberty is in +danger, those who have defended the truth even in her adversaries, if +such there be, will be found the readiest to draw the sword for her, and, +hating not, yet smite for the liberty to do even them justice. To give +the justice we claim for ourselves is, if there be a Christ, the law of +Christ, to obey which is eternally better than truest theory. + +I should like to give many of the hymns of Dr. Faber. Some of them are +grand, others very lovely, and some, of course, to my mind considerably +repulsive. He seems to me to go wrong nowhere in originating--he produces +nothing unworthy except when he reproduces what he never could have +entertained but for the pressure of acknowledged authority. Even such +things, however, he has enclosed in pearls, as the oyster its incommoding +sand-grains. + +His hymn on _The Greatness of God_ is profound; that on _The Will of God_ +is very wise; that to _The God of my Childhood_ is full of quite womanly +tenderness: all are most simple in speech, reminding us in this respect +of John Mason. In him, no doubt, as in all of his class, we find traces +of that sentimentalism in the use of epithets--small words, as +distinguished from homely, applied to great things--of which I have +spoken more than once; but criticism is not to be indulged in the +reception of great gifts--of such a gift as this, for instance:-- + + + THE ETERNITY OF GOD. + + O Lord! my heart is sick, + Sick of this everlasting change; + And life runs tediously quick + Through its unresting race and varied range: + Change finds no likeness to itself in Thee, + And wakes no echo in Thy mute eternity. + + Dear Lord! my heart is sick + Of this perpetual lapsing time, + So slow in grief, in joy so quick, + Yet ever casting shadows so sublime: + Time of all creatures is least like to Thee, + And yet it is our share of Thine eternity. + + Oh change and time are storms + For lives so thin and frail as ours; + For change the work of grace deforms + With love that soils, and help that overpowers; + And time is strong, and, like some chafing sea, + It seems to fret the shores of Thine eternity. + + Weak, weak, for ever weak! + We cannot hold what we possess; + Youth cannot find, age will not seek,-- + Oh weakness is the heart's worst weariness: + But weakest hearts can lift their thoughts to Thee; + It makes us strong to think of Thine eternity. + + Thou hadst no youth, great God! + An Unbeginning End Thou art; + Thy glory in itself abode, + And still abides in its own tranquil heart: + No age can heap its outward years on Thee: + Dear God! Thou art Thyself Thine own eternity! + + Without an end or bound + Thy life lies all outspread in light; + Our lives feel Thy life all around, + Making our weakness strong, our darkness bright; + Yet is it neither wilderness nor sea, + But the calm gladness of a full eternity. + + Oh Thou art very great + To set Thyself so far above! + But we partake of Thine estate, + Established in Thy strength and in Thy love: + That love hath made eternal room for me + In the sweet vastness of its own eternity. + + Oh Thou art very meek + To overshade Thy creatures thus! + Thy grandeur is the shade we seek; + To be eternal is Thy use to us: + Ah, Blessed God! what joy it is to me + To lose all thought of self in Thine eternity. + + Self-wearied, Lord! I come; + For I have lived my life too fast: + Now that years bring me nearer home + Grace must be slowly used to make it last; + When my heart beats too quick I think of Thee, + And of the leisure of Thy long eternity. + + Farewell, vain joys of earth! + Farewell, all love that it not His! + Dear God! be Thou my only mirth, + Thy majesty my single timid bliss! + Oh in the bosom of eternity + Thou dost not weary of Thyself, nor we of Thee! + +How easily his words flow, even when he is saying the deepest things! +The poem is full of the elements of the finest mystical metaphysics, and +yet there is no effort in their expression. The tendency to find God +beyond, rather than in our daily human conditions, is discernible; but +only as a tendency. + +What a pity that the sects are so slow to become acquainted with the +grand best in each other! + +I do not find in Dr. Newman either a depth or a precision equal to that +of Dr. Faber. His earlier poems indicate a less healthy condition of +mind. His _Dream of Gerontius_ is, however, a finer, as more ambitious +poem than any of Faber's. In my judgment there are weak passages in it, +with others of real grandeur. But I am perfectly aware of the difficulty, +almost impossibility, of doing justice to men from some of whose forms of +thought I am greatly repelled, who creep from the sunshine into every +ruined archway, attracted by the brilliance with which the light from its +loophole glows in its caverned gloom, and the hope of discovering within +it the first steps of a stair winding up into the blue heaven. I +apologize for the unavoidable rudeness of a critic who would fain be +honest if he might; and I humbly thank all such as Dr. Newman, whose +verses, revealing their saintship, make us long to be holier men. + +Of his, as of Faber's, I have room for no more than one. It was written +off Sardinia. + + + DESOLATION. + + O say not thou art left of God, + Because His tokens in the sky + Thou canst not read: this earth He trod + To teach thee He was ever nigh. + + He sees, beneath the fig-tree green, + Nathaniel con His sacred lore; + Shouldst thou thy chamber seek, unseen + He enters through the unopened door. + + And when thou liest, by slumber bound, + Outwearied in the Christian fight, + In glory, girt with saints around, + He stands above thee through the night. + + When friends to Emmaus bend their course, + He joins, although He holds their eyes: + Or, shouldst thou feel some fever's force, + He takes thy hand, He bids thee rise. + + Or on a voyage, when calms prevail, + And prison thee upon the sea, + He walks the waves, He wings the sail, + The shore is gained, and thou art free. + +Sir Aubrey de Vere is a poet profound in feeling, and gracefully tender +in utterance. I give one short poem and one sonnet. + + + REALITY. + + Love thy God, and love Him only: + And thy breast will ne'er be lonely. + In that one great Spirit meet + All things mighty, grave, and sweet. + Vainly strives the soul to mingle + With a being of our kind: + Vainly hearts with hearts are twined: + For the deepest still is single. + An impalpable resistance + Holds like natures still at distance. + Mortal! love that Holy One! + Or dwell for aye alone. + +I respond most heartily to the last two lines; but I venture to add, with +regard to the preceding six, "Love that holy One, and the impalpable +resistance will vanish; for when thou seest him enter to sup with thy +neighbour, thou wilt love that neighbour as thyself." + + + SONNET. + + Ye praise the humble: of the meek ye say, + "Happy they live among their lowly bowers; + "The mountains, and the mountain-storms are ours." + Thus, self-deceivers, filled with pride alway, + Reluctant homage to the good ye pay, + Mingled with scorn like poison sucked from flowers-- + Revere the humble; godlike are their powers: + No mendicants for praise of men are they. + The child who prays in faith "Thy will be done" + Is blended with that Will Supreme which moves + A wilderness of worlds by Thought untrod; + He shares the starry sceptre, and the throne: + The man who as himself his neighbour loves + Looks down on all things with the eyes of God! + +Is it a fancy that, in the midst of all this devotion and lovely thought, +I hear the mingled mournful tone of such as have cut off a right hand and +plucked out a right eye, which had _not_ caused them to offend? This is +tenfold better than to have spared offending members; but the true +Christian ambition is to fill the divine scheme of humanity--abridging +nothing, ignoring nothing, denying nothing, calling nothing unclean, but +burning everything a thank-offering in the flame of life upon the altar +of absolute devotion to the Father and Saviour of men. We must not throw +away half his gifts, that we may carry the other half in both hands to +his altar. + +But sacred fervour is confined to no sect. Here it is of the profoundest, +and uttered with a homely tenderness equal to that of the earliest +writers. Mrs. Browning, the princess of poets, was no partisan. If my +work were mainly critical, I should feel bound to remark upon her false +theory of English rhyme, and her use of strange words. That she is +careless too in her general utterance I cannot deny; but in idea she is +noble, and in phrase magnificent. Some of her sonnets are worthy of being +ranged with the best in our language--those of Milton and Wordsworth. + + + BEREAVEMENT. + + When some Beloveds, 'neath whose eyelids lay + The sweet lights of my childhood, one by one + Did leave me dark before the natural sun, + And I astonied fell, and could not pray, + A thought within me to myself did say, + "Is God less God that _thou_ art left undone? + Rise, worship, bless Him! in this sackcloth spun, + As in that purple!"--But I answer, Nay! + What child his filial heart in words can loose, + If he behold his tender father raise + The hand that chastens sorely? Can he choose + But sob in silence with an upward gaze? + And _my_ great Father, thinking fit to bruise, + Discerns in speechless tears both prayer and praise. + + + COMFORT. + + Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet, + From out the hallelujahs sweet and low, + Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so, + Who art not missed by any that entreat. + Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet-- + And if no precious gums my hands bestow, + Let my tears drop like amber, while I go + In reach of thy divinest voice complete + In humanest affection--thus, in sooth + To lose the sense of losing! As a child, + Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore, + Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth; + Till sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, + He sleeps the faster that he wept before. + +Gladly would I next give myself to the exposition of several of the poems +of her husband, Robert Browning, especially the _Christmas Eve_ and +_Easter Day_; in the first of which he sets forth in marvellous rhymes +the necessity both for widest sympathy with the varied forms of +Christianity, and for individual choice in regard to communion; in the +latter, what it is to choose the world and lose the life. But this would +take many pages, and would be inconsistent with the plan of my book. + +When I have given two precious stanzas, most wise as well as most lyrical +and lovely, from the poems of our honoured Charles Kingsley, I shall turn +to the other of the classes into which the devout thinkers of the day +have divided. + + + A FAREWELL. + + My fairest child, I have no song to give you; + No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey; + Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you + For every day. + + Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; + Do noble things, not dream them, all day long; + And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever + One grand, sweet song. + +Surely these last, who have not accepted tradition in the mass, who +believe that we must, as our Lord demanded of the Jews, of our own selves +judge what is right, because therein his spirit works with our +spirit,--worship the Truth not less devotedly than they who rejoice in +holy tyranny over their intellects. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE QUESTIONING FERVOUR. + + +And now I turn to the other class--that which, while the former has fled +to tradition for refuge from doubt, sets its face towards the spiritual +east, and in prayer and sorrow and hope looks for a dawn--the noble band +of reverent doubters--as unlike those of the last century who scoffed, as +those of the present who pass on the other side. They too would know; but +they know enough already to know further, that it is from the hills and +not from the mines their aid must come. They know that a perfect +intellectual proof would leave them doubting all the same; that their +high questions cannot be answered to the intellect alone, for their whole +nature is the questioner; that the answers can only come as questioners +and their questions grow towards them. Hence, growing hope, blossoming +ever and anon into the white flower of confidence, is their answer as +yet; their hope--the Beatific Vision--the _happy-making sight_, as Milton +renders the word of the mystics. + +It is strange how gentle a certain large class of the priesthood will be +with those who, believing there is a God, find it hard to trust him, and +how fierce with those who, unable, from the lack of harmony around and in +them, to say they are sure there is a God, would yet, could they find +him, trust him indeed. "Ah, but," answer such of the clergy and their +followers, "you want a God of your own making." "Certainly," the doubters +reply, "we do not want a God of your making: that would be to turn the +universe into a hell, and you into its torturing demons. We want a God +like that man whose name is so often on your lips, but whose spirit you +understand so little--so like him that he shall be the bread of life to +_all_ our hunger--not that hunger only already satisfied in you, who take +the limit of your present consciousness for that of the race, and say, +'This is all the world needs:' we know the bitterness of our own hearts, +and your incapacity for intermeddling with its joy. We + + have another mountain-range, from whence + Bursteth a sun unutterably bright; + +nor for us only, but for you also, who will not have the truth except it +come to you in a system authorized of man." + +I have attributed a general utterance to these men, widely different from +each other as I know they are. + +Here is a voice from one of them, Arthur Hugh Clough, who died in 1861, +well beloved. It follows upon two fine poems, called _The Questioning +Spirit_, and _Bethesda_, in which is represented the condition of many of +the finest minds of the present century. Let us receive it as spoken by +one in the foremost ranks of these doubters, men reviled by their +brethren who dare not doubt for fear of offending the God to whom they +attribute their own jealousy. But God is assuredly pleased with those who +will neither lie for him, quench their dim vision of himself, nor count +_that_ his mind which they would despise in a man of his making. + + Across the sea, along the shore, + In numbers more and ever more, + From lonely hut and busy town, + The valley through, the mountain down, + What was it ye went out to see, + Ye silly folk of Galilee? + The reed that in the wind doth shake? + The weed that washes in the lake? + The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?-- + young man preaching in a boat. + + What was it ye went out to hear + By sea and land, from far and near? + A teacher? Rather seek the feet + Of those who sit in Moses' seat. + Go humbly seek, and bow to them, + Far off in great Jerusalem. + From them that in her courts ye saw, + Her perfect doctors of the law, + What is it came ye here to note?-- + A young man preaching in a boat + + A prophet! Boys and women weak! + Declare, or cease to rave: + Whence is it he hath learned to speak? + Say, who his doctrine gave? + A prophet? Prophet wherefore he + Of all in Israel tribes?-- + _He teacheth with authority, + And not as do the Scribes_. + +Here is another from one who will not be offended if I class him with +this school--the finest of critics as one of the most finished of +poets--Matthew Arnold. Only my reader must remember that of none of my +poets am I free to choose that which is most characteristic: I have the +scope of my volume to restrain me. + + + THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH THE KID. + + He saves the sheep; the goats he doth not save! + So rang Tertullian's sentence, on the side + Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried: + "Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, + Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave!" + So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed, + The infant Church: of love she felt the tide + Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave. + And then she smiled, and in the Catacombs, + With eye suffused but heart inspired true, + On those walls subterranean, where she hid + Her head in ignominy, death, and tombs, + She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew; + And on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid. + +Of these writers, Tennyson is the foremost: he has written _the_ poem of +the hoping doubters, _the_ poem of our age, the grand minor organ-fugue +of _In Memoriam_. It is the cry of the bereaved Psyche into the dark +infinite after the vanished Love. His friend is nowhere in his sight, and +God is silent. Death, God's final compulsion to prayer, in its dread, its +gloom, its utter stillness, its apparent nothingness, urges the cry. +Meanings over the dead are mingled with profoundest questionings of +philosophy, the signs of nature, and the story of Jesus, while now and +then the star of the morning, bright Phosphor, flashes a few rays through +the shifting cloudy dark. And if the sun has not arisen on the close of +the book, yet the Aurora of the coming dawn gives light enough to make +the onward journey possible and hopeful: who dares say that he walks in +the full light? that the counsels of God are to him not a matter of +faith, but of vision? + +Bewildered in the perplexities of nature's enigmas, and driven by an +awful pain of need, Tennyson betakes himself to the God of nature, thus: + + + LIV. + + The wish, that of the living whole + No life may fail beyond the grave; + Derives it not from what we have + The likest God within the soul? + + Are God and Nature then at strife, + That Nature lends such evil dreams, + So careful of the type she seems, + So careless of the single life; + + That I, considering everywhere + Her secret meaning in her deeds, + And finding that of fifty seeds + She often brings but one to bear; + + I falter where I firmly trod, + And falling with my weight of cares + Upon the great world's altar-stairs + That slope thro' darkness up to God; + + I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, + And gather dust and chaff, and call + To what I feel is Lord of all, + And faintly trust the larger hope. + +[Illustration: + + "... he was dead, and there he sits, + And he that brought him back is there."] + +Once more, this is how he uses the gospel-tale: Mary has returned home +from the sepulchre, with Lazarus so late its prey, and her sister and +Jesus:-- + + + XXXII. + + Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, + Nor other thought her mind admits + But, he was dead, and there he sits, + And he that brought him back is there. + + Then one deep love doth supersede + All other, when her ardent gaze + Roves from the living brother's face, + And rests upon the Life indeed. + + All subtle thought, all curious fears, + Borne down by gladness so complete, + She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet + With costly spikenard and with tears. + + Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, + Whose loves in higher love endure; + What souls possess themselves so pure, + Or is there blessedness like theirs? + + * * * * * + +I have thus traced--how slightly!--the course of the religious poetry of +England, from simple song, lovingly regardful of sacred story and legend, +through the chant of philosophy, to the full-toned lyric of adoration. I +have shown how the stream sinks in the sands of an evil taste generated +by the worship of power and knowledge, and that a new growth of the love +of nature--beauty counteracting not contradicting science--has led it by +a fair channel back to the simplicities of faith in some, and to a holy +questioning in others; the one class having for its faith, the other for +its hope, that the heart of the Father is a heart like ours, a heart that +will receive into its noon the song that ascends from the twilighted +hearts of his children. + +Gladly would I have prayed for the voices of many more of the singers of +our country's psalms. Especially do I regret the arrival of the hour, +because of the voices of living men and women. But the time is over and +gone. The twilight has already embrowned the gray glooms of the cathedral +arches, and is driving us forth to part at the door. + +But the singers will yet sing on to him that hath ears to hear. When he +returns to seek them, the shadowy door will open to his touch, the +long-drawn aisles receding will guide his eye to the carven choir, and +there they still stand, the sweet singers, content to repeat ancient +psalm and new song to the prayer of the humblest whose heart would join +in England's Antiphon. + + + + +THE END. + + + + +[1] The rhymes of the first and second and of the fourth and fifth lines +throughout the stanzas, are all, I think, what the French call feminine +rhymes, as in the words "sleeping," "weeping." This I think it better +not to attempt retaining, because the final unaccented syllable is +generally one of those _e_'s which, having first become mute, have since +been dropped from our spelling altogether. + +[2] For the grammatical interpretation of this line, I am indebted to Mr. +Richard Morris. _Shall_ is here used, as it often is, in the sense of +_must_, and _rede_ is a noun; the paraphrase of the whole being, "_Son, +what must be to me for counsel?_" "_What counsel must I follow?_" + +[3] "Do not blame me, it is my nature." + +[4] _Mon_ is used for _man_ or _woman_: human being. It is so used in +Lancashire still: they say _mon_ to a woman. + +[5] "They weep quietly and _becomingly_." I think there must be in this +word something of the sense of _gently,-uncomplainingly_. + +[6] "And are shrunken (_clung_ with fear) _like_ the clay." _So_ here is +the same as _as_. For this interpretation I am indebted to Mr. Morris. + +[7] "It is no wonder though it pleases me very ill." + +[8] I think the poet, wisely anxious to keep his last line just what it +is, was perplexed for a rhyme, and fell on the odd device of saying, for +"both day and night," "both day and the other." + +[9] "All as if it were not never, I wis." + +[10] "So that many men say--True it is, all goeth but God's will." + +[11] I conjecture "All that grain (me) groweth green." + +[12] _Not_ is a contraction for _ne wat, know not_. "For I know not +whither I must go, nor how long here I dwell." I think _y_ is omitted by +mistake before _duelle_. + +[13] This is very poor compared with the original. + +[14] I owe almost all my information on the history of these plays to Mr. +Collier's well-known work on English Dramatic Poetry. + +[15] _Able to suffer_, deserving, subject to, obnoxious to, liable to +death and vengeance. + +[16] The word _harry_ is still used in Scotland, but only in regard to a +bird's nest. + +[17] Do-well, Do-better, and Do-best. + +[18] Complexion. + +[19] Ruddiness--complexion. + +[20] Twig. + +[21] Life (?).--I think _she_ should be _he_. + +[22] Field. + +[23] "Carry you beyond this region." + +[24] For the knowledge of this poem I am indebted to the Early English +Text Society, now printing so many valuable manuscripts. + +[25] The _for_ here is only an intensive. + +[26] _Pref_ is _proof_. _Put in pref_ seems to stand for something more +than _being tested_. Might it not mean _proved to be a pearl of price?_ + +[27] A word acknowledged to be obscure. Mr. Morris suggests _on the left +hand_, as unbelieved. + +[28] "Except that which his sole wit may judge." + +[29] "Be equal to thy possessions:" "fit thy desires to thy means." + +[30] "Ambition has uncertainty." We use the word _ticklish_ still. + +[31] "Is mingled everywhere." + +[32] To relish, to like. "Desire no more than is fitting for thee." + +[33] For. + +[34] "Let thy spiritual and not thine animal nature guide thee." + +[35] "And I dare not falsely judge the reverse." + +[36] A poem so like this that it may have been written immediately after +reading it, is attributed to Robert Henryson, the Scotch poet. It has the +same refrain to every verse as Lydgate's. + +[37] "Mourning for mishaps that I had caught made me almost mad." + +[38] "Led me all one:" "brought me back to peace, unity, harmony." (?) + +[39] "That I read on (it)." + +[40] _Of_ in the original, as in the title. + +[41] Does this mean by contemplation on it? + +[42] "I paid good attention to it." + +[43] "Greeted thee"--_in the very affliction._ + +[44] "For Christ's love let us do the same." + +[45] "Whatever grief or woe enslaves thee." But _thrall_ is a blunder, +for the word ought to have rhymed with _make._ + +[46] "The precious leader that shall judge us." + +[47] "When thou art in sorry plight, think of this." + +[48] "And death, beyond renewal, lay hold upon their life." + +[49] _Sending, message:_ "whatever varying decree God sends thee." + +[50] "Receives his message;" "accepts his will." + +[51] Recently published by the Early English Text Society. S.L. IV. + +[52] "Child born of a bright lady." _Bird, berd, brid, burd_, means +_lady_ originally: thence comes our _bride_. + +[53] In _Chalmers' English Poets_, from which I quote, it is +_selly-worme;_ but I think this must be a mistake. _Silly_ would here +mean _weak_. + +[54] The first poem he wrote, a very fine one, _The Shepheard's +Calender_, is so full of old and provincial words, that the educated +people of his own time required a glossary to assist them in the reading +of it. + +[55] _Eyas_ is a young hawk, whose wings are not fully fledged. + +[56] "What less than that is fitting?" + +[57] _For_, even in Collier's edition, but certainly a blunder. + +[58] _Was_, in the editions; clearly wrong. + +[59] "Of the same mould and hand as we." + +[60] There was no contempt in the use of this word then. + +[61] Simple-hearted, therefore blessed; like the German _selig_. + +[62] A shell plentiful on the coast of Palestine, and worn by pilgrims to +show that they had visited that country. + +[63] _Evil_ was pronounced almost as a monosyllable, and was at last +contracted to _ill_. + +[64] "Come to find a place." The transitive verb _stow_ means to put in a +place: here it is used intransitively. + +[65] The list of servants then kept in large houses, the number of such +being far greater than it is now. + +[66] There has been some blundering in the transcription of the last two +lines of this stanza. In the former of the two I have substituted _doth_ +for _dost_, evidently wrong. In the latter, the word _cradle_ is +doubtful. I suggest _cradled_, but am not satisfied with it. The meaning +is, however, plain enough. + +[67] "The very blessing the soul needed." + +[68] An old English game, still in use in Scotland and America, but +vanishing before cricket. + +[69] _Silly_ means _innocent_, and therefore _blessed_; ignorant of evil, +and in so far helpless. It is easy to see how affection came to apply it +to idiots. It is applied to the ox and ass in the next stanza, and is +often an epithet of shepherds. + +[70] See _Poems by Sir Henry Wotton and others. Edited by the Rev. John +Hannah_. + +[71] "Know thyself." + +[72] "And I have grown their map." + +[73] The guilt of Adam's first sin, supposed by the theologians of Dr. +Donne's time to be imputed to Adam's descendants. + +[74] The past tense: ran. + +[75] Their door to enter into sin--by his example. + +[76] He was sent by James I. to assist an embassy to the Elector +Palatine, who had married his daughter Elizabeth. + +[77] He had lately lost his wife, for whom he had a rare love. + +[78] "If they know us not by intuition, but by judging from circumstances +and signs." + +[79] "With most willingness." + +[80] "Art proud." + +[81] A strange use of the word; but it evidently means _recovered_, and +has some analogy with the French _repasser_. + +[82] _To_ understood: _to sweeten_. + +[83] He plays upon the astrological terms, _houses_ and _schemes_. The +astrologers divided the heavens into twelve _houses_; and the diagrams by +which they represented the relative positions of the heavenly bodies, +they called _schemes_. + +[84] The tree of knowledge. + +[85] Dyce, following Seward, substitutes _curse_. + +[86] A glimmer of that Platonism of which, happily, we have so much more +in the seventeenth century. + +[87] Should this be "_in_ fees;" that is, in acknowledgment of his feudal +sovereignty? + +[88] _Warm_ is here elongated, almost treated as a dissyllable. + +[89] "He ought not to be forsaken: whoever weighs the matter rightly, +will come to this conclusion." + +[90] The _Eridan_ is the _Po_.--As regards classical allusions in +connexion with sacred things, I would remind my reader of the great +reverence our ancestors had for the classics, from the influence they had +had in reviving the literature of the country.--I need hardly remind him +of the commonly-received fancy that the swan does sing once--just as his +death draws nigh. Does this come from the legend of Cycnus changed into a +swan while lamenting the death of his friend Phaeton? or was that legend +founded on the yet older fancy? The glorious bird looks as if he ought to +sing. + +[91] The poet refers to the singing of the hymn before our Lord went to +the garden by the brook Cedron. + +[92] The construction is obscure just from the insertion of the _to_ +before _breathe_, where it ought not to be after the verb _hear_. The +poet does not mean that he delights to hear that voice more than to +breathe gentle airs, but more than to hear gentle airs (to) breathe. _To +hear_, understood, governs all the infinitives that follow; among the +rest, _the winds (to) chide_. + +[93] _Rut_ is used for the sound of the tide in Cheshire. (See +_Halliwell's Dictionary_.) Does _rutty_ mean _roaring?_ or does it +describe the deep, rugged shores of the Jordan? + +[94] A monosyllable, contracted afterwards into _bloom_. + +[95] Willows. + +[96] _Groom_ originally means just _a man_. It was a word much used when +pastoral poetry was the fashion. Spenser has _herd-grooms_ in his +_Shepherd's Calendar_. This last is what it means here: _shepherds_. + +[97] Obtain, save. + +[98] Equivalent to "What are those hands of yours for?" + +[99] He was but thirty-nine when he died. + +[100] To rhyme with _pray_ in the second line. + +[101] Bunch of flowers. He was thinking of Aaron's rod, perhaps. + +[102] To correspond to that of Christ. + +[103] Again a touch of holy humour: to match his Master's predestination, +he will contrive something three years beforehand, with an _if_. + +[104] The _here_ in the preceding line means _his book_; hence the _thy +book_ is antithetical. + +[105] _Concent_ is a singing together, or harmoniously. + +[106] Music depends all on proportions. + +[107] The diapason is the octave. Therefore "all notes true." See note 2, +p. 205. + +[108] An intransitive verb: _he was wont_. + +[109] The birds called _halcyons_ were said to build their nests on the +water, and, while they were brooding, to keep it calm. + +[110] The morning star. + +[111] The God of shepherds especially, but the God of all nature--the All +in all, for _Pan_ means the _All_. + +[112] Milton here uses the old Ptolemaic theory of a succession of solid +crystal concentric spheres, in which the heavenly bodies were fixed, and +which revolving carried these with them. The lowest or innermost of these +spheres was that of the moon. "The hollow round of Cynthia's seat" is, +therefore, this sphere in which the moon sits. + +[113] That cannot be expressed or described. + +[114] By _hinges_ he means the axis of the earth, on which it turns as on +a hinge. The origin of _hinge_ is _hang_. It is what anything hangs on. + +[115] This is an apostrophe to the nine spheres (_see former note_), +which were believed by the ancients to send forth in their revolutions a +grand harmony, too loud for mortals to hear. But no music of the lower +region can make up full harmony without the bass of heaven's organ. The +_music of the spheres_ was to Milton the embodiment of the theory of the +universe. He uses the symbol often. + +[116] _Consort_ is the right word scientifically. It means the _fitting +together_ of sounds according to their nature. _Concert_, however, is not +wrong. It is even more poetic than _consort_, for it means a _striving +together_, which is the idea of all peace: the strife is _together_, and +not of one against the other. All harmony is an ordered, a divine strife. +In the contest of music, every tone restrains its foot and bows its head +to the rest in holy dance. + +[117] _Symphony_ is here used for _chorus_, and quite correctly; for +_symphony_ is a _voicing together_. To this symphony of the angels the +spheres and the heavenly organ are the accompaniment. + +[118] Die of the music. + +[119] Not merely _swings_, but _lashes about_. + +[120] Full of folds or coils. + +[121] The legend concerning this cessation of the oracles associates it +with the Crucifixion. Milton in _The Nativity_ represents it as the +consequence of the very presence of the infant Saviour. War and lying are +banished together. + +[122] The _genius_ is the local god, the god of the place as a place. + +[123] The _Lars_ were the protecting spirits of the ancestors of the +family; the _Lemures_ were evil spirits, spectres, or bad ghosts. But the +notions were somewhat indefinite. + +[124] _Flamen_ was the word used for _priest_ when the Romans spoke of +the priest of any particular divinity. Hence the _peculiar power_ in the +last line of the stanza. + +[125] Jupiter Ammon, worshipped in Libya, in the north of Africa, under +the form of a goat. "He draws in his horn." + +[126] The Syrian Adonis. + +[127] Frightful, horrible, as, _a grisly bear_. + +[128] Isis, Orus, Anubis, and Osiris, all Egyptian divinities--the last +worshipped in the form of a bull. + +[129] No rain falls in Egypt. + +[130] Last-born: the star in the east. + +[131] Bright-armoured. + +[132] Ready for what service may arise. + +[133] The _with_ we should now omit, for when we use it we mean the +opposite of what is meant here. + +[134] It is the light of the soul going out from the eyes, as certainly +as the light of the world coming in at the eyes that makes things seen. + +[135] The action by which a body attacked collects force by opposition. + +[136] Cut roughly through. + +[137] Intransitively used. They touch each other. + +[138] Self-desire, which is death's pit, &c. + +[139] _Which_ understood. + +[140] How unpleasant conceit can become. The joy of seeing the Saviour +was _stolen_ because they gained it in the absence of the sun! + +[141] A trisyllable. + +[142] His garland. + +[143] The "sunny seed" in their hearts. + +[144] From _tine_ or _tind_, to set on fire. Hence _tinder_. + +[145] The body of Jesus. + +[146] Mark i. 35; Luke xxi. 37. The word _time_ must be associated both +with _progress_ and _prayer_--his walking-time and prayer-time. + +[147] This is an allusion to the sphere-music: the great heavens is a +clock whose hours are those when Jesus retires to his Father; and to +these hours the sphere-music gives the chime. + +[148] He continues his poetic synonyms for the night. + +[149] "Behold I stand at the door and knock." + +[150] A monosyllable. + +[151] Often used for _chambers_. + +[152] "The creation looks for the light, thy shadow?" Or, "The light +looks for thy shadow, the sun"? + +[153] _Perforce_: of necessity. + +[154] He does not mean his fellows, but his bodily nature. + +[155] _Savourest?_ + +[156] The first I ever saw of its hymns was on a broad-sheet of Christmas +Carols, with coloured pictures, printed in Seven Dials. + +[157] They passed through twenty editions, not to mention one lately +published (_by Daniel Sedgwick, of 81, Sun-street, Bishopsgate, a man +who, concerning hymns and their writers, knows more than any other man I +have met_), from which, carefully edited, I have gathered all my +_information_, although I had known the book itself for many years. + +[158] The animal _spirits_ of the old physiologists. + +[159] In the following five lines I have adopted the reading of the first +edition, which, although a little florid, I prefer to the scanty two +lines of the later. + +[160] False in feeling, nor like God at all, although a ready pagan +representation of him. There is much of the pagan left in many +Christians--poets too. + +[161] _Insisting--persistent_. + +[162] Great cloudy ridges, one rising above the other, like a grand stair +up to the heavens. _See Wordsworth's note_. + +[163] The mountain. + +[164] These two lines are just the symbol for the life of their author. + +[165] From the rose-light on the snow of its peak. + +[166] They all flow from under the glaciers, fed by their constant +melting. + +[167] Turning for contrast to the glaciers, which he apostrophizes in the +next line. + +[168] Antecedent, _peaks_. + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: In this electronic edition, the footnotes have been +numbered and relocated to the end of the work. In chapter 14, the word +"Iris", which appears in our print copy, seems to be a misprint for +"Isis" and was corrected as such.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of England's Antiphon, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON *** + +***** This file should be named 10375-8.txt or 10375-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/7/10375/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Tom Allen and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10375-8.zip b/old/10375-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..09f7361 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10375-8.zip diff --git a/old/10375.txt b/old/10375.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68d1d8c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10375.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12036 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of England's Antiphon, by George MacDonald + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: England's Antiphon + +Author: George MacDonald + +Release Date: December 3, 2003 [EBook #10375] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Tom Allen and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +[Illustration: England's Antiphon] + + + +ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON + +BY GEORGE MACDONALD + + + ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON + was originally published in 1868 + + + + +PREFACE + + +In this book I have sought to trace the course of our religious poetry +from an early period of our literary history. + +This could hardly be done without reference to some of the principal +phases of the religious history of the nation. To give anything like a +full history of the religious feeling of a single county, would require a +large book, and--not to mention sermons--would involve a thorough +acquaintance with the hymns of the country,--a very wide subject, which I +have not considered of sufficient importance from a literary point of +view to come within the scope of the volume. + +But if its poetry be the cream of a people's thought, some true +indications of the history of its religious feeling must be found in its +religious verse, and I hope I have not altogether failed in setting forth +these indications. + +My chief aim, however, will show itself to have been the mediating +towards an intelligent and cordial sympathy betwixt my readers and the +writers from whom I have quoted. In this I have some confidence of +success. + +Heartily do I throw this my small pebble at the head of the great +Sabbath-breaker _Schism_. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTION. + + CHAPTER I. + SACRED LYRICS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. + + CHAPTER II. + THE MIRACLE PLAYS, AND OTHER POEMS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. + + CHAPTER III. + THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. + + CHAPTER IV. + INTRODUCTION TO THE ELIZABETHAN ERA. + + CHAPTER V. + SPENSER AND HIS FRIENDS. + + CHAPTER VI. + LORD BACON AND HIS COEVALS. + + CHAPTER VII. + DR. DONNE. + + CHAPTER VIII. + BISHOP HALL AND GEORGE SANDYS. + + CHAPTER IX. + A FEW OF THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS. + + CHAPTER X. + SIR JOHN BEAUMONT AND DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. + + CHAPTER XI. + THE BROTHERS FLETCHER. + + CHAPTER XII. + WITHER, HERRICK, AND QUARLES. + + CHAPTER XIII. + GEORGE HERBERT. + + CHAPTER XIV. + JOHN MILTON. + + CHAPTER XV. + EDMUND WALLER, THOMAS BROWN, AND JEREMY TAYLOR. + + CHAPTER XVI. + HENRY MORE AND RICHARD BAXTER. + + CHAPTER XVII. + CRASHAW AND MARVELL. + + CHAPTER XVIII. + A MOUNT OF VISION--HENRY VAUGHAN. + + CHAPTER XIX. + THE PLAIN. + + CHAPTER XX. + THE ROOTS OF THE HILLS. + + CHAPTER XXI. + THE NEW VISION. + + CHAPTER XXII. + THE FERVOUR OF THE IMPLICIT. INSIGHT OF THE HEART. + + CHAPTER XXIII. + THE QUESTIONING FERVOUR. + + + + +ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +If the act of worship be the highest human condition, it follows that the +highest human art must find material in the modes of worship. The first +poetry of a nation will not be religious poetry: the nation must have a +history at least before it can possess any material capable of being cast +into the mould of religious utterance; but, the nation once possessed of +this material, poetry is the first form religious utterance will assume. + +The earliest form of literature is the ballad, which is the germ of all +subsequent forms of poetry, for it has in itself all their elements: the +_lyric_, for it was first chanted to some stringed instrument; the +_epic_, for it tells a tale, often of solemn and ancient report; the +_dramatic_, for its actors are ever ready to start forward into life, +snatch the word from the mouth of the narrator, and speak in their own +persons. All these forms have been used for the utterance of religious +thought and feeling. Of the lyrical poems of England, religion possesses +the most; of the epic, the best; of the dramatic, the oldest. + +Of each of these I shall have occasion to speak; but, as the title of the +book implies,--for _Antiphon_ means the responsive song of the parted +choir,--I shall have chiefly to do with the lyric or song form. + +For song is the speech of feeling. Even the prose of emotion always +wanders into the rhythmical. Hence, as well as for other reasons +belonging to its nature, it is one chief mode in which men unite to +praise God; for in thus praising they hold communion with each other, and +the praise expands and grows. + +The _individual_ heart, however, must first have been uplifted into +praiseful song, before the common ground and form of feeling, in virtue +of which men might thus meet, could be supplied. But the vocal utterance +or the bodily presence is not at all necessary for this communion. When +we read rejoicingly the true song-speech of one of our singing brethren, +we hold song-worship with him and with all who have thus at any time +shared in his feelings, even if he have passed centuries ago into the +"high countries" of song. + +My object is to erect, as it were, in this book, a little auricle, or +spot of concentrated hearing, where the hearts of my readers may listen, +and join in the song of their country's singing men and singing women. + +I will build it, if I may, like a chapel in the great church of England's +worship, gathering the sounds of its never-ceasing choir, heart after +heart lifting up itself in the music of speech, heart after heart +responding across the ages. Hearing, we worship with them. + +For we must not forget that, although the individual song springs from +the heart of the individual, the song of a country is not merely +cumulative: it is vital in its growth, and therefore composed of +historically dependent members. No man could sing as he has sung, had not +others sung before him. Deep answereth unto deep, face to face, praise to +praise. To the sound of the trumpet the harp returns its own vibrating +response--alike, but how different! The religious song of the country, I +say again, is a growth, rooted deep in all its story. + +Besides the fact that the lyric chiefly will rouse the devotional +feeling, there is another reason why I should principally use it: I wish +to make my book valuable in its parts as in itself. The value of a thing +depends in large measure upon its unity, its wholeness. In a work of +these limits, that form of verse alone can be available for its unity +which is like the song of the bird--a warble and then a stillness. +However valuable an extract may be--and I shall not quite eschew such--an +entire lyric, I had almost said _however inferior_, if worthy of a place +at all, is of greater value, especially if regarded in relation to the +form of setting with which I hope to surround it. + +There is a sense in which I may, without presumption, adopt the name of +Choragus, or leader of the chorus, in relation to these singers: I must +take upon me to order who shall sing, when he shall sing, and which of +his songs he shall sing. But I would rather assume the office of master +of the hearing, for my aim shall be to cause the song to be truly heard; +to set forth worthy points in form, in matter, and in relation; to say +with regard to the singer himself, his time, its modes, its beliefs, such +things as may help to set the song in its true light--its relation, +namely, to the source whence it sprung, which alone can secure its right +reception by the heart of the hearer. For my chief aim will be the heart; +seeing that, although there is no dividing of the one from the other, the +heart can do far more for the intellect than the intellect can do for the +heart. + +We must not now attempt to hear the singers of times so old that their +language is unintelligible without labour. For this there is not room, +even if otherwise it were desirable that such should divide the volume. +We must leave Anglo-Saxon behind us. In Early English, I shall give a few +valuable lyrics, but they shall not be so far removed from our present +speech but that, with a reasonable amount of assistance, the nature and +degree of which I shall set forth, they shall not only present themselves +to the reader's understanding, but commend themselves to his imagination +and judgment. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +SACRED LYRICS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. + + +In the midst of wars and rumours of wars, the strife of king and barons, +and persistent efforts to subdue neighbouring countries, the mere +effervescence of the life of the nation, let us think for a moment of +that to which the poems I am about to present bear good witness--the true +life of the people, growing quietly, slowly, unperceived--the leaven hid +in the meal. For what is the true life of a nation? That, I answer, in +its modes of thought, its manners and habits, which favours the growth +within the individual of that kingdom of heaven for the sake only of +which the kingdoms of earth exist. The true life of the people, as +distinguished from the nation, is simply the growth in its individuals of +those eternal principles of truth, in proportion to whose power in them +they take rank in the kingdom of heaven, the only kingdom that can +endure, all others being but as the mimicries of children playing at +government. + +Little as they then knew of the relations of the wonderful story on which +their faith was built, to everything human, the same truth was at work +then which is now--poor as the recognition of these relations yet +is--slowly setting men free. In the hardest winter the roots are still +alive in the frozen ground. + +In the silence of the monastery, unnatural as that life was, germinated +much of this deeper life. As we must not judge of the life of the nation +by its kings and mighty men, so we must not judge of the life in the +Church by those who are called Rabbi. The very notion of the kingdom of +heaven implies a secret growth, secret from no affectation of mystery, +but because its goings-on are in the depths of the human nature where it +holds communion with the Divine. In the Church, as in society, we often +find that that which shows itself uppermost is but the froth, a sign, it +may be, of life beneath, but in itself worthless. When the man arises +with a servant's heart and a ruler's brain, then is the summer of the +Church's content. But whether the men who wrote the following songs moved +in some shining orbit of rank, or only knelt in some dim chapel, and +walked in some pale cloister, we cannot tell, for they have left no name +behind them. + +My reader will observe that there is little of theory and much of love in +these lyrics. The recognition of a living Master is far more than any +notions about him. In the worship of him a thousand truths are working, +unknown and yet active, which, embodied in theory, and dissociated from +the living mind that was in Christ, will as certainly breed worms as any +omer of hoarded manna. Holding the skirt of his garment in one hand, we +shall in the other hold the key to all the treasures of wisdom and +knowledge. + +I think almost all the earliest religious poetry is about him and his +mother. Their longing after his humanity made them idolize his mother. If +we forget that only through his humanity can we approach his divinity, we +shall soon forget likewise that his mother is blessed among women. + +I take the poems from one of the Percy Society publications, edited by +Mr. Wright from a manuscript in the British Museum. He adjudges them to +the reign of Edward I. Perhaps we may find in them a sign or two that in +cultivating our intellect we have in some measure neglected our heart. + +But first as to the mode in which I present them to my readers: I have +followed these rules:-- + +1. Wherever a word differs from the modern word only in spelling, I have, +for the sake of readier comprehension, substituted the modern form, with +the following exception:--Where the spelling indicates a different +pronunciation, necessary for the rhyme or the measure, I retain such part +of the older form, marking with an acute accent any vowel now silent +which must be sounded. + +2. Where the word used is antique in root, I give the modern synonym in +the margin. Antique phrases I explain in foot-notes. + +It must be borne in mind that our modern pronunciation can hardly fail in +other cases as well to injure the melody of the verses. + +The modern reader will often find it difficult to get a rhythm out of +some of them. This may arise from any of several causes. In the first +place many final _e_'s were then sounded which are now silent; and it is +not easy to tell which of them to sound. Again, some words were +pronounced as dissyllables which we treat as monosyllables, and others as +monosyllables which we treat as dissyllables. I suspect besides, that +some of the old writers were content to allow a prolonged syllable to +stand for two short ones, a mode not without great beauty when sparingly +and judiciously employed. Short supernumerary syllables were likewise +allowed considerable freedom to come and go. A good deal must, however, +be put down to the carelessness and presumption of the transcribers, who +may very well have been incapable of detecting their own blunders. One of +these ancient mechanics of literature caused Chaucer endless annoyance +with his corruptions, as a humorous little poem, the last in his works, +sufficiently indicates. From the same sources no doubt spring as well +most of the variations of text in the manuscripts. + +The first of the poems is chiefly a conversation between the Lord on the +cross and his mother standing at its foot. A few prefatory remarks in +explanation of some of its allusions will help my readers to enjoy it. + +It was at one time a common belief, and the notion has not yet, I think, +altogether vanished, that the dying are held back from repose by the love +that is unwilling to yield them up. Hence, in the third stanza, the Lord +prays his mother to let him die. In the fifth, he reasons against her +overwhelming sorrows on the ground of the deliverance his sufferings will +bring to the human race. But she can only feel her own misery. + +To understand the seventh and eighth, it is necessary to know that, among +other strange things accepted by the early Church, it was believed that +the mother of Jesus had no suffering at his birth. This of course +rendered her incapable of perfect sympathy with other mothers. It is a +lovely invention, then, that he should thus commend mothers to his +mother, telling her to judge of the pains of motherhood by those which +she now endured. Still he fails to turn aside her thoughts. She is +thinking still only of her own and her son's suffering, while he +continues bent on making her think of others, until, at last, forth comes +her prayer for all women. This seems to me a tenderness grand as +exquisite. + +The outburst of the chorus of the Faithful in the last stanza but one,-- + + When he rose, then fell her sorrow, + +is as fine as anything I know in the region of the lyric. + + + "Stand well, mother, under rood;[1] _the cross._ + Behold thy son with glade mood; _cheerful._ + Blithe mother mayst thou be." + "Son, how should I blithe stand? + I see thy feet, I see thy hand + Nailed to the hard tree." + + "Mother, do way thy wepynde: _give over thy weeping._ + I thole death for mankind-- _suffer._ + For my guilt thole I none." + "Son, I feel the dede stounde; _death-pang._ + The sword is at my heart's ground _bottom._ + That me byhet Simeon." _foreshowed._ + + "Mother, mercy! let me die, + For Adam out of hell buy, _for to buy Adam._ + And his kin that is forlore." _lost._ + "Son, what shall me to rede?[2] + My pain paineth me to dede: _death._ + Let me die thee before!" + + "Mother, thou rue all of thy bairn; _rue thou_; _all_ is only expletive + Thou wash away the bloody tern; _wash thou; tears._ + It doth me worse than my ded." _hurts me more; death._ + "Son, how may I teres werne? _turn aside tears._ + I see the bloody streames erne _flow._ + From thy heart to my fet." _feet._ + + "Mother, now I may thee seye, _say to thee._ + Better is that I one deye _die._ + Than all mankind to helle go." + "Son, I see thy body byswongen, _lashed._ + Feet and hands throughout stongen: _pierced through and through._ + No wonder though me be woe." _woe be to me._ + + "Mother, now I shall thee tell, + If I not die, thou goest to hell: + I thole death for thy sake." _endure._ + "Son, thou art so meek and mynde, _thoughtful._ + Ne wyt me not, it is my kind[3] + That I for thee this sorrow make." + + "Mother, now thou mayst well leren _learn._ + What sorrow have that children beren, _they have; bear._ + What sorrow it is with childe gon." _to go._ + "Sorrow, I wis! I can thee tell! + But it be the pain of hell _except._ + More sorrow wot I none." + + "Mother, rue of mother-care, _take pity upon._ + For now thou wost of mother-fare, _knowest._ + Though thou be clean maiden mon."[4] + "Sone, help at alle need + Alle those that to me grede, _cry._ + Maiden, wife, and full wymmon." _woman with child._ + + "Mother, may I no longer dwell; + The time is come I shall to hell; + The third day I rise upon." + "Son, I will with thee founden; _set out, go._ + I die, I wis, for thy wounden: + So sorrowful death nes never none." _was not never none._ + + When he rose, then fell her sorrow; + Her bliss sprung the third morrow: + Blithe mother wert thou tho! _then._ + Lady, for that ilke bliss, _same._ + Beseech thy son of sunnes lisse: _for sin's release._ + Thou be our shield against our foe. _Be thou._ + + Blessed be thou, full of bliss! + Let us never heaven miss, + Through thy sweete Sones might! + Loverd, for that ilke blood, _Lord,_ + That thou sheddest on the rood, + Thou bring us into heaven's light. AMEN. + + +I think my readers will not be sorry to have another of a similar +character. + + I sigh when I sing + For sorrow that I see, + When I with weeping + Behold upon the tree, + + And see Jesus the sweet + His heart's blood for-lete _yield quite._ + For the love of me. + His woundes waxen wete, _wet._ + They weepen still and mete:[5] + Mary rueth thee. _pitieth._ + + High upon a down, _hill._ + Where all folk it see may, + A mile from each town, + About the mid-day, + The rood is up areared; + His friendes are afeared, + And clingeth so the clay;[6] + The rood stands in stone, + Mary stands her on, + And saith Welaway! + + When I thee behold + With eyen brighte bo, _eyes bright both._ + And thy body cold-- + Thy ble waxeth blo, _colour: livid._ + Thou hangest all of blood _bloody._ + So high upon the rood + Between thieves tuo-- _two._ + Who may sigh more? + Mary weepeth sore, + And sees all this woe. + + The nails be too strong, + The smiths are too sly; _skilful._ + Thou bleedest all too long; + The tree is all too high; + The stones be all wete! _wet._ + Alas, Jesu, the sweet! + For now friend hast thou none, + + But Saint John to-mournynde, _mourning greatly._ + And Mary wepynde, _weeping._ + For pain that thee is on. + + Oft when I sike _sigh._ + And makie my moan, + Well ill though me like, + Wonder is it none.[7] + When I see hang high + And bitter pains dreye, _dree, endure._ + Jesu, my lemmon! _love._ + His woundes sore smart, + The spear all to his heart + And through his side is gone. + + Oft when I syke, _sigh._ + With care I am through-sought; _searched through._ + When I wake I wyke; _languish._ + Of sorrow is all my thought. + Alas! men be wood _mad._ + That swear by the rood _swear by the cross._ + And sell him for nought + That bought us out of sin. + He bring us to wynne, _may he: bliss._ + That hath us dear bought! + + +I add two stanzas of another of like sort. + + Man that is in glory and bliss, + And lieth in shame and sin, + He is more than unwis _unwise._ + That thereof will not blynne. _cease._ + All this world it goeth away, + Me thinketh it nigheth Doomsday; + Now man goes to ground: _perishes._ + Jesus Christ that tholed ded _endured death._ + He may our souls to heaven led _lead._ + Within a little stound. _moment._ + + Jesus, that was mild and free, + Was with spear y-stongen; _stung_ or _pierced._ + He was nailed to the tree, + With scourges y-swongen. _lashed._ + All for man he tholed shame, _endured._ + Withouten guilt, withouten blame, + Bothe day and other[8]. + Man, full muchel he loved thee, _much._ + When he wolde make thee free, + And become thy brother. + + +The simplicity, the tenderness, the devotion of these lyrics is to me +wonderful. Observe their realism, as, for instance, in the words: "The +stones beoth al wete;" a realism as far removed from the coarseness of a +Rubens as from the irreverence of too many religious teachers, who will +repeat and repeat again the most sacred words for the merest logical ends +until the tympanum of the moral ear hears without hearing the sounds that +ought to be felt as well as held holiest. They bear strongly, too, upon +the outcome of feeling in action, although doubtless there was the same +tendency then as there is now to regard the observance of +church-ordinances as the service of Christ, instead of as a means of +gathering strength wherewith to serve him by being in the world as he was +in the world. + +From a poem of forty-eight stanzas I choose five, partly in order to +manifest that, although there is in it an occasional appearance of what +we should consider sentimentality, allied in nature to that worship of +the Virgin which is more a sort of French gallantry than a feeling of +reverence, the sense of duty to the Master keeps pace with the profession +of devotedness to him. There is so little continuity of thought in it, +that the stanzas might almost be arranged anyhow. + + Jesu, thy love be all my thought; + Of other thing ne reck I nought; _reckon._ + I yearn to have thy will y-wrought, + For thou me hast well dear y-bought. + + Jesu, well may mine hearte see + That mild and meek he must be, + All unthews and lustes flee, _bad habits._ + That feelen will the bliss of thee. _feel._ + + For sinful folk, sweet Jesus, + Thou lightest from the high house; + Poor and low thou wert for us. + Thine heart's love thou sendest us. + + Jesu, therefore beseech I thee + Thy sweet love thou grant me; + That I thereto worthy be, + Make me worthy that art so free. _thou that art._ + + Jesu, thine help at my ending! + And in that dreadful out-wending, _going forth of the spirit._ + Send my soul good weryyng, _guard._ + That I ne dread none evil thing. + + +I shall next present a short lyric, displaying more of art than this +last, giving it now in the old form, and afterwards in a new one, that my +reader may see both how it looks in its original dress, and what it +means. + + Wynter wakeneth al my care, + Nou this leves waxeth bare, + Ofte y sike ant mourne sare, _sigh; sore._ + When hit cometh in my thoht + Of this worldes joie, how hit goth al to noht. + + Now hit is, ant now hit nys, _it is not._ + Also hit ner nere y-wys,[9] + That moni mon seith soth hit ys,[10] + Al goth bote Godes wille, + Alle we shule deye, thah us like ylle. _though it pleases us ill._ + + Al that gren me graueth grene,[11] + Nou hit faleweth al by-dene; _grows yellow: speedily._ + Jhesu, help that hit be sene, _seen._ + Ant shild us from helle; + For y not whider y shal, ne hou longe her duelle.[12] + + +I will now give a modern version of it, in which I have spoiled the +original of course, but I hope as little as well may be. + + Winter wakeneth all my care; + Now the trees are waxing bare; + Oft my sighs my grief declare[13] + When it comes into my thought + Of this world's joy, how it goes all to nought. + + Now it is, and now 'tis not-- + As it ne'er had been, I wot. + Hence many say--it is man's lot: + All goeth but God's will; + We all die, though we like it ill. + + Green about me grows the grain; + Now it yelloweth all again: + Jesus, give us help amain, + And shield us from hell; + For when or whither I go I cannot tell + +There were no doubt many religious poems in a certain amount of +circulation of a different cast from these; some a metrical recounting of +portions of the Bible history--a kind unsuited to our ends; others a +setting forth of the doctrines and duties then believed and taught. Of +the former class is one of the oldest Anglo-Saxon poems we have, that of +Caedmon, and there are many specimens to be found in the fourteenth and +fifteenth centuries. They could, however, have been of little service to +the people, so few of whom could read, or could have procured manuscripts +if they had been able to use them. A long and elaborate composition of +the latter class was written in the reign of Edward II. by William de +Shoreham, vicar of Chart-Sutton in Kent. He probably taught his own +verses to the people at his catechisings. The intention was, no doubt, by +the aid of measure and rhyme to facilitate the remembrance of the facts +and doctrines. It consists of a long poem on the Seven Sacraments; of a +shorter, associating the Canonical Hours with the principal events of the +close of our Lord's life; of an exposition of the Ten Commandments, +followed by a kind of treatise on the Seven Cardinal Sins: the fifth part +describes the different joys of the Virgin; the sixth, in praise of the +Virgin, is perhaps the most poetic; the last is less easy to +characterize. The poem is written in the Kentish dialect, and is +difficult. + +I shall now turn into modern verse a part of "The Canonical Hours," +giving its represented foundation of the various acts of worship in the +Romish Church throughout the day, from early in the morning to the last +service at night. After every fact concerning our Lord, follows an +apostrophe to his mother, which I omit, being compelled to choose. + + Father's wisdom lifted high, + Lord of us aright-- + God and man taken was, + At matin-time by night. + The disciples that were his, + Anon they him forsook; + Sold to Jews and betrayed, + To torture him took. + + At the prime Jesus was led + In presence of Pilate, + Where witnesses, false and fell, + Laughed at him for hate. + In the neck they him smote, + Bound his hands of might; + Spit upon that sweet face + That heaven and earth did light. + + "Crucify him! crucify!" + They cried at nine o'clock; + A purple cloth they put on him-- + To stare at him and mock. + They upon his sweet head + Stuck a thorny crown; + To Calvary his cross he bears. + Pitiful, from the town + + Jesus was nailed on the cross + At the noon-tide; + Strong thieves they hanged up, + One on either side. + In his pain, his strong thirst + Quenched they with gall; + So that God's holy Lamb + From sin washed us all. + + At the nones Jesus Christ + Felt the hard death; + He to his father "Eloi!" cried, + Gan up yield his breath. + A soldier with a sharp spear + Pierced his right side; + The earth shook, the sun grew dim, + The moment that he died. + + He was taken off the cross + At even-song's hour; + The strength left and hid in God + Of our Saviour. + Such death he underwent, + Of life the medicine! + Alas! he was laid adown-- + The crown of bliss in pine! + + At complines, it was borne away + To the burying, + That noble corpse of Jesus Christ, + Hope of life's coming. + Anointed richly it was, + Fulfilled his holy book: + I pray, Lord, thy passion + In my mind lock. + +Childlike simplicity, realism, and tenderness will be evident in this, as +in preceding poems, especially in the choice of adjectives. But indeed +the combination of certain words had become conventional; as "The hard +tree," "The nails great and strong," and such like. + +I know I have spoiled the poem in half-translating it thus; but I have +rendered it intelligible to all my readers, have not wandered from the +original, and have retained a degree of antiqueness both in the tone and +the expression. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE MIRACLE PLAYS AND OTHER POEMS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. + + +The oldest form of regular dramatic representation in England was the +Miracle Plays, improperly called Mysteries, after the French. To these +plays the people of England, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, +owed a very large portion of what religious knowledge they possessed, for +the prayers were in an unknown tongue, the sermons were very few, and +printing was uninvented. The plays themselves, introduced into the +country by the Normans, were, in the foolish endeavour to make Normans of +Anglo-Saxons, represented in Norman French[14] until the year 1338, when +permission was obtained from the Pope to represent them in English. + +The word _Miracle_, in their case, means anything recorded in Scripture. +The Miracle Plays had for their subjects the chief incidents of Old and +New Testament history; not merely, however, of this history as accepted +by the Reformed Church, but of that contained in the Apocryphal Gospels +as well. An entire series of these _Miracles_ consisted of short dramatic +representations of many single passages of the sacred story. The whole +would occupy about three days. It began with the Creation, and ended with +the Judgment. That for which the city of Coventry was famous consists of +forty-two subjects, with a long prologue. Composed by ecclesiastics, the +plays would seem to have been first represented by them only, although +afterwards it was not always considered right for the clergy to be +concerned with them. The hypocritical Franciscan friar, in "Piers +Ploughman's Creed," a poem of the close of the same century, claims as a +virtue for his order-- + + At markets and miracles we meddleth us never. + +They would seem likewise to have been first represented in churches and +chapels, sometimes in churchyards. Later, when the actors chiefly +belonged to city-guilds, they were generally represented in the streets +and squares. + +It must be borne in mind by any who would understand the influence of +these plays upon the people, that much in them appearing to us grotesque, +childish, absurd, and even irreverent, had no such appearance in the eyes +of the spectators. A certain amount of the impression of absurdity is +simply the consequence of antiquity; and even that which is rightly +regarded as absurd in the present age, will not at least have produced +the discomposing effects of absurdity upon the less developed beholders +of that age; just as the quaint pictures with which their churches were +decorated may make us smile, but were by them regarded with awe and +reverence from their infancy. + +It must be confessed that there is in them even occasional coarseness; +but that the devil for instance should always be represented as a baffled +fool, and made to play the buffoon sometimes after a disgusting fashion, +was to them only the treatment he deserved: it was their notion of +"poetic justice;" while most of them were too childish to be shocked at +the discord thus introduced, and many, we may well hope, too childlike to +lose their reverence for the holy because of the proximity of the +ridiculous. + +There seems to me considerably more of poetic worth scattered through +these plays than is generally recognized; and I am glad to be able to do +a little to set forth the fact. I cannot doubt that my readers will be +interested in such fragments as the scope and design of my book will +allow me to offer. Had there been no such passages, I might have regarded +the plays as but remotely connected with my purpose, and mentioned them +merely as a dramatic form of religious versification. I quote from the +_Coventry Miracles_, better known than either of the other two sets in +existence, the Chester Plays and those of Widkirk Abbey. The manuscript +from which they have been edited by Mr. Halliwell, one of those students +of our early literature to whom we are endlessly indebted for putting +valuable things within our reach, is by no means so old as the plays +themselves; it bears date 1468, a hundred and thirty years after they +appeared in their English dress. Their language is considerably +modernized, a process constantly going on where transcription is the +means of transmission--not to mention that the actors would of course +make many changes to the speech of their own time. I shall modernize it a +little further, but only as far as change of spelling will go. + +The first of the course is _The Creation_. God, and angels, and Lucifer +appear. That God should here utter, I cannot say announce, the doctrine +of the Trinity, may be defended on the ground that he does so in a +soliloquy; but when we find afterwards that the same doctrine is one of +the subjects upon which the boy Jesus converses with the doctors in the +Temple, we cannot help remarking the strange anachronism. Two remarkable +lines in the said soliloquy are these: + + And all that ever shall have being + It is closed in my mind. + +The next scene is the _Fall of Man_, which is full of poetic feeling and +expression both. I must content myself with a few passages. + +Here is part of Eve's lamentation, when she is conscious of the death +that has laid hold upon her. + + Alas that ever that speech was spoken + That the false angel said unto me! + Alas! our Maker's bidding is broken, + For I have touched his own dear tree. + Our fleshly eyes are all unlokyn, _unlocked._ + Naked for sin ourself we see; + That sorry apple that we have sokyn _sucked._ + To death hath brought my spouse and me. + +When the voice of God is heard, saying, + + Adam, that with my hands I made, + Where art thou now? what hast thou wrought? + +Adam replies, in two lines, containing the whole truth of man's spiritual +condition ever since: + + Ah, Lord! for sin our flowers do fade: + I hear thy voice, but I see thee nought. + +The vision had vanished, but the voice remained; for they that hear shall +live, and to the pure in heart one day the vision shall be restored, for +"they shall see God." There is something wonderfully touching in the +quaint simplicity of the following words of God to the woman: + + Unwise woman, say me why + That thou hast done this foul folly, + And I made thee a great lady, + In Paradise for to play? + +As they leave the gates, the angel with the flaming sword ends his speech +thus: + + This bliss I spere from you right fast; _bar._ + Herein come ye no more, + Till a child of a maid be born, + And upon the rood rent and torn, + To save all that ye have forlorn, _lost._ + Your wealth for to restore. + +Eve laments bitterly, and at length offers her throat to her husband, +praying him to strangle her: + + Now stumble we on stalk and stone; + My wit away from me is gone; + Writhe on to my neck-bone + With hardness of thine hand. + +Adam replies--not over politely-- + + Wife, thy wit is not worth a rush; + +and goes on to make what excuse for themselves he can in a very simple +and touching manner: + + Our hap was hard, our wit was nesche, _soft, weak,_ still in use in + To Paradise when we were brought: [some provinces. + My weeping shall be long fresh; + Short liking shall be long bought. _pleasure._ + +The scene ends with these words from Eve: + + Alas, that ever we wrought this sin! + Our bodily sustenance for to win, + Ye must delve and I shall spin, + In care to lead our life. + +_Cain and Abel_ follows; then _Noah's Flood_, in which God says, + + They shall not dread the flood's flow; + +then _Abraham's Sacrifice_; then _Moses and the Two Tables_; then _The +Prophets_, each of whom prophesies of the coming Saviour; after which we +find ourselves in the Apocryphal Gospels, in the midst of much nonsense +about Anna and Joachim, the parents of Mary, about Joseph and Mary and +the birth of Jesus, till we arrive at _The Shepherds_ and _The Magi, The +Purification, The Slaughter of the Innocents, The Disputing in the +Temple, The Baptism, The Temptation_, and _The Woman taken in Adultery_, +at which point I pause for the sake of the remarkable tradition embodied +in the scene--that each of the woman's accusers thought Jesus was writing +his individual sins on the ground. While he is writing the second time, +the Pharisee, the Accuser, and the Scribe, who have chiefly sustained the +dialogue hitherto, separate, each going into a different part of the +Temple, and soliloquize thus: + + _Pharisee_. Alas! alas! I am ashamed! + I am afeared that I shall die; + All my sins even properly named + Yon prophet did write before mine eye. + If that my fellows that did espy, + They will tell it both far and wide; + My sinful living if they outcry, + I wot not where my head to hide. + + _Accuser_. Alas! for sorrow mine heart doth bleed, + All my sins yon man did write; + If that my fellows to them took heed, + I cannot me from death acquite. + I would I were hid somewhere out of sight, + That men should me nowhere see nor know; + If I be taken I am aflyght _afraid._ + In mekyl shame I shall be throwe. _much._ + + _Scribe_. Alas the time that this betyd! _happened._ + Right bitter care doth me embrace. + All my sins be now unhid, + Yon man before me them all doth trace. + If I were once out of this place, + To suffer death great and vengeance able,[15] + I will never come before his face, + Though I should die in a stable. + +Upon this follows _The Raising of Lazarus_; next _The Council of the +Jews_, to which the devil appears as a Prologue, dressed in the extreme +of the fashion of the day, which he sets forth minutely enough in his +speech also. _The Entry into Jerusalem; The Last Supper; The Betrayal; +King Herod; The Trial of Christ; Pilate's Wife's Dream_ come next; to the +subject of the last of which the curious but generally accepted origin is +given, that it was inspired by Satan, anxious that Jesus should not be +slain, because he dreaded the mischief he would work when he entered +Hades or Hell, for there is no distinction between them either here or in +the Apocryphal Gospel whence the _Descent into Hell_ is taken. Then +follow _The Crucifixion_ and _The Descent into Hell_--often called the +_Harrowing of Hell_--that is, the _making war upon_ or _despoiling of +hell_,[16] for which the authority is a passage in the Gospel of +Nicodemus, full of a certain florid Eastern grandeur. I need hardly +remind my readers that the Apostles' Creed, as it now stands, contains +the same legend in the form of an article of faith. The allusions to it +are frequent in the early literature of Christendom. + +The soul of Christ comes to the gates of hell, and says: + + Undo your gates of sorwatorie; _place of sorrow._ + On man's soul I have memorie; + There cometh now the king of glory, + These gates for to breke! + Ye devils that are here within, + Hell gates ye shall unpin; + I shall deliver man's kin-- + From woe I will them wreke. _avenge._ + + * * * * * + + Against me it were but waste + To holdyn or to standyn fast; + Hell-lodge may not last + Against the king of glory. + Thy dark door down I throw; + My fair friends now well I know; + I shall them bring, reckoned by row, + Out of their purgatory! + +_The Burial; The Resurrection; The Three Maries; Christ appearing to +Mary; The Pilgrim of Emmaus; The Ascension; The Descent of the Holy +Ghost; The Assumption of the Virgin_; and _Doomsday_, close the series. I +have quoted enough to show that these plays must, in the condition of the +people to whom they were presented, have had much to do with their +religious education. + +This fourteenth century was a wonderful time of outbursting life. +Although we cannot claim the _Miracles_ as entirely English products, +being in all probability translations from the Norman-French, yet the +fact that they were thus translated is one remarkable amongst many in +this dawn of the victory of England over her conquerors. From this time, +English prospered and French decayed. Their own language was now, so far, +authorized as the medium of religious instruction to the people, while a +similar change had passed upon processes at law; and, most significant of +all, the greatest poet of the time, and one of the three greatest poets +as yet of all English time, wrote, although a courtier, in the language +of the people. Before selecting some of Chaucer's religious verses, +however, I must speak of two or three poems by other writers. + +The first of these is _The Vision of William concerning Piers +Plowman_,--a poem of great influence in the same direction as the +writings of Wycliffe. It is a vision and an allegory, wherein the vices +of the time, especially those of the clergy, are unsparingly dealt with. +Towards the close it loses itself in a metaphysical allegory concerning +Dowel, Dobet, and Dobest.[17] I do not find much poetry in it. There is +more, to my mind, in another poem, written some thirty or forty years +later, the author of which is unknown, perhaps because he was an imitator +of William Langland, the author of the _Vision_. It is called _Pierce the +Plough-man's Crede_. Both are written after the fashion of the +Anglo-Saxon poetry, and not after the fashion of the Anglo-Norman, of +which distinction a little more presently. Its object is to contrast the +life and character of the four orders of friars with those of a simple +Christian. There is considerable humour in the working plan of the poem. + +A certain poor man says he has succeeded in learning his A B C, his +Paternoster, and his Ave Mary, but he cannot, do what he will, learn his +Creed. He sets out, therefore, to find some one whose life, according +with his profession, may give him a hope that he will teach him his creed +aright. He applies to the friars. One after another, every order abuses +the other; nor this only, but for money offers either to teach him his +creed, or to absolve him for ignorance of the same. He finds no helper +until he falls in with Pierce the Ploughman, of whose poverty he gives a +most touching description. I shall, however, only quote some lines of +_The Believe_ as taught by the Ploughman, and this principally to show +the nature of the versification: + + Leve thou on our Lord God, that all the world wroughte; _believe._ + Holy heaven upon high wholly he formed; + And is almighty himself over all his workes; + And wrought as his will was, the world and the heaven; + And on gentle Jesus Christ, engendered of himselven, + His own only Son, Lord over all y-knowen. + + * * * * * + + With thorn y-crowned, crucified, and on the cross died; + And sythen his blessed body was in a stone buried; _after that._ + And descended adown to the dark helle, + And fetched out our forefathers; and they full fain weren. _glad._ + The third day readily, himself rose from death, + And on a stone there he stood, he stey up to heaven. _where: ascended._ + +Here there is no rhyme. There is measure--a dance-movement in the verse; +and likewise, in most of the lines, what was essential to Anglo-Saxon +verse--three or more words beginning with the same sound. This is +somewhat of the nature of rhyme, and was all our Anglo-Saxon forefathers +had of the kind. Their Norman conquerors brought in rhyme, regularity of +measure, and division into stanzas, with many refinements of +versification now regarded, with some justice and a little more +injustice, as peurilities. Strange as it may seem, the peculiar rhythmic +movement of the Anglo-Saxon verse is even yet the most popular of all +measures. Its representative is now that kind of verse which is measured +not by the number of syllables, but by the number of _accented_ +syllables. The bulk of the nation is yet Anglo-Saxon in its blind poetic +tastes. + +Before taking my leave of this mode, I would give one fine specimen from +another poem, lately printed, for the first time in full, from Bishop +Percy's manuscript. It may chronologically belong to the beginning of the +next century: its proper place in my volume is here. It is called _Death +and Liffe_. Like Langland's poem, it is a vision; but, short as it is in +comparison, there is far more poetry in it than in _Piers Plowman_. Life +is thus described: + + She was brighter of her blee[18] than was the bright sun; + Her rudd[19] redder than the rose that on the rise[20] hangeth; + Meekly smiling with her mouth, and merry in her looks; + Ever laughing for love, as she like would. + +Everything bursts into life and blossom at her presence, + + And the grass that was grey greened belive. _forthwith._ + +But the finest passage is part of Life's answer to Death, who has been +triumphing over her: + + How didst thou joust at Jerusalem, with Jesu, my Lord, + Where thou deemedst his death in one day's time! _judgedst._ + There wast thou shamed and shent and stripped for aye! _rebuked._ + When thou saw the king come with the cross on his shoulder, + On the top of Calvary thou camest him against; + Like a traitor untrue, treason thou thought; + Thou laid upon my liege lord loathful hands, + Sithen beat him on his body, and buffeted him rightly, _then._ + Till the railing red blood ran from his sides; _pouring down._ + + Sith rent him on the rood with full red wounds: _then._ + To all the woes that him wasted, I wot not few, + Then deemedst (him) to have been dead, and dressed for ever. + But, Death, how didst thou then, with all thy derffe words, _fierce._ + When thou pricked at his pap with the point of a spear, + And touched the tabernacle of his true heart, + Where my bower was bigged to abide for ever? _built._ + When the glory of his Godhead glinted in thy face, + Then wast thou feared of this fare in thy false heart; _affair._ + Then thou hied into hell-hole to hide thee belive; _at once._ + Thy falchion flew out of thy fist, so fast thou thee hied; + Thou durst not blush once back, for better or worse, _look._ + But drew thee down full in that deep hell, + And bade them bar bigly Belzebub his gates. _greatly, strongly._ + Then thou told them tidings, that teened them sore; _grieved._ + How that king came to kithen his strength, _show._ + And how she[21] had beaten thee on thy bent,[22] + and thy brand taken, + With everlasting life that longed him till. _belonged to him._ + +When Life has ended her speech to Death, she turns to her own followers +and says:-- + + Therefore be not abashed, my barnes so dear, _children._ + Of her falchion so fierce, nor of her fell words. + She hath no might, nay, no means, no more you to grieve, + Nor on your comely corses to clap once her hands. + I shall look you full lively, and latch full well, _search for: + And keere ye further of this kithe,[23] above [lay hold of._ + the clear skies. + +I now turn from those poems of national scope and wide social interest, +bearing their share, doubtless, in the growth of the great changes that +showed themselves at length more than a century after, and from the poem +I have just quoted of a yet wider human interest, to one of another tone, +springing from the grief that attends love, and the aspiration born of +the grief. It is, nevertheless, wide in its scope as the conflict between +Death and Life, although dealing with the individual and not with the +race. The former poems named of Pierce Ploughman are the cry of John the +Baptist in the English wilderness; this is the longing of Hannah at home, +having left her little son in the temple. The latter _seems_ a poorer +matter; but it is an easier thing to utter grand words of just +condemnation, than, in the silence of the chamber, or with the well-known +household-life around, forcing upon the consciousness only the law of +things seen, to regard with steadfastness the blank left by a beloved +form, and believe in the unseen, the marvellous, the eternal. In the +midst of "the light of common day," with all the persistently common +things pressing upon the despairing heart, to hold fast, after what +fashion may be possible, the vanishing song that has changed its key, is +indeed a victory over the flesh, however childish the forms in which the +faith may embody itself, however weak the logic with which it may defend +its intrenchments. + +The poem which has led me to make these remarks is in many respects +noteworthy. It is very different in style and language from any I have +yet given. There was little communication to blend the different modes of +speech prevailing in different parts of the country. It belongs,[24] +according to students of English, to the Midland dialect of the +fourteenth century. The author is beyond conjecture. + +It is not merely the antiquity of the language that causes its +difficulty, but the accumulated weight of artistically fantastic and +puzzling requirements which the writer had laid upon himself in its +composition. The nature of these I shall be enabled to show by printing +the first twelve lines almost as they stand in the manuscript. + + Perle plesaunte to prynces paye, + To clanly clos in golde so clere! + Oute of oryent I hardyly saye, + Ne proued I neuer her precios pere; + So rounde, so reken in vche araye, + So smal, so smothe her sydes were! + Quere-so-euer I iugged gemmes gaye, + I sette hyr sengeley in synglure: + Allas! I leste hyr in on erbere, + Thurh gresse to grounde hit fro me yot; + I dewyne for-dolked of luf daungere, + Of that pryuy perle with-outen spot. + +Here it will be observed that the Norman mode--that of rhymes--is +employed, and that there is a far more careful measure in the line that +is found in the poem last quoted. But the rhyming is carried to such an +excess as to involve the necessity of constant invention of phrase to +meet its requirements--a fertile source of obscurity. The most difficult +form of stanza in respect of rhyme now in use is the Spenserian, in +which, consisting of nine lines, four words rhyme together, three words, +and two words. But the stanza in the poem before us consists of twelve +lines, six of which, two of which, four of which, rhyme together. This we +should count hard enough; but it does not nearly exhaust the tyranny of +the problem the author has undertaken. I have already said that one of +the essentials of the poetic form in Anglo-Saxon was the commencement of +three or more words in the line with the same sound: this peculiarity he +has exaggerated: every line has as many words as possible commencing with +the same sound. In the first line, for instance,--and it must be +remembered that the author's line is much shorter than the Anglo-Saxon +line,--there are four words beginning with _p_; in the second, three +beginning with _cl_, and so on. This, of course, necessitates much not +merely of circumlocution, but of contrivance, involving endless +obscurity. + +He has gone on to exaggerate the peculiarities of Norman verse as well; +but I think it better not to run the risk of wearying my reader by +pointing out more of his oddities. I will now betake myself to what is +far more interesting as well as valuable. + +The poem sets forth the grief and consolation of a father who has lost +his daughter. It is called _The Pearl_. Here is a literal rendering, line +for line, into modern English words, not modern English speech, of the +stanza which I have already given in its original form: + + Pearl pleasant to prince's pleasure, + Most cleanly closed in gold so clear! + Out of the Orient, I boldly say, + I never proved her precious equal; + So round, so beautiful in every point! + So small, so smooth, her sides were! + + Wheresoever I judged gemmes gay + I set her singly in singleness. + Alas! I lost her in an arbour; + Through the grass to the ground it from me went. + I pine, sorely wounded by dangerous love + Of that especial pearl without spot. + +The father calls himself a jeweller; the pearl is his daughter. He has +lost the pearl in the grass; it has gone to the ground, and he cannot +find it; that is, his daughter is dead and buried. Perhaps the most +touching line is one in which he says to the grave: + + O moul, thou marrez a myry mele. + (O mould, thou marrest a merry talk.) + +The poet, who is surely the father himself, cannot always keep up the +allegory; his heart burns holes in it constantly; at one time he says +_she_, at another _it_, and, between the girl and the pearl, the poem is +bewildered. But the allegory helps him out with what he means +notwithstanding; for although the highest aim of poetry is to say the +deepest things in the simplest manner, humanity must turn from mode to +mode, and try a thousand, ere it finds the best. The individual, in his +new endeavour to make "the word cousin to the deed," must take up the +forms his fathers have left him, and add to them, if he may, new forms of +his own. In both the great revivals of literature, the very material of +poetry was allegory. + +The father falls asleep on his child's grave, and has a dream, or rather +a vision, of a country where everything--after the childish imagination +which invents differences instead of discovering harmonies--is +super-naturally beautiful: rich rocks with a gleaming glory, crystal +cliffs, woods with blue trunks and leaves of burnished silver, gravel of +precious Orient pearls, form the landscape, in which are delicious +fruits, and birds of flaming colours and sweet songs: its loveliness no +man with a tongue is worthy to describe. He comes to the bank of a river: + + Swinging sweet the water did sweep + With a whispering speech flowing adown; + (Wyth a rownande rourde raykande aryght) + +and the stones at the bottom were shining like stars. It is a noteworthy +specimen of the mode in which the imagination works when invention is +dissociated from observation and faith. But the sort of way in which some +would improve the world now, if they might, is not so very far in advance +of this would-be glorification of Nature. The barest heath and sky have +lovelinesses infinitely beyond the most gorgeous of such phantasmagoric +idealization of her beauties; and the most wretched condition of humanity +struggling for existence contains elements of worth and future +development inappreciable by the philanthropy that would elevate them by +cultivating their self-love. + +At the foot of a crystal cliff, on the opposite side of the river, which +he cannot cross, he sees a maiden sitting, clothed and crowned with +pearls, and wearing one pearl of surpassing wonder and spotlessness upon +her breast. I now make the spelling and forms of the words as modern as I +may, altering the text no further. + + + "O pearl," quoth I, "in perles pight, _pitched, dressed._ + Art thou my pearl that I have plained? _mourned._ + Regretted by myn one, on night? _by myself._ + Much longing have I for thee layned _hidden._ + Since into grass thou me a-glyghte; _didst glide from me._ + Pensive, payred, I am for-pained,[25] _pined away._ + And thou in a life of liking light _bright pleasure._ + In Paradise-earth, of strife unstrained! _untortured with strife._ + What wyrde hath hither my jewel vayned, _destiny: carried off._ + And done me in this del and great danger? _sorrow._ + Fro we in twain were towen and twayned, _since: pulled: divided._ + I have been a joyless jeweller." + + That jewel then in gemmes gente, _gracious._ + Vered up her vyse with even gray, _turned: face._ + Set on her crown of pearl orient, + And soberly after then gan she say: + + "Sir, ye have your tale myse-tente, _mistaken._ + To say your pearl is all away, + That is in coffer so comely clente _clenched._ + As in this garden gracious gay, + Herein to lenge for ever and play, _abide._ + There mys nor mourning come never--here, _where: wrong._ + Here was a forser for thee in faye, _strong-box: faith._ + If thou wert a gentle jeweller. + + "But jeweller gente, if thou shalt lose + Thy joy for a gem that thee was lef, _had left thee._ + Me thinks thee put in a mad purpose, + And busiest thee about a reason bref. _poor object._ + For that thou lostest was but a rose, + That flowered and failed as kynd hit gef. _nature gave it._ + Now through kind of the chest that it gan close, _nature._ + To a pearl of price it is put in pref;[26] + And thou hast called thy wyrde a thef, _doom, fate: theft._ + That ought of nought has made thee, clear! _something of nothing._ + Thou blamest the bote of thy mischef: _remedy: hurt._ + Thou art no kynde jeweller." _natural, reasonable._ + +When the father pours out his gladness at the sight of her, she rejoins +in these words: + + "I hold that jeweller little to praise + That loves well that he sees with eye; + And much to blame, and uncortoyse, _uncourteous._ + That leves our Lord would make a lie, _believes._ + That lelly hyghte your life to raise _who truly promised._ + Though fortune did your flesh to die; _caused._ + To set his words full westernays[27] + That love no thing but ye it syghe! _see._ + And that is a point of surquedrie, _presumption._ + That each good man may evil beseem, _ill become._ + To leve no tale be true to tryghe, _trust in._ + But that his one skill may deme."[28] + +Much conversation follows, the glorified daughter rebuking and +instructing her father. He prays for a sight of the heavenly city of +which she has been speaking, and she tells him to walk along the bank +until he comes to a hill. In recording what he saw from the hill, he +follows the description of the New Jerusalem given in the Book of the +Revelation. He sees the Lamb and all his company, and with them again his +lost Pearl. But it was not his prince's pleasure that he should cross the +stream; for when his eyes and ears were so filled with delight that he +could no longer restrain the attempt, he awoke out of his dream. + + My head upon that hill was laid + There where my pearl to grounde strayed. + I wrestled and fell in great affray, _fear._ + And sighing to myself I said, + "Now all be to that prince's paye." _pleasure._ + +After this, he holds him to that prince's will, and yearns after no more +than he grants him. + + "As in water face is to face, so the heart of man." + Out of the far past comes the cry of bereavement + mingled with the prayer for hope: we hear, and lo! + it is the cry and the prayer of a man like ourselves. + +From the words of the greatest man of his age, let me now gather two rich +blossoms of utterance, presenting an embodiment of religious duty and +aspiration, after a very practical fashion. I refer to two short lyrics, +little noted, although full of wisdom and truth. They must be accepted as +the conclusions of as large a knowledge of life in diversified mode as +ever fell to the lot of man. + + + GOOD COUNSEL OF CHAUCER. + + Fly from the press, and dwell with soothfastness; _truthfulness._ + Suffice[29] unto thy good, though it be small; + For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness;[30] + Praise hath envy, and weal is blent over all.[31] + Savour[32] no more than thee behove shall. + Rede well thyself that other folk shall rede; _counsel._ + And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede. _there is no doubt._ + + Paine thee not each crooked to redress, _every crooked thing._ + In trust of her that turneth as a ball: Fortune. + Great rest standeth in little busi-ness. + Beware also to spurn against a nail; _nail--to kick against + Strive not as doth a crocke with a wall. [the pricks._ + Deme thyself that demest others' deed; _judge._ + And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede. + + That thee is sent receive in buxomness: _submission_ + The wrestling of this world asketh a fall. _tempts destruction_ + Here is no home, here is but wilderness: + Forth, pilgrim, forth!--beast, out of thy stall! + Look up on high, and thanke God of[33] all. + Waive thy lusts, and let thy ghost[34] thee lead, + And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede. + +This needs no comment. Even the remark that every line is worth +meditation may well appear superfluous. One little fact only with regard +to the rhymes, common to this and the next poem, and usual enough in +Norman verse, may be pointed out, namely, that every line in the stanza +ends with the same rhyme-sound as the corresponding line in each of the +other stanzas. A reference to either of the poems will at once show what +I mean. + +The second is superior, inasmuch as it carries one thought through the +three stanzas. It is entitled _A Balade made by Chaucer, teaching what is +gentilnesse, or whom is worthy to be called gentill._ + + The first stock-father of gentleness-- _ancestor of the race + What man desireth gentle for to be [of the gentle._ + Must follow his trace, and all his wittes dress _track, footsteps: + Virtue to love and vices for to flee; [apply._ + For unto virtue longeth dignity, _belongeth._ + And not the reverse falsely dare I deem,[35] + All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. _although he wear._ + + The first stock was full of righteousness; _the progenitor._ + True of his word, sober, piteous, and free; + Clean of his ghost, and loved busi-ness, _pure in his spirit._ + Against the vice of sloth in honesty; + + And but his heir love virtue as did he, _except._ + He is not gentle, though he rich seem, + All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. + + Vicesse may well be heir to old Richesse, _Vice: Riches._ + But there may no man, as men may well see, + Bequeath his heir his virtue's nobleness; + That is appropried unto no degree, _rank._ + But to the first father in majesty, + That maketh his heires them that him queme, _please him._ + All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. + +I can come to no other conclusion than that by _the first stock-father_ +Chaucer means our Lord Jesus. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. + + +After the birth of a Chaucer, a Shakspere, or a Milton, it is long before +the genial force of a nation can again culminate in such a triumph: time +is required for the growth of the conditions. Between the birth of +Chaucer and the birth of Shakspere, his sole equal, a period of more than +two centuries had to elapse. It is but small compensation for this, that +the more original, that is simple, natural, and true to his own nature a +man is, the more certain is he to have a crowd of imitators. I do not say +that such are of no use in the world. They do not indeed advance art, but +they widen the sphere of its operation; for many will talk with the man +who know nothing of the master. Too often intending but their own glory, +they point the way to the source of it, and are straightway themselves +forgotten. + +Very little of the poetry of the fifteenth century is worthy of a +different fate from that which has befallen it. Possibly the Wars of the +Roses may in some measure account for the barrenness of the time; but I +do not think they will explain it. In the midst of the commotions of the +seventeenth century we find Milton, the only English poet of whom we are +yet sure as worthy of being named with Chaucer and Shakspere. + +It is in quality, however, and not in quantity that the period is +deficient. It had a good many writers of poetry, some of them prolific. +John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, a great imitator of Chaucer, was the +principal of these, and wrote an enormous quantity of verse. We shall +find for our use enough as it were to keep us alive in passing through +this desert to the Paradise of the sixteenth century--a land indeed +flowing with milk and honey. For even in the desert of the fifteenth are +spots luxuriant with the rich grass of language, although they greet the +eye with few flowers of individual thought or graphic speech. + +Rather than give portions of several of Lydgate's poems, I will give one +entire--the best I know. It is entitled, _Thonke God of alle_.[36] + + + THANK GOD FOR ALL. + + By a way wandering as I went, + Well sore I sorrowed, for sighing sad; + Of hard haps that I had hent + Mourning me made almost mad;[37] + + Till a letter all one me lad[38], + That well was written on a wall, + A blissful word that on I rad[39], + That alway said, 'Thank God for[40] all.' + + And yet I read furthermore[41]-- + Full good intent I took there till[42]: + Christ may well your state restore; + Nought is to strive against his will; _it is useless._ + He may us spare and also spill: + Think right well we be his thrall. _slaves._ + What sorrow we suffer, loud or still, + Alway thank God for all. + + Though thou be both blind and lame, + Or any sickness be on thee set, + Thou think right well it is no shame-- _think thou._ + The grace of God it hath thee gret[43]. + In sorrow or care though ye be knit, _snared._ + And worldes weal be from thee fall, _fallen._ + I cannot say thou mayst do bet, _better._ + But alway thank God for all. + + Though thou wield this world's good, + And royally lead thy life in rest, + Well shaped of bone and blood, + None the like by east nor west; + Think God thee sent as him lest; _as it pleased him._ + Riches turneth as a ball; + In all manner it is the best _in every condition._ + Alway to thank God for all. + + If thy good beginneth to pass, + And thou wax a poor man, + Take good comfort and bear good face, + And think on him that all good wan; _did win._ + + Christ himself forsooth began-- + He may renew both bower and hall: + No better counsel I ne kan _am capable of._ + But alway thank God for all. + + Think on Job that was so rich; + He waxed poor from day to day; + His beastes died in each ditch; + His cattle vanished all away; + He was put in poor array, + Neither in purple nor in pall, + But in simple weed, as clerkes say, _clothes: learned men._ + And alway he thanked God for all. + + For Christes love so do we;[44] + He may both give and take; + In what mischief that we in be, _whatever trouble we + He is mighty enough our sorrow to slake. [be in._ + Full good amends he will us make, + And we to him cry or call: _if._ + What grief or woe that do thee thrall,[45] + Yet alway thank God for all. + + Though thou be in prison cast, + Or any distress men do thee bede, _offer._ + For Christes love yet be steadfast, + And ever have mind on thy creed; + Think he faileth us never at need, + The dearworth duke that deem us shall;[46] + When thou art sorry, thereof take heed,[47] + And alway thank God for all. + + Though thy friendes from thee fail, + And death by rene hend[48] their life, + Why shouldest thou then weep or wail? + It is nought against God to strive: _it is useless._ + + Himself maked both man and wife-- + To his bliss he bring us all: _may he bring._ + However thou thole or thrive, _suffer._ + Alway thank God for all. + + What diverse sonde[49] that God thee send, + Here or in any other place, + Take it with good intent; + The sooner God will send his grace. + Though thy body be brought full base, _low._ + Let not thy heart adown fall, + But think that God is where he was, + And alway thank God for all. + + Though thy neighbour have world at will, + And thou far'st not so well as he, + Be not so mad to think him ill, _wish._ (?) + For his wealth envious to be: + The king of heaven himself can see + Who takes his sonde,[50] great or small; + Thus each man in his degree, + I rede thanke God for all. _counsel._ + + For Cristes love, be not so wild, + But rule thee by reason within and without; + And take in good heart and mind + The sonde that God sent all about; _the gospel._ (?) + Then dare I say withouten doubt, + That in heaven is made thy stall. _place, seat, room._ + Rich and poor that low will lowte, _bow._ + Alway thank God for all. + +I cannot say there is much poetry in this, but there is much truth and +wisdom. There is the finest poetry, however, too, in the line--I give it +now letter for letter:-- + + But think that God ys ther he was. + +There is poetry too in the line, if I interpret it rightly as intending +the gospel-- + + The sonde that God sent al abowte. + +I shall now make a few extracts from poems of the same century whose +authors are unknown.[51] A good many such are extant. With regard to the +similarity of those I choose, I would remark, that not only will the +poems of the same period necessarily resemble each other, but, where the +preservation of any has depended upon the choice and transcription of one +person, these will in all probability resemble each other yet more. Here +are a few verses from a hymn headed _The Sweetness of Jesus_:-- + + If I for kindness should love my kin, _for natural reasons. + Then me thinketh in my thought [Kind is nature,_ + By kindly skill I should begin _by natural judgment._ + At him that hath me made of nought; + His likeness he set my soul within, + And all this world for me hath wrought; + As father he fondid my love to win, _set about._ + For to heaven he hath me brought. + + Our brother and sister he is by skill, _reason._ + For he so said, and lerid us that lore, _taught._ + That whoso wrought his Father's will, + Brethren and sisters to him they wore. _were._ + My kind also he took ther-tille; _my nature also he took + Full truly trust I him therefore [for that purpose._ + That he will never let me spill, _perish._ + But with his mercy salve my sore. + + With lovely lore his works to fill, _fulfil._ + Well ought I, wretch, if I were kind-- _natural._ + Night and day to work his will, + And ever have that Lord in mind. + But ghostly foes grieve me ill, _spiritual._ + And my frail flesh maketh me blind; + Therefore his mercy I take me till, _betake me to._ + For better bote can I none find. _aid._ + +In my choice of stanzas I have to keep in view some measure of +completeness in the result. These poems, however, are mostly very loose +in structure. This, while it renders choice easy, renders closeness of +unity impossible. + +From a poem headed--again from the last line of each stanza--_Be my +comfort, Christ Jesus,_ I choose the following four, each possessing some +remarkable flavour, tone, or single touch. Note the alliteration in the +lovely line, beginning "Bairn y-born." The whole of the stanza in which +we find it, sounds so strangely fresh in the midst of its antiquated +tones, that we can hardly help asking whether it can be only the +quaintness of the expression that makes the feeling appear more real, or +whether in very truth men were not in those days nearer in heart, as well +as in time, to the marvel of the Nativity. + +In the next stanza, how oddly the writer forgets that Jesus himself was a +Jew, when, embodying the detestation of Christian centuries in one line, +he says, + + And tormented with many a Jew! + +In the third stanza, I consider the middle quatrain, that is, the four +lines beginning "Out of this world," perfectly grand. + +The oddness of the last line but one of the fourth stanza is redeemed by +the wonderful reality it gives to the faith of the speaker: "See my +sorrow, and say Ho!" stopping it as one would call after a man and stop +him. + + Jesus, thou art wisdom of wit, _understanding._ + Of thy Father full of might! + Man's soul--to save it, + In poor apparel thou wert pight. _pitched, placed, + Jesus, thou wert in cradle knit, [dressed._ + In weed wrapped both day and night; originally, _dress of + In Bethlehem born, as the gospel writ, [any kind._ + With angels' song, and heaven-light. + Bairn y-born of a beerde bright,[52] + Full courteous was thy comely cus: _kiss._ + Through virtue of that sweet light, + So be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + + Jesus, that wert of yearis young, + Fair and fresh of hide and hue, + When thou wert in thraldom throng, _driven._ + And tormented with many a Jew, + When blood and water were out-wrung, + For beating was thy body blue; + As a clot of clay thou wert for-clong, _shrunk._ + So dead in trough then men thee threw. _coffin._ + But grace from thy grave grew: + Thou rose up quick comfort to us. _living._ + For her love that this counsel knew, + So be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + + Jesus, soothfast God and man, + Two kinds knit in one person, + The wonder-work that thou began + Thou hast fulfilled in flesh and bone. + + Out of this world wightly thou wan, _thou didst win, or make + Lifting up thyself alone; [thy way, powerfully._ + For mightily thou rose and ran + Straight unto thy Father on throne. + Now dare man make no more moan-- + For man it is thou wroughtest thus, + And God with man is made at one; + So be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + + Jesu, my sovereign Saviour, + Almighty God, there ben no mo: _there are no more--thou + Christ, thou be my governor; [art all in all.(?)_ + Thy faith let me not fallen fro. _from_ + Jesu, my joy and my succour, + In my body and soul also, + God, thou be my strongest food, the rhyme fails here. + And wisse thou me when me is woe. _think on me._ + Lord, thou makest friend of foe, + Let me not live in languor thus, + But see my sorrow, and say now "Ho," + And be my comfort, Christ Jesus. + +Of fourteen stanzas called _Richard de Castre's Prayer to Jesus_, I +choose five from the latter half, where the prayer passes from his own +spiritual necessities, very tenderly embodied, to those of others. It +does our hearts good to see the clouded sun of prayer for oneself break +forth in the gladness of blessed entreaty for all men, for them that make +Him angry, for saints in trouble, for the country torn by war, for the +whole body of Christ and its unity. After the stanza-- + + Jesus, for the deadly tears + That thou sheddest for my guilt, + Hear and speed my prayers + And spare me that I be not spilt; + +the best that is in the suppliant shines out thus + + Jesu, for them I thee beseech + That wrathen thee in any wise; + Withhold from them thy hand of wreche, _vengeance._ + And let them live in thy service. + + Jesu, most comfort for to see + Of thy saintis every one, + Comfort them that careful be, + And help them that be woe-begone. + + Jesu, keep them that be good, + And amend them that have grieved thee; + And send them fruits of earthly food, + As each man needeth in his degree. + + Jesu, that art, withouten lees, _lies._ + Almighty God in trinity, + Cease these wars, and send us peace, + With lasting love and charity. + + Jesu, that art the ghostly stone _spiritual._ + Of all holy church in middle-erde, _the world._ + Bring thy folds and flocks in one, + And rule them rightly with one herd. + +We now approach the second revival of literature, preceded in England by +the arrival of the art of printing; after which we find ourselves walking +in a morning twilight, knowing something of the authors as well as of +their work. + +I have little more to offer from this century. There are a few religious +poems by John Skelton, who was tutor to Henry VIII. But such poetry, +though he was a clergyman, was not much in Skelton's manner of mind. We +have far better of a similar sort already. + +A new sort of dramatic representation had by this time greatly encroached +upon the old Miracle Plays. The fresh growth was called Morals or Moral +Plays. In them we see the losing victory of invention over the +imagination that works with given facts. No doubt in the Moral Plays +there is more exercise of intellect as well as of ingenuity; for they +consist of metaphysical facts turned into individual existences by +personification, and their relations then dramatized by allegory. But +their poetry is greatly inferior both in character and execution to that +of the Miracles. They have a religious tendency, as everything moral must +have, and sometimes they go even farther, as in one, for instance, called +_The Castle of Perseverance_, in which we have all the cardinal virtues +and all the cardinal sins contending for the possession of _Humanum +Genus_, the _Human Race_ being presented as a new-born child, who grows +old and dies in the course of the play; but it was a great stride in art +when human nature and human history began again to be exemplified after a +simple human fashion, in the story, that is, of real men and women, +instead of by allegorical personifications of the analysed and abstracted +constituents of them. Allegory has her place, and a lofty one, in +literature; but when her plants cover the garden and run to seed, +Allegory herself is ashamed of her children: the loveliest among them are +despised for the general obtrusiveness of the family. Imitation not only +brings the thing imitated into disrepute, but tends to destroy what +original faculty the imitator may have possessed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +INTRODUCTION TO THE ELIZABETHAN ERA. + + +Poets now began to write more smoothly--not a great virtue, but +indicative of a growing desire for finish, which, in any art, is a great +virtue. No doubt smoothness is often confounded with, and mistaken for +finish; but you might have a mirror-like polish on the surface of a +statue, for instance, and yet the marble be full of inanity, or +vagueness, or even vulgarity of result--irrespective altogether of its +idea. The influence of Italian poetry reviving once more in the country, +roused such men as Wyat and Surrey to polish the sound of their verses; +but smoothness, I repeat, is not melody, and where the attention paid to +the outside of the form results in flatness, and, still worse, in +obscurity, as is the case with both of these poets, little is gained and +much is lost. + +Each has paraphrased portions of Scripture, but with results of little +value; and there is nothing of a religious nature I care to quote from +either, except these five lines from an epistle of Sir Thomas Wyat's: + + Thyself content with that is thee assigned, + And use it well that is to thee allotted; + + Then seek no more out of thyself to find + The thing that thou hast sought so long before, + For thou shalt feel it sticking in thy mind. + +Students of versification will allow me to remark that Sir Thomas was the +first English poet, so far as I know, who used the _terza rima_, Dante's +chief mode of rhyming: the above is too small a fragment to show that it +belongs to a poem in that manner. It has never been popular in England, +although to my mind it is the finest form of continuous rhyme in any +language. Again, we owe his friend Surrey far more for being the first to +write English blank verse, whether invented by himself or not, than for +any matter he has left us in poetic shape. + +This period is somewhat barren of such poetry as we want. Here is a +portion of the Fifty-first Psalm, translated amongst others into English +verse by John Croke, Master in Chancery, in the reign of Henry VIII. + + Open my lips first to confess + My sin conceived inwardly; + And my mouth after shall express + Thy laud and praises outwardly. + + If I should offer for my sin, + Or sacrifice do unto thee + Of beast or fowl, I should begin + To stir thy wrath more towards me. + + Offer we must for sacrifice + A troubled mind with sorrow's smart: + Canst thou refuse? Nay, nor despise + The humble and the contrite heart. + + To us of Sion that be born, + If thou thy favour wilt renew, + The broken sowle, the temple torn, _threshold._ + The walls and all shall be made new. + + The sacrifice then shall we make + Of justice and of pure intent; + And all things else thou wilt well take + That we shall offer or present. + +In the works of George Gascoigne I find one poem fit for quoting here. He +is not an interesting writer, and, although his verse is very good, there +is little likelihood of its ever being read more than it is now. The date +of his birth is unknown, but probably he was in his teens when Surrey was +beheaded in the year 1547. He is the only poet whose style reminds me of +his, although the _wherefore_ will hardly be evident from my quotation. +It is equally flat, but more articulate. I need not detain my reader with +remarks upon him. The fact is, I am glad to have something, if not "a +cart-load of wholesome instructions," to cast into this Slough of +Despond, should it be only to see it vanish. The poem is called + + + GASCOIGNE'S GOOD MORROW. + + You that have spent the silent night + In sleep and quiet rest, + And joy to see the cheerful light + That riseth in the east; + Now clear your voice, now cheer your heart; + Come help me now to sing; + Each willing wight come bear a part, + To praise the heavenly King. + + And you whom care in prison keeps, + Or sickness doth suppress, + Or secret sorrow breaks your sleeps, + Or dolours do distress; + Yet bear a part in doleful wise; + Yea, think it good accord, + And acceptable sacrifice, + Each sprite to praise the Lord. + + The dreadful night with darksomeness + Had overspread the light, + And sluggish sleep with drowsiness + Had overpressed our might: + A glass wherein you may behold + Each storm that stops our breath, + Our bed the grave, our clothes like mould, + And sleep like dreadful death. + + Yet as this deadly night did last + But for a little space, + And heavenly day, now night is past, + Doth shew his pleasant face; + So must we hope to see God's face + At last in heaven on high, + When we have changed this mortal place + For immortality. + +This is not so bad, but it is enough. There are six stanzas more of it. I +transcribe yet another, that my reader may enjoy a smile in passing. He +is "moralizing" the aspects of morning: + + The carrion crow, that loathsome beast, + Which cries against the rain, + Both for his hue and for the rest, + The Devil resembleth plain; + And as with guns we kill the crow, + For spoiling our relief, + The Devil so must we overthrow, + With gunshot of belief. + +So fares the wit, when it walks abroad to do its business without the +heart that should inspire it. + +Here is one good stanza from his _De Profundis:_ + + But thou art good, and hast of mercy store; + Thou not delight'st to see a sinner fall; + Thou hearkenest first, before we come to call; + Thine ears are set wide open evermore; + Before we knock thou comest to the door. + Thou art more prest to hear a sinner cry, _ready._ + Than he is quick to climb to thee on high. + Thy mighty name be praised then alway: + Let faith and fear + True witness bear + How fast they stand which on thy mercy stay. + +Here follow two of unknown authorship, belonging apparently to the same +period. + + + THAT EACH THING IS HURT OF ITSELF. + + Why fearest thou the outward foe, + When thou thyself thy harm dost feed? + Of grief or hurt, of pain or woe, + Within each thing is sown the seed. + So fine was never yet the cloth, + No smith so hard his iron did beat, + But th' one consumed was with moth, + Th' other with canker all to-freate. _fretted away._ + + The knotty oak and wainscot old + Within doth eat the silly worm;[53] + Even so a mind in envy rolled + Always within it self doth burn. + Thus every thing that nature wrought, + Within itself his hurt doth bear! + No outward harm need to be sought, + Where enemies be within so near. + +Lest this poem should appear to any one hardly religious enough for the +purpose of this book, I would remark that it reminds me of what our Lord +says about the true source of defilement: it is what is bred in the man +that denies him. Our Lord himself taught a divine morality, which is as +it were the body of love, and is as different from mere morality as"the +living body is from the dead. + + + TOTUS MUNDUS IN MALIGNO POSITUS. + The whole world lieth in the Evil One. + + Complain we may; much is amiss; + Hope is nigh gone to have redress; + These days are ill, nothing sure is; + Kind heart is wrapt in heaviness. + + The stern is broke, the sail is rent, _helm or rudder--the + The ship is given to wind and wave; [thing to steer with._ + All help is gone, the rock present, + That will be lost, what man can save? _that which will be lost._ + + When power lacks care and forceth not, _careth._ + When care is feeble and may not, _is not able._ + When might is slothful and will not, + Weeds may grow where good herbs cannot. + + Wily is witty, brainsick is wise; _wiliness is counted + Truth is folly, and might is right; [prudence._ + Words are reason, and reason is lies; + The bad is good, darkness is light. + + Order is broke in things of weight: + Measure and mean who doth nor flee? _who does not avoid + Two things prevail, money and sleight; [moderation?_ + To seem is better than to be. + + Folly and falsehood prate apace; + Truth under bushel is fain to creep; + Flattery is treble, pride sings the bass, + The mean, the best part, scant doth peep. + + With floods and storms thus be we tost: + Awake, good Lord, to thee we cry; + Our ship is almost sunk and lost; + Thy mercy help our misery. + + Man's strength is weak; man's wit is dull; + Man's reason is blind these things t'amend: + Thy hand, O Lord, of might is full-- + Awake betimes, and help us send. + + In thee we trust, and in no wight; + Save us, as chickens under the hen; + Our crookedness thou canst make right-- + Glory to thee for aye. Amen. + +The apprehensions of the wiser part of the nation have generally been +ahead of its hopes. Every age is born with an ideal; but instead of +beholding that ideal in the future where it lies, it throws it into the +past. Hence the lapse of the nation must appear tremendous, even when she +is making her best progress. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +SPENSER AND HIS FRIENDS. + + +We have now arrived at the period of English history in every way fullest +of marvel--the period of Elizabeth. As in a northern summer the whole +region bursts into blossom at once, so with the thought and feeling of +England in this glorious era. + +The special development of the national mind with which we are now +concerned, however, did not by any means arrive at its largest and +clearest result until the following century. Still its progress is +sufficiently remarkable. For, while everything that bore upon the mental +development of the nation must bear upon its poetry, the fresh vigour +given by the doctrines of the Reformation to the sense of personal +responsibility, and of immediate relation to God, with the grand +influences, both literary and spiritual, of the translated, printed, and +studied Bible, operated more immediately upon its devotional utterance. + +Towards the close of the sixteenth century, we begin to find such verse +as I shall now present to my readers. Only I must first make a few +remarks upon the great poem of the period: I mean, of course, _The Faerie +Queen_. + +I dare not begin to set forth after any fashion the profound religious +truth contained in this poem; for it would require a volume larger than +this to set forth even that of the first book adequately. In this case it +is well to remember that the beginning of comment, as well as of strife, +is like the letting out of water. + +The direction in which the wonderful allegory of the latter moves may be +gathered from the following stanza, the first of the eighth canto: + + Ay me! how many perils do enfold + The righteous man to make him daily fail; + Were not that heavenly grace doth him uphold, _it_ understood. + And steadfast Truth acquit him out of all! + Her love is firm, her care continual, + So oft as he, through his own foolish pride + Or weakness, is to sinful bands made thrall: + Else should this Redcross Knight in bands have died, + For whose deliverance she this Prince doth thither guide. + +Nor do I judge it good to spend much of my space upon remarks personal to +those who have not been especially writers of sacred verse. When we come +to the masters of such song, we cannot speak of their words without +speaking of themselves; but when in the midst of many words those of the +kind we seek are few, the life of the writer does not justify more than a +passing notice here. + +We know but little of Spenser's history: if we might know all, I do not +fear that we should find anything to destroy the impression made by his +verse--that he was a Christian gentleman, a noble and pure-minded man, of +highest purposes and aims. + +His style is injured by the artistic falsehood of producing antique +effects in the midst of modern feeling.[54] It was scarcely more +justifiable, for instance, in Spenser's time than it would be in ours to +use _glitterand_ for _glittering_; or to return to a large use of +alliteration, three, four, sometimes even five words in the same line +beginning with the same consonant sound. Everything should look like what +it is: prose or verse should be written in the language of its own era. +No doubt the wide-spreading roots of poetry gather to it more variety of +expression than prose can employ; and the very nature of verse will make +it free of times and seasons, harmonizing many opposites. Hence, through +its mediation, without discord, many fine old words, by the loss of which +the language has grown poorer and feebler, might be honourably enticed to +return even into our prose. But nothing ought to be brought back +_because_ it is old. That it is out of use is a presumptive argument that +it ought to remain out of use: good reasons must be at hand to support +its reappearance. I must not, however, enlarge upon this wide-reaching +question; for of the two portions of Spenser's verse which I shall quote, +one of them is not at all, the other not so much as his great poem, +affected with this whim. + +The first I give is a sonnet, one of eighty-eight which he wrote to his +wife before their marriage. Apparently disappointed in early youth, he +did not fall in love again,--at least there is no sign of it that I +know,--till he was middle-aged. But then--woman was never more grandly +wooed than was his Elizabeth. I know of no marriage-present worthy to be +compared with the Epithalamion which he gave her "in lieu of many +ornaments,"--one of the most stately, melodious, and tender poems in the +world, I fully believe. + +But now for the sonnet--the sixty-eighth of the _Amoretti_: + + Most glorious Lord of Life! that, on this day, + Didst make thy triumph over death and sin, + And having harrowed hell, didst bring away + Captivity thence captive, us to win: + This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin; + And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die, + Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin, + May live for ever in felicity! + And that thy love we weighing worthily, + May likewise love thee for the same again; + And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy, + With love may one another entertain. + So let us love, dear love, like as we ought: + Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught. + +Those who have never felt the need of the divine, entering by the channel +of will and choice and prayer, for the upholding, purifying, and +glorifying of that which itself first created human, will consider this +poem untrue, having its origin in religious affectation. Others will +think otherwise. + +The greater part of what I shall next quote is tolerably known even to +those who have made little study of our earlier literature, yet it may +not be omitted here. It is from _An Hymne of Heavenly Love_, consisting +of forty-one stanzas, written in what was called _Rime Royal_--a +favourite with Milton, and, next to the Spenserian, in my opinion the +finest of stanzas. Its construction will reveal itself. I take two +stanzas from the beginning of the hymn, then one from the heart of it, +and the rest from the close. It gives no feeling of an outburst of song, +but rather of a brooding chant, most quiet in virtue of the depth of its +thoughtfulness. Indeed, all his rhythm is like the melodies of water, and +I could quote at least three passages in which he speaks of rhythmic +movements and watery progressions together. His thoughts, and hence his +words, flow like a full, peaceful stream, diffuse, with plenteousness +unrestrained. + + + AN HYMN OF HEAVENLY LOVE. + + Before this world's great frame, in which all things + Are now contained, found any being place, + Ere flitting Time could wag his eyas[55] wings + About that mighty bound which doth embrace + The rolling spheres, and parts their hours by space, + That high eternal power, which now doth move + In all these things, moved in itself by love. + + It loved itself, because itself was fair, + For fair is loved; and of itself begot + Like to itself his eldest son and heir, + Eternal, pure, and void of sinful blot, + + The firstling of his joy, in whom no jot + Of love's dislike or pride was to be found, + Whom he therefore with equal honour crowned. + + * * * * * + + Out of the bosom of eternal bliss, + In which he reigned with his glorious Sire, + He down descended, like a most demisse _humble._ + And abject thrall, in flesh's frail attire, + That he for him might pay sin's deadly hire, + And him restore unto that happy state + In which he stood before his hapless fate. + + * * * * * + + O blessed well of love! O flower of grace! + O glorious Morning-Star! O Lamp of Light! + Most lively image of thy Father's face! + Eternal King of Glory, Lord of might! + Meek Lamb of God, before all worlds behight! _promised._ + How can we thee requite for all this good? + Or what can prize that thy most precious blood? _equal in value._ + + Yet nought thou ask'st in lieu of all this love + But love of us for guerdon of thy pain: + Ay me! what can us less than that behove?[56] + Had he required life of[57] us again, + Had it been wrong to ask his own with gain? + He gave us life, he it restored lost; + Then life were least, that us so little cost. + + But he our life hath left unto us free-- + Free that was thrall, and blessed that was banned; _enslaved; cursed._ + Nor aught demands but that we loving be, + As he himself hath loved us aforehand, + And bound thereto with an eternal band-- + Him first to love that us[58] so dearly bought, + And next our brethren, to his image wrought. + + Him first to love great right and reason is, + Who first to us our life and being gave, + And after, when we fared had amiss, + Us wretches from the second death did save; + And last, the food of life, which now we have, + Even he himself, in his dear sacrament, + To feed our hungry souls, unto us lent. + + Then next, to love our brethren that were made + Of that self mould, and that self Maker's hand, + That[59] we, and to the same again shall fade, + Where they shall have like heritage of land, _the same grave-room._ + However here on higher steps we stand; + Which also were with selfsame price redeemed, + That we, however, of us light esteemed. _as._ + + And were they not, yet since that loving Lord + Commanded us to love them for his sake, + Even for his sake, and for his sacred word, + Which in his last bequest he to us spake, + We should them love, and with their needs partake; _share their + Knowing that, whatsoe'er to them we give, [needs._ + We give to him by whom we all do live. + + Such mercy he by his most holy rede _instruction._ + Unto us taught, and to approve it true, + Ensampled it by his most righteous deed, + Shewing us mercy, miserable crew! + That we the like should to the wretches[60] shew, + And love our brethren; thereby to approve + How much himself that loved us we love. + + Then rouse thyself, O earth! out of thy soil, + In which thou wallowest like to filthy swine, + And dost thy mind in dirty pleasures moyle, _defile._ + Unmindful of that dearest Lord of thine; + Lift up to him thy heavy clouded eyne, + That thou this sovereign bounty mayst behold, + And read through love his mercies manifold. + + Begin from first, where he encradled was + In simple cratch, wrapt in a wad of hay, _a rack or crib._ + Between the toilful ox and humble ass; + And in what rags, and in what base array + The glory of our heavenly riches lay, + When him the silly[61] shepherds came to see, + Whom greatest princes sought on lowest knee. + + From thence read on the story of his life, + His humble carriage, his unfaulty ways, + His cankered foes, his fights, his toil, his strife, + His pains, his poverty, his sharp assays, _temptations_ or _trials._ + Through which he passed his miserable days, + Offending none, and doing good to all, + Yet being maliced both by great and small. + + And look at last, how of most wretched wights + He taken was, betrayed, and false accused; + How with most scornful taunts and fell despites + He was reviled, disgraced, and foul abused; + How scourged, how crowned, how buffeted, how bruised; + And, lastly, how 'twixt robbers crucified, + With bitter wounds through hands, through feet, and side! + + * * * * * + + With sense whereof whilst so thy softened spirit + Is inly touched, and humbled with meek zeal + Through meditation of his endless merit, + Lift up thy mind to th' author of thy weal, + And to his sovereign mercy do appeal; + Learn him to love that loved thee so dear, + And in thy breast his blessed image bear. + + With all thy heart, with all thy soul and mind, + Thou must him love, and his behests embrace; _commands._ + All other loves with which the world doth blind + Weak fancies, and stir up affections base, + Thou must renounce and utterly displace, + And give thyself unto him full and free, + That full and freely gave himself to thee. + + * * * * * + + Thenceforth all world's desire will in thee die, + And all earth's glory, on which men do gaze, + Seem dust and dross in thy pure-sighted eye, + Compared to that celestial beauty's blaze, + Whose glorious beams all fleshly sense do daze + With admiration of their passing light, + Blinding the eyes and lumining the sprite. + + Then shalt thy ravished soul inspired be + With heavenly thoughts far above human skill, _reason._ + And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainly see + The Idea of his pure glory present still + Before thy face, that all thy spirits shall fill + With sweet enragement of celestial love, + Kindled through sight of those fair things above. + +There is a companion to the poem of which these verses are a portion, +called _An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie_, filled like this, and like two +others on Beauty and Love, with Platonic forms both of thought and +expression; but I have preferred quoting a longer part of the former to +giving portions of both. My reader will recognize in the extract a fuller +force of intellect brought to bear on duty; although it would be unwise +to take a mind like Spenser's for a type of more than the highest class +of the age. Doubtless the division in the country with regard to many of +the Church's doctrines had its part in bringing out and strengthening +this tendency to reasoning which is so essential to progress. Where +religion itself is not the most important thing with the individual, all +reasoning upon it must indeed degenerate into strifes of words, +_vermiculate_ questions, as Lord Bacon calls them--such, namely, as like +the hoarded manna reveal the character of the owner by breeding of +worms--yet on no questions may the light of the candle of the Lord, that +is, the human understanding, be cast with greater hope of discovery than +on those of religion, those, namely, that bear upon man's relation to God +and to his fellow. The most partial illumination of this region, the very +cause of whose mystery is the height and depth of its _truth_, is of more +awful value to the human being than perfect knowledge, if such were +possible, concerning everything else in the universe; while, in fact, in +this very region, discovery may bring with it a higher kind of conviction +than can accompany the results of investigation in any other direction. +In these grandest of all thinkings, the great men of this time showed a +grandeur of thought worthy of their surpassing excellence in other +noblest fields of human labour. They thought greatly because they aspired +greatly. + +Sir Walter Raleigh was a personal friend of Edmund Spenser. They were +almost of the same age, the former born in 1552, the latter in the +following year. A writer of magnificent prose, itself full of religion +and poetry both in thought and expression, he has not distinguished +himself greatly in verse. There is, however, one remarkable poem fit for +my purpose, which I can hardly doubt to be his. It is called _Sir Walter +Raleigh's Pilgrimage_. The probability is that it was written just after +his condemnation in 1603--although many years passed before his sentence +was carried into execution. + + Give me my scallop-shell[62] of Quiet; + My staff of Faith to walk upon; + My scrip of Joy, immortal diet; + My bottle of Salvation; + My gown of Glory, hope's true gage; + And thus I'll take my pilgrimage. + Blood must be my body's balmer,-- + No other balm will there be given-- + Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer, + Travelleth towards the land of Heaven; + Over the silver mountains, + Where spring the nectar fountains-- + There will I kiss + The bowl of Bliss, + And drink mine everlasting fill + Upon every milken hill: + My soul will be a-dry before, + But after, it will thirst no more. + Then by that happy blissful day, + More peaceful pilgrims I shall see, + That have cast off their rags of clay, + And walk apparelled fresh like me: + I'll take them first, + To quench their thirst, + And taste of nectar's suckets, _sweet things--things to suck._ + At those clear wells + Where sweetness dwells, + Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets. + And when our bottles and all we + Are filled with immortality, + Then the blessed paths we'll travel, + Strowed with rubies thick as gravel. + Ceilings of diamonds! sapphire floors! + High walls of coral, and pearly bowers!-- + From thence to Heaven's bribeless hall, + Where no corrupted voices brawl; + No conscience molten into gold; + No forged accuser bought or sold; + No cause deferred; no vain-spent journey; + For there Christ is the King's Attorney, + Who pleads for all without degrees, _irrespective of rank._ + And he hath angels, but no fees. + And when the grand twelve million jury + Of our sins, with direful fury, + 'Gainst our souls black verdicts give, + Christ pleads his death, and then we live. + Be thou my speaker, taintless Pleader, + Unblotted Lawyer, true Proceeder! + Thou giv'st salvation even for alms,-- + Not with a bribed lawyer's palms. + And this is my eternal plea + To him that made heaven, earth, and sea, + That, since my flesh must die so soon, + And want a head to dine next noon,-- + Just at the stroke, when my veins start and spread, + Set on my soul an everlasting head: + Then am I ready, like a palmer fit, + To tread those blest paths which before I writ. + Of death and judgment, heaven and hell + Who oft doth think, must needs die well. + +This poem is a somewhat strange medley, with a confusion of figure, and a +repeated failure in dignity, which is very far indeed from being worthy +of Raleigh's prose. But it is very remarkable how wretchedly some men +will show, who, doing their own work well, attempt that for which +practice has not--to use a word of the time--_enabled_ them. There is +real power in the poem, however, and the confusion is far more indicative +of the pleased success of an unaccustomed hand than of incapacity for +harmonious work. Some of the imagery, especially the "crystal buckets," +will suggest those grotesque drawings called _Emblems_, which were much +in use before and after this period, and, indeed, were only a putting +into visible shape of such metaphors and similes as some of the most +popular poets of the time, especially Doctor Donne, indulged in; while +the profusion of earthly riches attributed to the heavenly paths and the +places of repose on the journey, may well recall Raleigh's own +descriptions of South American glories. Englishmen of that era believed +in an earthly Paradise beyond the Atlantic, the wonderful reports of +whose magnificence had no doubt a share in lifting the imaginations and +hopes of the people to the height at which they now stood. + +There may be an appearance of irreverence in the way in which he +contrasts the bribeless Hall of Heaven with the proceedings at his own +trial, where he was browbeaten, abused, and, from the very commencement, +treated as a guilty man by Sir Edward Coke, the king's attorney. He even +puns with the words _angels_ and _fees_. Burning from a sense of +injustice, however, and with the solemnity of death before him, he could +not be guilty of _conscious_ irreverence, at least. But there is another +remark I have to make with regard to the matter, which will bear upon +much of the literature of the time: even the great writers of that period +had such a delight in words, and such a command over them, that like +their skilful horsemen, who enjoyed making their steeds show off the +fantastic paces they had taught them, they played with the words as they +passed through their hands, tossing them about as a juggler might his +balls. But even herein the true master of speech showed his masterdom: +his play must not be by-play; it must contribute to the truth of the idea +which was taking form in those words. We shall see this more plainly when +we come to transcribe some of Sir Philip Sidney's work. There is no +irreverence in it. Nor can I take it as any sign of hardness that Raleigh +should treat the visual image of his own anticipated death with so much +coolness, if the writer of a little elegy on his execution, when Raleigh +was fourteen years older than at the presumed date of the foregoing +verses, describes him truly when he says: + + I saw in every stander-by + Pale death, life only in thy eye. + +The following hymn is also attributed to Raleigh. If it has less +brilliance of fancy, it has none of the faults of the preceding, and is +far more artistic in construction and finish, notwithstanding a degree of +irregularity. + + Rise, oh my soul, with thy desires to heaven; + And with divinest contemplation use + Thy time, where time's eternity is given; + And let vain thoughts no more thy thoughts abuse, + But down in darkness let them lie: + So live thy better, let thy worse thoughts die! + + And thou, my soul, inspired with holy flame, + View and review, with most regardful eye, + That holy cross, whence thy salvation came, + On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die! + For in that sacred object is much pleasure, + And in that Saviour is my life, my treasure. + + To thee, O Jesus, I direct my eyes; + To thee my hands, to thee my humble knees, + To thee my heart shall offer sacrifice; + To thee my thoughts, who my thoughts only sees-- + To thee myself,--myself and all I give; + To thee I die; to thee I only live! + +See what an effect of stately composure quiet artistic care produces, and +how it leaves the ear of the mind in a satisfied peace! + +There are a few fine lines in the poem. The last two lines of the first +stanza are admirable; the last two of the second very weak. The last +stanza is good throughout. + +But it would be very unfair to judge Sir Walter by his verse. His prose +is infinitely better, and equally displays the devout tendency of his +mind--a tendency common to all the great men of that age. The worst I +know of him is the selfishly prudent advice he left behind for his son. +No doubt he had his faults, but we must not judge a man even by what he +says in an over-anxiety for the prosperity of his child. + +Another remarkable fact in the history of those great men is that they +were all men of affairs. Raleigh was a soldier, a sailor, a discoverer, a +politician, as well as an author. His friend Spenser was first secretary +to Lord Grey when he was Governor of Ireland, and afterwards Sheriff of +Cork. He has written a large treatise on the state of Ireland. But of all +the men of the age no one was more variously gifted, or exercised those +gifts in more differing directions, than the man who of them all was most +in favour with queen, court, and people--Philip Sidney. I could write +much to set forth the greatness, culture, balance, and scope of this +wonderful man. Renowned over Europe for his person, for his dress, for +his carriage, for his speech, for his skill in arms, for his +horsemanship, for his soldiership, for his statesmanship, for his +learning, he was beloved for his friendship, his generosity, his +steadfastness, his simplicity, his conscientiousness, his religion. +Amongst the lamentations over his death printed in Spenser's works, there +is one poem by Matthew Roydon, a few verses of which I shall quote, being +no vain eulogy. Describing his personal appearance, he says: + + A sweet, attractive kind of grace, + A full assurance given by looks, + Continual comfort in a face, + The lineaments of Gospel books!-- + I trow, that countenance cannot lie + Whose thoughts are legible in the eye. + + Was ever eye did see that face, + Was ever ear did hear that tongue, + Was ever mind did mind his grace + That ever thought the travel long? + But eyes and ears, and every thought, + Were with his sweet perfections caught. + +His _Arcadia_ is a book full of wisdom and beauty. None of his writings +were printed in his lifetime; but the _Arcadia_ was for many years after +his death one of the most popular books in the country. His prose, as +prose, is not equal to his friend Raleigh's, being less condensed and +stately. It is too full of fancy in thought and freak in rhetoric to find +now-a-days more than a very limited number of readers; and a good deal of +the verse that is set in it, is obscure and uninteresting, partly from +some false notions of poetic composition which he and his friend Spenser +entertained when young; but there is often an exquisite art in his other +poems. + +The first I shall transcribe is a sonnet, to which the Latin words +printed below it might be prefixed as a title: _Splendidis longum +valedico nugis._ + + + A LONG FAREWELL TO GLITTERING TRIFLES. + + Leave me, O love, which reachest but to dust; + And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things; + Grow rich in that which never taketh rust: + What ever fades but fading pleasure brings. + Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might + To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be; + Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light + That doth both shine and give us sight to see. + Oh take fast hold; let that light be thy guide, + In this small course which birth draws out to death; + And think how evil[63] becometh him to slide + Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath. + Then farewell, world; thy uttermost I see: + Eternal love, maintain thy life in me. + +Before turning to the treasury of his noblest verse, I shall give six +lines from a poem in the _Arcadia_--chiefly for the sake of instancing +what great questions those mighty men delighted in: + + What essence destiny hath; if fortune be or no; + Whence our immortal souls to mortal earth do stow[64]: + + What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather, + With outward maker's force, or like an inward father. + Such thoughts, me thought, I thought, and strained my single mind, + Then void of nearer cares, the depth of things to find. + +Lord Bacon was not the only one, in such an age, to think upon the mighty +relations of physics and metaphysics, or, as Sidney would say, "of +naturall and supernaturall philosophic." For a man to do his best, he +must be upheld, even in his speculations, by those around him. + +In the specimen just given, we find that our religious poetry has gone +down into the deeps. There are indications of such a tendency in the +older times, but neither then were the questions so articulate, nor were +the questioners so troubled for an answer. The alternative expressed in +the middle couplet seems to me the most imperative of all questions--both +for the individual and for the church: Is man fashioned by the hands of +God, as a potter fashioneth his vessel; or do we indeed come forth from +his heart? Is power or love the making might of the universe? He who +answers this question aright possesses the key to all righteous +questions. + +Sir Philip and his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, made between them a +metrical translation of the Psalms of David. It cannot be determined +which are hers and which are his; but if I may conclude anything from a +poem by the sister, to which I shall by and by refer, I take those I now +give for the brother's work. + +The souls of the following psalms have, in the version I present, +transmigrated into fairer forms than I have found them occupy elsewhere. +Here is a grand hymn for the whole world: _Sing unto the Lord._ + + + PSALM XCVI. + + Sing, and let your song be new, + Unto him that never endeth; + Sing all earth, and all in you-- + Sing to God, and bless his name. + Of the help, the health he sendeth, + Day by day new ditties frame. + + Make each country know his worth: + Of his acts the wondered story + Paint unto each people forth. + For Jehovah great alone, + All the gods, for awe and glory, + Far above doth hold his throne. + + For but idols, what are they + Whom besides mad earth adoreth? + He the skies in frame did lay. + Grace and honour are his guides; + Majesty his temple storeth; + Might in guard about him bides. + + Kindreds come! Jehovah give-- + O give Jehovah all together, + Force and fame whereso you live. + Give his name the glory fit: + Take your off'rings, get you thither, + Where he doth enshrined sit. + + Go, adore him in the place + Where his pomp is most displayed. + Earth, O go with quaking pace, + Go proclaim Jehovah king: + Stayless world shall now be stayed; + Righteous doom his rule shall bring. + + Starry roof and earthy floor, + Sea, and all thy wideness yieldeth, + Now rejoice, and leap, and roar. + Leafy infants of the wood, + Fields, and all that on you feedeth, + Dance, O dance, at such a good! + + For Jehovah cometh, lo! + Lo to reign Jehovah cometh! + Under whom you all shall go. + He the world shall rightly guide-- + Truly, as a king becometh, + For the people's weal provide. + +Attempting to give an ascending scale of excellence--I do not mean in +subject but in execution--I now turn to the national hymn, _God is our +Refuge._ + + + PSALM XLIV. + + God gives us strength, and keeps us sound-- + A present help when dangers call; + Then fear not we, let quake the ground, + And into seas let mountains fall; + Yea so let seas withal + In watery hills arise, + As may the earthly hills appal + With dread and dashing cries. + + For lo, a river, streaming joy, + With purling murmur safely slides, + That city washing from annoy, + In holy shrine where God resides. + God in her centre bides: + What can this city shake? + God early aids and ever guides: + Who can this city take? + + When nations go against her bent, + And kings with siege her walls enround; + The void of air his voice doth rent, + Earth fails their feet with melting ground. + To strength and keep us sound, + The God of armies arms; + Our rock on Jacob's God we found, + Above the reach of harms. + + O come with me, O come, and view + The trophies of Jehovah's hand! + What wrecks from him our foes pursue! + How clearly he hath purged our land! + By him wars silent stand: + He brake the archer's bow, + Made chariot's wheel a fiery brand, + And spear to shivers go. + + Be still, saith he; know, God am I; + Know I will be with conquest crowned + Above all nations--raised high, + High raised above this earthly round. + To strength and keep us sound, + The God of armies arms; + Our rock on Jacob's God we found, + Above the reach of harms. + +"The God of armies arms" is a grand line. + +Now let us have a hymn of Nature--a far finer, I think, than either of +the preceding: _Praise waiteth for thee._ + + + PSALM LXV. + + Sion it is where thou art praised, + Sion, O God, where vows they pay thee: + There all men's prayers to thee raised, + Return possessed of what they pray thee. + There thou my sins, prevailing to my shame, + Dost turn to smoke of sacrificing flame. + + Oh! he of bliss is not deceived, _disappointed._ + Whom chosen thou unto thee takest; + And whom into thy court received, + Thou of thy checkrole[65] number makest: + The dainty viands of thy sacred store + Shall feed him so he shall not hunger more. + + From thence it is thy threat'ning thunder-- + Lest we by wrong should be disgraced-- + Doth strike our foes with fear and wonder, + O thou on whom their hopes are placed, + Whom either earth doth stedfastly sustain, + Or cradle rocks the restless wavy plain. + + Thy virtue stays the mighty mountains, _power._ + Girded with power, with strength abounding. + The roaring dam of watery fountains _the "dam of fountains" + Thy beck doth make surcease her sounding. [is the ocean._ + When stormy uproars toss the people's brain, + That civil sea to calm thou bring'st again. _political, as opposed + [to natural._ + + Where earth doth end with endless ending, + All such as dwell, thy signs affright them; + And in thy praise their voices spending, + Both houses of the sun delight them--- + Both whence he comes, when early he awakes, + And where he goes, when evening rest he takes. + + Thy eye from heaven this land beholdeth, + Such fruitful dews down on it raining, + That storehouse-like her lap enfoldeth + Assured hope of ploughman's gaining: + Thy flowing streams her drought doth temper so, + That buried seed through yielding grave doth grow. + + Drunk is each ridge of thy cup drinking; + Each clod relenteth at thy dressing; _groweth soft._ + Thy cloud-borne waters inly sinking, + Fair spring sprouts forth, blest with thy blessing. + The fertile year is with thy bounty crowned; + And where thou go'st, thy goings fat the ground. + + Plenty bedews the desert places; + A hedge of mirth the hills encloseth; + The fields with flocks have hid their faces; + A robe of corn the valleys clotheth. + Deserts, and hills, and fields, and valleys all, + Rejoice, shout, sing, and on thy name do call. + +The first stanza seems to me very fine, especially the verse, "Return +possessed of what they pray thee." The third stanza might have been +written after the Spanish Philip's Armada, but both King David and Sir +Philip Sidney were dead before God brake that archer's bow.[66] The +fourth line of the next stanza is a noteworthy instance of the sense +gathering to itself the sound, and is in lovely contrast with the closing +line of the same stanza. + +One of the most remarkable specimens I know of the play with words of +which I have already spoken as common even in the serious writings of +this century, is to be found in the next line: "Where earth doth end with +endless ending." David, regarding the world as a flat disc, speaks of the +_ends_ of the earth: Sidney, knowing it to be a globe, uses the word of +the Psalmist, but re-moulds and changes the form of it, with a power +fantastic, almost capricious in its wilfulness, yet causing it to express +the fact with a marvel of precision. We _see_ that the earth ends; we +cannot reach the end we see; therefore the "earth doth end with endless +ending." It is a case of that contradiction in the form of the words +used, which brings out a truth in another plane as it were;--a paradox in +words, not in meaning, for the words can bear no meaning but the one +which reveals its own reality. + +The following little psalm, _The Lord reigneth_, is a thunderous +organ-blast of praise. The repetition of words in the beginning of the +second stanza produces a remarkably fine effect. + + + PSALM XCIII. + + Clothed with state, and girt with might, + Monarch-like Jehovah reigns; + He who earth's foundation pight-- _pitched._ + Pight at first, and yet sustains; + He whose stable throne disdains + Motion's shock and age's flight; + He who endless one remains + One, the same, in changeless plight. + + Rivers--yea, though rivers roar, + Roaring though sea-billows rise, + Vex the deep, and break the shore-- + Stronger art thou, Lord of skies! + Firm and true thy promise lies + Now and still as heretofore: + Holy worship never dies + In thy house where we adore. + +I close my selections from Sidney with one which I consider the best of +all: it is the first half of _Lord, thou hast searched me._ + + + PSALM CXXXIX. + + O Lord, in me there lieth nought + But to thy search revealed lies; + For when I sit + Thou markest it; + No less thou notest when I rise: + Yea, closest closet of my thought + Hath open windows to thine eyes. + + Thou walkest with me when I walk + When to my bed for rest I go, + I find thee there, + And every where: + Not youngest thought in me doth grow, + No, not one word I cast to talk + But, yet unuttered, thou dost know. + + If forth I march, thou goest before; + If back I turn, thou com'st behind: + So forth nor back + Thy guard I lack; + Nay, on me too thy hand I find. + Well I thy wisdom may adore, + But never reach with earthy mind. + + To shun thy notice, leave thine eye, + O whither might I take my way? + To starry sphere? + Thy throne is there. + To dead men's undelightsome stay? + There is thy walk, and there to lie + Unknown, in vain I should assay. + + O sun, whom light nor flight can match! + Suppose thy lightful flightful wings + Thou lend to me, + And I could flee + As far as thee the evening brings: + Ev'n led to west he would me catch, + Nor should I lurk with western things. + + Do thou thy best, O secret night, + In sable veil to cover me: + Thy sable veil + Shall vainly fail: + With day unmasked my night shall be; + For night is day, and darkness light, + O father of all lights, to thee. + +Note the most musical play with the words _light_ and _flight_ in the +fifth stanza. There is hardly a line that is not delightful. + +They were a wonderful family those Sidneys. Mary, for whom Philip wrote +his chief work, thence called "The Countess of Pembroke's _Arcadia,_" was +a woman of rare gifts. The chief poem known to be hers is called _Our +Saviour's Passion_. It is full of the faults of the age. Sir Philip's +sport with words is so graceful and ordered as to subserve the utterance +of the thought: his sister's fanciful convolutions appear to be there for +their own sake--certainly are there to the obscuration of the sense. The +difficulty of the poem arises in part, I believe, from corruption, but +chiefly from a certain fantastic way of dealing with thought as well as +word of which I shall have occasion to say more when we descend a little +further. It is, in the main, a lamentation over our Saviour's sufferings, +in which the countess is largely guilty of the very feminine fault of +seeking to convey the intensity of her emotions by forcing words, +accumulating forms, and exaggerating descriptions. This may indeed +convince as to the presence of feeling, but cannot communicate the +feeling itself. _The_ right word will at once generate a sympathy of +which all agonies of utterance will only render the willing mind more and +more incapable. + +The poem is likewise very diffuse--again a common fault with women of +power; for indeed the faculty of compressing thought into crystalline +form is one of the rarest gifts of artistic genius. It consists of a +hundred and ten stanzas, from which I shall gather and arrange a few. + + He placed all rest, and had no resting place; + He healed each pain, yet lived in sore distress; + Deserved all good, yet lived in great disgrace; + Gave all hearts joy, himself in heaviness; + Suffered them live, by whom himself was slain: + Lord, who can live to see such love again? + + Whose mansion heaven, yet lay within a manger; + Who gave all food, yet sucked a virgin's breast; + Who could have killed, yet fled a threatening danger; + Who sought all quiet by his own unrest; + Who died for them that highly did offend him, + And lives for them that cannot comprehend him. + + Who came no further than his Father sent him, + And did fulfil but what he did command him; + Who prayed for them that proudly did torment him + For telling truly of what they did demand him; + Who did all good that humbly did intreat him, + And bare their blows, that did unkindly beat him. + + Had I but seen him as his servants did, + At sea, at land, in city, or in field, + Though in himself he had his glory hid, + That in his grace the light of glory held, + Then might my sorrow somewhat be appeased, + That once my soul had in his sight been pleased. + + No! I have run the way of wickedness, + Forgetting what my faith should follow most; + I did not think upon thy holiness, + Nor by my sins what sweetness I have lost. + Oh sin! for sin hath compassed me about, + That, Lord, I know not where to find thee out. + + Where he that sits on the supernal throne, + In majesty most glorious to behold, + And holds the sceptre of the world alone, + Hath not his garments of imbroidered gold, + But he is clothed with truth and righteousness, + Where angels all do sing with joyfulness, + + Where heavenly love is cause of holy life, + And holy life increaseth heavenly love; + Where peace established without fear or strife, + Doth prove the blessing of the soul's behove;[67] + Where thirst nor hunger, grief nor sorrow dwelleth, + But peace in joy, and joy in peace excelleth. + +Had all the poem been like these stanzas, I should not have spoken so +strongly concerning its faults. There are a few more such in it. It +closes with a very fantastic use of musical terms, following upon a +curious category of the works of nature as praising God, to which I refer +for the sake of one stanza, or rather of one line in the stanza: + + To see the greyhound course, the hound in chase, + _Whilst little dormouse sleepeth out her eyne;_ + The lambs and rabbits sweetly run at base,[68] + Whilst highest trees the little squirrels climb, + The crawling worms out creeping in the showers, + And how the snails do climb the lofty towers. + +What a love of animated nature there is in the lovely lady! I am all but +confident, however, that second line came to her from watching her +children asleep. She had one child at least: that William Herbert, who is +generally, and with weight, believed the W.H. of Shakspere's Sonnets, a +grander honour than the earldom of Pembroke, or even the having Philip +Sidney to his uncle: I will not say grander than having Mary Sidney to +his _mother_. + +Let me now turn to Sidney's friend, Sir Fulk Grevill, Lord Brooke, who +afterwards wrote his life, "as an intended preface" to all his "Monuments +to the memory of Sir Philip Sidney," the said _monuments_ being Lord +Brooke's own poems. + +My extract is from _A Treatise of Religion_, in which, if the reader do +not find much of poetic form, he will find at least some grand spiritual +philosophy, the stuff whereof all highest poetry is fashioned. It is one +of the first poems in which the philosophy of religion, and not either +its doctrine, feeling, or history, predominates. It is, as a whole, poor, +chiefly from its being so loosely written. There are men, and men whose +thoughts are of great worth, to whom it never seems to occur that they +may utter very largely and convey very little; that what is clear to +themselves is in their speech obscure as a late twilight. Their utterance +is rarely articulate: their spiritual mouth talks with but half-movements +of its lips; it does not model their thoughts into clear-cut shapes, such +as the spiritual ear can distinguish as they enter it. Of such is Lord +Brooke. These few stanzas, however, my readers will be glad to have: + + What is the chain which draws us back again, + And lifts man up unto his first creation? + Nothing in him his own heart can restrain; + His reason lives a captive to temptation; + Example is corrupt; precepts are mixed; + All fleshly knowledge frail, and never fixed. + + It is a light, a gift, a grace inspired; + A spark of power, a goodness of the Good; + Desire in him, that never is desired; + An unity, where desolation stood; + In us, not of us, a Spirit not of earth, + Fashioning the mortal to immortal birth. + + * * * * * + + Sense of this God, by fear, the sensual have, + Distressed Nature crying unto Grace; + For sovereign reason then becomes a slave, + And yields to servile sense her sovereign place, + When more or other she affects to be + Than seat or shrine of this Eternity. + + Yea, Prince of Earth let Man assume to be, + Nay more--of Man let Man himself be God, + Yet without God, a slave of slaves is he; + To others, wonder; to himself, a rod; + Restless despair, desire, and desolation; + The more secure, the more abomination. + + Then by affecting power, we cannot know him. + By knowing all things else, we know him less. + Nature contains him not. Art cannot show him. + Opinions idols, and not God, express. + Without, in power, we see him everywhere; + Within, we rest not, till we find him there. + + Then seek we must; that course is natural-- + For owned souls to find their owner out. + Our free remorses when our natures fall-- + When we do well, our hearts made free from doubt-- + Prove service due to one Omnipotence, + And Nature of religion to have sense. + + Questions again, which in our hearts arise-- + Since loving knowledge, not humility-- + Though they be curious, godless, and unwise, + Yet prove our nature feels a Deity; + For if these strifes rose out of other grounds, + Man were to God as deafness is to sounds. + + * * * * * + + Yet in this strife, this natural remorse, + If we could bend the force of power and wit + To work upon the heart, and make divorce + There from the evil which preventeth it, + In judgment of the truth we should not doubt + Good life would find a good religion out. + +If a fair proportion of it were equal to this, the poem would be a fine +one, not for its poetry, but for its spiritual metaphysics. I think the +fourth and fifth of the stanzas I have given, profound in truth, and +excellent in utterance. They are worth pondering. + +We now descend a decade of the century, to find another group of names +within the immediate threshold of the sixties. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +LORD BACON AND HIS COEVALS. + + +Except it be Milton's, there is not any prose fuller of grand poetic +embodiments than Lord Bacon's. Yet he always writes contemptuously of +poetry, having in his eye no doubt the commonplace kinds of it, which +will always occupy more bulk, and hence be more obtrusive, than that +which is true in its nature and rare in its workmanship. Towards the +latter end of his life, however, being in ill health at the time, he +translated seven of the Psalms of David into verse, dedicating them to +George Herbert. The best of them is Psalm civ.--just the one upon which +we might suppose, from his love to the laws of Nature, he would dwell +with the greatest sympathy. Partly from the wish to hear his voice +amongst the rest of our singers, partly for the merits of the version +itself, which has some remarkable lines, I have resolved to include it +here. It is the first specimen I have given in the heroic couplet. + + Father and King of Powers both high and low, + Whose sounding fame all creatures serve to blow; + My soul shall with the rest strike up thy praise, + And carol of thy works, and wondrous ways. + But who can blaze thy beauties, Lord, aright? + They turn the brittle beams of mortal sight. + Upon thy head thou wear'st a glorious crown, + All set with virtues, polished with renown: + Thence round about a silver veil doth fall + Of crystal light, mother of colours all. + The compass, heaven, smooth without grain or fold, + All set with spangs of glittering stars untold, + And striped with golden beams of power unpent, + Is raised up for a removing tent + Vaulted and arched are his chamber beams + Upon the seas, the waters, and the streams; + The clouds as chariots swift do scour the sky; + The stormy winds upon their wings do fly + His angels spirits are, that wait his will; + As flames of fire his anger they fulfil. + In the beginning, with a mighty hand, + He made the earth by counterpoise to stand, + Never to move, but to be fixed still; + Yet hath no pillars but his sacred will. + This earth, as with a veil, once covered was; + The waters overflowed all the mass; + But upon his rebuke away they fled, + And then the hills began to show their head; + The vales their hollow bosoms opened plain, + The streams ran trembling down the vales again; + And that the earth no more might drowned be, + He set the sea his bounds of liberty; + And though his waves resound and beat the shore, + Yet it is bridled by his holy lore. + Then did the rivers seek their proper places, + And found their heads, their issues, and their races; + The springs do feed the rivers all the way, + And so the tribute to the sea repay: + Running along through many a pleasant field, + Much fruitfulness unto the earth they yield; + That know the beasts and cattle feeding by, + Which for to slake their thirst do thither hie. + Nay, desert grounds the streams do not forsake, + But through the unknown ways their journey take; + The asses wild that hide in wilderness, + Do thither come, their thirst for to refresh. + The shady trees along their banks do spring, + In which the birds do build, and sit, and sing, + Stroking the gentle air with pleasant notes, + Plaining or chirping through their warbling throats. + The higher grounds, where waters cannot rise, + By rain and dews are watered from the skies, + Causing the earth put forth the grass for beasts, + And garden-herbs, served at the greatest feasts, + And bread that is all viands' firmament, + And gives a firm and solid nourishment; + And wine man's spirits for to recreate, + And oil his face for to exhilarate. + The sappy cedars, tall like stately towers, + High flying birds do harbour in their bowers; + The holy storks that are the travellers, + Choose for to dwell and build within the firs; + The climbing goats hang on steep mountains' side; + The digging conies in the rocks do bide. + The moon, so constant in inconstancy, + Doth rule the monthly seasons orderly; + The sun, eye of the world, doth know his race, + And when to show, and when to hide his face. + Thou makest darkness, that it may be night, + Whenas the savage beasts that fly the light, + As conscious of man's hatred, leave their den, + And range abroad, secured from sight of men. + Then do the forests ring of lions roaring, + That ask their meat of God, their strength restoring; + But when the day appears, they back do fly, + And in their dens again do lurking lie; + Then man goes forth to labour in the field, + Whereby his grounds more rich increase may yield. + O Lord, thy providence sufficeth all; + Thy goodness not restrained but general + Over thy creatures, the whole earth doth flow + With thy great largeness poured forth here below. + Nor is it earth alone exalts thy name, + But seas and streams likewise do spread the same. + The rolling seas unto the lot do fall + Of beasts innumerable, great and small; + There do the stately ships plough up the floods; + The greater navies look like walking woods; + The fishes there far voyages do make, + To divers shores their journey they do take; + There hast thou set the great leviathan, + That makes the seas to seethe like boiling pan: + All these do ask of thee their meat to live, + Which in due season thou to them dost give: + Ope thou thy hand, and then they have good fare; + Shut thou thy hand, and then they troubled are. + All life and spirit from thy breath proceed, + Thy word doth all things generate and feed: + If thou withdraw'st it, then they cease to be, + And straight return to dust and vanity; + But when thy breath thou dost send forth again, + Then all things do renew, and spring amain, + So that the earth but lately desolate + Doth now return unto the former state. + The glorious majesty of God above + Shall ever reign, in mercy and in love; + God shall rejoice all his fair works to see, + For, as they come from him, all perfect be. + The earth shall quake, if aught his wrath provoke; + Let him but touch the mountains, they shall smoke. + As long as life doth last, I hymns will sing, + With cheerful voice, to the Eternal King; + As long as I have being, I will praise + The works of God, and all his wondrous ways. + I know that he my words will not despise: + Thanksgiving is to him a sacrifice. + But as for sinners, they shall be destroyed + From off the earth--their places shall be void. + Let all his works praise him with one accord! + Oh praise the Lord, my soul! Praise ye the Lord! + +His Hundred and Forty-ninth Psalm is likewise good; but I have given +enough of Lord Bacon's verse, and proceed to call up one who was a poet +indeed, although little known as such, being a Roman Catholic, a Jesuit +even, and therefore, in Elizabeth's reign, a traitor, and subject to the +penalties according. Robert Southwell, "thirteen times most cruelly +tortured," could "not be induced to confess anything, not even the colour +of the horse whereon on a certain day he rode, lest from such indication +his adversaries might conjecture in what house, or in company of what +Catholics, he that day was." I quote these words of Lord Burleigh, lest +any of my readers, discovering weakness in his verse, should attribute +weakness to the man himself. + +It was no doubt on political grounds that these tortures, and the death +that followed them, were inflicted. But it was for the truth _as he saw +it_, that is, for the sake of duty, that Southwell thus endured. We must +not impute all the evils of a system to every individual who holds by it. +It may be found that a man has, for the sole sake of self-abnegation, +yielded homage, where, if his object had been personal aggrandizement, he +might have wielded authority. Southwell, if that which comes from within +a man may be taken as the test of his character, was a devout and humble +Christian. In the choir of our singers we only ask: "Dost thou lift up +thine heart?" Southwell's song answers for him: "I lift it up unto the +Lord." + +His chief poem is called _St. Peter's Complaint_. It is of considerable +length--a hundred and thirty-two stanzas. It reminds us of the Countess +of Pembroke's poem, but is far more articulate and far superior in +versification. Perhaps its chief fault is that the pauses are so measured +with the lines as to make every line almost a sentence, the effect of +which is a considerable degree of monotony. Like all writers of the time, +he is, of course, fond of antithesis, and abounds in conceits and +fancies; whence he attributes a multitude of expressions to St. Peter of +which never possibly could the substantial ideas have entered the +Apostle's mind, or probably any other than Southwell's own. There is also +a good deal of sentimentalism in the poem, a fault from which I fear +modern Catholic verse is rarely free. Probably the Italian poetry with +which he must have been familiar in his youth, during his residence in +Rome, accustomed him to such irreverences of expression as this +sentimentalism gives occasion to, and which are very far from indicating +a correspondent state of feeling. Sentiment is a poor ape of love; but +the love is true notwithstanding. Here are a few stanzas from _St. +Peter's Complaint_: + + Titles I make untruths: am I a rock, + That with so soft a gale was overthrown? + Am I fit pastor for the faithful flock + To guide their souls that murdered thus mine own? + A rock of ruin, not a rest to stay; + A pastor,--not to feed, but to betray. + + Parting from Christ my fainting force declined; + With lingering foot I followed him aloof; + Base fear out of my heart his love unshrined, + Huge in high words, but impotent in proof. + My vaunts did seem hatched under Samson's locks, + Yet woman's words did give me murdering knocks + + * * * * * + + At Sorrow's door I knocked: they craved my name + I answered, "One unworthy to be known." + "What one?" say they. "One worthiest of blame." + "But who?" "A wretch not God's, nor yet his own." + "A man?" "Oh, no!" "A beast?" "Much worse." "What creature?" + "A rock." "How called?" "The rock of scandal, Peter." + + * * * * * + + Christ! health of fevered soul, heaven of the mind, + Force of the feeble, nurse of infant loves, + Guide to the wandering foot, light to the blind, + Whom weeping wins, repentant sorrow moves! + Father in care, mother in tender heart, + Revive and save me, slain with sinful dart! + + If King Manasseh, sunk in depth of sin, + With plaints and tears recovered grace and crown, + A worthless worm some mild regard may win, + And lowly creep where flying threw it down. + A poor desire I have to mend my ill; + I should, I would, I dare not say I will. + + I dare not say I will, but wish I may; + My pride is checked: high words the speaker spilt. + My good, O Lord, thy gift--thy strength, my stay-- + Give what thou bidst, and then bid what thou wilt. + Work with me what of me thou dost request; + Then will I dare the worst and love the best. + +Here, from another poem, are two little stanzas worth preserving: + + Yet God's must I remain, + By death, by wrong, by shame; + I cannot blot out of my heart + That grace wrought in his name. + + I cannot set at nought, + Whom I have held so dear; + I cannot make Him seem afar + That is indeed so near. + +The following poem, in style almost as simple as a ballad, is at once of +the quaintest and truest. Common minds, which must always associate a +certain conventional respectability with the forms of religion, will +think it irreverent. I judge its reverence profound, and such none the +less that it is pervaded by a sweet and delicate tone of holy humour. The +very title has a glimmer of the glowing heart of Christianity: + + + NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP. + + Behold a silly,[69] tender babe, + In freezing winter night, + In homely manger trembling lies; + Alas! a piteous sight. + + The inns are full; no man will yield + This little pilgrim bed; + But forced he is with silly beasts + In crib to shroud his head. + + Despise him not for lying there; + First what he is inquire: + An orient pearl is often found + In depth of dirty mire. + + Weigh not his crib, his wooden dish, + Nor beasts that by him feed; + Weigh not his mother's poor attire, + Nor Joseph's simple weed. + + This stable is a prince's court, + The crib his chair of state; + The beasts are parcel of his pomp, + The wooden dish his plate. + + The persons in that poor attire + His royal liveries wear; + The Prince himself is come from heaven: + This pomp is praised there. + + With joy approach, O Christian wight; + Do homage to thy King; + And highly praise this humble pomp, + Which he from heaven doth bring. + +Another, on the same subject, he calls _New Heaven, New War_. It is +fantastic to a degree. One stanza, however, I like much: + + This little babe, so few days old, + Is come to rifle Satan's fold; + All hell doth at his presence quake, + Though he himself for cold do shake; + For in this weak, unarmed wise, + The gates of hell he will surprise. + +There is profoundest truth in the symbolism of this. Here is the latter +half of a poem called _St. Peters Remorse_: + + Did mercy spin the thread + To weave injustice' loom? + Wert then a father to conclude + With dreadful judge's doom? + + It is a small relief + To say I was thy child, + If, as an ill-deserving foe, + From grace I am exiled. + + I was, I had, I could-- + All words importing want; + They are but dust of dead supplies, + Where needful helps are scant. + + Once to have been in bliss + That hardly can return, + Doth but bewray from whence I fell, + And wherefore now I mourn. + + All thoughts of passed hopes + Increase my present cross; + Like ruins of decayed joys, + They still upbraid my loss. + + O mild and mighty Lord! + Amend that is amiss; + My sin my sore, thy love my salve, + Thy cure my comfort is. + + Confirm thy former deed; + Reform that is defiled; + I was, I am, I will remain + Thy charge, thy choice, thy child. + +Here are some neat stanzas from a poem he calls + + + CONTENT AND RICH. + + My conscience is my crown, + Contented thoughts my rest; + My heart is happy in itself, + My bliss is in my breast. + + My wishes are but few, + All easy to fulfil; + I make the limits of my power + The bounds unto my will. + + Sith sails of largest size + The storm doth soonest tear, + I bear so small and low a sail + As freeth me from fear. + + And taught with often proof, + A tempered calm I find + To be most solace to itself, + Best cure for angry mind. + + No chance of Fortune's calms + Can cast my comforts down; + When Fortune smiles I smile to think + How quickly she will frown. + + And when in froward mood + She proves an angry foe: + Small gain I found to let her come, + Less loss to let her go. + +There is just one stanza in a poem of Daniel, who belongs by birth to +this group, which I should like to print by itself, if it were only for +the love Coleridge had to the last two lines of it. It needs little +stretch of scheme to let it show itself amongst religious poems. It +occurs in a fine epistle to the Countess of Cumberland. Daniel's writing +is full of the practical wisdom of the inner life, and the stanza which I +quote has a certain Wordsworthian flavour about it. It will not make a +complete sentence, but must yet stand by itself: + + Knowing the heart of man is set to be + The centre of this world, about the which + These revolutions of disturbances + Still roll; where all th' aspects of misery + Predominate; whose strong effects are such + As he must bear, being powerless to redress; + And that unless above himself he can + Erect himself, how poor a thing is man! + +Later in the decade, comes Sir Henry Wotton. It will be seen that I have +arranged my singers with reference to their birth, not to the point of +time at which this or that poem was written or published. The poetic +influences which work on the shaping fantasy are chiefly felt in youth, +and hence the predominant mode of a poet's utterance will be determined +by what and where and amongst whom he was during that season. The kinds +of the various poems will therefore probably fall into natural sequence +rather after the dates of the youth of the writers than after the years +in which they were written. + +Wotton was better known in his day as a politician than as a poet, and +chiefly in ours as the subject of one of Izaak Walton's biographies. +Something of artistic instinct, rather than finish, is evident in his +verses. Here is the best and the best-known of the few poems recognized +as his: + + + THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE. + + How happy is he born and taught, + That serveth not another's will; + Whose armour is his honest thought, + And silly truth his highest skill; + + Whose passions not his masters are; + Whose soul is still prepared for death, + Untied to the world with care + Of prince's grace or vulgar breath; + + Who hath his life from humours freed; + Whose conscience is his strong retreat; + Whose state can neither flatterers feed, + Nor ruin make accusers great; + + Who envieth none whom chance doth raise + Or vice; who never understood + How swords give slighter wounds than praise. + Nor rules of state, but rules of good; + + Who God doth late and early pray + More of his grace than gifts to lend; + And entertains the harmless day + With a well-chosen book or friend. + + This man is free from servile bands + Of hope to rise, or fear to fall: + Lord of himself, though not of lands + And having nothing, yet hath all. + +Some of my readers will observe that in many places I have given a +reading different from that in the best-known copy of the poem. I have +followed a manuscript in the handwriting of Ben Jonson.[70] I cannot +tell whether Jonson has put the master's hand to the amateur's work, but +in every case I find his reading the best. + +Sir John Davies must have been about fifteen years younger than Sir Fulk +Grevill. He was born in 1570, was bred a barrister, and rose to high +position through the favour of James I.--gained, it is said, by the poem +which the author called _Nosce Teipsum_,[71] but which is generally +entitled _On the Immortality of the Soul_, intending by _immortality_ the +spiritual nature of the soul, resulting in continuity of existence. It is +a wonderful instance of what can be done for metaphysics in verse, and by +means of imagination or poetic embodiment generally. Argumentation cannot +of course naturally belong to the region of poetry, however well it may +comport itself when there naturalized; and consequently, although there +are most poetic no less than profound passages in the treatise, a light +scruple arises whether its constituent matter can properly be called +poetry. At all events, however, certain of the more prosaic measures and +stanzas lend themselves readily, and with much favour, to some of the +more complex of logical necessities. And it must be remembered that in +human speech, as in the human mind, there are no absolute divisions: +power shades off into feeling; and the driest logic may find the heroic +couplet render it good service. + +Sir John Davies's treatise is not only far more poetic in image and +utterance than that of Lord Brooke, but is far more clear in argument and +firm in expression as well. Here is a fine invocation: + + O Light, which mak'st the light which makes the day! + Which sett'st the eye without, and mind within; + Lighten my spirit with one clear heavenly ray, + Which now to view itself doth first begin. + + * * * * * + + Thou, like the sun, dost, with an equal ray, + Into the palace and the cottage shine; + And show'st the soul both to the clerk and lay, _learned and + By the clear lamp of th' oracle divine. [unlearned_ + +He is puzzled enough to get the theology of his time into harmony with +his philosophy, and I cannot say that he is always triumphant in the +attempt; but here at least is good argument in justification of the +freedom of man to sin. + + If by His word he had the current stayed + Of Adam's will, which was by nature free, + It had been one as if his word had said, + "I will henceforth that Man no Man shall be." + + * * * * * + + For what is Man without a moving mind, + Which hath a judging wit, and choosing will? + Now, if God's pow'r should her election bind, + Her motions then would cease, and stand all still. + + * * * * * + + So that if Man would be unvariable, + He must be God, or like a rock or tree; + For ev'n the perfect angels were not stable, + But had a fall more desperate than we. + +The poem contains much excellent argument in mental science as well as in +religion and metaphysics; but with that department I have nothing to do. + +I shall now give an outlook from the highest peak of the poem--to any who +are willing to take the trouble necessary for seeing what another would +show them. + +The section from which I have gathered the following stanzas is devoted +to the more immediate proof of the soul's immortality. + + Her only end is never-ending bliss, + Which is the eternal face of God to see, + Who last of ends and first of causes is; + And to do this, she must eternal be. + + Again, how can she but immortal be, + When with the motions of both will and wit, + She still aspireth to eternity, + And never rests till she attains to it? + + Water in conduit-pipes can rise no higher + Than the well-head from whence it first doth spring; + Then since to eternal God she doth aspire, + She cannot but be an eternal thing. + + At first her mother-earth she holdeth dear, + And doth embrace the world and worldly things; + She flies close by the ground, and hovers here, + And mounts not up with her celestial wings. + + Yet under heaven she cannot light on ought + That with her heavenly nature doth agree + She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought, + She cannot in this world contented be. + + For who did ever yet, in honour, wealth, + Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find? + Whoever ceased to wish, when he had health + Or having wisdom, was not vexed in mind + + Then as a bee, which among weeds doth fall, + Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay-- + She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all, + But, pleased with none, doth rise, and soar away; + + So, when the soul finds here no true content, + And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take, + She doth return from whence she first was sent, + And flies to him that first her wings did make. + + Wit, seeking truth, from cause to cause ascends, + And never rests till it the first attain; + Will, seeking good, finds many middle ends, + But never stays till it the last do gain. + + Now God the truth, and first of causes is; + God is the last good end, which lasteth still; + Being Alpha and Omega named for this: + Alpha to wit, Omega to the will. + + Since then her heavenly kind she doth display + In that to God she doth directly move, + And on no mortal thing can make her stay, + She cannot be from hence, but from above. + +One passage more, the conclusion and practical summing up of the whole: + + O ignorant poor man! what dost thou bear, + Locked up within the casket of thy breast? + What jewels and what riches hast thou there! + What heavenly treasure in so weak a chest! + + Think of her worth, and think that God did mean + This worthy mind should worthy things embrace: + Blot not her beauties with thy thoughts unclean, + Nor her dishonour with thy passion base. + + Kill not her quickening power with surfeitings; + Mar not her sense with sensuality; + Cast not her serious wit on idle things; + Make not her free-will slave to vanity. + + And when thou think'st of her eternity, + Think not that death against our nature is; + Think it a birth; and when thou go'st to die, + Sing like a swan, as if thou went'st to bliss. + + And if thou, like a child, didst fear before, + Being in the dark where thou didst nothing see; + Now I have brought thee torch-light, fear no more; + Now when thou diest thou canst not hood-wink'd be. + + And thou, my soul, which turn'st with curious eye + To view the beams of thine own form divine, + Know, that thou canst know nothing perfectly, + While thou art clouded with this flesh of mine. + + Take heed of over-weening, and compare + Thy peacock's feet with thy gay peacock's train: + Study the best and highest things that are, + But of thyself an humble thought retain. + + Cast down thyself, and only strive to raise + The story of thy Maker's sacred name: + Use all thy powers that blessed Power to praise, + Which gives the power to be, and use the same. + +In looking back over our path from the point we have now reached, the +first thought that suggests itself is--How much the reflective has +supplanted the emotional! I do not mean for a moment that the earliest +poems were without thought, or that the latest are without emotion; but +in the former there is more of the skin, as it were--in the latter, more +of the bones of worship; not that in the one the worship is but +skin-deep, or that in the other the bones are dry. + +To look at the change a little more closely: we find in the earliest +time, feeling working on historic fact and on what was received as such, +and the result simple aspiration after goodness. The next stage is good +_doctrine_--I use the word, as St. Paul uses it, for instruction in +righteousness--chiefly by means of allegory, all attempts at analysis +being made through personification of qualities. Here the general form is +frequently more poetic than the matter. After this we have a period +principally of imitation, sometimes good, sometimes indifferent. Next, +with the Reformation and the revival of literature together, come more of +art and more of philosophy, to the detriment of the lyrical expression. +People cannot think and sing: they can only feel and sing. But the +philosophy goes farther in this direction, even to the putting in +abeyance of that from which song takes its rise,--namely, feeling itself. +As to the former, amongst the verse of the period I have given, there is +hardly anything to be called song but Sir Philip Sidney's Psalms, and for +them we are more indebted to King David than to Sir Philip. As to the +latter, even in the case of that most mournful poem of the Countess of +Pembroke, it is, to quite an unhealthy degree, occupied with the attempt +to work upon her own feelings by the contemplation of them, instead of +with the utterance of those aroused by the contemplation of truth. In her +case the metaphysics have begun to prey upon and consume the emotions. +Besides, that age was essentially a dramatic age, as even its command of +language, especially as shown in the pranks it plays with it, would +almost indicate; and the dramatic impulse is less favourable, though not +at all opposed, to lyrical utterance. In the cases of Sir Fulk Grevill +and Sir John Davies, the feeling is assuredly profound; but in form and +expression the philosophy has quite the upper hand. + +We must not therefore suppose, however, that the cause of religious +poetry has been a losing one. The last wave must sink that the next may +rise, and the whole tide flow shorewards. The man must awake through all +his soul, all his strength, all his mind, that he may worship God in +unity, in the one harmonious utterance of his being: his heart must be +united to fear his name. And for this final perfection of the individual +the race must awake. At this season and that season, this power or that +power must be chiefly developed in her elect; and for its sake the growth +of others must for a season be delayed. But the next generation will +inherit all that has gone before; and its elect, if they be themselves +pure in heart, and individual, that is original, in mind, will, more or +less thoroughly, embody the result, in subservience to some new +development, essential in its turn to further progress. Even the fallow +times, which we are so ready to call barren, must have their share in +working the one needful work. They may be to the nation that which +sickness so often is to the man--a time of refreshing from the Lord. A +nation's life does not lie in its utterance any more than in the things +which it possesses: it lies in its action. The utterance is a result, and +therefore a sign, of life; but there may be life without any _such_ sign. +To do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God, is the highest +life of a nation as of an individual; and when the time for speech comes, +it will be such life alone that causes the speech to be strong at once +and harmonious. When at last there are not ten righteous men in Sodom, +Sodom can neither think, act, nor say, and her destruction is at hand. + +While the wave of the dramatic was sinking, the wave of the lyric was +growing in force and rising in height. Especially as regards religious +poetry we are as yet only approaching the lyrical jubilee. Fact and +faith, self-consciousness and metaphysics, all are needful to the lyric +of love. Modesty and art find their grandest, simplest labour in rightly +subordinating each of those to the others. How could we have a George +Herbert without metaphysics? In those poems I have just given, the way of +metaphysics was prepared for him. That which overcolours one age to the +injury of its harmony, will, in the next or the next, fall into its own +place in the seven-chorded rainbow of truth. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +DR. DONNE. + + +We now come to Dr. John Donne, a man of justly great respect and +authority, who, born in the year 1573, the fifteenth of Queen Elizabeth, +died Dean of St. Paul's in the year 1636. But, although even Ben Jonson +addresses him as "the delight of Phoebus and each Muse," we are too far +beyond the power of his social presence and the influence of his public +utterances to feel that admiration of his poems which was so largely +expressed during his lifetime. Of many of those that were written in his +youth, Izaak Walton says Dr. Donne "wished that his own eyes had +witnessed their funerals." Faulty as they are, however, they are not the +less the work of a great and earnest man. + +Bred to the law, but never having practised it, he lost his secretaryship +to the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere through the revenge of Sir George More, +whose daughter Donne had married in secret because of her father's +opposition. Dependent thereafter for years on the generous kindness of +unrelated friends, he yet for conscience' sake refused to take orders +when a good living was offered him; and it was only after prolonged +thought that he yielded to the importunity of King James, who was so +convinced of his surpassing fitness for the church that he would speed +him towards no other goal. When at length he dared hope that God might +have called him to the high office, never man gave himself to its duties +with more of whole-heartedness and devotion, and none have proved +themselves more clean of the sacrilege of serving at the altar for the +sake of the things offered thereon. + +He is represented by Dr. Johnson as one of the chief examples of that +school of poets called by himself the _metaphysical_, an epithet which, +as a definition, is almost false. True it is that Donne and his followers +were always ready to deal with metaphysical subjects, but it was from +their mode, and not their subjects, that Dr. Johnson classed them. What +this mode was we shall see presently, for I shall be justified in setting +forth its strangeness, even absurdity, by the fact that Dr. Donne was the +dear friend of George Herbert, and had much to do with the formation of +his poetic habits. Just twenty years older than Herbert, and the valued +and intimate friend of his mother, Donne was in precisely that relation +of age and circumstance to influence the other in the highest degree. + +The central thought of Dr. Donne is nearly sure to be just: the +subordinate thoughts by means of which he unfolds it are often grotesque, +and so wildly associated as to remind one of the lawlessness of a dream, +wherein mere suggestion without choice or fitness rules the sequence. As +some of the writers of whom I have last spoken would play with words, Dr. +Donne would sport with ideas, and with the visual images or embodiments +of them. Certainly in his case much knowledge reveals itself in the +association of his ideas, and great facility in the management and +utterance of them. True likewise, he says nothing unrelated to the main +idea of the poem; but not the less certainly does the whole resemble the +speech of a child of active imagination, to whom judgment as to the +character of his suggestions is impossible, his taste being equally +gratified with a lovely image and a brilliant absurdity: a butterfly and +a shining potsherd are to him similarly desirable. Whatever wild thing +starts from the thicket of thought, all is worthy game to the hunting +intellect of Dr. Donne, and is followed without question of tone, +keeping, or harmony. In his play with words, Sir Philip Sidney kept good +heed that even that should serve the end in view; in his play with ideas, +Dr. John Donne, so far from serving the end, sometimes obscures it almost +hopelessly: the hart escapes while he follows the squirrels and weasels +and bats. It is not surprising that, their author being so inartistic +with regard to their object, his verses themselves should be harsh and +unmusical beyond the worst that one would imagine fit to be called verse. +He enjoys the unenviable distinction of having no rival in ruggedness of +metric movement and associated sounds. This is clearly the result of +indifference; an indifference, however, which grows very strange to us +when we find that he _can_ write a lovely verse and even an exquisite +stanza. + +Greatly for its own sake, partly for the sake of illustration, I quote a +poem containing at once his best and his worst, the result being such an +incongruity that we wonder whether it might not be called his best _and_ +his worst, because we cannot determine which. He calls it _Hymn to God, +my God, in my Sickness_. The first stanza is worthy of George Herbert in +his best mood. + + Since I am coming to that holy room, + Where with the choir of saints for evermore + I shall be made thy music, as I come + I tune the instrument here at the door, + And what I must do then, think here before. + +To recognize its beauty, leaving aside the depth and truth of the phrase, +"Where I shall be made thy music," we must recall the custom of those +days to send out for "a noise of musicians." Hence he imagines that he +has been summoned as one of a band already gone in to play before the +king of "The High Countries:" he is now at the door, where he is +listening to catch the tone, that he may have his instrument tuned and +ready before he enters. But with what a jar the next stanza breaks on +heart, mind, and ear! + + Whilst my physicians by their love are grown + Cosmographers, and I[72] their map, who lie + Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown + That this is my south-west discovery, + _Per fretum febris_--by these straits to die;-- + +Here, in the midst of comparing himself to a map, and his physicians to +cosmographers consulting the map, he changes without warning into a +navigator whom they are trying to follow upon the map as he passes +through certain straits--namely, those of the fever--towards his +south-west discovery, Death. Grotesque as this is, the absurdity deepens +in the end of the next stanza by a return to the former idea. He is +alternately a map and a man sailing on the map of himself. But the first +half of the stanza is lovely: my reader must remember that the region of +the West was at that time the Land of Promise to England. + + I joy that in these straits I see my West; + For though those currents yield return to none, + What shall my West hurt me? As west and east + In all flat maps (and I am one) are one, + So death doth touch the resurrection. + +It is hardly worth while, except for the strangeness of the phenomenon, +to spend any time in elucidating this. Once more a map, he is that of the +two hemispheres, in which the east of the one touches the west of the +other. Could anything be much more unmusical than the line, "In all flat +maps (and I am one) are one"? But the next stanza is worse. + + Is the Pacific sea my home? Or are + The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem? + Anvan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar? + All straits, and none but straits are ways to them, + Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Sem. + +The meaning of the stanza is this: there is no earthly home: all these +places are only straits that lead home, just as they themselves cannot be +reached but through straits. + +Let my reader now forget all but the first stanza, and take it along with +the following, the last two: + + We think that Paradise and Calvary, + Christ's cross and Adam's tree, stood in one place: + Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me; + As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face, + May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace. + + So, in his purple wrapped, receive me, Lord; + By these his thorns give me his other crown; + And as to others' souls I preached thy word, + Be this my text, my sermon to mine own: + _Therefore, that he may raise, the Lord throws down._ + +Surely these are very fine, especially the middle verse of the former and +the first verse of the latter stanza. The three stanzas together make us +lovingly regret that Dr. Donne should have ridden his Pegasus over quarry +and housetop, instead of teaching him his paces. + +The next I quote is artistic throughout. Perhaps the fact, of which we +are informed by Izaak Walton, "that he caused it to be set to a grave and +solemn tune, and to be often sung to the organ by the choristers of St. +Paul's church in his own hearing, especially at the evening service," may +have something to do with its degree of perfection. There is no sign of +his usual haste about it. It is even elaborately rhymed after Norman +fashion, the rhymes in each stanza being consonant with the rhymes in +every stanza. + + + A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. + + Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, + Which was my sin, though it were done before?[73] + Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,[74] + And do run still, though still I do deplore?-- + When thou hast done, thou hast not done; + For I have more. + + Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won + Others to sin, and made my sins their door?[75] + Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun + A year or two, but wallowed in a score?-- + When thou hast done, thou hast not done; + For I have more. + + I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun + My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; + But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son + Shall shine, as he shines now and heretofore; + And having done that, thou hast done: + I fear no more. + +In those days even a pun might be a serious thing: witness the play in +the last stanza on the words _son_ and _sun_--not a mere pun, for the Son +of the Father is the Sun of Righteousness: he is Life _and_ Light. + +What the Doctor himself says concerning the hymn, appears to me not only +interesting but of practical value. He "did occasionally say to a friend, +'The words of this hymn have restored to me the same thoughts of joy that +possessed my soul in my sickness, when I composed it.'" What a help it +would be to many, if in their more gloomy times they would but recall the +visions of truth they had, and were assured of, in better moments! + +Here is a somewhat strange hymn, which yet possesses, rightly understood, +a real grandeur: + + + A HYMN TO CHRIST + + _At the Author's last going into Germany_.[76] + + In what torn ship soever I embark, + That ship shall be my emblem of thy ark; + What sea soever swallow me, that flood + Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood. + Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise + Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes, + Which, though they turn away sometimes-- + They never will despise. + + I sacrifice this island unto thee, + And all whom I love here and who love me: + When I have put this flood 'twixt them and me, + Put thou thy blood betwixt my sins and thee. + As the tree's sap doth seek the root below + In winter, in my winter[77] now I go + Where none but thee, the eternal root + Of true love, I may know. + + Nor thou, nor thy religion, dost control + The amorousness of an harmonious soul; + But thou wouldst have that love thyself: as thou + Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now. + Thou lov'st not, till from loving more thou free + My soul: who ever gives, takes liberty: + Oh, if thou car'st not whom I love, + Alas, thou lov'st not me! + + Seal then this bill of my divorce to all + On whom those fainter beams of love did fall; + Marry those loves, which in youth scattered be + On face, wit, hopes, (false mistresses), to thee. + Churches are best for prayer that have least light: + To see God only, I go out of sight; + And, to 'scape stormy days, I choose + An everlasting night + +To do justice to this poem, the reader must take some trouble to enter +into the poet's mood. + +It is in a measure distressing that, while I grant with all my heart the +claim of his "Muse's white sincerity," the taste in--I do not say +_of_--some of his best poems should be such that I will not present them. + +Out of twenty-three _Holy Sonnets_, every one of which, I should almost +say, possesses something remarkable, I choose three. Rhymed after the +true Petrarchian fashion, their rhythm is often as bad as it can be to be +called rhythm at all. Yet these are very fine. + + Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay? + Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste; + I run to death, and death meets me as fast, + And all my pleasures are like yesterday. + I dare not move my dim eyes any way, + Despair behind, and death before doth cast + Such terror; and my feeble flesh doth waste + By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh. + Only them art above, and when towards thee + By thy leave I can look, I rise again; + But our old subtle foe so tempteth me, + That not one hour myself I can sustain: + Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art, + And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart. + + If faithful souls be alike glorified + As angels, then my father's soul doth see, + And adds this even to full felicity, + That valiantly I hell's wide mouth o'erstride: + But if our minds to these souls be descried + By circumstances and by signs that be + Apparent in us--not immediately[78]-- + How shall my mind's white truth by them be tried? + They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn, + And, style blasphemous, conjurors to call + On Jesu's name, and pharisaical + Dissemblers feign devotioen. Then turn, + O pensive soul, to God; for he knows best + Thy grief, for he put it into my breast. + + Death, be not proud, though some have called thee + Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; + For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, + Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. + From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be, + Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow; + And soonest[79] our best men with thee do go, + Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery! + Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, + And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; + And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, + And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st[80] thou then? + One short sleep past, we wake eternally, + And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die. + +In a poem called _The Cross_, full of fantastic conceits, we find the +following remarkable lines, embodying the profoundest truth. + + As perchance carvers do not faces make, + But that away, which hid them there, do take: + Let crosses so take what hid Christ in thee, + And be his image, or not his, but he. + +One more, and we shall take our leave of Dr. Donne. It is called a +fragment; but it seems to me complete. It will serve as a specimen of his +best and at the same time of his most characteristic mode of presenting +fine thoughts grotesquely attired. + + + RESURRECTION. + + Sleep, sleep, old sun; thou canst not have re-past[81] + As yet the wound thou took'st on Friday last. + Sleep then, and rest: the world may bear thy stay; + A better sun rose before thee to-day; + Who, not content to enlighten all that dwell + On the earth's face as thou, enlightened hell, + And made the dark fires languish in that vale, + As at thy presence here our fires grow pale; + Whose body, having walked on earth and now + Hastening to heaven, would, that he might allow + Himself unto all stations and fill all, + For these three days become a mineral. + He was all gold when he lay down, but rose + All tincture; and doth not alone dispose + Leaden and iron wills to good, but is + Of power to make even sinful flesh like his. + Had one of those, whose credulous piety + Thought that a soul one might discern and see + Go from a body, at this sepulchre been, + And issuing from the sheet this body seen, + He would have justly thought this body a soul, + If not of any man, yet of the whole. + +What a strange mode of saying that he is our head, the captain of our +salvation, the perfect humanity in which our life is hid! Yet it has its +dignity. When one has got over the oddity of these last six lines, the +figure contained in them shows itself almost grand. + +As an individual specimen of the grotesque form holding a fine sense, +regard for a moment the words, + + He was all gold when he lay down, but rose + All tincture; + +which means, that, entirely good when he died, he was something yet +greater when he rose, for he had gained the power of making others good: +the _tincture_ intended here was a substance whose touch would turn the +basest metal into gold. + +Through his poems are scattered many fine passages; but not even his +large influence on the better poets who followed is sufficient to justify +our listening to him longer now. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +BISHOP HALL AND GEORGE SANDYS. + + +Joseph Hall, born in 1574, a year after Dr. Donne, bishop, first of +Exeter, next of Norwich, is best known by his satires. It is not for such +that I can mention him: the most honest satire can claim no place amongst +religious poems. It is doubtful if satire ever did any good. Its very +language is that of the half-brute from which it is well named. + +Here are three poems, however, which the bishop wrote for his choir. + + + ANTHEM FOR THE CATHEDRAL OF EXETER. + + Lord, what am I? A worm, dust, vapour, nothing! + What is my life? A dream, a daily dying! + What is my flesh? My soul's uneasy clothing! + What is my time? A minute ever flying: + My time, my flesh, my life, and I, + What are we, Lord, but vanity? + + Where am I, Lord? Down in a vale of death. + What is my trade? Sin, my dear God offending; + My sport sin too, my stay a puff of breath. + What end of sin? Hell's horror never ending: + My way, my trade, sport, stay, and place, + Help to make up my doleful case. + + Lord, what art thou? Pure life, power, beauty, bliss. + Where dwell'st thou? Up above in perfect light. + What is thy time? Eternity it is. + What state? Attendance of each glorious sprite: + Thyself, thy place, thy days, thy state + Pass all the thoughts of powers create. + + How shall I reach thee, Lord? Oh, soar above, + Ambitious soul. But which way should I fly? + Thou, Lord, art way and end. What wings have I? + Aspiring thoughts--of faith, of hope, of love: + Oh, let these wings, that way alone + Present me to thy blissful throne. + + + FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY. + + Immortal babe, who this dear day + Didst change thine heaven for our clay, + And didst with flesh thy Godhead veil, + Eternal Son of God, all hail! + + Shine, happy star! Ye angels, sing + Glory on high to heaven's king! + Run, shepherds, leave your nightly watch! + See heaven come down to Bethlehem's cratch! _manger._ + + Worship, ye sages of the east, + The king of gods in meanness drest! + O blessed maid, smile, and adore + The God thy womb and arms have bore! + + Star, angels, shepherds, and wise sages! + Thou virgin-glory of all ages! + Restored frame of heaven and earth! + Joy in your dear Redeemer's birth. + + * * * * * + + Leave, O my soul, this baser world below; + O leave this doleful dungeoen of woe; + And soar aloft to that supernal rest + That maketh all the saints and angels blest: + Lo, there the Godhead's radiant throne, + Like to ten thousand suns in one! + + Lo, there thy Saviour dear, in glory dight, _dressed._ + Adored of all the powers of heavens bright! + Lo, where that head that bled with thorny wound, + Shines ever with celestial honour crowned! + That hand that held the scornful reed + Makes all the fiends infernal dread. + + That back and side that ran with bloody streams + Daunt angels' eyes with their majestic beams; + Those feet, once fastened to the cursed tree, + Trample on Death and Hell, in glorious glee. + Those lips, once drenched with gall, do make + With their dread doom the world to quake. + + Behold those joys thou never canst behold; + Those precious gates of pearl, those streets of gold, + Those streams of life, those trees of Paradise + That never can be seen by mortal eyes! + And when thou seest this state divine, + Think that it is or shall be thine. + + See there the happy troops of purest sprites + That live above in endless true delights! + And see where once thyself shalt ranged be, + And look and long for immortality! + And now beforehand help to sing + Hallelujahs to heaven's king. + +Polished as these are in comparison to those of Dr. Donne, and fine, too, +as they are intrinsically, there are single phrases in his that are worth +them all--except, indeed, that one splendid line, + + Trample on Death and Hell in glorious glee. + +George Sandys, the son of an archbishop of York, and born in 1577, is +better known by his travels in the east than by his poetry. But his +version of the Psalms is in good and various verse, not unfrequently +graceful, sometimes fine. The following is not only in a popular rhythm, +but is neat and melodious as well. + + + PSALM XCII. + + Thou who art enthroned above, + Thou by whom we live and move, + O how sweet, how excellent + Is't with tongue and heart's consent, + Thankful hearts and joyful tongues, + To renown thy name in songs! + When the morning paints the skies, + When the sparkling stars arise, + Thy high favours to rehearse, + Thy firm faith, in grateful verse! + Take the lute and violin, + Let the solemn harp begin, + Instruments strung with ten strings, + While the silver cymbal rings. + From thy works my joy proceeds; + How I triumph in thy deeds! + Who thy wonders can express? + All thy thoughts are fathomless-- + Hid from men in knowledge blind, + Hid from fools to vice inclined. + Who that tyrant sin obey, + Though they spring like flowers in May-- + Parched with heat, and nipt with frost, + Soon shall fade, for ever lost. + Lord, thou art most great, most high; + Such from all eternity. + Perish shall thy enemies, + Rebels that against thee rise. + All who in their sins delight, + Shall be scattered by thy might + But thou shall exalt my horn + Like a youthful unicorn, + Fresh and fragrant odours shed + On thy crowned prophet's head. + I shall see my foes' defeat, + Shortly hear of their retreat; + But the just like palms shall flourish + Which the plains of Judah nourish, + Like tall cedars mounted on + Cloud-ascending Lebanon. + Plants set in thy court, below + Spread their roots, and upwards grow; + Fruit in their old age shall bring, + Ever fat and flourishing. + This God's justice celebrates: + He, my rock, injustice hates. + + + PSALM CXXIII. + + Thou mover of the rolling spheres, + I, through the glasses of my tears, + To thee my eyes erect. + As servants mark their master's hands, + As maids their mistress's commands, + And liberty expect, + + So we, depressed by enemies + And growing troubles, fix our eyes + On God, who sits on high; + Till he in mercy shall descend, + To give our miseries an end, + And turn our tears to joy. + + O save us, Lord, by all forlorn, + The subject of contempt and scorn: + Defend us from their pride + Who live in fluency and ease, + Who with our woes their malice please, + And miseries deride. + +Here is a part of the 66th Psalm, which makes a complete little song of +itself: + + Bless the Lord. His praise be sung + While an ear can hear a tongue. + He our feet establisheth; + He our souls redeems from death. + Lord, as silver purified, + Thou hast with affliction tried, + Thou hast driven into the net, + Burdens on our shoulders set. + Trod on by their horses' hooves, + Theirs whom pity never moves, + We through fire, with flames embraced, + We through raging floods have passed, + Yet by thy conducting hand, + Brought into a wealthy land. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A FEW OF THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS. + + +From the nature of their adopted mode, we cannot look for much poetry of +a devotional kind from the dramatists. That mode admitting of no +utterance personal to the author, and requiring the scope of a play to +bring out the intended truth, it is no wonder that, even in the dramas of +Shakspere, profound as is the teaching they contain, we should find +nothing immediately suitable to our purpose; while neither has he left +anything in other form approaching in kind what we seek. Ben Jonson, +however, born in 1574, who may be regarded as the sole representative of +learning in the class, has left, amongst a large number of small pieces, +three _Poems of Devotion_, whose merit may not indeed be great, but whose +feeling is, I think, genuine. Whatever were his faults, and they were not +few, hypocrisy was not one of them. His nature was fierce and honest. He +might boast, but he could not pretend. His oscillation between the +reformed and the Romish church can hardly have had other cause than a +vacillating conviction. It could not have served any prudential end that +we can see, to turn catholic in the reign of Elizabeth, while in prison +for killing in a duel a player who had challenged him. + + + THE SINNER'S SACRIFICE. + + 1.--TO THE HOLY TRINITY. + + O holy, blessed, glorious Trinity + Of persons, still one God in Unity, + The faithful man's believed mystery, + Help, help to lift + + Myself up to thee, harrowed, torn, and bruised + By sin and Satan, and my flesh misused. + As my heart lies--in pieces, all confused-- + O take my gift. + + All-gracious God, the sinner's sacrifice, + A broken heart, thou wert not wont despise, + But, 'bove the fat of rams or bulls, to prize + An offering meet + + For thy acceptance: Oh, behold me right, + And take compassion on my grievous plight! + What odour can be, than a heart contrite, + To thee more sweet? + + Eternal Father, God, who didst create + This All of nothing, gav'st it form and fate, + And breath'st into it life and light, with state + To worship thee! + + Eternal God the Son, who not deniedst + To take our nature, becam'st man, and diedst, + To pay our debts, upon thy cross, and criedst + _All's done in me!_ + + Eternal Spirit, God from both proceeding, + Father and Son--the Comforter, in breeding + Pure thoughts in man, with fiery zeal them feeding + For acts of grace! + + Increase those acts, O glorious Trinity + Of persons, still one God in Unity, + Till I attain the longed-for mystery + Of seeing your face, + + Beholding one in three, and three in one, + A Trinity, to shine in Union-- + The gladdest light, dark man can think upon-- + O grant it me, + + Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, you three, + All co-eternal in your majesty, + Distinct in persons, yet in unity + One God to see; + + My Maker, Saviour, and my Sanctifier, + To hear, to mediate,[82] sweeten my desire, + With grace, with love, with cherishing entire! + O then, how blest + + Among thy saints elected to abide, + And with thy angels placed, side by side! + But in thy presence truly glorified, + Shall I there rest! + + + 2.--AN HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. + + Hear me, O God! + A broken heart + Is my best part: + Use still thy rod, + That I may prove + Therein thy love. + + If thou hadst not + Been stern to me, + But left me free, + I had forgot + Myself and thee. + + For sin's so sweet + As minds ill bent _that._ + Rarely repent + Until they meet + Their punishment. + + Who more can crave + Than thou hast done? + Thou gay'st a Son + + To free a slave, + First made of nought, + With all since bought. + + Sin, death, and hell + His glorious name + Quite overcame; + Yet I rebel, + And slight the same. + + But I'll come in + Before my loss + Me farther toss, + As sure to win + Under his cross. + + + 3.--AN HYMN ON THE NATIVITY OF MY SAVIOUR. + + I sing the birth was born to-night, + The author both of life and light; + The angels so did sound it. + And like the ravished shepherds said, + Who saw the light, and were afraid, + Yet searched, and true they found it. + + The Son of God, the eternal King, + That did us all salvation bring, + And freed the soul from danger; + He whom the whole world could not take, + The Word which heaven and earth did make, + Was now laid in a manger. + + The Father's wisdom willed it so; + The Son's obedience knew no _No;_ + Both wills were in one stature; + And, as that wisdom had decreed, + The Word was now made flesh indeed, + And took on him our nature. + + What comfort by him do we win, + Who made himself the price of sin, + To make us heirs of glory! + To see this babe, all innocence, + A martyr born in our defence!-- + Can man forget this story? + +Somewhat formal and artificial, no doubt; rugged at the same time, like +him who wrote them. When a man would utter that concerning which he has +only felt, not thought, he can express himself only in the forms he has +been taught, conventional or traditional. Let his powers be ever so much +developed in respect of other things, here, where he has not meditated, +he must understand as a child, think as a child, speak as a child. He can +as yet generate no sufficing or worthy form natural to himself. But the +utterance is not therefore untrue. There was no professional bias to +cause the stream of Ben Jonson's verses to flow in that channel. Indeed, +feeling without thought, and the consequent combination of impulse to +speak with lack of matter, is the cause of much of that common-place +utterance concerning things of religion which is so wearisome, but which +therefore it is not always fair to despise as cant. + +About the same age as Ben Jonson, though the date of his birth is +unknown, I now come to mention Thomas Heywood, a most voluminous writer +of plays, who wrote also a book, chiefly in verse, called _The Hierarchy +of the Blessed Angels_, a strange work, in which, amongst much that is +far from poetic, occur the following remarkable metaphysico-religious +verses. He had strong Platonic tendencies, interesting himself chiefly +however in those questions afterwards pursued by Dr. Henry More, +concerning witches and such like subjects, which may be called the shadow +of Platonism. + + I have wandered like a sheep that's lost, + To find Thee out in every coast: + _Without_ I have long seeking bin, _been._ + Whilst thou, the while, abid'st _within_. + Through every broad street and strait lane + Of this world's city, but in vain, + I have enquired. The reason why? + I sought thee ill: for how could I + Find thee _abroad_, when thou, mean space, + Hadst made _within_ thy dwelling-place? + + I sent my messengers about, + To try if they could find thee out; + But all was to no purpose still, + Because indeed they sought thee ill: + For how could they discover thee + That saw not when thou entered'st me? + + Mine eyes could tell me? If he were, + Not coloured, sure he came not there. + If not by sound, my ears could say + He doubtless did not pass my way. + My nose could nothing of him tell, + Because my God he did not smell. + None such I relished, said my taste, + And therefore me he never passed. + My feeling told me that none such + There entered, for he none did touch. + Resolved by them how should I be, + Since none of all these are in thee, + + In thee, my God? Thou hast no hue + That man's frail optic sense can view; + No sound the ear hears; odour none + The smell attracts; all taste is gone + At thy appearance; where doth fail + A body, how can touch prevail? + What even the brute beasts comprehend-- + To think thee such, I should offend. + + Yet when I seek my God, I enquire + For light than sun and moon much higher, + More clear and splendrous, 'bove all light + Which the eye receives not, 'tis so bright. + I seek a voice beyond degree + Of all melodious harmony: + The ear conceives it not; a smell + Which doth all other scents excel: + No flower so sweet, no myrrh, no nard, + Or aloes, with it compared; + Of which the brain not sensible is. + I seek a sweetness--such a bliss + As hath all other sweets surpassed, + And never palate yet could taste. + I seek that to contain and hold + No touch can feel, no embrace enfold. + + So far this light the rays extends, + As that no place it comprehends. + So deep this sound, that though it speak + It cannot by a sense so weak + Be entertained. A redolent grace + The air blows not from place to place. + A pleasant taste, of that delight + It doth confound all appetite. + A strict embrace, not felt, yet leaves + That virtue, where it takes it cleaves. + This light, this sound, this savouring grace, + This tasteful sweet, this strict embrace, + No place contains, no eye can see, + My God is, and there's none but he. + +Very remarkable verses from a dramatist! They indicate substratum enough +for any art if only the art be there. Even those who cannot enter into +the philosophy of them, which ranks him among the mystics of whom I have +yet to speak, will understand a good deal of it symbolically: for how +could he be expected to keep his poetry and his philosophy distinct when +of themselves they were so ready to run into one; or in verse to define +carefully betwixt degree and kind, when kinds themselves may rise by +degrees? To distinguish without separating; to be able to see that what +in their effects upon us are quite different, may yet be a grand flight +of ascending steps, "to stop--no record hath told where," belongs to the +philosopher who is not born mutilated, but is a poet as well. + +John Fletcher, likewise a dramatist, the author of the following poem, +was two years younger than Ben Jonson. It is, so far as I am aware, the +sole non-dramatic voice he has left behind him. Its opening is an +indignant apostrophe to certain men of pretended science, who in his time +were much consulted--the Astrologers. + + + UPON AN HONEST MAN'S FORTUNE. + + You that can look through heaven, and tell the stars; + Observe their kind conjunctions, and their wars; + Find out new lights, and give them where you please-- + To those men honours, pleasures, to those ease; + You that are God's surveyors, and can show + How far, and when, and why the wind doth blow; + Know all the charges of the dreadful thunder, + And when it will shoot over, or fall under; + Tell me--by all your art I conjure ye-- + Yes, and by truth--what shall become of me. + Find out my star, if each one, as you say, + Have his peculiar angel, and his way; + Observe my fate; next fall into your dreams; + Sweep clean your houses, and new-line your schemes;[83] + Then say your worst. Or have I none at all? + Or is it burnt out lately? or did fall? + Or am I poor? not able? no full flame? + My star, like me, unworthy of a name? + Is it your art can only work on those + That deal with dangers, dignities, and clothes, + With love, or new opinions? You all lie: + A fishwife hath a fate, and so have I-- + But far above your finding. He that gives, + Out of his providence, to all that lives-- + And no man knows his treasure, no, not you;-- + + * * * * * + + He that made all the stars you daily read, + And from them filch a knowledge how to feed, + Hath hid this from you. Your conjectures all + Are drunken things, not how, but when they fall: + Man is his own star, and the soul that can + Render an honest, and a perfect man, + Commands all light, all influence, all fate; + Nothing to him falls early, or too late. + Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, + Our fatal shadows that walk by us still; + And when the stars are labouring, we believe + It is not that they govern, but they grieve + For stubborn ignorance. All things that are + Made for our general uses, are at war-- + Even we among ourselves; and from the strife + Your first unlike opinions got a life. + Oh man! thou image of thy Maker's good, + What canst thou fear, when breathed into thy blood + His spirit is that built thee? What dull sense + Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence? + Who made the morning, and who placed the light + Guide to thy labours? Who called up the night, + And bid her fall upon thee like sweet showers + In hollow murmurs, to lock up thy powers? + Who gave thee knowledge? Who so trusted thee, + To let thee grow so near himself, the Tree?[84] + Must he then be distrusted? Shall his frame + Discourse with him why thus and thus I am? + He made the angels thine, thy fellows all; + Nay, even thy servants, when devotions call. + Oh! canst thou be so stupid then, so dim, + To seek a saving influence, and lose him? + Can stars protect thee? Or can poverty, + Which is the light to heaven, put out his eye? + He is my star; in him all truth I find, + All influence, all fate; and when my mind + Is furnished with his fulness, my poor story + Shall outlive all their age, and all their glory. + The hand of danger cannot fall amiss + When I know what, and in whose power it is; + Nor want, the cause[85] of man, shall make me groan: + A holy hermit is a mind alone.[86] + Doth not experience teach us, all we can, + To work ourselves into a glorious man? + + * * * * * + + My mistress then be knowledge and fair truth; + So I enjoy all beauty and all youth! + + * * * * * + + Affliction, when I know it, is but this-- + A deep alloy, whereby man tougher is + To bear the hammer; and the deeper still, + We still arise more image of his will; + Sickness, an humorous cloud 'twixt us and light; + And death, at longest, but another night, + Man is his own star, and that soul that can + Be honest, is the only perfect man. + +There is a tone of contempt in the verses which is not religious; but +they express a true philosophy and a triumph of faith in God. The word +_honest_ is here equivalent to _true_. + +I am not certain whether I may not now be calling up a singer whose song +will appear hardly to justify his presence in the choir. But its teaching +is of high import, namely, of content and cheerfulness and courage, and +being both worthy and melodious, it gravitates heavenward. The singer is +yet another dramatist: I presume him to be Thomas Dekker. I cannot be +certain, because others were concerned with him in the writing of the +drama from which I take it. He it is who, in an often-quoted passage, +styles our Lord "The first true gentleman that ever breathed;" just as +Chaucer, in a poem I have given, calls him "The first stock-father of +gentleness." + +We may call the little lyric + + + A SONG OF LABOUR. + + Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? + Oh, sweet content! + Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed? + Oh, punishment! + Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed + To add to golden numbers, golden numbers? + Oh, sweet content! + _Chorus_.--Work apace, apace, apace, apace; + Honest labour bears a lovely face. + + Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring? + Oh, sweet content! + Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears? + Oh, punishment! + Then he that patiently want's burden bears, + No burden bears, but is a king, a king! + Oh, sweet content! + _Chorus_.--Work apace, apace, apace, apace; + Honest labour bears a lovely face. + +It is a song of the poor in spirit, whose is the kingdom of heaven. But +if my co-listeners prefer, we will call it the voice, not of one who +sings in the choir, but of one who "tunes his instrument at the door." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +SIR JOHN BEAUMONT AND DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. + + +Sir John Beaumont, born in 1582, elder brother to the dramatist who wrote +along with Fletcher, has left amongst his poems a few fine religious +ones. From them I choose the following: + + + OF THE EPIPHANY. + + Fair eastern star, that art ordained to run + Before the sages, to the rising sun, + Here cease thy course, and wonder that the cloud + Of this poor stable can thy Maker shroud: + Ye, heavenly bodies, glory to be bright, + And are esteemed as ye are rich in light; + But here on earth is taught a different way, + Since under this low roof the highest lay. + Jerusalem erects her stately towers, + Displays her windows, and adorns her bowers; + Yet there thou must not cast a trembling spark: + Let Herod's palace still continue dark; + Each school and synagogue thy force repels, + There Pride, enthroned in misty errors, dwells; + The temple, where the priests maintain their choir, + Shall taste no beam of thy celestial fire, + While this weak cottage all thy splendour takes: + A joyful gate of every chink it makes. + Here shines no golden roof, no ivory stair, + No king exalted in a stately chair, + Girt with attendants, or by heralds styled, + But straw and hay enwrap a speechless child; + Yet Sabae's lords before this babe unfold + Their treasures, offering incense, myrrh, and gold. + The crib becomes an altar: therefore dies + No ox nor sheep; for in their fodder lies + The Prince of Peace, who, thankful for his bed, + Destroys those rites in which their blood was shed: + The quintessence of earth he takes and[87] fees, + And precious gums distilled from weeping trees; + Rich metals and sweet odours now declare + The glorious blessings which his laws prepare, + To clear us from the base and loathsome flood + Of sense, and make us fit for angels' food, + Who lift to God for us the holy smoke + Of fervent prayers with which we him invoke, + And try our actions in that searching fire, + By which the seraphims our lips inspire: + No muddy dross pure minerals shall infect, + We shall exhale our vapours up direct: + No storms shall cross, nor glittering lights deface + Perpetual sighs which seek a happy place. + +The creatures, no longer offered on his altar, standing around the Prince +of Life, to whom they have given a bed, is a lovely idea. The end is +hardly worthy of the rest, though there is fine thought involved in it. + +The following contains an utterance of personal experience, the truth of +which will be recognized by all to whom heavenly aspiration and needful +disappointment are not unknown. + + + IN DESOLATION. + + O thou who sweetly bend'st my stubborn will, + Who send'st thy stripes to teach and not to kill! + Thy cheerful face from me no longer hide; + Withdraw these clouds, the scourges of my pride; + I sink to hell, if I be lower thrown: + I see what man is, being left alone. + My substance, which from nothing did begin, + Is worse than nothing by the weight of sin: + I see myself in such a wretched state + As neither thoughts conceive, nor words relate. + How great a distance parts us! for in thee + Is endless good, and boundless ill in me. + All creatures prove me abject, but how low + Thou only know'st, and teachest me to know. + To paint this baseness, nature is too base; + This darkness yields not but to beams of grace. + Where shall I then this piercing splendour find? + Or found, how shall it guide me, being blind? + Grace is a taste of bliss, a glorious gift, + Which can the soul to heavenly comforts lift: + It will not shine to me, whose mind is drowned + In sorrows, and with worldly troubles bound; + It will not deign within that house to dwell, + Where dryness reigns, and proud distractions swell. + Perhaps it sought me in those lightsome days + Of my first fervour, when few winds did raise + The waves, and ere they could full strength obtain, + Some whispering gale straight charmed them down again; + When all seemed calm, and yet the Virgin's child + On my devotions in his manger smiled; + While then I simply walked, nor heed could take + Of complacence, that sly, deceitful snake; + When yet I had not dangerously refused + So many calls to virtue, nor abused + The spring of life, which I so oft enjoyed, + Nor made so many good intentions void, + Deserving thus that grace should quite depart, + And dreadful hardness should possess my heart: + Yet in that state this only good I found, + That fewer spots did then my conscience wound; + Though who can censure whether, in those times, _judg_ + The want of feeling seemed the want of crimes? + If solid virtues dwell not but in pain, + I will not wish that golden age again + Because it flowed with sensible delights + Of heavenly things: God hath created nights + As well as days, to deck the varied globe; + Grace comes as oft clad in the dusky robe + Of desolation, as in white attire, + Which better fits the bright celestial choir. + Some in foul seasons perish through despair, + But more through boldness when the days are fair. + This then must be the medicine for my woes-- + To yield to what my Saviour shall dispose; + To glory in my baseness; to rejoice + In mine afflictions; to obey his voice, + As well when threatenings my defects reprove, + As when I cherished am with words of love; + To say to him, in every time and place, + "Withdraw thy comforts, so thou leave thy grace." + +Surely this is as genuine an utterance, whatever its merits as a +poem--and those I judge not small--as ever flowed from Christian heart! + +Chiefly for the sake of its beauty, I give the last passage of a poem +written upon occasion of the feasts of the Annunciation and the +Resurrection falling on the same day. + + Let faithful souls this double feast attend + In two processions. Let the first descend + The temple's stairs, and with a downcast eye + Upon the lowest pavement prostrate lie: + In creeping violets, white lilies, shine + Their humble thoughts and every pure design. + The other troop shall climb, with sacred heat, + The rich degrees of Solomon's bright seat: _steps_ + + In glowing roses fervent zeal they bear, + And in the azure flower-de-lis appear + Celestial contemplations, which aspire + Above the sky, up to the immortal choir. + +William Drummond of Hawthornden, a Scotchman, born in 1585, may almost be +looked upon as the harbinger of a fresh outburst of word-music. No doubt +all the great poets have now and then broken forth in lyrical jubilation. +Ponderous Ben Jonson himself, when he takes to song, will sing in the joy +of the very sound; but great men have always so much graver work to do, +that they comparatively seldom indulge in this kind of melody. Drummond +excels in madrigals, or canzonets--baby-odes or songs--which have more of +wing and less of thought than sonnets. Through the greater part of his +verse we hear a certain muffled tone of the sweetest, like the music that +ever threatens to break out clear from the brook, from the pines, from +the rain-shower,--never does break out clear, but remains a suggested, +etherially vanishing tone. His is a _voix voilee_, or veiled voice of +song. It is true that in the time we are now approaching far more +attention was paid not merely to the smoothness but to the melody of +verse than any except the great masters had paid before; but some are at +the door, who, not being great masters, yet do their inferior part nearly +as well as they their higher, uttering a music of marvellous and +individual sweetness, which no mere musical care could secure, but which +springs essentially from music in the thought gathering to itself musical +words in melodious division, and thus fashioning for itself a fitting +body. The melody of their verse is all their own--as original as the +greatest art-forms of the masters. Of Drummond, then, here are two +sonnets on the Nativity; the first spoken by the angels, the second by +the shepherds. + + + _The Angels_. + + Run, shepherds, run where Bethlehem blest appears. + We bring the best of news; be not dismayed: + A Saviour there is born more old than years, + Amidst heaven's rolling height this earth who stayed. + In a poor cottage inned, a virgin maid + A weakling did him bear, who all upbears; + There is he poorly swaddled, in manger laid, + To whom too narrow swaddlings are our spheres: + Run, shepherds, run, and solemnize his birth. + This is that night--no, day, grown great with bliss, + In which the power of Satan broken is: + In heaven be glory, peace unto the earth! + Thus singing, through the air the angels swam, + And cope of stars re-echoed the same. + + + _The Shepherds_. + + O than the fairest day, thrice fairer night! + Night to best days, in which a sun doth rise + Of which that golden eye which clears the skies + Is but a sparkling ray, a shadow-light! + And blessed ye, in silly pastors' sight, _simple._ + Mild creatures, in whose warm[88] crib now lies + That heaven-sent youngling, holy-maid-born wight, + Midst, end, beginning of our prophecies! + Blest cottage that hath flowers in winter spread! + Though withered--blessed grass, that hath the grace + To deck and be a carpet to that place! + Thus sang, unto the sounds of oaten reed, + Before the babe, the shepherds bowed on knees; + And springs ran nectar, honey dropped from trees. + +No doubt there is a touch of the conventional in these. Especially in the +close of the last there is an attempt to glorify the true by the homage +of the false. But verses which make us feel the marvel afresh--the marvel +visible and credible by the depth of its heart of glory--make us at the +same time easily forget the discord in themselves. + +The following, not a sonnet, although it looks like one, measuring the +lawful fourteen lines, is the closing paragraph of a poem he calls _A +Hymn to the Fairest Fair_. + + O king, whose greatness none can comprehend, + Whose boundless goodness doth to all extend! + Light of all beauty! ocean without ground, + That standing flowest, giving dost abound! + Rich palace, and indweller ever blest, + Never not working, ever yet in rest! + What wit cannot conceive, words say of thee, + Here, where, as in a mirror, we but see + Shadows of shadows, atoms of thy might, + Still owly-eyed while staring on thy light, + Grant that, released from this earthly jail, + And freed of clouds which here our knowledge veil, + In heaven's high temples, where thy praises ring, + I may in sweeter notes hear angels sing. + +That is, "May I in heaven hear angels sing what wit cannot conceive +here." + +Drummond excels in nobility of speech, and especially in the fine line +and phrase, so justly but disproportionately prized in the present day. I +give an instance of each: + + Here do seraphim + Burn with immortal love; there cherubim + _With other noble people of the light_, + As eaglets in the sun, delight their sight. + + * * * * * + + Like to a lightning through the welkin hurled, + _That scores with flames the way_, and every eye + With terror dazzles as it swimmeth by. + +Here are six fine verses, in the heroic couplet, from _An Hymn of the +Resurrection_. + + So a small seed that in the earth lies hid + And dies--reviving bursts her cloddy side; + Adorned with yellow locks, of new is born, + And doth become a mother great with corn; + Of grains bring hundreds with it, which when old + Enrich the furrows with a sea of gold. + +But I must content myself now with a little madrigal, the only one fit +for my purpose. Those which would best support what I have said of his +music are not of the kind we want. Unfortunately, the end of this one is +not equal to the beginning. + + + CHANGE SHOULD BREED CHANGE. + + New doth the sun appear; + The mountains' snows decay; + Crowned with frail flowers comes forth the baby year. + My soul, time posts away; + And thou yet in that frost, + Which flower and fruit hath lost, + As if all here immortal were, dost stay! + For shame! thy powers awake; + Look to that heaven which never night makes black; + And there, at that immortal sun's bright rays, + Deck thee with flowers which fear not rage of days. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE BROTHERS FLETCHER. + + +I now come to make mention of two gifted brothers, Giles and Phineas +Fletcher, both clergymen, the sons of a clergyman and nephews to the +Bishop of Bristol, therefore the cousins of Fletcher the dramatist, a +poem by whom I have already given Giles, the eldest, is supposed to have +been born in 1588. From his poem _Christ's Victory and Triumph_, I select +three passages. + +To understand the first, it is necessary to explain that while Christ is +on earth a dispute between Justice and Mercy, such as is often +represented by the theologians, takes place in heaven. We must allow the +unsuitable fiction attributing distraction to the divine Unity, for the +sake of the words in which Mercy overthrows the arguments of Justice. For +the poet unintentionally nullifies the symbolism of the theologian, +representing Justice as defeated. He forgets that the grandest exercise +of justice is mercy. The confusion comes from the fancy that justice +means _vengeance upon sin_, and not _the doing of what is right_. Justice +can be at no strife with mercy, for not to do what is just would be most +unmerciful. + +Mercy first sums up the arguments Justice has been employing against her, +in the following stanza: + + He was but dust; why feared he not to fall? + And being fallen how can he hope to live? + Cannot the hand destroy him that made all? + Could he not take away as well as give? + Should man deprave, and should not God deprive? + Was it not all the world's deceiving spirit + (That, bladdered up with pride of his own merit, + Fell in his rise) that him of heaven did disinherit? + +To these she then proceeds to make reply: + + He was but dust: how could he stand before him? + And being fallen, why should he fear to die? + Cannot the hand that made him first, restore him? + Depraved of sin, should he deprived lie + Of grace? Can he not find infirmity + That gave him strength?--Unworthy the forsaking + He is, whoever weighs (without mistaking) + Or maker of the man or manner of his making.[89] + + Who shall thy temple incense any more, + Or to thy altar crown the sacrifice, + Or strew with idle flowers the hallowed floor? + Or what should prayer deck with herbs and spice, _why._ + Her vials breathing orisons of price, + If all must pay that which all cannot pay? + O first begin with me, and Mercy slay, + And thy thrice honoured Son, that now beneath doth stray. + + But if or he or I may live and speak, + And heaven can joy to see a sinner weep, + Oh! let not Justice' iron sceptre break + A heart already broke, that low doth creep, + And with prone humbless her feet's dust doth sweep. + Must all go by desert? Is nothing free? + Ah! if but those that only worthy be, + None should thee ever see! none should thee ever see! + + What hath man done that man shall not undo + Since God to him is grown so near akin? + Did his foe slay him? He shall slay his foe. + Hath he lost all? He all again shall win. + Is sin his master? He shall master sin. + Too hardy soul, with sin the field to try! + The only way to conquer was to fly; + But thus long death hath lived, and now death's self shall die. + + He is a path, if any be misled; + He is a robe, if any naked be; + If any chance to hunger, he is bread; + If any be a bondman, he is free; + If any be but weak, how strong is he! + To dead men life he is, to sick men health, + To blind men sight, and to the needy wealth; + A pleasure without loss, a treasure without stealth. + + Who can forget--never to be forgot-- + The time that all the world in slumber lies, + When like the stars the singing angels shot + To earth, and heaven awaked all his eyes + To see another sun at midnight rise? + On earth was never sight of peril fame; _pareil: equal._ + For God before man like himself did frame, + But God himself now like a mortal man became. + + * * * * * + + The angels carolled loud their song of peace; + The cursed oracles were stricken dumb; + To see their Shepherd the poor shepherds press; + To see their King, the kingly Sophies come; + And them to guide unto his master's home, + A star comes dancing up the orient, + That springs for joy over the strawy tent, + Where gold, to make their prince a crown, they all present. + +No doubt there are here touches of execrable taste, such as the punning +trick with _man_ and _manners_, suggesting a false antithesis; or the +opposition of the words _deprave_ and _deprive_; but we have in them only +an instance of how the meretricious may co-exist with the lovely. The +passage is fine and powerful, notwithstanding its faults and obscurities. + +Here is another yet more beautiful: + + So down the silver streams of Eridan,[90] + On either side banked with a lily wall, + Whiter than both, rides the triumphant swan, + And sings his dirge, and prophesies his fall, + Diving into his watery funeral! + But Eridan to Cedron must submit + His flowery shore; nor can he envy it, + If, when Apollo sings, his swans do silent sit.[91] + + That heavenly voice I more delight to hear + Than gentle airs to breathe; or swelling waves + Against the sounding rocks their bosoms tear;[92] + Or whistling reeds that rutty[93] Jordan laves, + And with their verdure his white head embraves; _adorns._ + To chide the winds; or hiving bees that fly + About the laughing blossoms[94] of sallowy,[95] + Rocking asleep the idle grooms[96] that lazy lie. + + And yet how can I hear thee singing go, + When men, incensed with hate, thy death foreset? + Or else, why do I hear thee sighing so, + When thou, inflamed with love, their life dost get,[97] + That love and hate, and sighs and songs are met? + But thus, and only thus, thy love did crave + To send thee singing for us to thy grave, + While we sought thee to kill, and thou sought'st us to save. + + When I remember Christ our burden bears, + I look for glory, but find misery; + I look for joy, but find a sea of tears; + I look that we should live, and find him die; + I look for angels' songs, and hear him cry: + Thus what I look, I cannot find so well; + Or rather, what I find I cannot tell, + These banks so narrow are, those streams so highly swell. + +We would gladly eliminate the few common-place allusions; but we must +take them with the rest of the passage. Besides far higher merits, it is +to my ear most melodious. + +One more passage of two stanzas from Giles Fletcher, concerning the +glories of heaven: I quote them for the sake of earth, not of heaven. + + Gaze but upon the house where man embowers: + With flowers and rushes paved is his way; + Where all the creatures are his servitours: + The winds do sweep his chambers every day, + And clouds do wash his rooms; the ceiling gay, + Starred aloft, the gilded knobs embrave: + If such a house God to another gave, + How shine those glittering courts he for himself will have! + + And if a sullen cloud, as sad as night, + In which the sun may seem embodied, + Depured of all his dross, we see so white, + Burning in melted gold his watery head, + Or round with ivory edges silvered; + What lustre super-excellent will he + Lighten on those that shall his sunshine see + In that all-glorious court in which all glories be! + +These brothers were intense admirers of Spenser. To be like him Phineas +must write an allegory; and such an allegory! Of all the strange poems in +existence, surely this is the strangest. The _Purple Island_ is man, +whose body is anatomically described after the allegory of a city, which +is then peopled with all the human faculties personified, each set in +motion by itself. They say the anatomy is correct: the metaphysics are +certainly good. The action of the poem is just another form of the _Holy +War_ of John Bunyan--all the good and bad powers fighting for the +possession of the Purple Island. What renders the conception yet more +amazing is the fact that the whole ponderous mass of anatomy and +metaphysics, nearly as long as the _Paradise Lost_, is put as a song, in +a succession of twelve cantos, in the mouth of a shepherd, who begins a +canto every morning to the shepherds and shepherdesses of the +neighbourhood, and finishes it by folding-time in the evening. And yet +the poem is full of poetry. He triumphs over his difficulties partly by +audacity, partly by seriousness, partly by the enchantment of song. But +the poem will never be read through except by students of English +literature. It is a whole; its members are well-fitted; it is full of +beauties--in parts they swarm like fire-flies; and _yet_ it is not a good +poem. It is like a well-shaped house, built of mud, and stuck full of +precious stones. I do not care, in my limited space, to quote from it. +Never was there a more incongruous dragon of allegory. + +Both brothers were injured, not by their worship of Spenser, but by the +form that worship took--imitation. They seem more pleased to produce a +line or stanza that shall recall a line or stanza of Spenser, than to +produce a fine original of their own. They even copy lines almost word +for word from their great master. This is pure homage: it was their +delight that such adaptations should be recognized--just as it was +Spenser's hope, when he inserted translated stanzas from Tasso's +_Jerusalem Delivered_ in _The Fairy Queen_, to gain the honour of a true +reproduction. Yet, strange fate for imitators! both, but Giles +especially, were imitated by a greater than their worship--even by +Milton. They make Spenser's worse; Milton makes theirs better. They +imitate Spenser, faults and all; Milton glorifies their beauties. + +From the smaller poems of Phineas, I choose the following version of + + + PSALM CXXX. + + From the deeps of grief and fear, + O Lord, to thee my soul repairs: + From thy heaven bow down thine ear; + Let thy mercy meet my prayers. + Oh! if thou mark'st what's done amiss, + What soul so pure can see thy bliss? + + But with thee sweet Mercy stands, + Sealing pardons, working fear. + Wait, my soul, wait on his hands; + Wait, mine eye; oh! wait, mine ear: + If he his eye or tongue affords, + Watch all his looks, catch all his words. + + As a watchman waits for day, + And looks for light, and looks again: + When the night grows old and gray, + To be relieved he calls amain: + So look, so wait, so long, mine eyes, + To see my Lord, my sun, arise. + + Wait, ye saints, wait on our Lord, + For from his tongue sweet mercy flows; + Wait on his cross, wait on his word; + Upon that tree redemption grows: + He will redeem his Israel + From sin and wrath, from death and hell. + +I shall now give two stanzas of his version of the 127th Psalm. + + If God build not the house, and lay + The groundwork sure--whoever build, + It cannot stand one stormy day. + If God be not the city's shield, + If he be not their bars and wall, + In vain is watch-tower, men, and all. + + Though then thou wak'st when others rest, + Though rising thou prevent'st the sun, + Though with lean care thou daily feast, + Thy labour's lost, and thou undone; + But God his child will feed and keep, + And draw the curtains to his sleep. + +Compare this with a version of the same portion by Dr. Henry King, Bishop +of Chichester, who, no great poet, has written some good verse. He was +about the same age as Phineas Fletcher. + + Except the Lord the house sustain, + The builder's labour is in vain; + Except the city he defend, + And to the dwellers safety send, + In vain are sentinels prepared, + Or armed watchmen for the guard. + + You vainly with the early light + Arise, or sit up late at night + To find support, and daily eat + Your bread with sorrow earned and sweat; + When God, who his beloved keeps, + This plenty gives with quiet sleeps. + +What difference do we find? That the former has the more poetic touch, +the latter the greater truth. The former has just lost the one precious +thing in the psalm; the latter has kept it: that care is as useless as +painful, for God gives us while we sleep, and not while we labour. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +WITHER, HERRICK, AND QUARLES. + + +George Wither, born in 1588, therefore about the same age as Giles +Fletcher, was a very different sort of writer indeed. There could hardly +be a greater contrast. Fancy, and all her motley train, were scarcely +known to Wither, save by the hearing of the ears. + +He became an eager Puritan towards the close of his life, but his poetry +chiefly belongs to the earlier part of it. Throughout it is distinguished +by a certain straightforward simplicity of good English thought and +English word. His hymns remind me, in the form of their speech, of +Gascoigne. I shall quote but little; for, although there is a sweet calm +and a great justice of reflection and feeling, there is hardly anything +of that warming glow, that rousing force, that impressive weight in his +verse, which is the chief virtue of the lofty rhyme. + +The best in a volume of ninety _Hymns and Songs of the Church_, is, I +think, _The Author's Hymn_ at the close, of which I give three stanzas. +They manifest the simplicity and truth of the man, reflecting in their +very tone his faithful, contented, trustful nature. + + By thy grace, those passions, troubles, + And those wants that me opprest, + Have appeared as water-bubbles, + Or as dreams, and things in jest: + For, thy leisure still attending, + I with pleasure saw their ending. + + Those afflictions and those terrors, + Which to others grim appear, + Did but show me where my errors + And my imperfections were; + But distrustful could not make me + Of thy love, nor fright nor shake me. + + Those base hopes that would possess me, + And those thoughts of vain repute + Which do now and then oppress me, + Do not, Lord, to me impute; + And though part they will not from me, + Let them never overcome me. + +He has written another similar volume, but much larger, and of a somewhat +extraordinary character. It consists of no fewer than two hundred and +thirty-three hymns, mostly long, upon an incredible variety of subjects, +comprehending one for every season of nature and of the church, and one +for every occurrence in life of which the author could think as likely to +confront man or woman. Of these subjects I quote a few of the more +remarkable, but even from them my reader can have little conception of +the variety in the book: _A Hymn whilst we are washing_; _In a clear +starry Night_; _A Hymn for a House-warming_; _After a great Frost or +Snow_; _For one whose Beauty is much praised_; _For one upbraided with +Deformity_; _For a Widower or a Widow delivered from a troublesome +Yokefellow_; _For a Cripple_; _For a Jailor_; _For a Poet_. + +Here is a portion of one which I hope may be helpful to some of my +readers. + + + WHEN WE CANNOT SLEEP. + + What ails my heart, that in my breast + It thus unquiet lies; + And that it now of needful rest + Deprives my tired eyes? + + Let not vain hopes, griefs, doubts, or fears, + Distemper so my mind; + But cast on God thy thoughtful cares, + And comfort thou shalt find. + + In vain that soul attempteth ought, + And spends her thoughts in vain, + Who by or in herself hath sought + Desired peace to gain. + + On thee, O Lord, on thee therefore, + My musings now I place; + Thy free remission I implore, + And thy refreshing grace. + + Forgive thou me, that when my mind + Oppressed began to be, + I sought elsewhere my peace to find, + Before I came to thee. + + And, gracious God, vouchsafe to grant, + Unworthy though I am, + The needful rest which now I want, + That I may praise thy name. + +Before examining the volume, one would say that no man could write so +many hymns without frequent and signal failure. But the marvel here is, +that the hymns are all so very far from bad. He can never have written in +other than a gentle mood. There must have been a fine harmony in his +nature, that _kept_ him, as it were. This peacefulness makes him +interesting in spite of his comparative flatness. I must restrain remark, +however, and give five out of twelve stanzas of another of his hymns. + + + A ROCKING HYMN. + + Sweet baby, sleep; what ails my dear? + What ails my darling thus to cry? + Be still, my child, and lend thine ear + To hear me sing thy lullaby. + My pretty lamb, forbear to weep; + Be still, my dear; sweet baby, sleep. + + Whilst thus thy lullaby I sing, + For thee great blessings ripening be; + Thine eldest brother is a king, + And hath a kingdom bought for thee. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + A little infant once was he, + And strength in weakness then was laid + Upon his virgin mother's knee, + That power to thee might be conveyed. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + Within a manger lodged thy Lord, + Where oxen lay, and asses fed; + Warm rooms we do to thee afford, + An easy cradle or a bed. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + + Thou hast, yet more to perfect this, + A promise and an earnest got, + Of gaining everlasting bliss, + Though thou, my babe, perceiv'st it not. + Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; + Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. + +I think George Wither's verses will grow upon the reader of them, tame as +they are sure to appear at first. His _Hallelujah, or Britain's Second +Remembrancer_, from which I have been quoting, is well worth possessing, +and can be procured without difficulty. + +We now come to a new sort, both of man and poet--still a clergyman. It is +an especial pleasure to write the name of Robert Herrick amongst the +poets of religion, for the very act records that the jolly, careless +Anacreon of the church, with his head and heart crowded with pleasures, +threw down at length his wine-cup, tore the roses from his head, and +knelt in the dust. + +Nothing bears Herrick's name so unrefined as the things Dr. Donne wrote +in his youth; but the impression made by his earlier poems is of a man of +far shallower nature, and greatly more absorbed in the delights of the +passing hour. In the year 1648, when he was fifty-seven years of age, +being prominent as a Royalist, he was ejected from his living by the +dominant Puritans; and in that same year he published his poems, of which +the latter part and later written is his _Noble Numbers_, or religious +poems. We may wonder at his publishing the _Hesperides_ along with them, +but we must not forget that, while the manners of a time are never to be +taken as a justification of what is wrong, the judgment of men concerning +what is wrong will be greatly influenced by those manners--not +necessarily on the side of laxity. It is but fair to receive his own +testimony concerning himself, offered in these two lines printed at the +close of his _Hesperides_: + + To his book's end this last line he'd have placed: + _Jocund his muse was, but his life was chaste_. + +We find the same artist in the _Noble Numbers_ as in the _Hesperides_, +but hardly the same man. However far he may have been from the model of a +clergyman in the earlier period of his history, partly no doubt from the +society to which his power of song made him acceptable, I cannot believe +that these later poems are the results of mood, still less the results of +mere professional bias, or even sense of professional duty. + +In a good many of his poems he touches the heart of truth; in others, +even those of epigrammatic form, he must be allowed to fail in point as +well as in meaning. As to his art-forms, he is guilty of great offences, +the result of the same passion for lawless figures and similitudes which +Dr. Donne so freely indulged. But his verses are brightened by a certain +almost childishly quaint and innocent humour; while the tenderness of +some of them rises on the reader like the aurora of the coming sun of +George Herbert. I do not forget that, even if some of his poems were +printed in 1639, years before that George Herbert had done his work and +gone home: my figure stands in relation to the order I have adopted. + +Some of his verse is homelier than even George Herbert's homeliest. One +of its most remarkable traits is a quaint thanksgiving for the commonest +things by name--not the less real that it is sometimes even queer. For +instance: + + God gives not only corn for need, + But likewise superabundant seed; + Bread for our service, bread for show; + Meat for our meals, and fragments too: + He gives not poorly, taking some + Between the finger and the thumb, + But for our glut, and for our store, + Fine flour pressed down, and running o'er. + +Here is another, delightful in its oddity. We can fancy the merry yet +gracious poet chuckling over the vision of the child and the fancy of his +words. + + + A GRACE FOR A CHILD. + + Here a little child I stand, + Heaving up my either hand; + Cold as paddocks though they be, _frogs._ + Here I lift them up to thee, + For a benison to fall + On our meat, and on us all. _Amen_. + +I shall now give two or three of his longer poems, which are not long, +and then a few of his short ones. The best known is the following, but it +is not so well known that I must therefore omit it. + + + HIS LITANY TO THE HOLY SPIRIT. + + In the hour of my distress, + When temptations me oppress, + And when I my sins confess, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When I lie within my bed, + Sick in heart, and sick in head, + And with doubts discomforted, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the house doth sigh and weep, + And the world is drowned in sleep, + Yet mine eyes the watch do keep, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the artless doctor sees _without skill._ + No one hope, but of his fees, + And his skill runs on the lees, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When his potion and his pill, + His or none or little skill, + Meet for nothing but to kill, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the passing-bell doth toll, + And the furies in a shoal + Come to fright a parting soul, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the tapers now burn blue, + And the comforters are few, + And that number more than true, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the priest his last hath prayed, + And I nod to what is said, + 'Cause my speech is now decayed, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When God knows I'm tossed about, + Either with despair or doubt, + Yet, before the glass be out, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the tempter me pursu'th + With the sins of all my youth, + And half damns me with untruth, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the flames and hellish cries + Fright mine ears and fright mine eyes, + And all terrors me surprise, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + When the judgment is revealed, + And that opened which was sealed; + When to thee I have appealed, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me. + + + THE WHITE ISLAND, OR PLACE OF THE BLEST. + + In this world, the Isle of Dreams, + While we sit by sorrow's streams, + Tears and terrors are our themes, + Reciting; + + But when once from hence we fly, + More and more approaching nigh + Unto young eternity, + Uniting; + + In that whiter island, where + Things are evermore sincere; + Candour here and lustre there, + Delighting: + + There no monstrous fancies shall + Out of hell an horror call, + To create, or cause at all, + Affrighting. + + There, in calm and cooling sleep + We our eyes shall never steep, + But eternal watch shall keep, + Attending + + Pleasures such as shall pursue + Me immortalized and you; + And fresh joys, as never too + Have ending. + + + TO DEATH. + + Thou bid'st me come away; + And I'll no longer stay + Than for to shed some tears + For faults of former years; + And to repent some crimes + Done in the present times; + And next, to take a bit + Of bread, and wine with it; + To don my robes of love, + Fit for the place above; + To gird my loins about + With charity throughout, + And so to travel hence + With feet of innocence: + These done, I'll only cry, + "God, mercy!" and so die. + + + ETERNITY. + + O years and age, farewell! + Behold I go + Where I do know + Infinity to dwell. + + And these mine eyes shall see + All times, how they + Are lost i' th' sea + Of vast eternity, + + Where never moon shall sway + The stars; but she + And night shall be + Drowned in one endless day. + + + THE GOODNESS OF HIS GOD. + + When winds and seas do rage, + And threaten to undo me, + Thou dost their wrath assuage, + If I but call unto thee. + + A mighty storm last night + Did seek my soul to swallow; + But by the peep of light + A gentle calm did follow. + + What need I then despair + Though ills stand round about me; + Since mischiefs neither dare + To bark or bite without thee? + + + TO GOD. + + Lord, I am like to mistletoe, + Which has no root, and cannot grow + Or prosper, but by that same tree + It clings about: so I by thee. + What need I then to fear at all + So long as I about thee crawl? + But if that tree should fall and die, + Tumble shall heaven, and down will I. + +Here are now a few chosen from many that--to borrow a term from +Crashaw--might be called + + + DIVINE EPIGRAMS. + + God, when he's angry here with any one, + His wrath is free from perturbation; + And when we think his looks are sour and grim, + The alteration is in us, not him. + + * * * * * + + God can't be wrathful; but we may conclude + Wrathful he may be by similitude: + God's wrathful said to be when he doth do + That without wrath, which wrath doth force us to. + + * * * * * + + 'Tis hard to find God; but to comprehend + Him as he is, is labour without end. + + * * * * * + + God's rod doth watch while men do sleep, and then + The rod doth sleep while vigilant are men. + + * * * * * + + A man's trangression God does then remit, + When man he makes a penitent for it. + + * * * * * + + God, when he takes my goods and chattels hence, + Gives me a portion, giving patience: + What is in God is God: if so it be + He patience gives, he gives himself to me. + + * * * * * + + Humble we must be, if to heaven we go; + High is the roof there, but the gate is low. + + * * * * * + + God who's in heaven, will hear from thence, + If not to the sound, yet to the sense. + + * * * * * + + The same who crowns the conqueror, will be + A coadjutor in the agony. + + * * * * * + + God is so potent, as his power can _that._ + Draw out of bad a sovereign good to man. + + * * * * * + + Paradise is, as from the learn'd I gather, + A choir of blest souls circling in the Father. + + * * * * * + + Heaven is not given for our good works here; + Yet it is given to the labourer. + + * * * * * + +One more for the sake of Martha, smiled at by so many because they are +incapable either of her blame or her sister's praise. + + The repetition of the name, made known + No other than Christ's full affection. + +And so farewell to the very lovable Robert Herrick. + +Francis Quarles was born in 1592. I have not much to say about him, +popular as he was in his own day, for a large portion of his writing +takes the shape of satire, which I consider only an active form of +negation. I doubt much if mere opposition to the false is of any benefit. +Convince a man by argument that the thing he has been taught is false, +and you leave his house empty, swept, and garnished; but the expulsion of +the falsehood is no protection against its re-entrance in another mask, +with seven worse than itself in its company. The right effort of the +teacher is to give the positive--to present, as he may, the vision of +reality, for the perception of which, and not for the discovery of +falsehood, is man created. This will not only cast out the demon, but so +people the house that he will not dare return. If a man might disprove +all the untruths in creation, he would hardly be a hair's breadth nearer +the end of his own making. It is better to hold honestly one fragment of +truth in the midst of immeasurable error, than to sit alone, if that were +possible, in the midst of an absolute vision, clear as the hyaline, but +only repellent of falsehood, not receptive of truth. It is the positive +by which a man shall live. Truth is his life. The refusal of the false is +not the reception of the true. A man may deny himself into a spiritual +lethargy, without denying one truth, simply by spending his strength for +that which is not bread, until he has none left wherewith to search for +the truth, which alone can feed him. Only when subjected to the positive +does the negative find its true vocation. + +I am jealous of the living force cast into the slough of satire. No +doubt, either indignant or loving rebuke has its end and does its work, +but I fear that wit, while rousing the admiration of the spiteful or the +like witty, comes in only to destroy its dignity. At the same time, I am +not sure whether there might not be such a judicious combination of the +elements as to render my remarks inapplicable. + +At all events, poetry favours the positive, and from the _Emblems_ named +of Quarles I shall choose one in which it fully predominates. There is +something in it remarkably fine. + + + PHOSPHOR, BRING THE DAY. + + Will't ne'er be morning? Will that promised light + Ne'er break, and clear those clouds of night? + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day, + Whose conquering ray + May chase these fogs: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + How long, how long shall these benighted eyes + Languish in shades, like feeble flies + Expecting spring? How long shall darkness soil + The face of earth, and thus beguile + Our souls of sprightful action? When, when will day + Begin to dawn, whose new-born ray + May gild the weathercocks of our devotion, + And give our unsouled souls new motion? + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day: + The light will fray + These horrid mists: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + * * * * * + + Let those whose eyes, like owls, abhor the light-- + Let those have night that love the night: + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + How sad delay + Afflicts dull hopes! Sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + Alas! my light-in-vain-expecting eyes + Can find no objects but what rise + From this poor mortal blaze, a dying spark + Of Vulcan's forge, whose flames are dark,-- + A dangerous, dull, blue-burning light, + As melancholy as the night: + Here's all the suns that glister in the sphere + Of earth: Ah me! what comfort's here! + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + Haste, haste away + Heaven's loitering lamp: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + + Blow, Ignorance. O thou, whose idle knee + Rocks earth into a lethargy, + And with thy sooty fingers hast benight + The world's fair cheeks, blow, blow thy spite; + Since thou hast puffed our greater taper, do + Puff on, and out the lesser too. + If e'er that breath-exiled flame return, + Thou hast not blown as it will burn. + Sweet Phosphor, bring the day: + Light will repay + The wrongs of night: sweet Phosphor, bring the day. + +With honoured, thrice honoured George Herbert waiting at the door, I +cannot ask Francis Quarles to remain longer: I can part with him without +regret, worthy man and fair poet as he is. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +GEORGE HERBERT. + + +But, with my hand on the lock, I shrink from opening the door. Here comes +a poet indeed! and how am I to show him due honour? With his book humbly, +doubtfully offered, with the ashes of the poems of his youth fluttering +in the wind of his priestly garments, he crosses the threshold. Or +rather, for I had forgotten the symbol of my book, let us all go from our +chapel to the choir, and humbly ask him to sing that he may make us +worthy of his song. + +In George Herbert there is poetry enough and to spare: it is the +household bread of his being. If I begin with that which first in the +nature of things ought to be demanded of a poet, namely, Truth, +Revelation--George Herbert offers us measure pressed down and running +over. But let me speak first of that which first in time or order of +appearance we demand of a poet, namely music. For inasmuch as verse is +for the ear, not for the eye, we demand a good hearing first. Let no one +undervalue it. The heart of poetry is indeed truth, but its garments are +music, and the garments come first in the process of revelation. The +music of a poem is its meaning in sound as distinguished from word--its +meaning in solution, as it were, uncrystallized by articulation. The +music goes before the fuller revelation, preparing its way. The sound of +a verse is the harbinger of the truth contained therein. If it be a right +poem, this will be true. Herein Herbert excels. It will be found +impossible to separate the music of his words from the music of the +thought which takes shape in their sound. + + I got me flowers to strow thy way, + I got me boughs off many a tree; + But thou wast up by break of day, + And brought'st thy sweets along with thee. + +And the gift it enwraps at once and reveals is, I have said, truth of the +deepest. Hear this song of divine service. In every song he sings a +spiritual fact will be found its fundamental life, although I may quote +this or that merely to illustrate some peculiarity of mode. + +_The Elixir_ was an imagined liquid sought by the old physical +investigators, in order that by its means they might turn every common +metal into gold, a pursuit not quite so absurd as it has since appeared. +They called this something, when regarded as a solid, _the Philosopher's +Stone_. In the poem it is also called a _tincture_. + + + THE ELIXIR. + + Teach me, my God and King, + In all things thee to see; + And what I do in anything, + To do it as for thee; + + Not rudely, as a beast, + To run into an action; + But still to make thee prepossest, + And give it his perfection. _its._ + + A man that looks on glass, + On it may stay his eye; + Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, + And then the heaven spy. + + All may of thee partake: + Nothing can be so mean, + Which with his tincture--_for thy sake_-- _its._ + Will not grow bright and clean. + + A servant with this clause + Makes drudgery divine: + Who sweeps a room as for thy laws, + Makes that and the action fine. + + This is the famous stone + That turneth all to gold; + For that which God doth touch and own + Cannot for less be told. + +With a conscience tender as a child's, almost diseased in its tenderness, +and a heart loving as a woman's, his intellect is none the less powerful. +Its movements are as the sword-play of an alert, poised, well-knit, +strong-wristed fencer with the rapier, in which the skill impresses one +more than the force, while without the force the skill would be +valueless, even hurtful, to its possessor. There is a graceful humour +with it occasionally, even in his most serious poems adding much to their +charm. To illustrate all this, take the following, the title of which +means _The Retort_. + + + THE QUIP. + + The merry World did on a day + With his train-bands and mates agree + To meet together where I lay, + And all in sport to jeer at me. + + First Beauty crept into a rose; + Which when I plucked not--"Sir," said she, + "Tell me, I pray, whose hands are those?"[98] + _But thou shall answer, Lord, for me._ + + Then Money came, and, chinking still-- + "What tune is this, poor man?" said he: + "I heard in music you had skill." + _But thou shall answer, Lord, for me._ + + Then came brave Glory puffing by + In silks that whistled--who but he? + He scarce allowed me half an eye; + _But thou shall answer, Lord, for me._ + + Then came quick Wit-and-Conversation, + And he would needs a comfort be, + And, to be short, make an oration: + _But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me._ + + Yet when the hour of thy design + To answer these fine things, shall come, + Speak not at large--say I am thine; + And then they have their answer home. + +Here is another instance of his humour. It is the first stanza of a poem +to _Death_. He is glorying over Death as personified in a skeleton. + + Death, thou wast once an uncouth, hideous thing-- + Nothing but bones, + The sad effect of sadder groans: + Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing. + +No writer before him has shown such a love to God, such a childlike +confidence in him. The love is like the love of those whose verses came +first in my volume. But the nation had learned to think more, and new +difficulties had consequently arisen. These, again, had to be undermined +by deeper thought, and the discovery of yet deeper truth had been the +reward. Hence, the love itself, if it had not strengthened, had at least +grown deeper. And George Herbert had had difficulty enough in himself; +for, born of high family, by nature fitted to shine in that society where +elegance of mind, person, carriage, and utterance is most appreciated, +and having indeed enjoyed something of the life of a courtier, he had +forsaken all in obedience to the voice of his higher nature. Hence the +struggle between his tastes and his duties would come and come again, +augmented probably by such austere notions as every conscientious man +must entertain in proportion to his inability to find God in that in +which he might find him. From this inability, inseparable in its varying +degrees from the very nature of growth, springs all the asceticism of +good men, whose love to God will be the greater as their growing insight +reveals him in his world, and their growing faith approaches to the +giving of thanks in everything. + +When we have discovered the truth that whatsoever is not of faith is sin, +the way to meet it is not to forsake the human law, but so to obey it as +to thank God for it. To leave the world and go into the desert is not +thus to give thanks: it may have been the only way for this or that man, +in his blameless blindness, to take. The divine mind of George Herbert, +however, was in the main bent upon discovering God everywhere. + +The poem I give next, powerfully sets forth the struggle between liking +and duty of which I have spoken. It is at the same time an instance of +wonderful art in construction, all the force of the germinal thought kept +in reserve, to burst forth at the last. He calls it--meaning by the word, +_God's Restraint_-- + + + THE COLLAR. + + I struck the board, and cried "No more!-- + I will abroad. + What! shall I ever sigh and pine? + My lines and life are free--free as the road, + Loose as the wind, as large as store. + Shall I be still in suit? + Have I no harvest but a thorn + To let me blood, and not restore + What I have lost with cordial fruit? + Sure there was wine + Before my sighs did dry it! There was corn + Before my tears did drown it! + Is the year only lost to me? + Have I no bays to crown it? + No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted? + All wasted? + Not so, my heart; but there is fruit, + And thou hast hands. + Recover all thy sigh-blown age + On double pleasures. Leave thy cold dispute + Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage, + Thy rope of sands, + Which petty thoughts have made--and made to thee + Good cable, to enforce and draw, + And be thy law, + While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. + Away! Take heed-- + I will abroad. + Call in thy death's-head there. Tie up thy fears. + He that forbears + To suit and serve his need, + Deserves his load." + But as I raved, and grew more fierce and wild + At every word, + Methought I heard one calling "_Child!_" + And I replied, "_My Lord!_" + +Coming now to speak of his art, let me say something first about his use +of homeliest imagery for highest thought. This, I think, is in itself +enough to class him with the highest _kind_ of poets. If my reader will +refer to _The Elixir_, he will see an instance in the third stanza, "You +may look at the glass, or at the sky:" "You may regard your action only, +or that action as the will of God." Again, let him listen to the pathos +and simplicity of this one stanza, from a poem he calls _The Flower_. He +has been in trouble; his times have been evil; he has felt a spiritual +old age creeping upon him; but he is once more awake. + + And now in age[99] I bud again; + After so many deaths I live and write; + I once more smell the dew and rain, + And relish versing. O my only light, + It cannot be + That I am he + On whom thy tempests fell all night! + +Again: + + Some may dream merrily, but when they wake + They dress themselves and come to thee. + +He has an exquisite feeling of lyrical art. Not only does he keep to one +idea in it, but he finishes the poem like a cameo. Here is an instance +wherein he outdoes the elaboration of a Norman trouvere; for not merely +does each line in each stanza end with the same sound as the +corresponding line in every other stanza, but it ends with the very same +word. I shall hardly care to defend this if my reader chooses to call it +a whim; but I do say that a large degree of the peculiar musical effect +of the poem--subservient to the thought, keeping it dimly chiming in the +head until it breaks out clear and triumphant like a silver bell in the +last--is owing to this use of the same column of words at the line-ends +of every stanza. Let him who doubts it, read the poem aloud. + + + AARON. + + Holiness on the head; + Light and perfections on the breast; + Harmonious bells below, raising the dead, + To lead them unto life and rest-- + Thus are true Aarons drest. + + Profaneness in my head; + Defects and darkness in my breast; + A noise of passions ringing me for dead + Unto a place where is no rest-- + Poor priest, thus am I drest! + + Only another head + I have, another heart and breast, + Another music, making live, not dead, + Without whom I could have no rest-- + In him I am well drest. + + Christ is my only head, + My alone only heart and breast, + My only music, striking me even dead, + That to the old man I may rest, + And be in him new drest. + + So, holy in my head, + Perfect and light in my dear breast, + My doctrine turned by Christ, who is not dead, + But lives in me while I do rest-- + Come, people: Aaron's drest. + +Note the flow and the ebb of the lines of each stanza--from six to eight +to ten syllables, and back through eight to six, the number of stanzas +corresponding to the number of lines in each; only the poem itself begins +with the ebb, and ends with a full spring-flow of energy. Note also the +perfect antithesis in their parts between the first and second stanzas, +and how the last line of the poem clenches the whole in revealing its +idea--that for the sake of which it was written. In a word, note the +_unity_. + +Born in 1593, notwithstanding his exquisite art, he could not escape +being influenced by the faulty tendencies of his age, borne in upon his +youth by the example of his mother's friend, Dr. Donne. A man must be a +giant like Shakspere or Milton to cast off his age's faults. Indeed no +man has more of the "quips and cranks and wanton wiles" of the poetic +spirit of his time than George Herbert, but with this difference from the +rest of Dr. Donne's school, that such is the indwelling potency that it +causes even these to shine with a radiance such that we wish them still +to burn and not be consumed. His muse is seldom other than graceful, even +when her motions are grotesque, and he is always a gentleman, which +cannot be said of his master. We could not bear to part with his most +fantastic oddities, they are so interpenetrated with his genius as well +as his art. + +In relation to the use he makes of these faulty forms, and to show that +even herein he has exercised a refraining judgment, though indeed +fancying he has quite discarded in only somewhat reforming it, I +recommend the study of two poems, each of which he calls _Jordan_, though +why I have not yet with certainty discovered. + +It is possible that not many of his readers have observed the following +instances of the freakish in his rhyming art, which however result well. +When I say so, I would not be supposed to approve of the freak, but only +to acknowledge the success of the poet in his immediate intent. They are +related to a certain tendency to mechanical contrivance not seldom +associated with a love of art: it is art operating in the physical +understanding. In the poem called _Home_, every stanza is perfectly +finished till the last: in it, with an access of art or artfulness, he +destroys the rhyme. I shall not quarrel with my reader if he calls it the +latter, and regards it as art run to seed. And yet--and yet--I confess I +have a latent liking for the trick. I shall give one or two stanzas out +of the rather long poem, to lead up to the change in the last. + + Come, Lord; my head doth burn, my heart is sick, + While thou dost ever, ever stay; + Thy long deferrings wound me to the quick; + My spirit gaspeth night and day. + O show thyself to me, + Or take me up to thee. + + Nothing but drought and dearth, but bush and brake, + Which way soe'er I look I see: + Some may dream merrily, but when they wake + They dress themselves and come to thee. + O show thyself to me, + Or take me up to thee. + + Come, dearest Lord, pass not this holy season, + My flesh and bones and joints do pray; + And even my verse, when by the rhyme and reason + The word is _stay_,[100] says ever _come_. + O show thyself to me, + Or take me up to thee. + +Balancing this, my second instance is of the converse. In all the stanzas +but the last, the last line in each hangs unrhymed: in the last the +rhyming is fulfilled. The poem is called _Denial_. I give only a part of +it. + + When my devotions could not pierce + Thy silent ears, + Then was my heart broken as was my verse; + My breast was full of fears + And disorder. + + O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue + To cry to thee, + And then not hear it crying! All day long + My heart was in my knee: + But no hearing! + + Therefore my soul lay out of sight, + Untuned, unstrung; + My feeble spirit, unable to look right, + Like a nipt blossom, hung + Discontented. + + O cheer and tune my heartless breast-- + Defer no time; + That so thy favours granting my request, + They and my mind may chime, + And mend my rhyme. + +It had been hardly worth the space to point out these, were not the +matter itself precious. + +Before making further remark on George Herbert, let me present one of his +poems in which the oddity of the visual fancy is only equalled by the +beauty of the result. + + + THE PULLEY. + + When God at first made man, + Having a glass of blessing standing by, + "Let us," said he, "pour on him all we can: + Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie, + Contract into a span." + + So strength first made a way; + Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honour, pleasure. + When almost all was out, God made a stay, + Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, + _Rest_ in the bottom lay. + + "For if I should," said he, + "Bestow this jewel also on my creature, + He would adore my gifts instead of me, + And rest in nature, not the God of nature: + So both should losers be. + + "Yet let him keep the rest-- + But keep them with repining restlessness: + Let him be rich and weary, that, at least, + If goodness lead him not, yet weariness + May toss him to my breast." + +Is it not the story of the world written with the point of a diamond? + +There can hardly be a doubt that his tendency to unnatural forms was +encouraged by the increase of respect to symbol and ceremony shown at +this period by some of the external powers of the church--Bishop Laud in +particular. Had all, however, who delight in symbols, a power, like +George Herbert's, of setting even within the horn-lanterns of the more +arbitrary of them, such a light of poetry and devotion that their dull +sides vanish in its piercing shine, and we forget the symbol utterly in +the truth which it cannot obscure, then indeed our part would be to take +and be thankful. But there never has been even a living true symbol which +the dulness of those who will see the truth only in the symbol has not +degraded into the very cockatrice-egg of sectarianism. The symbol is by +such always more or less idolized, and the light within more or less +patronized. If the truth, for the sake of which all symbols exist, were +indeed the delight of those who claim it, the sectarianism of the church +would vanish. But men on all sides call that _the truth_ which is but its +form or outward sign--material or verbal, true or arbitrary, it matters +not which--and hence come strifes and divisions. + +Although George Herbert, however, could thus illumine all with his divine +inspiration, we cannot help wondering whether, if he had betaken himself +yet more to vital and less to half artificial symbols, the change would +not have been a breaking of the pitcher and an outshining of the lamp. +For a symbol may remind us of the truth, and at the same time obscure +it--present it, and dull its effect. It is the temple of nature and not +the temple of the church, the things made by the hands of God and not the +things made by the hands of man, that afford the truest symbols of truth. + +I am anxious to be understood. The chief symbol of our faith, _the +Cross_, it may be said, is not one of these natural symbols. I +answer--No; but neither is it an arbitrary symbol. It is not a symbol of +_a truth_ at all, but of _a fact_, of the infinitely grandest fact in the +universe, which is itself the outcome and symbol of the grandest Truth. +_The Cross_ is an historical _sign_, not properly _a symbol_, except +through the facts it reminds us of. On the other hand, _baptism_ and the +_eucharist_ are symbols of the loftiest and profoundest kind, true to +nature and all its meanings, as well as to the facts of which they remind +us. They are in themselves symbols of the truths involved in the facts +they commemorate. + +Of Nature's symbols George Herbert has made large use; but he would have +been yet a greater poet if he had made a larger use of them still. Then +at least we might have got rid of such oddities as the stanzas for steps +up to the church-door, the first at the bottom of the page; of the lines +shaped into ugly altar-form; and of the absurd Easter wings, made of ever +lengthening lines. This would not have been much, I confess, nor the gain +by their loss great; but not to mention the larger supply of images +graceful with the grace of God, who when he had made them said they were +good, it would have led to the further purification of his taste, perhaps +even to the casting out of all that could untimely move our mirth; until +possibly (for illustration), instead of this lovely stanza, he would have +given us even a lovelier: + + Listen, sweet dove, unto my song, + And spread thy golden wings on me; + Hatching my tender heart so long, + Till it get wing, and fly away with thee. + +The stanza is indeed lovely, and true and tender and clever as well; yet +who can help smiling at the notion of the incubation of the heart-egg, +although what the poet means is so good that the smile almost vanishes in +a sigh? + +There is no doubt that the works of man's hands will also afford many +true symbols; but I do think that, in proportion as a man gives himself +to those instead of studying Truth's wardrobe of forms in nature, so will +he decline from the high calling of the poet. George Herbert was too +great to be himself much injured by the narrowness of the field whence he +gathered his symbols; but his song will be the worse for it in the ears +of all but those who, having lost sight of or having never beheld the +oneness of the God whose creation exists in virtue of his redemption, +feel safer in a low-browed crypt than under "the high embowed roof." + +When the desire after system or order degenerates from a need into a +passion, or ruling idea, it closes, as may be seen in many women who are +especial house-keepers, like an unyielding skin over the mind, to the +death of all development from impulse and aspiration. The same thing +holds in the church: anxiety about order and system will kill the life. +This did not go near to being the result with George Herbert: his life +was hid with Christ in God; but the influence of his _profession_, as +distinguished from his work, was hurtful to his calling as a poet. He of +all men would scorn to claim social rank for spiritual service; he of all +men would not commit the blunder of supposing that prayer and praise are +that service of God: they are _prayer_ and _praise_, not _service_; he +knew that God can be served only through loving ministration to his sons +and daughters, all needy of commonest human help: but, as the most devout +of clergymen will be the readiest to confess, there is even a danger to +their souls in the unvarying recurrence of the outward obligations of +their service; and, in like manner, the poet will fare ill if the +conventions from which the holiest system is not free send him soaring +with sealed eyes. George Herbert's were but a little blinded thus; yet +something, we must allow, his poetry was injured by his profession. All +that I say on this point, however, so far from diminishing his praise, +adds thereto, setting forth only that he was such a poet as might have +been greater yet, had the divine gift had free course. But again I rebuke +myself and say, "Thank God for George Herbert." + +To rid our spiritual palates of the clinging flavour of criticism, let me +choose another song from his precious legacy--one less read, I presume, +than many. It shows his tendency to asceticism--the fancy of forsaking +God's world in order to serve him; it has besides many of the faults of +the age, even to that of punning; yet it is a lovely bit of art as well +as a rich embodiment of tenderness. + + + THE THANKSGIVING. + + Oh King of grief! a title strange yet true, + To thee of all kings only due! + Oh King of wounds! how shall I grieve for thee, + Who in all grief preventest me? _goest before me._ + Shall I weep blood? Why, thou hast wept such store, + That all thy body was one gore. + Shall I be scourged, flouted, boxed, sold? + 'Tis but to tell the tale is told. + _My God, my God, why dost thou part from me?_ + Was such a grief as cannot be. + Shall I then sing, skipping thy doleful story, + And side with thy triumphant glory? + Shall thy strokes be my stroking? thorns my flower? + Thy rod, my posy?[101] cross, my bower? + But how then shall I imitate thee, and + Copy thy fair, though bloody hand? + Surely I will revenge me on thy love, + And try who shall victorious prove. + If thou dost give me wealth, I will restore + All back unto thee by the poor. + If thou dost give me honour, men shall see + The honour doth belong to thee. + I will not marry; or if she be mine, + She and her children shall be thine. + My bosom-friend, if he blaspheme thy name, + I will tear thence his love and fame. + One half of me being gone, the rest I give + Unto some chapel--die or live. + As for my Passion[102]--But of that anon, + When with the other I have done. + For thy Predestination, I'll contrive + That, three years hence, if I survive,[103] + I'll build a spital, or mend common ways, + But mend my own without delays. + Then I will use the works of thy creation, + As if I used them but for fashion. + The world and I will quarrel; and the year + Shall not perceive that I am here. + My music shall find thee, and every string + Shall have his attribute to sing, _its._ + That all together may accord in thee, + And prove one God, one harmony. + If thou shall give me wit, it shall appear; + If thou hast given it me, 'tis here. + Nay, I will read thy book,[104] and never move + Till I have found therein thy love-- + Thy art of love, which I'll turn back on thee: + O my dear Saviour, Victory! + Then for my Passion--I will do for that-- + Alas, my God! I know not what. + +With the preceding must be taken the following, which comes immediately +after it. + + + THE REPRISAL. + + I have considered it, and find + There is no dealing with thy mighty Passion; + For though I die for thee, I am behind: + My sins deserve the condemnation. + + O make me innocent, that I + May give a disentangled state and free; + And yet thy wounds still my attempts defy, + For by thy death I die for thee. + + Ah! was it not enough that thou + By thy eternal glory didst outgo me? + Couldst thou not grief's sad conquest me allow, + But in all victories overthrow me? + + Yet by confession will I come + Into the conquest: though I can do nought + Against thee, in thee I will overcome + The man who once against thee fought. + +Even embracing the feet of Jesus, Mary Magdalene or George Herbert must +rise and go forth to do his will. + +It will be observed how much George Herbert goes beyond all that have +preceded him, in the expression of feeling as it flows from individual +conditions, in the analysis of his own moods, in the logic of worship, if +I may say so. His utterance is not merely of personal love and grief, but +of the peculiar love and grief in the heart of George Herbert. There may +be disease in such a mind; but, if there be, it is a disease that will +burn itself out. Such disease is, for men constituted like him, the only +path to health. By health I mean that simple regard to the truth, to the +will of God, which will turn away a man's eyes from his own conditions, +and leave God free to work his perfection in him--free, that is, of the +interference of the man's self-consciousness and anxiety. To this +perfection St. Paul had come when he no longer cried out against the body +of his death, no more judged his own self, but left all to the Father, +caring only to do his will. It was enough to him then that God should +judge him, for his will is the one good thing securing all good things. +Amongst the keener delights of the life which is at the door, I look for +the face of George Herbert, with whom to talk humbly would be in bliss a +higher bliss. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +JOHN MILTON. + + +John Milton, born in 1608, was twenty-four years of age when George +Herbert died. Hardly might two good men present a greater contrast than +these. In power and size, Milton greatly excels. If George Herbert's +utterance is like the sword-play of one skilful with the rapier, that of +Milton is like the sword-play of an old knight, flashing his huge but +keen-cutting blade in lightnings about his head. Compared with Herbert, +Milton was a man in health. He never _shows_, at least, any diseased +regard of himself. His eye is fixed on the truth, and he knows of no +ill-faring. While a man looks thitherward, all the movements of his +spirit reveal themselves only in peace. + +Everything conspired, or, should I not rather say? everything was freely +given, to make Milton a great poet. Leaving the original seed of melody, +the primordial song in the soul which all his life was an effort to +utter, let us regard for a moment the circumstances that favoured its +development. + +[Illustration: + + His volant touch + Fied and pursued transverse the resonant fugue.] + +From childhood he had listened to the sounds of the organ; doubtless +himself often gave breath to the soundboard with his hands on the lever +of the bellows, while his father's + + volant touch, + Instinct through all proportions low and high, + Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue; + +and the father's organ-harmony we yet hear in the son's verse as in none +but his. Those organ-sounds he has taken for the very breath of his +speech, and articulated them. He had education and leisure, freedom to +think, to travel, to observe: he was more than thirty before he had to +earn a mouthful of bread by his own labour. Rushing at length into +freedom's battle, he stood in its storm with his hand on the wheel of the +nation's rudder, shouting many a bold word for God and the Truth, until, +fulfilled of experience as of knowledge, God set up before him a canvas +of utter darkness: he had to fill it with creatures of radiance. God +blinded him with his hand, that, like the nightingale, he might "sing +darkling." Beyond all, his life was pure from his childhood, without +which such poetry as his could never have come to the birth. It is the +pure in heart who shall see God at length; the pure in heart who now hear +his harmonies. More than all yet, he devoted himself from the first to +the will of God, and his prayer that he might write a great poem was +heard. + +The unity of his being is the strength of Milton. He is harmony, sweet +and bold, throughout. Not Philip Sidney, not George Herbert loved words +and their melodies more than he; while in their use he is more serious +than either, and harder to please, uttering a music they have rarely +approached. Yet even when speaking with "most miraculous organ," with a +grandeur never heard till then, he overflows in speech more like that of +other men than theirs--he utters himself more simply, straightforwardly, +dignifiedly, than they. His modes are larger and more human, more near to +the forms of primary thought. Faithful and obedient to his art, he spends +his power in no diversions. Like Shakspere, he can be silent, never +hesitating to sweep away the finest lines should they mar the intent, +progress, and flow of his poem. Even while he sings most abandonedly, it +is ever with a care of his speech, it is ever with ordered words: not one +shall dull the clarity of his verse by unlicensed, that is, needless +presence. But let not my reader fancy that this implies laborious +utterance and strained endeavour. It is weakness only which by the agony +of visible effort enhances the magnitude of victory. The trained athlete +will move with the grace of a child, for he has not to seek how to effect +that which he means to perform. Milton has only to take good heed, and +with no greater effort than it costs the ordinary man to avoid talking +like a fool, he sings like an archangel. + +But I must not enlarge my remarks, for of his verse even I can find room +for only a few lyrics. In them, however, we shall still find the simplest +truth, the absolute of life, the poet's aim. He is ever soaring towards +the region beyond perturbation, the true condition of soul; that is, +wherein a man shall see things even as God would have him see them. He +has no time to droop his pinions, and sit moody even on the highest pine: +the sun is above him; he must fly upwards. + +The youth who at three-and-twenty could write the following sonnet, might +well at five-and-forty be capable of writing the one that follows: + + How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, + Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! + My hasting days fly on with full career, + But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. + Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth + That I to manhood am arrived so near; + And inward ripeness doth much less appear, + That some more timely happy spirits endu'th. + Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, + It shall be still in strictest measure even + To that same lot, however mean or high, + Toward which time leads me and the will of heaven: + All is--if I have grace to use it so + As ever in my great Task-master's eye. + +The _It_ which is the subject of the last six lines is his _Ripeness_: it +will keep pace with his approaching lot; when it arrives he will be ready +for it, whatever it may be. The will of heaven is his happy fate. Even at +three-and-twenty, "he that believeth shall not make haste." Calm and +open-eyed, he works to be ripe, and waits for the work that shall follow. + +At forty-five, then, he writes thus concerning his blindness: + + When I consider how my life is spent + Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, + And that one talent, which is death to hide, + Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent + To serve therewith my Maker, and present + My true account, lest he, returning, chide-- + "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" + I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent _foolishly._ + That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need + Either man's work or his own gifts: who best + Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state + Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed, + And post o'er land and ocean without rest: + They also serve who only stand and wait." + +That is, "stand and wait, ready to go when they are called." Everybody +knows the sonnet, but how could I omit it? Both sonnets will grow more +and more luminous as they are regarded. + +The following I incline to think the finest of his short poems, certainly +the grandest of them. It is a little ode, written _to be set on a +clock-case_. + + + ON TIME. + + Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race. + Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, + Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace, + And glut thyself with what thy womb devours-- + Which is no more than what is false and vain, + And merely mortal dross: + So little is our loss! + So little is thy gain! + For whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed, + And last of all thy greedy self consumed, + Then long eternity shall greet our bliss + With an individual kiss; _that cannot be divided-- + And joy shall overtake us as a flood; [eternal._ + When everything that is sincerely good, + And perfectly divine + With truth and peace and love, shall ever shine + About the supreme throne + Of him to whose happy-making sight alone + When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb, + Then, all this earthy grossness quit, + Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit + Triumphing over Death and Chance and thee, O Time. + +The next I give is likewise an ode--a more _beautiful_ one. Observe in +both the fine effect of the short lines, essential to the nature of the +ode, being that which gives its solemnity the character yet of a song, or +rather, perhaps, of a chant. + +In this he calls upon Voice and Verse to rouse and raise our imagination +until we hear the choral song of heaven, and hearing become able to sing +in tuneful response. + + + AT A SOLEMN MUSIC. + + Blest pair of sirens, pledges of heaven's joy + Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse, + Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ-- + Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce-- + And to our high-raised phantasy present + That undisturbed song of pure concent[105] + Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne + To him that sits thereon, + With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee; + Where the bright seraphim, in burning row, + Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow; + And the cherubic host in thousand choirs, + Touch their immortal harps of golden wires, + With those just spirits that wear victorious palms, + Hymns devout and holy psalms + Singing everlastingly; + That we on earth, with undiscording voice, + May rightly answer that melodious noise-- + As once we did, till disproportioned[106] Sin + Jarred against Nature's chime, and with harsh din + Broke the fair music that all creatures made + To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed + In perfect diapason,[107] whilst they stood + In first obedience and their state of good. + O may we soon again renew that song, + And keep in tune with heaven, till God ere long + To his celestial consort[108] us unite, + To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light! + +Music was the symbol of all Truth to Milton. He would count it falsehood +to write an unmusical verse. I allow that some of his blank lines may +appear unrhythmical; but Experience, especially if she bring with her a +knowledge of Dante, will elucidate all their movements. I exhort my +younger friends to read Milton aloud when they are alone, and thus learn +the worth of word-sounds. They will find him even in this an educating +force. The last ode ought to be thus read for the magnificent dance-march +of its motion, as well as for its melody. + +Show me one who delights in the _Hymn on the Nativity_, and I will show +you one who may never indeed be a singer in this world, but who is +already a listener to the best. But how different it is from anything of +George Herbert's! It sets forth no feeling peculiar to Milton; it is an +outburst of the gladness of the company of believers. Every one has at +least read the glorious poem; but were I to leave it out I should have +lost, not the sapphire of aspiration, not the topaz of praise, not the +emerald of holiness, but the carbuncle of delight from the high priest's +breast-plate. And I must give the introduction too: it is the cloudy +grove of an overture, whence rushes the torrent of song. + + + ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY. + + This is the month, and this the happy morn, + Wherein the son of heaven's eternal king, + Of wedded maid and virgin mother born, + Our great redemption from above did bring; + For so the holy sages once did sing, + That he our deadly forfeit should release, + And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. + + That glorious form, that light insufferable, + And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, + Wherewith he wont[109] at heaven's high council-table + To sit the midst of trinal unity, + He laid aside, and here with us to be, + Forsook the courts of everlasting day, + And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. + + Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein + Afford a present to the infant God? + Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain + To welcome him to this his new abode, + Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod, + Hath took no print of the approaching light, + And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright? + + See how, from far upon the eastern road, + The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet! + O run, prevent them with thy humble ode, + And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; + Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet; + And join thy voice unto the angel choir, + From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire. + + + THE HYMN. + + It was the winter wild + While the heaven-born child + All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; + Nature, in awe to him, + Had doffed her gaudy trim, + With her great master so to sympathize: + It was no season then for her + To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour. + + Only with speeches fair + She woos the gentle air + To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; + And on her naked shame, + Pollute with sinful blame, + The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; + Confounded that her maker's eyes + Should look so near upon her foul deformities. + + But he, her fears to cease, + Sent down the meek-eyed Peace. + She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding + Down through the turning sphere, + His ready harbinger, + With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; + And waving wide her myrtle wand, + She strikes a universal peace through sea and land. + + No war, or battle's sound, + Was heard the world around; + The idle spear and shield were high uphung; + The hooked chariot stood + Unstained with hostile blood; + The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; + And kings sat still with awful eye, _awe-filled._ + As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by. + + But peaceful was the night + Wherein the Prince of Light + His reign of peace upon the earth began; + The winds, with wonder whist, _silent._ + Smoothly the water kissed, + Whispering new joys to the mild Oceaen, + Who now hath quite forgot to rave, + While birds of calm[110] sit brooding on the charmed wave. + + The stars with deep amaze + Stand fixed in stedfast gaze, + Bending one way their precious influence; + And will not take their flight + For all the morning light, + Or Lucifer,[111] that often warned them thence; + But in their glimmering orbs did glow + Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. + + And though the shady gloom + Had given day her room, + The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, + And hid his head for shame, + As his inferior flame + The new enlightened world no more should need: + He saw a greater sun appear + Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree could bear. + + The shepherds on the lawn, + Or e'er the point of dawn, _ere ever._ + Sat simply chatting in a rustic row: + Full little thought they than _then._ + That the mighty Pan[112] + Was kindly come to live with them below; + Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, + Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. + + When such music sweet + Their hearts and ears did greet + As never was by mortal finger strook-- + Divinely warbled voice + Answering the stringed noise, + As all their souls in blissful rapture took: + The air, such pleasure loath to lose, + With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. + + Nature, that heard such sound, + Beneath the hollow round + Of Cynthia's seat[113] the airy region thrilling, + Now was almost won + To think her part was done, + And that her reign had here its last fulfilling: + She knew such harmony alone + Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union. + + At last surrounds their sight + A globe of circular light, + That with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed; + The helmed cherubim + And sworded seraphim + Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, + Harping in loud and solemn choir, + With unexpressive[114] notes to heaven's new-born heir. + + Such music, as 'tis said, + Before was never made, + But when of old the sons of morning sung, + While the Creator great + His constellations set, + And the well-balanced world on hinges hung,[115] + And cast the dark foundations deep, + And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. + + Ring out, ye crystal spheres; + Once bless our human ears-- + If ye have power to touch our senses so;[116] + And let your silver chime + Move in melodious time; + And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow; + And, with your ninefold harmony, + Make up full consort[117] to the angelic symphony.[118] + + For if such holy song + Enwrap our fancy long, + Time will run back and fetch the age of gold; + And speckled vanity + Will sicken soon and die;[119] + And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould; + And hell itself will pass away, + And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. + + Yea, truth and justice then + Will down return to men, + Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, + Mercy will sit between, + Throned in celestial sheen, + With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; + And heaven, as at some festival, + Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall. + + But wisest Fate says "No; + This must not yet be so." + The babe lies yet in smiling infancy, + That on the bitter cross + Must redeem our loss, + So both himself and us to glorify. + Yet first, to those y-chained in sleep, + The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, + + With such a horrid clang + As on Mount Sinai rang, + While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake: + The aged earth, aghast + With terror of that blast, + Shall from the surface to the centre shake, + When, at the world's last sessioen, + The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne. + + And then at last our bliss + Full and perfect is: + But now begins; for from this happy day, + The old dragon, under ground + In straiter limits bound, + Not half so far casts his usurped sway; + And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, + Swinges[120] the scaly horror of his folded tail.[121] + + The oracles are dumb:[122] + No voice or hideous hum + Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving; + Apollo from his shrine + Can no more divine, + With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving; + No nightly trance, or breathed spell, + Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. + + The lonely mountains o'er, + And the resounding shore, + A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; + From haunted spring and dale, + Edged with poplar pale, + The parting genius[123] is with sighing sent; + With flower-inwoven tresses torn, + The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. + + In consecrated earth, + And on the holy hearth, + The Lars and Lemures[124] moan with midnight plaint; + In urns and altars round, + A drear and dying sound + Affrights the flamens[125] at their service quaint; + And the chill marble seems to sweat, + While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat. + + Peor and Baaelim + Forsake their temples dim, + With that twice-battered god of Palestine; + And mooned Ashtaroth, _the Assyrian Venus_. + Heaven's queen and mother both, + Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; + The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn;[126] + In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz[127] mourn. + + And sullen Moloch, fled, + Hath left in shadows dread + His burning idol, all of blackest hue: + In vain with cymbals' ring + They call the grisly[128] king, + In dismal dance about the furnace blue. + The brutish gods of Nile as fast-- + Isis and Orus and the dog Anubis--haste. + + Nor is Osiris[129] seen + In Memphian grove or green, + Trampling the unshowered[130] grass with lowings loud; + Nor can he be at rest + Within his sacred chest; + Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; + In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark, + The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark: + + He feels, from Judah's land, + The dreaded infant's hand; + The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn. + Nor all the gods beside + Longer dare abide-- + Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine: + Our babe, to show his Godhead true, + Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew. + + So, when the sun in bed, + Curtained with cloudy red, + Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, + The flocking shadows pale + Troop to the infernal jail-- + Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; + And the yellow-skirted fays + Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. + + But see, the Virgin blest + Hath laid her babe to rest: + Time is our tedious song should here have ending; + Heaven's youngest-teemed star[131] + Hath fixed her polished car, + Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; + And all about the courtly stable + Bright-harnessed[132] angels sit, in order serviceable.[133] + +If my reader should think some of the rhymes bad, and some of the words +oddly used, I would remind him that both pronunciations and meanings have +altered since: the probability is, that the older forms in both are the +better. Milton will not use a wrong word or a bad rhyme. With regard to +the form of the poem, let him observe the variety of length of line in +the stanza, and how skilfully the varied lines are associated--two of six +syllables and one of ten; then the same repeated; then one of eight and +one of twelve--no two, except of the shortest, coming together of the +same length. Its stanza is its own: I do not know another poem written in +the same; and its music is exquisite. The probability is that, if the +reader note any fact in the poem, however trifling it might seem to the +careless eye, it will repay him by unfolding both individual and related +beauty. Then let him ponder the pictures given: the sudden arraying of +the shame-faced night in long beams; the amazed kings silent on their +thrones; the birds brooding on the sea: he will find many such. Let him +consider the clear-cut epithets, so full of meaning. A true poet may be +at once known by the justice and force of the adjectives he uses, +especially when he compounds them,--that is, makes one out of two. Here +are some examples: _meek-eyed Peace; pale-eyed priest; speckled vanity; +smouldering clouds; hideous hum; dismal dance; dusky eyne:_ there are +many such, each almost a poem in itself. The whole is a succession of +pictures set in the loveliest music for the utterance of grandest +thoughts. + +No doubt there are in the poem instances of such faults in style as were +common in the age in which his verse was rooted: for my own part, I never +liked the first two stanzas of the hymn. But such instances are few; +while for a right feeling of the marvel of this poem and of the two +preceding it, we must remember that Milton was only twenty-one when he +wrote them. + +Apparently to make one of a set with the _Nativity_, he began to write an +ode on the _Passion_, but, finding the subject "above the years he had +when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it +unfinished." The fragment is full of unworthy, though skilful, and, for +such, powerful conceits, but is especially interesting as showing how +even Milton, trying to write about what he felt, but without yet having +generated thoughts enow concerning the subject itself, could only fall +back on conventionalities. Happy the young poet the wisdom of whose +earliest years was such that he recognized his mistake almost at the +outset, and dropped the attempt! Amongst the stanzas there is, however, +one of exceeding loveliness: + + He, sovereign priest, stooping his regal head, + That dropped with odorous oil down his fair eyes, + Poor fleshly tabernacle entered, + His starry front low-roofed beneath the skies. + Oh what a masque was there! what a disguise! + Yet more! the stroke of death he must abide; + Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethren's side. + +In this it will be seen that he has left the jubilant measure of the +_Hymn_, and returned to the more stately and solemn rhyme-royal of its +overture, as more suited to his subject. Milton could not be wrong in his +music, even when he found the quarry of his thought too hard to work. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +EDMUND WALLER, THOMAS BROWN, AND JEREMY TAYLOR. + + +Edmund Waller, born in 1605, was three years older than Milton; but I had +a fancy for not dividing Herbert and Milton. As a poet he had a high +reputation for many years, gained chiefly, I think, by a regard to +literary proprieties, combined with wit. He is graceful sometimes; but +what in his writings would with many pass for grace, is only smoothness +and the absence of faults. His horses were not difficult to drive. He +dares little and succeeds in proportion--occasionally, however, flashing +out into true song. In politics he had no character--let us hope from +weakness rather than from selfishness; yet, towards the close of his +life, he wrote some poems which reveal a man not unaccustomed to ponder +sacred things, and able to express his thoughts concerning them with +force and justice. From a poem called _Of Divine Love_, I gather the +following very remarkable passages: I wish they had been enforced by +greater nobility of character. Still they are in themselves true. Even +where we have no proof of repentance, we may see plentiful signs of a +growth towards it. We cannot tell how long the truth may of necessity +require to interpenetrate the ramifications of a man's nature. By slow +degrees he discovers that here it is not, and there it is not. Again and +again, and yet again, a man finds that he must be born with a new birth. + + The fear of hell, or aiming to be blest, + Savours too much of private interest: + This moved not Moses, nor the zealous Paul, + Who for their friends abandoned soul and all; + A greater yet from heaven to hell descends, + To save and make his enemies his friends. + + * * * * * + + That early love of creatures yet unmade, + To frame the world the Almighty did persuade. + For love it was that first created light, + Moved on the waters, chased away the night + From the rude chaos; and bestowed new grace + On things disposed of to their proper place-- + Some to rest here, and some to shine above: + Earth, sea, and heaven, were all the effects of love. + + * * * * * + + Not willing terror should his image move, + He gives a pattern of eternal love: + His son descends, to treat a peace with those + Which were, and must have ever been, his foes. + Poor he became, and left his glorious seat, + To make us humble, and to make us great; + His business here was happiness to give + To those whose malice could not let him live. + + * * * * * + + He to proud potentates would not be known: + Of those that loved him, he was hid from none. + Till love appear, we live in anxious doubt; + But smoke will vanish when that flame breaks out: + This is the fire that would consume our dross, + Refine, and make us richer by the loss. + + * * * * * + + Who for himself no miracle would make, + Dispensed with[134] several for the people's sake. + He that, long-fasting, would no wonder show, + Made loaves and fishes, as they eat them, grow. + Of all his power, which boundless was above, + Here he used none but to express his love; + And such a love would make our joy exceed, + Not when our own, but others' mouths we feed. + + * * * * * + + Love as he loved! A love so unconfined + With arms extended would embrace mankind. + Self-love would cease, or be dilated, when + We should behold as many selfs as men; + All of one family, in blood allied, + His precious blood that for our ransom died. + + * * * * * + + Amazed at once and comforted, to find + A boundless power so infinitely kind, + The soul contending to that light to fly + From her dark cell, we practise how to die, + Employing thus the poet's winged art + To reach this love, and grave it in our heart. + Joy so complete, so solid, and severe, + Would leave no place for meaner pleasures there: + Pale they would look, as stars that must be gone + When from the east the rising sun comes on. + + * * * * * + +To that and some other poems he adds the following--a kind of epilogue. + + + ON THE FOREGOING DIVINE POEMS. + + When we for age could neither read nor write, + The subject made us able to indite: + The soul with nobler resolutions decked, + The body stooping, does herself erect: + No mortal parts are requisite to raise + Her that unbodied can her Maker praise. + The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er: + So calm are we when passions are no more; + For then we know how vain it was to boast + Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost. + Clouds of affection from our younger eyes _passion._ + Conceal that emptiness which age descries. + + The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, + Lets in new light, through chinks that time has made: + Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, + As they draw near to their eternal home. + Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view + That stand upon the threshold of the new. + +It would be a poor victory where age was the sole conqueror. But I doubt +if age ever gains the victory alone. Let Waller, however, have this +praise: his song soars with his subject. It is a true praise. There are +men who write well until they try the noble, and then they fare like the +falling star, which, when sought where it fell, is, according to an old +fancy, discovered a poor jelly. + +Sir Thomas Brown, a physician, whose prose writings are as peculiar as +they are valuable, was of the same age as Waller. He partakes to a +considerable degree of the mysticism which was so much followed in his +day, only in his case it influences his literature most--his mode of +utterance more than his mode of thought. His _True Christian Morals_ is a +very valuable book, notwithstanding the obscurity that sometimes arises +in that, as in all his writings, from his fondness for Latin words. The +following fine hymn occurs in his _Religio Medici_, in which he gives an +account of his opinions. I am not aware of anything else that he has +published in verse, though he must probably have written more to be able +to write this so well. It occurs in the midst of prose, as the prayer he +says every night before he yields to the death of sleep. I follow it with +the succeeding sentence of the prose. + + The night is come. Like to the day, + Depart not thou, great God, away. + Let not my sins, black as the night, + Eclipse the lustre of thy light. + Keep still in my horizon, for to me + The sun makes not the day but thee. + Thou whose nature cannot sleep, + On my temples sentry keep; + Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes + Whose eyes are open while mine close. + Let no dreams my head infest + But such as Jacob's temples blest. + While I do rest, my soul advance; + Make my sleep a holy trance, + That I may, my rest being wroughtt + Awake into some holy thought, + And with as active vigour run + My course as doth the nimble sun. + Sleep is a death: O make me try + By sleeping what it is to die, + And as gently lay my head + On my grave, as now my bed. + Howe'er I rest, great God, let me + Awake again at least with thee. + And thus assured, behold I lie + Securely, or to wake or die. + These are my drowsy days: in vain + I do now wake to sleep again: + O come that hour when I shall never + Sleep again, but wake for ever. + +"This is the dormitive I take to bedward. I need no other laudanum than +this to make me sleep; after which I close mine eyes in security, content +to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection." + +Jeremy Taylor, born in 1613, was the most poetic of English +prose-writers: if he had written verse equal to his prose, he would have +had a lofty place amongst poets as well as amongst preachers. Taking the +opposite side from Milton, than whom he was five years younger, he was, +like him, conscientious and consistent, suffering while Milton's cause +prospered, and advanced to one of the bishoprics hated of Milton's soul +when the scales of England's politics turned in the other direction. Such +men, however, are divided only by their intellects. When men say, "I must +or I must not, for it is right or it is not right," then are they in +reality so bound together, even should they not acknowledge it +themselves, that no opposing opinions, no conflicting theories concerning +what is or is not right, can really part them. It was not wonderful that +a mind like that of Jeremy Taylor, best fitted for worshipping the beauty +of holiness, should mourn over the disrupted order of his church, or that +a mind like Milton's, best fitted for the law of life, should demand that +every part of that order which had ceased to vibrate responsive to every +throb of the eternal heart of truth, should fall into the ruin which its +death had preceded. The church was hardly dealt with, but the rulers of +the church have to bear the blame. + +Here are those I judge the best of the bishop's _Festival Hymns_, printed +as part of his _Golden Grove_, or _Gide to Devotion_. In the first there +is a little confusion of imagery; and in others of them will be found a +little obscurity. They bear marks of the careless impatience of rhythm +and rhyme of one who though ever bursting into a natural trill of song, +sometimes with more rhymes apparently than he intended, would yet rather +let his thoughts pour themselves out in that unmeasured chant, that +"poetry in solution," which is the natural speech of the prophet-orator. +He is like a full river that must flow, which rejoices in a flood, and +rebels against the constraint of mole or conduit. He exults in utterance +itself, caring little for the mode, which, however, the law of his +indwelling melody guides though never compels. Charmingly diffuse in his +prose, his verse ever sounds as if it would overflow the banks of its +self-imposed restraints. + + + THE SECOND HYMN FOR ADVENT; OR, + CHRIST'S COMING TO JERUSALEM IN TRIUMPH. + + Lord, come away; + Why dost thou stay? + Thy road is ready; and thy paths made straight + With longing expectation wait + The consecration of thy beauteous feet. + Ride on triumphantly: behold we lay + Our lusts and proud wills in thy way. + Hosanna! welcome to our hearts! Lord, here + Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear + As that of Sion, and as full of sin: + Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein. + Enter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor; + Crucify them, that they may never more + Profane that holy place + Where thou hast chose to set thy face. + And then if our stiff tongues shall be + Mute in the praises of thy deity, + The stones out of the temple-wall + Shall cry aloud and call + Hosanna! and thy glorious footsteps greet. + + + HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY; BEING A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THREE SHEPHERDS. + + 1. Where is this blessed babe + That hath made + All the world so full of joy + And expectation; + That glorious boy + That crowns each nation + With a triumphant wreath of blessedness? + + 2. Where should he be but in the throng, + And among + His angel ministers that sing + And take wing + Just as may echo to his voice, + And rejoice, + When wing and tongue and all + May so procure their happiness? + + 3. But he hath other waiters now: + A poor cow + An ox and mule stand and behold, + And wonder + That a stable should enfold + Him that can thunder. + + _Chorus_. O what a gracious God have we! + How good? How great? Even as our misery. + + + A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY. + + Awake, my soul, and come away; + Put on thy best array, + Lest if thou longer stay, + Thou lose some minutes of so blest a day. + + Go run, And bid good-morrow to the sun; + Welcome his safe return To Capricorn, And that great morn Wherein + a God was born, Whose story none can tell But he whose every + word's a miracle. + + To-day Almightiness grew weak; + The Word itself was mute, and could not speak. + + That Jacob's star which made the sun + To dazzle if he durst look on, + Now mantled o'er in Bethlehem's night, + Borrowed a star to show him light. + + He that begirt each zone, + To whom both poles are one, + Who grasped the zodiac in his hand, + And made it move or stand, + Is now by nature man, + By stature but a span; + Eternity is now grown short; + A king is born without a court; + The water thirsts; the fountain's dry; + And life, being born, made apt to die. + + _Chorus._ Then let our praises emulate and vie + With his humility! + Since he's exiled from skies + That we might rise,-- + From low estate of men + Let's sing him up again! + Each man wind up his heart + To bear a part + In that angelic choir, and show + His glory high, as he was low. + Let's sing towards men goodwill and charity, + Peace upon earth, glory to God on high! + Hallelujah! Hallelujah! + + + THE PRAYER. + + My soul doth pant towards thee, + My God, source of eternal life. + Flesh fights with me: + Oh end the strife, + And part us, that in peace I may + Unclay + My wearied spirit, and take + My flight to thy eternal spring, + Where, for his sake + Who is my king, + I may wash all my tears away, + That day. + + Thou conqueror of death, + Glorious triumpher o'er the grave, + Whose holy breath + Was spent to save + Lost mankind, make me to be styled + Thy child, + And take me when I die + And go unto my dust; my soul + Above the sky + With saints enrol, + That in thy arms, for ever, I + May lie. + + +This last is quite regular, that is, the second stanza is arranged +precisely as the first, though such will not appear to be the case +without examination: the disposition of the lines, so various in length, +is confusing though not confused. + +In these poems will be found that love of homeliness which is +characteristic of all true poets--and orators too, in as far as they are +poets. The meeting of the homely and the grand is heaven. One more. + + + A PRAYER FOR CHARITY. + + Full of mercy, full of love, + Look upon us from above; + Thou who taught'st the blind man's night + To entertain a double light, + Thine and the day's--and that thine too: + The lame away his crutches threw; + The parched crust of leprosy + Returned unto its infancy; + The dumb amazed was to hear + His own unchain'd tongue strike his ear; + Thy powerful mercy did even chase + The devil from his usurped place, + Where thou thyself shouldst dwell, not he: + Oh let thy love our pattern be; + Let thy mercy teach one brother + To forgive and love another; + That copying thy mercy here, + Thy goodness may hereafter rear + Our souls unto thy glory, when + Our dust shall cease to be with men. _Amen._ + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +HENRY MORE AND RICHARD BAXTER. + + +Dr. Henry More was born in the year 1614. Chiefly known for his mystical +philosophy, which he cultivated in retirement at Cambridge, and taught +not only in prose, but in an elaborate, occasionally poetic poem, of +somewhere about a thousand Spenserian stanzas, called _A Platonic Song of +the Soul_, he has left some smaller poems, from which I shall gather good +store for my readers. Whatever may be thought of his theories, they +belong at least to the highest order of philosophy; and it will be seen +from the poems I give that they must have borne their part in lifting the +soul of the man towards a lofty spiritual condition of faith and +fearlessness. The mystical philosophy seems to me safe enough in the +hands of a poet: with others it may degenerate into dank and dusty +materialism. + + + RESOLUTION. + + Where's now the objects of thy fears, + Needless sighs, and fruitless tears? + They be all gone like idle dream + Suggested from the body's steam. + + * * * * * + + What's plague and prison? Loss of friends? + War, dearth, and death that all things ends? + Mere bugbears for the childish mind; + Pure panic terrors of the blind. + + Collect thy soul unto one sphere + Of light, and 'bove the earth it rear; + Those wild scattered thoughts that erst + Lay loosely in the world dispersed, + Call in:--thy spirit thus knit in one + Fair lucid orb, those fears be gone + Like vain impostures of the night, + That fly before the morning bright. + Then with pure eyes thou shalt behold + How the first goodness doth infold + All things in loving tender arms; + That deemed mischiefs are no harms, + But sovereign salves and skilful cures + Of greater woes the world endures; + That man's stout soul may win a state + Far raised above the reach of fate. + + Then wilt thou say, _God rules the world_, + Though mountain over mountain hurled + Be pitched amid the foaming main + Which busy winds to wrath constrain; + + * * * * * + + Though pitchy blasts from hell up-born + Stop the outgoings of the morn, + And Nature play her fiery games + In this forced night, with fulgurant flames: + + * * * * * + + All this confusion cannot move + The purged mind, freed from the love + Of commerce with her body dear, + Cell of sad thoughts, sole spring of fear. + + Whate'er I feel or hear or see + Threats but these parts that mortal be. + Nought can the honest heart dismay + Unless the love of living clay, + + And long acquaintance with the light + Of this outworld, and what to sight + Those two officious beams[135] discover + Of forms that round about us hover. + + Power, wisdom, goodness, sure did frame + This universe, and still guide the same. + But thoughts from passions sprung, deceive + Vain mortals. No man can contrive + A better course than what's been run + Since the first circuit of the sun. + + He that beholds all from on high + Knows better what to do than I. + I'm not mine own: should I repine + If he dispose of what's not mine? + Purge but thy soul of blind self-will, + Thou straight shall see God doth no ill. + The world he fills with the bright rays + Of his free goodness. He displays + Himself throughout. Like common air + That spirit of life through all doth fare, + Sucked in by them as vital breath + That willingly embrace not death. + But those that with that living law + Be unacquainted, cares do gnaw; + Mistrust of God's good providence + Doth daily vex their wearied sense. + + Now place me on the Libyan soil, + With scorching sun and sands to toil, + Far from the view of spring or tree, + Where neither man nor house I see; + + * * * * * + + Commit me at my next remove + To icy Hyperborean ove; + Confine me to the arctic pole, + Where the numb'd heavens do slowly roll; + To lands where cold raw heavy mist + Sol's kindly warmth and light resists; + Where lowering clouds full fraught with snow + Do sternly scowl; where winds do blow + With bitter blasts, and pierce the skin, + Forcing the vital spirits in, + Which leave the body thus ill bested, + In this chill plight at least half-dead; + Yet by an antiperistasis[136] + My inward heat more kindled is; + And while this flesh her breath expires, + My spirit shall suck celestial fires + By deep-fetched sighs and pure devotion. + Thus waxen hot with holy motion, + At once I'll break forth in a flame; + Above this world and worthless fame + I'll take my flight, careless that men + Know not how, where I die, or when. + + Yea, though the soul should mortal prove, + So be God's life but in me move + To my last breath--I'm satisfied + A lonesome mortal God to have died. + +This last paragraph is magnificent as any single passage I know in +literature. + +Is it lawful, after reading this, to wonder whether Henry More, the +retired, and so far untried, student of Cambridge, would have been able +thus to meet the alternations of suffering which he imagines? It is one +thing to see reasonableness, another to be reasonable when objects have +become circumstances. Would he, then, by spiritual might, have risen +indeed above bodily torture? It is _possible_ for a man to arrive at this +perfection; it is absolutely _necessary_ that a man should some day or +other reach it; and I think the wise doctor would have proved the truth +of his principles. But there are many who would gladly part with their +whole bodies rather than offend, and could not yet so rise above the +invasions of the senses. Here, as in less important things, our business +is not to speculate what we would do in other circumstances, but to +perform the duty of the moment, the one true preparation for the duty to +come. Possibly, however, the right development of our human relations in +the world may be a more difficult and more important task still than this +condition of divine alienation. To find God in others is better than to +grow _solely_ in the discovery of him in ourselves, if indeed the latter +were possible. + + + DEVOTION. + + Good God, when them thy inward grace dost shower + Into my breast, + How full of light and lively power + Is then my soul! + How am I blest! + How can I then all difficulties devour! + Thy might, + Thy spright, + With ease my cumbrous enemy control. + + If thou once turn away thy face and hide + Thy cheerful look, + My feeble flesh may not abide + That dreadful stound; _hour._ + I cannot brook + Thy absence. My heart, with care and grief then gride, + Doth fail, + Doth quail; + My life steals from me at that hidden wound. + + My fancy's then a burden to my mind; + Mine anxious thought + Betrays my reason, makes me blind; + Near dangers drad _dreaded._ + Make me distraught; + Surprised with fear my senses all I find: + In hell + I dwell, + Oppressed with horror, pain, and sorrow sad. + + My former resolutions all are fled-- + Slipped over my tongue; + My faith, my hope, and joy are dead. + Assist my heart, + Rather than my song, + My God, my Saviour! When I'm ill-bested. + Stand by, + And I + Shall bear with courage undeserved smart. + + + THE PHILOSOPHER'S DEVOTION. + + Sing aloud!--His praise rehearse + Who hath made the universe. + He the boundless heavens has spread, + All the vital orbs has kned, _kneaded._ + He that on Olympus high + Tends his flocks with watchful eye, + And this eye has multiplied _suns, as centres of systems._ + Midst each flock for to reside. + Thus, as round about they stray, + Toucheth[137] each with outstretched ray; + Nimble they hold on their way, + Shaping out their night and day. + Summer, winter, autumn, spring, + Their inclined axes bring. + Never slack they; none respires, + Dancing round their central fires. + + In due order as they move, + Echoes sweet be gently drove + Thorough heaven's vast hollowness, + Which unto all corners press: + Music that the heart of Jove + Moves to joy and sportful love; + Fills the listening sailers' ears + Riding on the wandering spheres: + Neither speech nor language is + Where their voice is not transmiss. + + God is good, is wise, is strong, + Witness all the creature throng, + Is confessed by every tongue; + All things back from whence they sprung, _go back_--a verb. + As the thankful rivers pay + What they borrowed of the sea. + + Now myself I do resign: + Take me whole: I all am thine. + Save me, God, from self-desire-- + Death's pit, dark hell's raging fire--[138] + Envy, hatred, vengeance, ire; + Let not lust my soul bemire. + + Quit from these, thy praise I'll sing, + Loudly sweep the trembling string. + Bear a part, O Wisdom's sons, + Freed from vain religions! + Lo! from far I you salute, + Sweetly warbling on my lute-- + India, Egypt, Araby, + Asia, Greece, and Tartary, + Carmel-tracts, and Lebanon, + With the Mountains of the Moon, + From whence muddy Nile doth run, + Or wherever else you won: _dwell._ + Breathing in one vital air, + One we are though distant far. + + Rise at once;--let's sacrifice: + Odours sweet perfume the skies; + See how heavenly lightning fires + Hearts inflamed with high aspires! + All the substance of our souls + Up in clouds of incense rolls. + Leave we nothing to ourselves + Save a voice--what need we else! + Or an hand to wear and tire + On the thankful lute or lyre! + + Sing aloud!--His praise rehearse + Who hath made the universe. + +In this _Philosopher's Devotion_ he has clearly imitated one of those +psalms of George Sandys which I have given. + + + CHARITY AND HUMILITY. + + Far have I clambered in my mind, + But nought so great as love I find: + Deep-searching wit, mount-moving might, + Are nought compared to that good sprite. + Life of delight and soul of bliss! + Sure source of lasting happiness! + Higher than heaven! lower than hell! + What is thy tent? Where may'st thou dwell? + + "My mansion hight _Humility_, _is named._ + Heaven's vastest capability. + The further it doth downward tend, + The higher up it doth ascend; + If it go down to utmost nought, + It shall return with that it sought." + + Lord, stretch thy tent in my strait breast; + Enlarge it downward, that sure rest + May there be pight for that pure fire _pitched._ + Wherewith thou wontest to inspire + All self-dead souls: my life is gone; + Sad solitude's my irksome won; _dwelling._ + Cut off from men and all this world, + In Lethe's lonesome ditch I'm hurled; + Nor might nor sight doth ought me move, + Nor do I care to be above. + O feeble rays of mental light, + That best be seen in this dark night, + What are you? What is any strength + If it be not laid in one length + With pride or love? I nought desire + But a new life, or quite to expire. + Could I demolish with mine eye + Strong towers, stop the fleet stars in sky, + Bring down to earth the pale-faced moon, + Or turn black midnight to bright noon; + Though all things were put in my hand-- + As parched, as dry as the Libyan sand + Would be my life, if charity + Were wanting. But humility + Is more than my poor soul durst crave + That lies entombed in lowly grave; + But if 'twere lawful up to send + My voice to heaven, this should it rend: + "Lord, thrust me deeper into dust, + That thou may'st raise me with the just." + +There are strange things and worth pondering in all these. An occasional +classical allusion seems to us quite out of place, but such things we +must pass. The poems are quite different from any we have had before. +There has been only a few of such writers in our nation, but I suspect +those have had a good deal more influence upon the religious life of it +than many thinkers suppose. They are in closest sympathy with the deeper +forms of truth employed by St. Paul and St. John. This last poem, +concerning humility as the house in which charity dwells, is very truth. +A repentant sinner feels that he is making himself little when he prays +to be made humble: the Christian philosopher sees such a glory and +spiritual wealth in humility that it appears to him almost too much to +pray for. + +The very essence of these mystical writers seems to me to be poetry. They +use the largest figures for the largest spiritual ideas--_light_ for +_good, darkness_ for _evil_. Such symbols are the true bodies of the true +ideas. For this service mainly what we term _nature_ was called into +being, namely, to furnish forms for truths, for without form truth cannot +be uttered. Having found their symbols, these writers next proceed to use +them logically; and here begins the peculiar danger. When the logic +leaves the poetry behind, it grows first presumptuous, then hard, then +narrow and untrue to the original breadth of the symbol; the glory of the +symbol vanishes; and the final result is a worship of the symbol, which +has withered into an apple of Sodom. Witness some of the writings of the +European master of the order--Swedenborg: the highest of them are rich in +truth; the lowest are poverty-stricken indeed. + +In 1615 was born Richard Baxter, one of the purest and wisest and +devoutest of men--and no mean poet either. If ever a man sought between +contending parties to do his duty, siding with each as each appeared +right, opposing each as each appeared wrong, surely that man was Baxter. +Hence he fared as all men too wise to be partisans must fare--he pleased +neither Royalists nor Puritans. Dull of heart and sadly unlike a mother +was the Church when, by the Act of Uniformity of Charles II., she drove +from her bosom such a son, with his two thousand brethren of the clergy! + +He has left us a good deal of verse--too much, perhaps, if we consider +the length of the poems and the value of condensation. There is in many +of them a delightful fervour of the simplest love to God, uttered with a +plain half poetic, half logical strength, from which sometimes the poetry +breaks out clear and fine. Much that he writes is of death, from the +dread of which he evidently suffered--a good thing when it drives a man +to renew his confidence in his Saviour's presence. It has with him a very +different origin from the vulgar fancy that to talk about death is +religious. It was refuge from the fear of death he sought, and that is +the part of every man who would not be a slave. The _door of death_ of +which he so often speaks is to him a door out of the fear of death. + +The poem from which the following excerpt is made was evidently written +in view of some imminent suffering for conscience-sake, probably when the +Act of Uniformity was passed: twenty years after, he was imprisoned at +the age of sixty-seven, and lay nearly a year and a half.--I omit many +verses. + + + THE RESOLUTION. + + It's no great matter what men deem, + Whether they count me good or bad: + In their applause and best esteem, + There's no contentment to be had. + Thy steps, Lord, in this dirt I see; + And lest my soul from God should stray, + I'll bear my cross and follow thee: + Let others choose the fairer way. + My face is meeter for the spit; + I am more suitable to shame, + And to the taunts of scornful wit: + It's no great matter for my name. + + My Lord hath taught me how to want + A place wherein to put my head: + While he is mine, I'll be content + To beg or lack my daily bread. + Must I forsake the soil and air + Where first I drew my vital breath? + That way may be as near and fair: + Thence I may come to thee by death. + All countries are my Father's lands; + Thy sun, thy love, doth shine on all; + We may in all lift up pure hands, + And with acceptance on thee call. + + What if in prison I must dwell? + May I not there converse with thee? + Save me from sin, thy wrath, and hell, + Call me thy child, and I am free. + No walls or bars can keep thee out; + None can confine a holy soul; + The streets of heaven it walks about; + None can its liberty control. + This flesh hath drawn my soul to sin: + If it must smart, thy will be done! + O fill me with thy joys within, + And then I'll let it grieve alone. + + Frail, sinful flesh is loath to die; + Sense to the unseen world is strange; + The doubting soul dreads the Most High, + And trembleth at so great a change. + O let me not be strange at home, + Strange to the sun and life of souls, + Choosing this low and darkened room, + Familiar with worms and moles! + Am I the first that go this way? + How many saints are gone before! + How many enter every day + Into thy kingdom by this door! + Christ was once dead, and in a grave; + Yet conquered death, and rose again; + And by this method he will save + His servants that with him shall reign. + The strangeness will be quickly over, + When once the heaven-born soul is there: + One sight of God will it recover + From all this backwardness and fear. + To us, Christ's lowest parts, his feet, + Union and faith must yet suffice + To guide and comfort us: it's meet + We trust our head who hath our eyes. + +We see here that faith in the Lord leads Richard Baxter to the same +conclusions immediately to which his faithful philosophy led Henry More. + +There is much in Baxter's poems that I would gladly quote, but must leave +with regret. Here is a curious, skilful, and, in a homely way, poetic +ballad, embodying a good parable. I give only a few of the stanzas. + + + THE RETURN. + + Who was it that I left behind + When I went last from home, + That now I all disordered find + When to myself I come? + + I left it light, but now all's dark, + And I am fain to grope: + Were it not for one little spark + I should be out of hope. + + My Gospel-book I open left, + Where I the promise saw; + But now I doubt it's lost by theft: + I find none but the Law. + + The stormy rain an entrance hath + Through the uncovered top: + How should I rest when showers of wrath + Upon my conscience drop? + + I locked my jewel in my chest; + I'll search lest that be gone:-- + If this one guest had quit my breast, + I had been quite undone. + + My treacherous Flesh had played its part, + And opened Sin the door; + And they have spoiled and robbed my heart, + And left it sad and poor. + + Yet have I one great trusty friend + That will procure my peace, + And all this loss and ruin mend, + And purchase my release. + + The bellows I'll yet take in hand, + Till this small spark shall flame: + Love shall my heart and tongue command + To praise God's holy name. + + I'll mend the roof; I'll watch the door, + And better keep the key; + I'll trust my treacherous flesh no more, + But force it to obey. + + What have I said? That I'll do this + That am so false and weak, + And have so often done amiss, + And did my covenants break? + + I mean, Lord--all this shall be done + If thou my heart wilt raise; + And as the work must be thine own, + So also shall the praise. + +The allegory is so good that one is absolutely sorry when it breaks down, +and the poem says in plain words that which is the subject of the +figures, bringing truths unmasked into the midst of the maskers who +represent truths--thus interrupting the pleasure of the artistic sense in +the transparent illusion. + +The command of metrical form in Baxter is somewhat remarkable. He has not +much melody, but he keeps good time in a variety of measures. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +CRASHAW AND MARVELL. + + +I come now to one of the loveliest of our angel-birds, Richard Crashaw. +Indeed he was like a bird in more senses than one; for he belongs to that +class of men who seem hardly ever to get foot-hold of this world, but are +ever floating in the upper air of it. + +What I said of a peculiar AEolian word-music in William Drummond applies +with equal truth to Crashaw; while of our own poets, somehow or other, he +reminds me of Shelley, in the silvery shine and bell-like melody both of +his verse and his imagery; and in one of his poems, _Music's Duel_, the +fineness of his phrase reminds me of Keats. But I must not forget that it +is only with his sacred, his best poems too, that I am now concerned. + +The date of his birth is not known with certainty, but it is judged about +1616, the year of Shakspere's death. He was the son of a Protestant +clergyman zealous even to controversy. By a not unnatural reaction +Crashaw, by that time, it is said, a popular preacher, when expelled from +Oxford in 1644 by the Puritan Parliament because of his refusal to sign +their Covenant, became a Roman Catholic. He died about the age of +thirty-four, a canon of the Church of Loretto. There is much in his +verses of that sentimentalism which, I have already said in speaking of +Southwell, is rife in modern Catholic poetry. I will give from Crashaw a +specimen of the kind of it. Avoiding a more sacred object, one stanza +from a poem of thirty-one, most musical, and full of lovely speech +concerning the tears of Mary Magdalen, will suit my purpose. + + Hail, sister springs, + Parents of silver-footed rills! + Ever-bubbling things! + Thawing crystal! Snowy hills, + Still spending, never spent!--I mean + Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene! + +The poem is called _The Weeper_, and is radiant of delicate fancy. But +surely such tones are not worthy of flitting moth-like about the holy +sorrow of a repentant woman! Fantastically beautiful, they but play with +her grief. Sorrow herself would put her shoes off her feet in approaching +the weeping Magdalene. They make much of her indeed, but they show her +little reverence. There is in them, notwithstanding their fervour of +amorous words, a coldness like that which dwells in the ghostly beauty of +icicles shining in the moon. + +But I almost reproach myself for introducing Crashaw thus. I had to point +out the fact, and now having done with it, I could heartily wish I had +room to expatiate on his loveliness even in such poems as _The Weeper_. + +His _Divine Epigrams_ are not the most beautiful, but they are to me the +most valuable of his verses, inasmuch as they make us feel afresh the +truth which he sets forth anew. In them some of the facts of our Lord's +life and teaching look out upon us as from clear windows of the past. As +epigrams, too, they are excellent--pointed as a lance. + + + _Upon the Sepulchre of our Lord._ + + Here, where our Lord once laid his head, + Now the grave lies buried. + + + _The Widow's Mites._ + + Two mites, two drops, yet all her house and land, + Fall from a steady heart, though trembling hand; + The other's wanton wealth foams high and brave: + The other cast away--she only gave. + + + _On the Prodigal._ + + Tell me, bright boy! tell me, my golden lad! + Whither away so frolic? Why so glad? + + What! _all_ thy wealth in council? _all_ thy state? + Are husks so dear? Troth, 'tis a mighty rate! + +I value the following as a lovely parable. Mary is not contented: to see +the place is little comfort. The church itself, with all its memories of +the Lord, the gospel-story, and all theory about him, is but his tomb +until we find himself. + + + _Come, see the place-where the Lord lay._ + + Show me himself, himself, bright sir! Oh show + Which way my poor tears to himself may go. + Were it enough to show the place, and say, + "Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay;" + Then could I show these arms of mine, and say, + "Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay." + +From one of eight lines, on the Mother Mary looking on her child in her +lap, I take the last two, complete in themselves, and I think best alone. + + This new guest to her eyes new laws hath given: + 'Twas once _look up_, 'tis now _look down to heaven_. + +And here is perhaps his best. + + + _Two went up into the Temple to pray_. + + Two went to pray? Oh rather say, + One went to brag, the other to pray. + + One stands up close, and treads on high, + Where the other dares not lend his eye. + + One nearer to God's altar trod; + The other to the altar's God. + +This appears to me perfect. Here is the true relation between the forms +and the end of religion. The priesthood, the altar and all its +ceremonies, must vanish from between the sinner and his God. When the +priest forgets his mediation of a servant, his duty of a door-keeper to +the temple of truth, and takes upon him the office of an intercessor, he +stands between man and God, and is a Satan, an adversary. Artistically +considered, the poem could hardly be improved. + +Here is another containing a similar lesson. + + + _I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof._ + + Thy God was making haste into thy roof; + Thy humble faith and fear keeps him aloof. + He'll be thy guest: because he may not be, + He'll come--into thy house? No; into thee. + +The following is a world-wide intercession for them that know not what +they do. Of those that reject the truth, who can be said ever to have +_truly_ seen it? A man must be good to see truth. It is a thought +suggested by our Lord's words, not an irreverent opposition to the truth +of _them_. + + + _But now they have seen and hated._ + + _Seen?_ and yet _hated thee?_ They did not see-- + They saw thee not, that saw and hated thee! + No, no; they saw thee not, O Life! O Love! + Who saw aught in thee that their hate could move. + +We must not be too ready to quarrel with every oddity: an oddity will +sometimes just give the start to an outbreak of song. The strangeness of +the following hymn rises almost into grandeur. + + + EASTER DAY. + + Rise, heir of fresh eternity, + From thy virgin-tomb; + Rise, mighty man of wonders, and thy world with thee; + Thy tomb, the universal East-- + Nature's new womb; + Thy tomb--fair Immortality's perfumed nest. + + Of all the glories[139] make noon gay + This is the morn; + This rock buds forth the fountain of the streams of day; + In joy's white annals lives this hour, + When life was born, + No cloud-scowl on his radiant lids, no tempest-lower. + + Life, by this light's nativity, + All creatures have; + Death only by this day's just doom is forced to die. + Nor is death forced; for, may he lie + Throned in thy grave, + Death will on this condition be content to die. + +When we come, in the writings of one who has revealed masterdom, upon any +passage that seems commonplace, or any figure that suggests nothing true, +the part of wisdom is to brood over that point; for the probability is +that the barrenness lies in us, two factors being necessary for the +result of sight--the thing to be seen and the eye to see it. No doubt the +expression may be inadequate, but if we can compensate the deficiency by +adding more vision, so much the better for us. + +In the second stanza there is a strange combination of images: the rock +buds; and buds a fountain; the fountain is light. But the images are so +much one at the root, that they slide gracefully into each other, and +there is no confusion or incongruity: the result is an inclined plane of +development. + +I now come to the most musical and most graceful, therefore most lyrical, +of his poems. I have left out just three stanzas, because of the +sentimentalism of which I have spoken: I would have left out more if I +could have done so without spoiling the symmetry of the poem. My reader +must be friendly enough to one who is so friendly to him, to let his +peculiarities pass unquestioned--amongst the rest his conceits, as well +as the trifling discord that the shepherds should be called, after the +classical fashion--ill agreeing, from its associations, with Christian +song--Tityrus and Thyrsis. + + + A HYMN OF THE NATIVITY SUNG BY THE SHEPHERDS. + + _Chorus_. Come, we shepherds, whose blest sight + Hath met love's noon in nature's night; + Come, lift we up our loftier song, + And wake the sun that lies too long. + + To all our world of well-stolen[140] joy + He slept, and dreamed of no such thing, + While we found out heaven's fairer eye, + And kissed the cradle of our king: + Tell him he rises now too late + To show us aught worth looking at. + + Tell him we now can show him more + Than he e'er showed to mortal sight-- + Than he himself e'er saw before, + Which to be seen needs not his light: + Tell him, Tityrus, where thou hast been; + Tell him, Thyrsis, what thou hast seen. + + _Tityrus_. Gloomy night embraced the place + Where the noble infant lay: + The babe looked up and showed his face: + In spite of darkness it was day. + It was thy day, sweet, and did rise + Not from the east, but from thy eyes. + _Chorus._ It was thy day, sweet, &c. + + _Thyrsis_. Winter chid aloud, and sent + The angry north to wage his wars: + The north forgot his fierce intent, + And left perfumes instead of scars. + By those sweet eyes' persuasive powers, + Where he meant frosts, he scattered flowers. + _Chorus._ By those sweet eyes', &c. + + _Both_. We saw thee in thy balmy nest, + Young dawn of our eternal day; + We saw thine eyes break from the east, + And chase the trembling shades away. + We saw thee, and we blessed the sight; + We saw thee by thine own sweet light. + _Chorus._ We saw thee, &c. + + _Tityrus_. "Poor world," said I, "what wilt thou do + To entertain this starry stranger? + Is this the best thou canst bestow-- + A cold and not too cleanly manger? + Contend, the powers of heaven and earth, + To fit a bed for this huge birth." + _Chorus._ Contend, the powers, &c. + + _Thyrsis_. "Proud world," said I, "cease your contest, + And let the mighty babe alone: + The phoenix builds the phoenix' nest-- + Love's architecture is his own. + The babe, whose birth embraves this morn, + Made his own bed ere he was born." + _Chorus._ The babe, whose birth, &c. + + _Tityrus_. I saw the curl'd drops, soft and slow, + Come hovering o'er the place's head, + Offering their whitest sheets of snow + To furnish the fair infant's bed: + "Forbear," said I; "be not too bold: + Your fleece is white, but 'tis too cold." + _Chorus._ "Forbear," said I, &c. + + _Thyrsis_. I saw the obsequious seraphim + Their rosy fleece of fire bestow; + For well they now can spare their wings, + Since heaven itself lies here below. + "Well done," said I; "but are you sure + Your down, so warm, will pass for pure?" + _Chorus._ "Well done," said I, &c. + + * * * * * + + _Full Chorus_. Welcome all wonders in one sight! + Eternity shut in a span! + Summer in winter! day in night! + Heaven in earth, and God in man! + Great little one, whose all-embracing birth + Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth! + + * * * * * + + Welcome--though not to those gay flies + Gilded i' th' beams of earthly kings-- + Slippery souls in smiling eyes-- + But to poor shepherds, homespun things, + Whose wealth's their flocks, whose wit's to be + Well read in their simplicity. + + Yet when young April's husband showers + Shall bless the fruitful Maia's bed, + We'll bring the firstborn of her flowers + To kiss thy feet, and crown thy head: + To thee, dear Lamb! whose love must keep + The shepherds while they feed their sheep. + + To thee, meek Majesty, soft king + Of simple graces and sweet loves, + Each of us his lamb will bring, + Each his pair of silver doves. + At last, in fire of thy fair eyes, + Ourselves become our own best sacrifice. + +A splendid line to end with! too good for the preceding one. All temples +and altars, all priesthoods and prayers, must vanish in this one and only +sacrifice. Exquisite, however, as the poem is, we cannot help wishing it +looked less heathenish. Its decorations are certainly meretricious. + +From a few religious poems of Sir Edward Sherburne, another Roman +Catholic, and a firm adherent of Charles I., I choose the following--the +only one I care for. + + + AND THEY LAID HIM IN A MANGER. + + Happy crib, that wert, alone, + To my God, bed, cradle, throne! + Whilst thy glorious vileness I + View with divine fancy's eye, + Sordid filth seems all the cost, + State, and splendour, crowns do boast. + + See heaven's sacred majesty + Humbled beneath poverty; + Swaddled up in homely rags, + On a bed of straw and flags! + He whose hands the heavens displayed, + And the world's foundations laid, + From the world's almost exiled, + Of all ornaments despoiled. + Perfumes bathe him not, new-born; + Persian mantles not adorn; + Nor do the rich roofs look bright + With the jasper's orient light. + + Where, O royal infant, be + The ensigns of thy majesty; + Thy Sire's equalizing state; + And thy sceptre that rules fate? + Where's thy angel-guarded throne, + Whence thy laws thou didst make known-- + Laws which heaven, earth, hell obeyed? + These, ah! these aside he laid; + Would the emblem be--of pride + By humility outvied. + +I pass by Abraham Cowley, mighty reputation as he has had, without +further remark than that he is too vulgar to be admired more than +occasionally, and too artificial almost to be, as a poet, loved at all. + +Andrew Marvell, member of Parliament for Hull both before and after the +Restoration, was twelve years younger than his friend Milton. Any one of +some half-dozen of his few poems is to my mind worth all the verse that +Cowley ever made. It is a pity he wrote so little; but his was a life as +diligent, I presume, as it was honourable. + + + ON A DROP OF DEW. + + See how the orient dew, + Shed from the bosom of the morn + Into the blowing roses, + Yet careless of its mansion new + For the clear region where 'twas born, + Round in itself encloses, _used intransitively._ + And in its little globe's extent, + Frames as it can its native element. + How it the purple flower does slight, + Scarce touching where it lies, + But gazing back upon the skies, + Shines with a mournful light, + Like its own tear, + Because so long divided from the sphere: + Restless it rolls, and unsecure, + Trembling lest it grow impure, + Till the warm sun pity its pain, + And to the skies exhale it back again. + So the soul, that drop, that ray + Of the clear fountain of eternal day, + Could it within the human flower be seen, + Remembering still its former height, + Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green; + And, recollecting its own light, + Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express + The greater heaven in an heaven less. + In how coy a figure wound, + Every way it turns away, + So the world excluding round, + Yet receiving in the day; + Dark beneath but bright above, + Here disdaining, there in love. + How loose and easy hence to go! + How girt and ready to ascend! + Moving but on a point below, + It all about does upwards bend. + Such did the manna's sacred dew distil-- + White and entire,[141] though congealed and chill-- + Congealed on earth, but does, dissolving, run + Into the glories of the almighty sun. + +Surely a lovely fancy of resemblance, exquisitely wrought out; an +instance of the lighter play of the mystical mind, which yet shadows +forth truth. + + + THE CORONET. + + When for the thorns with which I long too long, + With many a piercing wound, + My Saviour's head have crowned, + I seek with garlands to redress that wrong, + Through every garden, every mead + I gather flowers--my fruits are only flowers-- + Dismantling all the fragrant towers + That once adorned my shepherdess's head; + And now, when I have summed up all my store, + Thinking--so I myself deceive-- + So rich a chaplet thence to weave + As never yet the King of glory wore; + Alas! I find the serpent old, + That, twining in his speckled breast, + About the flowers disguised does fold, + With wreaths of fame and interest. + Ah, foolish man that wouldst debase with them + And mortal glory, heaven's diadem! + But thou who only couldst the serpent tame, + Either his slippery knots at once untie, + And disentangle all his winding snare, + Or shatter too with him my curious frame,[142] + And let these wither, that so he may die, + Though set with skill, and chosen out with care; + That they, while thou on both their spoils dost tread, + May crown thy feet that could not crown thy head. + +A true sacrifice of worship, if not a garland of praise! The disciple +would have his works tried by the fire, not only that the gold and the +precious stones may emerge relucent, but that the wood and hay and +stubble may perish. The will of God alone, not what we may have effected, +deserves our care. In the perishing of our deeds they fall at his feet: +in our willing their loss we crown his head. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +A MOUNT OF VISION--HENRY VAUGHAN. + + +We have now arrived at the borders of a long, dreary tract, which, +happily for my readers, I can shorten for them in this my retrospect. +From the heights of Henry Vaughan's verse, I look across a stony region, +with a few feeble oases scattered over it, and a hazy green in the +distance. It does not soften the dreariness that its stones are all laid +in order, that the spaces which should be meadows are skilfully paved. + +Henry Vaughan belongs to the mystical school, but his poetry rules his +theories. You find no more of the mystic than the poet can easily govern; +in fact, scarcely more than is necessary to the highest poetry. He +develops his mysticism upwards, with relation to his higher nature alone: +it blossoms into poetry. His twin-brother Thomas developed his mysticism +downwards in the direction of the material sciences--a true effort still, +but one in which the danger of ceasing to be true increases with +increasing ratio the further it is carried. + +They were born in South Wales in the year 1621. Thomas was a clergyman; +Henry a doctor of medicine. Both were Royalists, and both suffered in the +cause--Thomas by expulsion from his living, Henry by imprisonment. Thomas +died soon after the Restoration; Henry outlived the Revolution. + +Henry Vaughan was then nearly thirty years younger than George Herbert, +whom he consciously and intentionally imitates. His art is not comparable +to that of Herbert: hence Herbert remains the master; for it is not the +thought that makes the poet; it is the utterance of that thought in +worthy presence of speech. He is careless and somewhat rugged. If he can +get his thought dressed, and thus made visible, he does not mind the +dress fitting awkwardly, or even being a little out at elbows. And yet he +has grander lines and phrases than any in Herbert. He has occasionally a +daring success that strikes one with astonishment. In a word, he says +more splendid things than Herbert, though he writes inferior poems. His +thought is profound and just; the harmonies in his soul are true; its +artistic and musical ear is defective. His movements are sometimes grand, +sometimes awkward. Herbert is always gracious--I use the word as meaning +much more than _graceful_. + +The following poem will instance Vaughan's fine mysticism and odd +embodiment: + + + COCK-CROWING. + + Father of lights! what sunny seed, + What glance of day hast thou confined + Into this bird? To all the breed + This busy ray thou hast assigned; + Their magnetism works all night, + And dreams of Paradise and light. + + Their eyes watch for the morning hue; + Their little grain,[143] expelling night, + So shines and sings, as if it knew + The path unto the house of light: + It seems their candle, howe'er done, + Was tined[144] and lighted at the sun. + + If such a tincture, such a touch, + So firm a longing can empower, + Shall thy own image think it much + To watch for thy appearing hour? + If a mere blast so fill the sail, + Shall not the breath of God prevail? + + O thou immortal Light and Heat, + Whose hand so shines through all this frame, + That by the beauty of the seat, + We plainly see who made the same! + Seeing thy seed abides in me, + Dwell thou in it, and I in thee. + + To sleep without thee is to die; + Yea, 'tis a death partakes of hell; + For where thou dost not close the eye, + It never opens, I can tell: + In such a dark, Egyptian border + The shades of death dwell and disorder + + Its joys and hopes and earnest throws, + And hearts whose pulse beats still for light, + Are given to birds, who but thee knows + A love-sick soul's exalted flight? + Can souls be tracked by any eye + But his who gave them wings to fly? + + Only this veil, which thou hast broke, + And must be broken yet in me; + This veil, I say, is all the cloak + And cloud which shadows me from thee. + This veil thy full-eyed love denies, + And only gleams and fractions spies. + + O take it off. Make no delay, + But brush me with thy light, that I + May shine unto a perfect day, + And warm me at thy glorious eye. + O take it off; or, till it flee, + Though with no lily, stay with me. + +I have no room for poems often quoted, therefore not for that lovely one +beginning "They are all gone into the world of light;" but I must not +omit _The Retreat_, for besides its worth, I have another reason for +presenting it. + + + THE RETREAT. + + Happy those early days when I + Shined in my angel-infancy! + Before I understood this place + Appointed for my second race, + Or taught my soul to fancy ought + But a white, celestial thought; + When yet I had not walked above + A mile or two from my first love, + And, looking back, at that short space + Could see a glimpse of his bright face; + When on some gilded cloud or flower + My gazing soul would dwell an hour, + And in those weaker glories spy + Some shadows of eternity; + Before I taught my tongue to wound + My conscience with a sinful sound, + Or had the black art to dispense + A several sin to every sense; + But felt through all this fleshly dress + Bright shoots of everlastingness. + O how I long to travel back, + And tread again that ancient track! + That I might once more reach that plain + Where first I left my glorious train, + From whence the enlightened spirit sees + That shady city of palm-trees. + But ah! my soul with too much stay + Is drunk, and staggers in the way! + Some men a forward motion love, + But I by backward steps would move; + And when this dust falls to the urn, + In that state I came return. + +Let any one who is well acquainted with Wordsworth's grand ode--that on +the _Intimations of Immortality_--turn his mind to a comparison between +that and this: he will find the resemblance remarkable. Whether _The +Retreat_ suggested the form of the _Ode_ is not of much consequence, for +the _Ode_ is the outcome at once and essence of all Wordsworth's +theories; and whatever he may have drawn from _The Retreat_ is glorified +in the _Ode_. Still it is interesting to compare them. Vaughan believes +with Wordsworth and some other great men that this is not our first stage +of existence; that we are haunted by dim memories of a former state. This +belief is not necessary, however, to sympathy with the poem, for whether +the present be our first life or no, we have come from God, and bring +from him conscience and a thousand godlike gifts.--"Happy those early +days," Vaughan begins: "There was a time," begins Wordsworth, "when the +earth seemed apparelled in celestial light." "Before I understood this +place," continues Vaughan: "Blank misgivings of a creature moving about +in worlds not realized," says Wordsworth. "A white celestial thought," +says Vaughan: "Heaven lies about us in our infancy," says Wordsworth. "A +mile or two off, I could see his face," says Vaughan: "Trailing clouds of +glory do we come," says Wordsworth. "On some gilded cloud or flower, my +gazing soul would dwell an hour," says Vaughan: "The hour of splendour in +the grass, of glory in the flower," says Wordsworth. + +Wordsworth's poem is the profounder in its philosophy, as well as far the +grander and lovelier in its poetry; but in the moral relation, Vaughan's +poem is the more definite of the two, and gives us in its close, poor as +that is compared with the rest of it, just what we feel is wanting in +Wordsworth's--the hope of return to the bliss of childhood. We may be +comforted for what we lose by what we gain; but that is not a recompense +large enough to be divine: we want both. Vaughan will be a child again. +For the movements of man's life are in spirals: we go back whence we +came, ever returning on our former traces, only upon a higher level, on +the next upward coil of the spiral, so that it is a going back and a +going forward ever and both at once. Life is, as it were, a constant +repentance, or thinking of it again: the childhood of the kingdom takes +the place of the childhood of the brain, but comprises all that was +lovely in the former delight. The heavenly children will subdue kingdoms, +work righteousness, wax valiant in fight, rout the armies of the aliens, +merry of heart as when in the nursery of this world they fought their +fancied frigates, and defended their toy-battlements. + +Here are the beginning and end of another of similar purport: + + CHILDHOOD. + + I cannot reach it; and my striving eye + Dazzles at it, as at eternity. + Were now that chronicle alive, + Those white designs which children drive, + And the thoughts of each harmless hour, + With their content too in my power, + Quickly would I make my path even, + And by mere playing go to heaven. + + * * * * * + + An age of mysteries! which he + Must live twice that would God's face see; + Which angels guard, and with it play-- + Angels which foul men drive away. + + How do I study now, and scan + Thee more than e'er I studied man, + And only see, through a long night, + Thy edges and thy bordering light! + O for thy centre and mid-day! + For sure that is the narrow way! + +Many a true thought comes out by the help of a fancy or half-playful +exercise of the thinking power. There is a good deal of such fancy in the +following poem, but in the end it rises to the height of the purest and +best mysticism. We must not forget that the deepest man can utter, will +be but the type or symbol of a something deeper yet, of which he can +perceive only a doubtful glimmer. This will serve for general remark upon +the mystical mode, as well as for comment explanatory of the close of the +poem. + + + THE NIGHT. + + JOHN iii. 2. + + Through that pure virgin-shrine, + That sacred veil[145] drawn o'er thy glorious noon, + That men might look and live, as glowworms shine, + And face the moon, + Wise Nicodemus saw such light + As made him know his God by night. + + Most blest believer he, + Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes, + Thy long-expected healing wings could see + When thou didst rise! + And, what can never more be done, + Did at midnight speak with the sun! + + O who will tell me where + He found thee at that dead and silent hour? + What hallowed solitary ground did bear + So rare a flower, + Within whose sacred leaves did lie + The fulness of the Deity? + + No mercy-seat of gold, + No dead and dusty cherub, nor carved stone, + But his own living works did my Lord hold + And lodge alone, + Where trees and herbs did watch and peep + And wonder, while the Jews did sleep. + + Dear night! this world's defeat; + The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb, + The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat + Which none disturb! + Christ's progress, and his prayer time,[146] + The hours to which high heaven doth chime![147] + + God's silent, searching flight;[148] + When my Lord's head is filled with dew, and all + His locks are wet with the clear drops of night, + His still, soft call; + His knocking time;[149] the soul's dumb watch, + When spirits their fair kindred catch. + + Were all my loud, evil[150] days + Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent, + Whose peace but by some angel's wing or voice + Is seldom rent, + Then I in heaven all the long year + Would keep, and never wander here. + + But living where the sun + Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire + Themselves and others, I consent and run + To every mire; + And by this world's ill guiding light, + Err more than I can do by night + + There is in God, some say, + A deep but dazzling darkness; as men here + Say it is late and dusky, because they + See not all clear: + O for that night! where I in him + Might live invisible and dim! + +This is glorious; and its lesson of quiet and retirement we need more +than ever in these hurried days upon which we have fallen. If men would +but be still enough in themselves to hear, through all the noises of the +busy light, the voice that is ever talking on in the dusky chambers of +their hearts! Look at his love for Nature, too; and read the fourth +stanza in connexion with my previous remarks upon symbolism. I think this +poem _grander_ than any of George Herbert's. I use the word with intended +precision. + +Here is one, the end of which is not so good, poetically considered, as +the magnificent beginning, but which contains striking lines +throughout:-- + + + THE DAWNING. + + Ah! what time wilt thou come? When shall that cry, + _The Bridegroom's coming_, fill the sky? + Shall it in the evening run + When our words and works are done? + Or will thy all-surprising light + Break at midnight, + When either sleep or some dark pleasure + Possesseth mad man without measure? + Or shail these early, fragrant hours + Unlock thy bowers,[151] + And with their blush of light descry + Thy locks crowned with eternity? + Indeed, it is the only time + That with thy glory doth best chime: + All now are stirring; every field + Full hymns doth yield; + The whole creation shakes off night, + And for thy shadow looks the light;[152] + Stars now vanish without number; + Sleepy planets set and slumber; + The pursy clouds disband and scatter;-- + All expect some sudden matter; + Not one beam triumphs, but, from far, + That morning-star. + + O, at what time soever thou, + Unknown to us, the heavens wilt bow, + And, with thy angels in the van, + Descend to judge poor careless man, + Grant I may not like puddle lie + In a corrupt security, + Where, if a traveller water crave, + He finds it dead, and in a grave; + But as this restless, vocal spring + All day and night doth run and sing, + And though here born, yet is acquainted + Elsewhere, and, flowing, keeps untainted, + So let me all my busy age + In thy free services engage; + And though, while here, of force,[153] I must + Have commerce sometimes with poor dust,[154] + And in my flesh, though vile and low, + As this doth in her channel, flow, + Yet let my course, my aim, my love, + And chief acquaintance be above. + So when that day and hour shall come, + In which thyself will be the sun, + Thou'lt find me drest and on my way, + Watching the break of thy great day. + +I do not think that description of the dawn has ever been surpassed. The +verse "All expect some sudden matter," is wondrously fine. The water +"dead and in a grave," because stagnant, is a true fancy; and the +"acquainted elsewhere" of the running stream, is a masterly phrase. I +need not point out the symbolism of the poem. + +I do not know a writer, Wordsworth not excepted, who reveals more delight +in the visions of Nature than Henry Vaughan. He is a true forerunner of +Wordsworth, inasmuch as the latter sets forth with only greater +profundity and more art than he, the relations between Nature and Human +Nature; while, on the other hand, he is the forerunner as well of some +one that must yet do what Wordsworth has left almost unattempted, +namely--set forth the sympathy of Nature with the aspirations of the +spirit that is born of God, born again, I mean, in the recognition of the +child's relation to the Father. Both Herbert and Vaughan have thus read +Nature, the latter turning many leaves which few besides have turned. In +this he has struck upon a deeper and richer lode than even Wordsworth, +although he has not wrought it with half his skill. In any history of the +development of the love of the present age for Nature, Vaughan, although +I fear his influence would be found to have been small as yet, must be +represented as the Phosphor of coming dawn. Beside him, Thomson is cold, +artistic, and gray: although larger in scope, he is not to be compared +with him in sympathetic sight. It is this insight that makes Vaughan a +mystic. He can see one thing everywhere, and all things the same--yet +each with a thousand sides that radiate crossing lights, even as the airy +particles around us. For him everything is the expression of, and points +back to, some fact in the Divine Thought. Along the line of every ray he +looks towards its radiating centre--the heart of the Maker. + +I could give many instances of Vaughan's power in reading the heart of +Nature, but I may not dwell upon this phase. Almost all the poems I give +and have given will afford such. + + I walked the other day, to spend my hour, + Into a field, + Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield + A gallant flower; + But winter now had ruffled all the bower + And curious store + I knew there heretofore. + + Yet I whose search loved not to peep and peer + I' th' face of things, + Thought with myself, there might be other springs + Besides this here, + Which, like cold friends, sees us but once a year; + And so the flower + Might have some other bower. + + Then taking up what I could nearest spy, + I digged about + That place where I had seen him to grow out; + And by and by + I saw the warm recluse alone to lie, + Where fresh and green + He lived of us unseen. + + Many a question intricate and rare + Did I there strow; + But all I could extort was, that he now + Did there repair + Such losses as befell him in this air, + And would ere long + Come forth most fair and young. + + This past, I threw the clothes quite o'er his head; + And, stung with fear + Of my own frailty, dropped down many a tear + Upon his bed; + Then sighing, whispered, _Happy are the dead! + What peace doth now + Rock him asleep below!_ + + And yet, how few believe such doctrine springs + From a poor root + Which all the winter sleeps here under foot, + And hath no wings + To raise it to the truth and light of things, + But is still trod + By every wandering clod! + + O thou, whose spirit did at first inflame + And warm the dead! + And by a sacred incubation fed + With life this frame, + Which once had neither being, form, nor name! + Grant I may so + Thy steps track here below, + + That in these masks and shadows I may see + Thy sacred way; + And by those hid ascents climb to that day + Which breaks from thee, + Who art in all things, though invisibly: + Show me thy peace, + Thy mercy, love, and ease. + + And from this care, where dreams and sorrows reign, + Lead me above, + Where light, joy, leisure, and true comforts move + Without all pain: + There, hid in thee, show me his life again + At whose dumb urn + Thus all the year I mourn. + +There are several amongst his poems lamenting, like this, the death of +some dear friend--perhaps his twin-brother, whom he outlived thirty +years. + +According to what a man is capable of seeing in nature, he becomes either +a man of appliance, a man of science, a mystic, or a poet. + +I must now give two that are simple in thought, construction, and music. +The latter ought to be popular, from the nature of its rhythmic movement, +and the holy merriment it carries. But in the former, note how the major +key of gladness changes in the third stanza to the minor key of +aspiration, which has always some sadness in it; a sadness which deepens +to grief in the next stanza at the consciousness of unfitness for +Christ's company, but is lifted by hope almost again to gladness in the +last. + + + CHRIST'S NATIVITY. + + Awake, glad heart! Get up, and sing! + It is the birthday of thy king! + Awake! awake! + The sun doth shake + Light from his locks, and, all the way + Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day. + + Awake! awake! Hark how the wood rings + Winds whisper, and the busy springs + A concert make: + Awake! awake! + Man is their high-priest, and should rise + To offer up the sacrifice. + + I would I were some bird or star, + Fluttering in woods, or lifted far + Above this inn + And road of sin! + Then either star or bird should be + Shining or singing still to thee. + + I would I had in my best part + Fit rooms for thee! or that my heart + Were so clean as + Thy manger was! + But I am all filth, and obscene; + Yet, if thou wilt, thou canst make clean. + + Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no more + This leper haunt and soil thy door. + Cure him, ease him; + O release him! + And let once more, by mystic birth, + The Lord of life be born in earth. + +The fitting companion to this is his + + + EASTER HYMN. + + Death and darkness, get you packing: + Nothing now to man is lacking. + All your triumphs now are ended, + And what Adam marred is mended. + Graves are beds now for the weary; + Death a nap, to wake more merry; + Youth now, full of pious duty, + Seeks in thee for perfect beauty; + The weak and aged, tired with length + Of days, from thee look for new strength; + And infants with thy pangs contest, + As pleasant as if with the breast. + + Then unto him who thus hath thrown + Even to contempt thy kingdom down, + And by his blood did us advance + Unto his own inheritance-- + To him be glory, power, praise, + From this unto the last of days! + +We must now descend from this height of true utterance into the Valley of +Humiliation, and cannot do better than console ourselves by listening to +the boy in mean clothes, of the fresh and well-favoured countenance, whom +Christiana and her fellow-pilgrims hear singing in that valley. + + He that is down, needs fear no fall; + He that is low, no pride; + He that is humble ever shall + Have God to be his guide. + + I am content with what I have, + Little be it or much; + And, Lord, contentment still I crave, + Because thou savest[155] such. + + Fulness to such a burden is + That go on pilgrimage; + Here little, and hereafter bliss, + Is best from age to age. + +I could not have my book without one word in it of John Bunyan, the +tinker, probably the gipsy, who although born only and not made a poet, +like his great brother, John Milton, has uttered in prose a wealth of +poetic thought. He was born in 1628, twenty years after Milton. I must +not, however, remark on this noble Bohemian of literature and prophecy; +but leaving at length these flowery hills and meadows behind me, step on +my way across the desert.--England had now fallen under the influence of +France instead of Italy, and that influence has never been for good to +our literature, at least. Thence its chief aim grew to be a desirable +trimness of speech and logical arrangement of matter--good external +qualities purchased at a fearful price with the loss of all that makes +poetry precious. The poets of England, with John Dryden at their head, +ceased almost for a time to deal with the truths of humanity, and gave +themselves to the facts and relations of society. The nation which could +recall the family of the Stuarts must necessarily fall into such a decay +of spiritual life as should render its literature only respectable at the +best, and its religious utterances essentially vulgar. But the decay is +gradual. + +Bishop Ken, born in 1637, is known chiefly by his hymns for the morning +and evening, deservedly popular. He has, however, written a great many +besides--too many, indeed, for variety or excellence. He seems to have +set himself to write them as acts of worship. They present many signs of +a perversion of taste which, though not in them so remarkable, rose to a +height before long. He annoys us besides by the constant recurrence of +certain phrases, one or two of which are not admirable, and by using, in +the midst of a simple style, odd Latin words. Here are portions of, I +think, one of his best, and good it is. + + + FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS. + + * * * * * + + Lord, 'tis thyself who hast impressed + In native light on human breast, + That their Creator all + Mankind should Father call: + A father's love all mortals know, + And the love filial which they owe. + + Our Father gives us heavenly light, + And to be happy, ghostly sight; + He blesses, guides, sustains; + He eases us in pains; + Abatements for our weakness makes, + And never a true child forsakes. + + He waits till the hard heart relents; + Our self-damnation he laments; + He sweetly them invites + To share in heaven's delights; + His arms he opens to receive + All who for past transgressions grieve. + + My Father! O that name is sweet + To sinners mourning in retreat. + God's heart paternal yearns + When he a change discerns; + He to his favour them restores; + He heals their most inveterate sores. + + * * * * * + + Religious honour, humble awe; + Obedience to our Father's law; + A lively grateful sense + Of tenderness immense; + Full trust on God's paternal cares; + Submission which chastisement bears; + + Grief, when his goodness we offend; + Zeal, to his likeness to ascend; + Will, from the world refined, + To his sole will resigned: + These graces in God's children shine, + Reflections of the love divine. + + * * * * * + + God's Son co-equal taught us all + In prayer his Father ours to call: + With confidence in need, + We to our Father speed: + Of his own Son the language dear + Intenerates the Father's ear. _makes tender._ + + Thou Father art, though to my shame, + I often forfeit that dear name; + But since for sin I grieve, + Me father-like receive; + O melt me into filial tears, + To pay of love my vast arrears. + + * * * * * + + O Spirit of Adoption! spread + Thy wings enamouring o'er my head; + O Filial love immense! + Raise me to love intense; + O Father, source of love divine, + My powers to love and hymn incline! + + While God my Father I revere, + Nor all hell powers, nor death I fear; + I am my Father's care; + His succours present are. + All comes from my loved Father's will, + And that sweet name intends no ill. + + God's Son his soul, when life he closed, + In his dear Father's hands reposed: + I'll, when my last I breathe, + My soul to God bequeath; + And panting for the joys on high, + Invoking Love Paternal, die. + +Born in 1657, one of the later English Platonists, John Norris, who, with +how many incumbents between I do not know, succeeded George Herbert in +the cure of Bemerton, has left a few poems, which would have been better +if he had not been possessed with the common admiration for the +rough-shod rhythms of Abraham Cowley. + +Here is one in which the peculiarities of his theories show themselves +very prominently. There is a constant tendency in such to wander into the +region half-spiritual, half-material. + + + THE ASPIRATION. + + How long, great God, how long must I + Immured in this dark prison lie; + My soul must watch to have intelligence; + Where at the grates and avenues of sense + Where but faint gleams of thee salute my sight, + Like doubtful moonshine in a cloudy night? + When shall I leave this magic sphere, + And be all mind, all eye, all ear? + + How cold this clime! And yet my sense + Perceives even here thy influence. + Even here thy strong magnetic charms I feel, + And pant and tremble like the amorous steel. + To lower good, and beauties less divine, + Sometimes my erroneous needle does decline, + But yet, so strong the sympathy, + It turns, and points again to thee. + + I long to see this excellence + Which at such distance strikes my sense. + My impatient soul struggles to disengage + Her wings from the confinement of her cage. + Wouldst thou, great Love, this prisoner once set free, + How would she hasten to be linked to thee! + She'd for no angels' conduct stay, + But fly, and love on all the way. + + + THE RETURN. + + Dear Contemplation! my divinest joy! + When I thy sacred mount ascend, + What heavenly sweets my soul employ! + Why can't I there my days for ever spend? + When I have conquered thy steep heights with pain, + What pity 'tis that I must down again! + + And yet I must: my passions would rebel + Should I too long continue here: + No, here I must not think to dwell, + But mind the duties of my proper sphere. + So angels, though they heaven's glories know, + Forget not to attend their charge below. + +The old hermits thought to overcome their impulses by retiring from the +world: our Platonist has discovered for himself that the world of duty is +the only sphere in which they can be combated. Never perhaps is a saint +more in danger of giving way to impulse, let it be anger or what it may, +than in the moment when he has just descended from this mount of +contemplation. + +We find ourselves now in the zone of _hymn_-writing. From this period, +that is, from towards the close of the seventeenth century, a large +amount of the fervour of the country finds vent in hymns: they are +innumerable. With them the scope of my book would not permit me to deal, +even had I inclination thitherward, and knowledge enough to undertake +their history. But I am not therefore precluded from presenting any hymn +whose literary excellence makes it worthy. + +It is with especial pleasure that I refer to a little book which was once +a household treasure in a multitude of families,[156] the _Spiritual +Songs_ of John Mason, a clergyman in the county of Buckingham. The date +of his birth does not appear to be known, but the first edition of these +songs[157] was published in 1683. Dr. Watts was very fond of them: would +that he had written with similar modesty of style! A few of them are +still popular in congregational singing. Here is the first in the book: + + + A GENERAL SONG OF PRAISE TO ALMIGHTY GOD. + + How shall I sing that Majesty + Which angels do admire? + Let dust in dust and silence lie; + Sing, sing, ye heavenly choir. + Thousands of thousands stand around + Thy throne, O God most high; + Ten thousand times ten thousand sound + Thy praise; but who am I? + + Thy brightness unto them appears, + Whilst I thy footsteps trace; + A sound of God comes to my ears; + But they behold thy face. + They sing because thou art their sun: + Lord, send a beam on me; + For where heaven is but once begun, + There hallelujahs be. + + Enlighten with faith's light my heart; + Enflame it with love's fire; + Then shall I sing and bear a part + With that celestial choir. + I shall, I fear, be dark and cold, + With all my fire and light; + Yet when thou dost accept their gold, + Lord, treasure up my mite. + + How great a being, Lord, is thine. + Which doth all beings keep! + Thy knowledge is the only line + To sound so vast a deep. + Thou art a sea without a shore, + A sun without a sphere; + Thy time is now and evermore, + Thy place is everywhere. + + How good art thou, whose goodness is + Our parent, nurse, and guide! + Whose streams do water Paradise, + And all the earth beside! + Thine upper and thy nether springs + Make both thy worlds to thrive; + Under thy warm and sheltering wings + Thou keep'st two broods alive. + + Thy arm of might, most mighty king + Both rocks and hearts doth break: + My God, thou canst do everything + But what should show thee weak. + Thou canst not cross thyself, or be + Less than thyself, or poor; + But whatsoever pleaseth thee, + That canst thou do, and more. + + Who would not fear thy searching eye, + Witness to all that's true! + Dark Hell, and deep Hypocrisy + Lie plain before its view. + Motions and thoughts before they grow, + Thy knowledge doth espy; + What unborn ages are to do, + Is done before thine eye. + + Thy wisdom which both makes and mends, + We ever much admire: + Creation all our wit transcends; + Redemption rises higher. + Thy wisdom guides strayed sinners home, + 'Twill make the dead world rise, + And bring those prisoners to their doom: + Its paths are mysteries. + + Great is thy truth, and shall prevail + To unbelievers' shame: + Thy truth and years do never fail; + Thou ever art the same. + Unbelief is a raging wave + Dashing against a rock: + If God doth not his Israel save, + Then let Egyptians mock. + + Most pure and holy are thine eyes, + Most holy is thy name; + Thy saints, and laws, and penalties, + Thy holiness proclaim. + This is the devil's scourge and sting, + This is the angels' song, + Who _holy, holy, holy_ sing, + In heavenly Canaan's tongue. + + Mercy, that shining attribute, + The sinner's hope and plea! + Huge hosts of sins in their pursuit, + Are drowned in thy Red Sea. + Mercy is God's memorial, + And in all ages praised: + My God, thine only Son did fall, + That Mercy might be raised. + + Thy bright back-parts, O God of grace, + I humbly here adore: + Show me thy glory and thy face, + That I may praise thee more. + Since none can see thy face and live, + For me to die is best: + Through Jordan's streams who would not dive, + To land at Canaan's rest? + +To these _Songs of Praise_ is appended another series called _Penitential +Cries_, by the Rev. Thomas Shepherd, who, for a short time a clergyman in +Buckinghamshire, became the minister of the Congregational church at +Northampton, afterwards under the care of Doddridge. Although he was an +imitator of Mason, some of his hymns are admirable. The following I think +one of the best:-- + + + FOR COMMUNION WITH GOD. + + Alas, my God, that we should be + Such strangers to each other! + O that as friends we might agree, + And walk and talk together! + + Thou know'st my soul does dearly love + The place of thine abode; + No music drops so sweet a sound + As these two words, _My God_. + + * * * * * + + May I taste that communion, Lord, + Thy people have with thee? + Thy spirit daily talks with them, + O let it talk with me! + Like Enoch, let me walk with God, + And thus walk out my day, + Attended with the heavenly guards, + Upon the king's highway. + + When wilt thou come unto me, Lord? + O come, my Lord most dear! + Come near, come nearer, nearer still: + I'm well when thou art near. + + * * * * * + + When wilt thou come unto me, Lord? + For, till thou dost appear, + I count each moment for a day, + Each minute for a year. + + * * * * * + + There's no such thing as pleasure here; + My Jesus is my all: + As thou dost shine or disappear, + My pleasures rise and fall. + Come, spread thy savour on my frame-- + No sweetness is so sweet; + Till I get up to sing thy name + Where all thy singers meet. + +In the writings of both we recognize a straight-forwardness of expression +equal to that of Wither, and a quaint simplicity of thought and form like +that of Herrick; while the very charm of some of the best lines is their +spontaneity. The men have just enough mysticism to afford them homeliest +figures for deepest feelings. + +I turn to the accomplished Joseph Addison. + +He was born in 1672. His religious poems are so well known, and are for +the greater part so ordinary in everything but their simplicity of +composition, that I should hardly have cared to choose one, had it not +been that we owe him much gratitude for what he did, in the reigns of +Anne and George I., to purify the moral taste of the English people at a +time when the influence of the clergy was not for elevation, and to teach +the love of a higher literature when Milton was little known and less +esteemed. Especially are we indebted to him for his modest and admirable +criticism of the _Paradise Lost_ in the _Spectator_. + +Of those few poems to which I have referred, I choose the best known, +because it is the best. It has to me a charm for which I can hardly +account. + +Yet I imagine I see in it a sign of the poetic times: a flatness of +spirit, arising from the evanishment of the mystical element, begins to +result in a worship of power. Neither power nor wisdom, though infinite +both, could constitute a God worthy of the worship of a human soul; and +the worship of such a God must sink to the level of that fancied +divinity. Small wonder is it then that the lyric should now droop its +wings and moult the feathers of its praise. I do not say that God's more +glorious attributes are already forgotten, but that the tendency of the +Christian lyric is now to laudation of power--and knowledge, a form of +the same--as _the_ essential of Godhead. This indicates no recalling of +metaphysical questions, such as we have met in foregoing verse, but a +decline towards system; a rising passion--if anything so cold may be +called _a passion_--for the reduction of all things to the forms of the +understanding, a declension which has prepared the way for the present +worship of science, and its refusal, if not denial, of all that cannot be +proved in forms of the intellect. + +The hymn which has led to these remarks is still good, although, like the +loveliness of the red and lowering west, it gives sign of a gray and +cheerless dawn, under whose dreariness the child will first doubt if his +father loves him, and next doubt if he has a father at all, and is not a +mere foundling that Nature has lifted from her path. + + The spacious firmament on high, + With all the blue etherial sky, + And spangled heavens, a shining frame, + Their great Original proclaim. + The unwearied sun from day to day + Does his Creator's power display; + And publishes to every land + The work of an almighty hand. + + Soon as the evening shades prevail, + The moon takes up the wondrous tale; + And nightly to the listening earth + Repeats the story of her birth; + Whilst all the stars that round her burn, + And all the planets, in their turn, + Confirm the tidings as they roll, + And spread the truth from pole to pole. + + What though in solemn silence all + Move round the dark terrestrial ball? + What though no real voice nor sound + Amidst their radiant orbs be found? + In reason's ear they all rejoice, + And utter forth a glorious voice, + For ever singing as they shine: + "The hand that made us is divine." + +The very use of the words _spangled_ and _frame_ seems--to my fancy only, +it may be--to indicate a tendency towards the unworthy and theatrical. +Yet the second stanza is lovely beyond a doubt; and the whole is most +artistic, although after a tame fashion. Whether indeed the heavenly +bodies _teach_ what he says, or whether we should read divinity worthy of +the name in them at all, without the human revelation which healed men, I +doubt much. That divinity is there--_Yes_; that we could read it there +without having seen the face of the Son of Man first, I think--_No_. I do +not therefore dare imagine that no revelation dimly leading towards such +result glimmered in the hearts of God's chosen amongst Jews and Gentiles +before he came. What I say is, that power and order, although of God, and +preparing the way for him, are not his revealers unto men. No doubt King +David compares the perfection of God's law to the glory of the heavens, +but he did not learn that perfection from the heavens, but from the law +itself, revealed in his own heart through the life-teaching of God. When +he had learned it he saw that the heavens were like it. + +To unveil God, only manhood like our own will serve. And he has taken the +form of man that he might reveal the manhood in him from awful eternity. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE PLAIN. + + +But Addison's tameness is wonderfully lovely beside the fervours of a man +of honoured name,--Dr. Isaac Watts, born in 1674. The result must be +dreadful where fervour will poetize without the aidful restraints of art +and modesty. If any man would look upon absurdity in the garb of +sobriety, let him search Dryden's _Annus Mirabilis_: Dr. Watts's _Lyrics_ +are as bad; they are fantastic to utter folly. An admiration of "the +incomparable Mr. Cowley" did the sense of them more injury than the +imitation of his rough-cantering ode could do their rhythm. The +sentimentalities of Roman Catholic writers towards our Lord and his +mother, are not half so offensive as the courtier-like flatteries Dr. +Watts offers to the Most High. To say nothing of the irreverence, the +vulgarity is offensive. He affords another instance amongst thousands how +little the form in which feeling is expressed has to do with the feeling +itself. In him the thought is true, the form of its utterance false; the +feeling lovely, the word, often to a degree, repulsive. The ugly web is +crossed now and then by a fine line, and even damasked with an occasional +good poem: I have found two, and only two, in the whole of his +seventy-five _Lyrics sacred to Devotion_. His objectivity and boldness of +thought, and his freedom of utterance, cause us ever and anon to lament +that he had not the humility and faith of an artist as well as of a +Christian. + +Almost all his symbols indicate a worship of power and of outward show. + +I give the best of the two good poems I have mentioned, and very good it +is. + + + HAPPY FRAILTY. + + "How meanly dwells the immortal mind! + How vile these bodies are! + Why was a clod of earth designed + To enclose a heavenly star? + + "Weak cottage where our souls reside! + This flesh a tottering wall! + With frightful breaches gaping wide, + The building bends to fall. + + "All round it storms of trouble blow, + And waves of sorrow roll; + Cold waves and winter storms beat through, + And pain the tenant-soul. + + "Alas, how frail our state!" said I, + And thus went mourning on; + Till sudden from the cleaving sky + A gleam of glory shone. + + My soul all felt the glory come, + And breathed her native air; + Then she remembered heaven her home, + And she a prisoner here. + + Straight she began to change her key; + And, joyful in her pains, + She sang the frailty of her clay + In pleasurable strains. + + "How weak the prison is where I dwell! + Flesh but a tottering wall! + The breaches cheerfully foretell + The house must shortly fall. + + "No more, my friends, shall I complain, + Though all my heart-strings ache; + Welcome disease, and every pain + That makes the cottage shake! + + "Now let the tempest blow all round, + Now swell the surges high, + And beat this house of bondage down + To let the stranger fly! + + "I have a mansion built above + By the eternal hand; + And should the earth's old basis move, + My heavenly house must stand. + + "Yes, for 'tis there my Saviour reigns-- + I long to see the God-- + And his immortal strength sustains + The courts that cost him blood. + + "Hark! from on high my Saviour calls: + I come, my Lord, my Love! + Devotion breaks the prison-walls, + And speeds my last remove." + +His psalms and hymns are immeasurably better than his lyrics. Dreadful +some of them are; and I doubt if there is one from which we would not +wish stanzas, lines, and words absent. But some are very fine. The man +who could write such verses as these ought not to have written as he has +written:-- + + Had I a glance of thee, my God, + Kingdoms and men would vanish soon; + Vanish as though I saw them not, + As a dim candle dies at noon. + + Then they might fight and rage and rave: + I should perceive the noise no more + Than we can hear a shaking leaf + While rattling thunders round us roar. + +Some of his hymns will be sung, I fancy, so long as men praise God +together; for most heartily do I grant that of all hymns I know he has +produced the best for public use; but these bear a very small proportion +indeed to the mass of his labour. We cannot help wishing that he had +written about the twentieth part. We could not have too much of his best, +such as this: + + Be earth with all her scenes withdrawn; + Let noise and vanity begone: + In secret silence of the mind + My heaven, and there my God, I find; + +but there is no occasion for the best to be so plentiful: a little of it +will go a great way. And as our best moments are so few, how could any +man write six hundred religious poems, and produce quality in proportion +to quantity save in an inverse ratio? + +Dr. Thomas Parnell, the well-known poet, a clergyman, born in Dublin in +1679, has written a few religious verses. The following have a certain +touch of imagination and consequent grace, which distinguishes them above +the swampy level of the time. + + + HYMN FOR EVENING. + + The beam-repelling mists arise, + And evening spreads obscurer skies; + The twilight will the night forerun, + And night itself be soon begun. + Upon thy knees devoutly bow, + And pray the Lord of glory now + To fill thy breast, or deadly sin + May cause a blinder night within. + And whether pleasing vapours rise, + Which gently dim the closing eyes, + Which make the weary members blest + With sweet refreshment in their rest; + Or whether spirits[158] in the brain + Dispel their soft embrace again, + And on my watchful bed I stay, + Forsook by sleep, and waiting day; + Be God for ever in my view, + And never he forsake me too; + But still as day concludes in night, + To break again with new-born light, + His wondrous bounty let me find + With still a more enlightened mind. + + * * * * * + + Thou that hast thy palace far + Above the moon and every star; + Thou that sittest on a throne + To which the night was never known, + Regard my voice, and make me blest + By kindly granting its request. + If thoughts on thee my soul employ, + My darkness will afford me joy, + Till thou shalt call and I shall soar, + And part with darkness evermore. + +Many long and elaborate religious poems I have not even mentioned, +because I cannot favour extracts, especially in heroic couplets or blank +verse. They would only make my book heavy, and destroy the song-idea. I +must here pass by one of the best of such poems, _The Complaint, or Night +Thoughts_ of Dr. Young; nor is there anything else of his I care to +quote. + +I must give just one poem of Pope, born in 1688, the year of the +Revolution. The flamboyant style of his _Messiah_ is to me detestable: +nothing can be more unlike the simplicity of Christianity. All such, +equally with those by whatever hand that would be religious by being +miserable, I reject at once, along with all that are merely commonplace +religious exercises. But this at least is very unlike the rest of Pope's +compositions: it is as simple in utterance as it is large in scope and +practical in bearing. The name _Jove_ may be unpleasant to some ears: it +is to mine--not because it is the name given to their deity by men who +had had little outward revelation, but because of the associations which +the wanton poets, not the good philosophers, have gathered about it. Here +let it stand, as Pope meant it, for one of the names of the Unknown God. + + + THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. + + Father of all! in every age, + In every clime adored, + By saint, by savage, and by sage, + Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! + + Thou great First Cause, least understood! + Who all my sense confined + To know but this, that thou art good, + And that myself am blind + + Yet gave me, in this dark estate, + To see the good from ill; + And, binding Nature fast in Fate, + Left free the human will: + + What Conscience dictates to be done, + Or warns me not to do-- + This, teach me more than hell to shun, + That, more than heaven pursue. + + What blessings thy free bounty gives, + Let me not cast away; + For God is paid when man receives: + To enjoy is to obey. + + Yet not to earth's contracted span + Thy goodness let me bound, + Or think thee Lord alone of man, + When thousand worlds are round. + + Let not this weak, unknowing hand + Presume thy bolts to throw, + And deal damnation round the land + On each I judge thy foe. + + If I am right, thy grace impart + Still in the right to stay; + If I am wrong, O teach my heart + To find that better way. + + Save me alike from foolish pride + Or impious discontent, + At aught thy wisdom has denied, + Or aught thy goodness lent. + + Teach me to feel another's woe, + To hide the fault I see: + That mercy I to others show, + That mercy show to me. + + Mean though I am--not wholly so, + Since quickened by thy breath:-- + O lead me wheresoe'er I go, + Through this day's life or death. + + This day, be bread and peace my lot: + All else beneath the sun + Thou know'st if best bestowed or not, + And let thy will be done. + + To thee, whose temple is all space, + Whose altar, earth, sea, skies, + One chorus let all being raise! + All Nature's incense rise! + +And now we come upon a strange little well in the desert. Few flowers +indeed shine upon its brink, and it flows with a somewhat unmusical +ripple: it is a well of the water of life notwithstanding, for its song +tells of the love and truth which are the grand power of God. + +John Byrom, born in Manchester in the year 1691, a man whose strength of +thought and perception of truth greatly surpassed his poetic gifts, yet +delighted so entirely in the poetic form that he wrote much and chiefly +in it. After leaving Cambridge, he gained his livelihood for some time by +teaching a shorthand of his own invention, but was so distinguished as a +man of learning generally that he was chosen an F.R.S. in 1723. Coming +under the influence, probably through William Law, of the writings of +Jacob Boehme, the marvellous shoemaker of Goerlitz in Silesia, who lived in +the time of our Shakspere, and heartily adopting many of his views, he +has left us a number of religious poems, which are seldom so sweet in +music as they are profound in the metaphysics of religion. Here we have +yet again a mystical thread running radiant athwart both warp and woof of +our poetic web: the mystical thinker will ever be found the reviver of +religious poetry; and although some of the seed had come from afar both +in time and space, Byrom's verse is of indigenous growth. Much of the +thought of the present day will be found in his verses. Here is a +specimen of his metrical argumentation. It is taken from a series of +_Meditations for every Day in Passion Week_. + + + WEDNESDAY. + + _Christ satisfieth the justice of God by fulfilling all + righteousness._ + + Justice demandeth satisfaction--yes; + And ought to have it where injustice is: + But there is none in God--it cannot mean + Demand of justice where it has full reign: + To dwell in man it rightfully demands, + Such as he came from his Creator's hands. + + Man had departed from a righteous state, + Which he at first must have, if God create: + 'Tis therefore called God's righteousness, and must + Be satisfied by man's becoming just; + Must exercise good vengeance upon men, + Till it regain its rights in them again. + + This was the justice for which Christ became + A man to satisfy its righteous claim; + Became Redeemer of the human race, + That sin in them to justice might give place: + To satisfy a just and righteous will, + Is neither more nor less than to fulfil. + + * * * * * + +Here are two stanzas of one of more mystical reflection: + + + A PENITENTIAL SOLILOQUY. + + What though no objects strike upon the sight! + Thy sacred presence is an inward light. + What though no sounds shall penetrate the ear! + To listening thought the voice of truth is clear. + Sincere devotion needs no outward shrine; + The centre of an humble soul is thine. + There may I worship! and there mayst thou place + Thy seat of mercy, and thy throne of grace! + Yea, fix, if Christ my advocate appear, + The dread tribunal of thy justice there! + Let each vain thought, let each impure desire + Meet in thy wrath with a consuming fire. + +And here are two of more lyrical favour. + + + THE SOUL'S TENDENCY TOWARDS ITS TRUE CENTRE. + + Stones towards the earth descend; + Rivers to the ocean roll; + Every motion has some end: + What is thine, beloved soul? + + "Mine is, where my Saviour is; + There with him I hope to dwell: + Jesu is the central bliss; + Love the force that doth impel." + + Truly thou hast answered right: + Now may heaven's attractive grace + Towards the source of thy delight + Speed along thy quickening pace! + + "Thank thee for thy generous care: + Heaven, that did the wish inspire, + Through thy instrumental prayer, + Plumes the wings of my desire. + + "Now, methinks, aloft I fly; + Now with angels bear a part: + Glory be to God on high! + Peace to every Christian heart!" + + +THE ANSWER TO THE DESPONDING SOUL. + + Cheer up, desponding soul; + Thy longing pleased I see: + 'Tis part of that great whole + Wherewith I longed for thee. + + Wherewith I longed for thee, + And left my Father's throne, + From death to set thee free, + To claim thee for my own. + + To claim thee for my own, + I suffered on the cross: + O! were my love but known, + No soul could fear its loss. + + No soul could fear its loss, + But, filled with love divine, + Would die on its own cross, + And rise for ever mine. + +Surely there is poetry as well as truth in this. But, certainly in +general, his thought is far in excess of his poetry. + +Here are a few verses which I shall once more entitle + + + DIVINE EPIGRAMS. + + With peaceful mind thy race of duty run + God nothing does, or suffers to be done, + But what thou wouldst thyself, if thou couldst see + Through all events of things as well as he. + + * * * * * + + Think, and be careful what thou art within, + For there is sin in the desire of sin: + Think and be thankful, in a different case, + For there is grace in the desire of grace. + + * * * * * + + An heated fancy or imagination + May be mistaken for an inspiration; + True; but is this conclusion fair to make-- + That inspiration must be all mistake? + A pebble-stone is not a diamond: true; + But must a diamond be a pebble too? + To own a God who does not speak to men, + Is first to own, and then disown again; + Of all idolatry the total sum + Is having gods that are both deaf and dumb. + + * * * * * + + What is more tender than a mother's love + To the sweet infant fondling in her arms? + What arguments need her compassion move + To hear its cries, and help it in its harms? + Now, if the tenderest mother were possessed + Of all the love within her single breast + Of all the mothers since the world began, + 'Tis nothing to the love of God to man. + + * * * * * + + Faith, Hope, and Love were questioned what they thought + Of future glory which Religion taught: + Now Faith believed it firmly to be true, + And Hope expected so to find it too: + Love answered, smiling with a conscious glow, + "Believe? Expect? I _know_ it to be so." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE ROOTS OF THE HILLS. + + +In the poems of James Thomson, we find two hymns to the God of +Creation--one in blank verse, the other in stanzas. They are of the kind +which from him we should look for. The one in blank verse, which is as an +epilogue to his great poem, _The Seasons_, I prefer. + +We owe much to Thomson. Born (in Scotland) in the year 1700, he is the +leading priest in a solemn procession to find God--not in the laws by +which he has ordered his creation, but in the beauty which is the outcome +of those laws. I do not say there is much of the relation of man to +nature in his writing; but thitherward it tends. He is true about the +outsides of God; and in Thomson we begin to feel that the revelation of +God as _meaning_ and therefore _being_ the loveliness of nature, is about +to be recognized. I do not say--to change my simile--that he is the first +visible root in our literature whence we can follow the outburst of the +flowers and foliage of our delight in nature: I could show a hundred +fibres leading from the depths of our old literature up to the great +root. Nor is it surprising that, with his age about him, he too should be +found tending to magnify, not God's Word, but his works, above all his +name: we have beauty for loveliness; beneficence for tenderness. I have +wondered whether one great part of Napoleon's mission was not to wake +people from this idolatry of the power of God to the adoration of his +love. + +The _Hymn_ holds a kind of middle place between the _Morning Hymn_ in the +5th Book of the _Paradise Lost_ and the _Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni_. +It would be interesting and instructive to compare the three; but we have +not time. Thomson has been influenced by Milton, and Coleridge by both. +We have delight in Milton; art in Thomson; heart, including both, in +Coleridge. + + + HYMN. + + These, as they change, Almighty Father, these + Are but the varied God. The rolling year + Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring + Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. + Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; + Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; + And every sense and every heart is joy. + Then comes thy glory in the Summer months, + With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun + Shoots full perfection through the swelling year + And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks, + And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, + By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.[159] + A yellow-floating pomp, thy bounty shines + In Autumn unconfined. Thrown from thy lap, + Profuse o'er nature, falls the lucid shower + Of beamy fruits; and, in a radiant stream, + Into the stores of sterile Winter pours. + In winter awful thou! with clouds and storms + Around thee thrown--tempest o'er tempest rolled. + Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing + Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,[160] + And humblest nature with thy northern blast. + + Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine + Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train, + Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, + Such beauty and beneficence combined! + Shade unperceived so softening into shade! + And all so forming an harmonious whole, + That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. + + * * * * * + + Nature attend! Join, every living soul, + Beneath the spacious temple of the sky-- + In adoration join; and, ardent, raise + One general song! To him, ye vocal gales, + Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes; + Oh! talk of him in solitary glooms, + Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine + Fills the brown shade with a religious awe; + And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, + Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven + The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. + His praise, ye brooks, attune,--ye trembling rills, + And let me catch it as I muse along. + Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound; + Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze + Along the vale; and thou, majestic main, + A secret world of wonders in thyself, + Sound his stupendous praise, whose greater voice + Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. + Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, + In mingled clouds to him whose sun exalts, + Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. + Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave to him; + Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart, + As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. + + * * * * * + + Bleat out afresh, ye hills! ye mossy rocks, + Retain the sound; the broad responsive low, + Ye valleys raise; for the great Shepherd reigns, + And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. + + * * * * * + + Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles, + At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all, + Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast, + Assembled men, to the deep organ join + The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear, + At solemn pauses, through the swelling base; + And, as each mingling flame increases each, + In one united ardour rise to heaven. + + * * * * * + + Should fate command me to the farthest verge + Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, + Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun + Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam + Flames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis nought to me, + Since God is ever present, ever felt, + In the void waste as in the city full; + And where he vital breathes there must be joy. + + * * * * * + +The worship of intellectual power in laws and inventions is the main +delight of the song; not the living presence of creative love, which +never sings its own praises, but spends itself in giving. Still, although +there has passed away a glory from the world of song, although the +fervour of childlike worship has vanished for a season, there are signs +in these verses of a new dawn of devotion. Even the exclusive and +therefore blind worship of science will, when it has turned the coil of +the ascending spiral, result in a new song to "him that made heaven and +earth and the sea and the fountains of waters." But first, for a long +time, the worship of power will go on. There is one sonnet by Kirke +White, eighty-five years younger than Thomson, which is quite pagan in +its mode of glorifying the power of the Deity. + +But about the same time when Thomson's _Seasons_ was published, which was +in 1730, the third year of George II., that life which had burned on in +the hidden corners of the church in spite of the worldliness and +sensuality of its rulers, began to show a flame destined to enlarge and +spread until it should have lighted up the mass with an outburst of +Christian faith and hope. I refer to the movement called Methodism, in +the midst of which, at an early stage of its history, arose the directing +energies of John Wesley, a man sent of God to deepen at once and purify +its motive influences. What he and his friends taught, would, I presume, +in its essence, amount mainly to this: that acquiescence in the doctrines +of the church is no fulfilment of duty--or anything, indeed, short of an +obedient recognition of personal relation to God, who has sent every man +the message of present salvation in his Son. A new life began to bud and +blossom from the dry stem of the church. The spirit moved upon the waters +of feeling, and the new undulation broke on the shores of thought in an +outburst of new song. For while John Wesley roused the hearts of the +people to sing, his brother Charles put songs in their mouths. + +I do not say that many of these songs possess much literary merit, but +many of them are real lyrics: they have that essential element, song, in +them. The following, however, is a very fine poem. That certain +expressions in it may not seem offensive, it is necessary to keep the +allegory of Jacob and the Angel in full view--even better in view, +perhaps, than the writer does himself. + + + WRESTLING JACOB. + + Come, O thou traveller unknown, + Whom still I hold, but cannot see! + My company before is gone, + And I am left alone with thee! + With thee all night I mean to stay, + And wrestle till the break of day! + + I need not tell thee who I am, + My misery or sin declare; + Thyself hast called me by my name: + Look on my hands, and read it there! + But who, I ask thee, who art thou? + Tell me thy name, and tell me now. + + In vain thou struggles! to get free: + I never will unloose my hold. + Art thou the man that died for me? + The secret of thy love unfold. + Wrestling, I will not let thee go + Till I thy name, thy nature know. + + * * * * * + + What though my sinking flesh complain, + And murmur to contend so long! + I rise superior to my pain: + When I am weak, then I am strong; + And when my all of strength shall fail, + I shall with the God-man prevail. + + My strength is gone; my nature dies; + I sink beneath thy weighty hand: + Faint to revive, and fall to rise; + I fall, and yet by faith I stand-- + I stand, and will not let thee go + Till I thy name, thy nature know. + + Yield to me now, for I am weak, + But confident in self-despair; + Speak to my heart, in blessings speak; + Be conquered by my instant[161] prayer. + Speak, or thou never hence shalt move, + And tell me if thy name is Love. + + 'Tis Love! 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me! + I hear thy whisper in my heart! + The morning breaks; the shadows flee: + Pure universal Love thou art! + To me, to all, thy bowels move: + Thy nature and thy name is Love! + + My prayer hath power with God; the grace + Unspeakable I now receive; + Through faith I see thee face to face-- + I see thee face to face, and live: + In vain I have not wept and strove; + Thy nature and thy name is Love. + + I know thee, Saviour--who thou art-- + Jesus, the feeble sinner's friend! + Nor wilt thou with the night depart, + But stay and love me to the end! + Thy mercies never shall remove: + Thy nature and thy name is Love! + + * * * * * + + Contented now, upon my thigh + I halt till life's short journey end; + All helplessness, all weakness, I + On thee alone for strength depend; + Nor have I power from thee to move: + Thy nature and thy name is Love. + + Lame as I am, I take the prey; + Hell, earth, and sin, with ease o'ercome; + I leap for joy, pursue my way, + And as a bounding hart fly home; + Through all eternity to prove + Thy nature and thy name is Love. + +It seems to me that the art with which his very difficult end in the +management of the allegory is reached, is admirable. I have omitted three +stanzas. + +I cannot give much from William Cowper. His poems--graceful always, and +often devout even when playful--have few amongst them that are expressly +religious, while the best of his hymns are known to every reader of such. +Born in 1731, he was greatly influenced by the narrow theology that +prevailed in his circle; and most of his hymns are marred by the +exclusiveness which belonged to the system and not to the man. There is +little of it in the following:-- + + Far from the world, O Lord, I flee, + From strife and tumult far; + From scenes where Satan wages still + His most successful war. + + The calm retreat, the silent shade, + With prayer and praise agree, + And seem by thy sweet bounty made + For those who follow thee. + + There if thy spirit touch the soul, + And grace her mean abode, + Oh with what peace, and joy, and love, + She communes with her God! + + There, like the nightingale, she pours + Her solitary lays, + Nor asks a witness of her song, + Nor thirsts for human praise. + + Author and guardian of my life, + Sweet source of light divine, + And--all harmonious names in one-- + My Saviour, thou art mine! + + What thanks I owe thee, and what love-- + A boundless, endless store-- + Shall echo through the realms above + When time shall be no more. + +Sad as was Cowper's history, with the vapours of a low insanity, if not +always filling his garden, yet ever brooding on the hill-tops of his +horizon, he was, through his faith in God, however darkened by the +introversions of a neat, poverty-stricken theology, yet able to lead his +life to the end. It is delightful to discover that, when science, which +is the anatomy of nature, had poisoned the theology of the country, in +creating a demand for clean-cut theory in infinite affairs, the +loveliness and truth of the countenance of living nature could calm the +mind which this theology had irritated to the very borders of madness, +and give a peace and hope which the man was altogether right in +attributing to the Spirit of God. How many have been thus comforted, who +knew not, like Wordsworth, the immediate channel of their comfort; or +even, with Cowper, recognized its source! God gives while men sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE NEW VISION. + + +William Blake, the painter of many strange and fantastic but often +powerful--sometimes very beautiful pictures--wrote poems of an equally +remarkable kind. Some of them are as lovely as they are careless, while +many present a curious contrast in the apparent incoherence of the +simplest language. He was born in 1757, towards the close of the reign of +George II. Possibly if he had been sent to an age more capable of +understanding him, his genius would not have been tempted to utter itself +with such a wildness as appears to indicate hopeless indifference to +being understood. We cannot tell sometimes whether to attribute the +bewilderment the poems cause in us to a mysticism run wild, or to regard +it as the reflex of madness in the writer. Here is a lyrical gem, +however, although not cut with mathematical precision. + + + DAYBREAK. + + To find the western path, + Right through the gates of wrath + I urge my way; + Sweet morning leads me on: + With soft repentant moan, + I see the break of day + + The war of swords and spears, + Melted by dewy tears, + Exhales on high; + The sun is freed from fears, + And with soft grateful tears, + Ascends the sky. + +The following is full of truth most quaintly expressed, with a homeliness +of phrase quite delicious. It is one of the _Songs of Innocence_, +published, as we learn from Gilchrist's Life of Blake, in the year 1789. +They were engraved on copper with illustrations by Blake, and printed and +bound by his wife. When we consider them in respect of the time when they +were produced, we find them marvellous for their originality and +simplicity. + + + ON ANOTHER'S SORROW. + + Can I see another's woe, + And not be in sorrow too? + Can I see another's grief, + And not seek for kind relief? + + Can I see a falling tear, + And not feel my sorrow's share? + Can a father see his child + Weep, nor be with sorrow filled? + + Can a mother sit and hear + An infant groan, an infant fear? + No, no; never can it be! + Never, never can it be! + + And can he, who smiles on all, + Hear the wren, with sorrows small-- + Hear the small bird's grief and care, + Hear the woes that infants bear, + + And not sit beside the nest, + Pouring pity in their breast? + And not sit the cradle near, + Weeping tear on infant's tear? + + And not sit both night and day, + Wiping all our tears away? + Oh, no! never can it be! + Never, never can it be! + + He doth give his joy to all; + He becomes an infant small; + He becomes a man of woe; + He doth feel the sorrow too. + + Think not thou canst sigh a sigh, + And thy Maker is not by; + Think not thou canst weep a tear, + And thy Maker is not near. + + Oh! he gives to us his joy, + That our grief he may destroy: + Till our grief is fled and gone, + He doth sit by us and moan. + +There is our mystic yet again leading the way. + +A supreme regard for science, and the worship of power, go hand in hand: +that knowledge is power has been esteemed the grandest incitement to +study. Yet the antidote to the disproportionate cultivation of science, +is simply power in its crude form--breaking out, that is, as brute force. +When science, isolated and glorified, has produced a contempt, not only +for vulgar errors, but for the truths which are incapable of scientific +proof, then, as we see in the French Revolution, the wild beast in man +breaks from its den, and chaos returns. But all the noblest minds in +Europe looked for grand things in the aurora of this uprising of the +people. To the terrible disappointment that followed, we are indebted for +the training of Wordsworth to the priesthood of nature's temple. So was +he possessed with the hope of a coming deliverance for the nations, that +he spent many months in France during the Revolution. At length he was +forced to seek safety at home. Dejected even to hopelessness for a time, +he believed in nothing. How could there be a God that ruled in the earth +when such a rising sun of promise was permitted to set in such a sea! +But for man to worship himself is a far more terrible thing than that +blood should flow like water: the righteous plague of God allowed things +to go as they would for a time. But the power of God came upon +Wordsworth--I cannot say as it had never come before, but with an added +insight which made him recognize in the fresh gift all that he had known +and felt of such in the past. To him, as to Cowper, the benignities of +nature restored peace and calmness and hope--sufficient to enable him to +look back and gather wisdom. He was first troubled, then quieted, and +then taught. Such presence of the Father has been an infinitely more +active power in the redemption of men than men have yet become capable of +perceiving. The divine expressions of Nature, that is, the face of the +Father therein visible, began to heal the plague which the worship of +knowledge had bred. And the power of her teaching grew from comfort to +prayer, as will be seen in the poem I shall give. Higher than all that +Nature can do in the way of direct lessoning, is the production of such +holy moods as result in hope, conscience of duty, and supplication. Those +who have never felt it have to be told there is in her such a +power--yielding to which, the meek inherit the earth. + + + NINTH EVENING VOLUNTARY. + + _Composed upon an evening of extraordinary splendour and beauty._ + + I. + + Had this effulgence disappeared + With flying haste, I might have sent + Among the speechless clouds a look + Of blank astonishment; + But 'tis endued with power to stay, + And sanctify one closing day, + That frail Mortality may see-- + What is?--ah no, but what _can_ be! + Time was when field and watery cove + With modulated echoes rang, + While choirs of fervent angels sang + Their vespers in the grove; + Or, crowning, star-like, each some sovereign height, + Warbled, for heaven above and earth below, + Strains suitable to both.--Such holy rite, + Methinks, if audibly repeated now + From hill or valley could not move + Sublimer transport, purer love, + Than doth this silent spectacle--the gleam-- + The shadow--and the peace supreme! + + II. + + No sound is uttered,--but a deep + And solemn harmony pervades + The hollow vale from steep to steep, + And penetrates the glades. + Far distant images draw nigh, + Called forth by wondrous potency + Of beamy radiance, that imbues + Whate'er it strikes with gem-like hues. + In vision exquisitely clear, + Herds range along the mountain side, + And glistening antlers are descried, + And gilded flocks appear. + Thine is the tranquil hour, purpureal Eve! + But long as godlike wish or hope divine + Informs my spirit, ne'er can I believe + That this magnificence is wholly thine! + From worlds nor quickened by the sun + A portion of the gift is won; + An intermingling of heaven's pomp is spread + On ground which British shepherds tread! + + III. + + And if there be whom broken ties + Afflict, or injuries assail, + Yon hazy ridges to their eyes + Present a glorious scale[162] + Climbing suffused with sunny air, + To stop--no record hath told where; + And tempting Fancy to ascend, + And with immortal spirits blend! + --Wings at my shoulders seem to play! + But, rooted here, I stand and gaze + On those bright steps that heavenward raise + Their practicable way. + Come forth, ye drooping old men, look abroad, + And see to what fair countries ye are bound! + And if some traveller, weary of his road, + Hath slept since noontide on the grassy ground, + Ye genii, to his covert speed, + And wake him with such gentle heed + As may attune his soul to meet the dower + Bestowed on this transcendent hour. + + IV. + + Such hues from their celestial urn + Were wont to stream before mine eye + Where'er it wandered in the morn + Of blissful infancy. + This glimpse of glory, why renewed? + Nay, rather speak with gratitude; + For, if a vestige of those gleams + Survived, 'twas only in my dreams. + Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve + No less than nature's threatening voice, + If aught unworthy be my choice, + From THEE if I would swerve; + Oh, let thy grace remind me of the light + Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored; + Which, at this moment, on my waking sight + Appears to shine, by miracle restored: + My soul, though yet confined to earth, + Rejoices in a second birth! + --'Tis past; the visionary splendour fades; + And night approaches with her shades. + + +Although I have mentioned Wordsworth before Coleridge because he was two +years older, yet Coleridge had much to do with the opening of +Wordsworth's eyes to such visions; as, indeed, more than any man in our +times, he has opened the eyes of the English people to see wonderful +things. There is little of a directly religious kind in his poetry; yet +we find in him what we miss in Wordsworth, an inclined plane from the +revelation in nature to the culminating revelation in the Son of Man. +Somehow, I say, perhaps because we find it in his prose, we feel more of +this in Coleridge's verse. + +Coleridge is a sage, and Wordsworth is a seer; yet when the sage sees, +that is, when, like the son of Beor, he falls into a trance having his +eyes open, or, when feeling and sight are one and philosophy is in +abeyance, the ecstasy is even loftier in Coleridge than in Wordsworth. In +their highest moods they seem almost to change places--Wordsworth to +become sage, and Coleridge seer. Perhaps the grandest hymn of praise +which man, the mouth-piece of Nature, utters for her, is the hymn of Mont +Blanc. + + + HYMN + + _Before sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni._ + + Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star + In his steep course--so long he seems to pause + On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc? + The Arve and Arveiron at thy base + Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form! + Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, + How silently! Around thee and above + Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, + An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it + As with a wedge! But when I look again, + It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, + Thy habitation from eternity! + O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee + Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, + Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer + I worshipped the Invisible alone. + + Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, + So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, + Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, + Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy; + Till the dilating soul, enwrapt, transfused, + Into the mighty vision passing--there + As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven! + + Awake, my soul! Not only passive praise + Thou owest! Not alone these swelling tears, + Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, + Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! + Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn. + + Thou first and chief, sole sovran[163] of the Vale! + O struggling with the darkness all the night, + And visited all night by troops of stars,[164] + Or when they climb the sky or when they sink! + Companion of the morning-star at dawn, + Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn[165] + Co-herald! wake, O wake, and utter praise! + Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? + Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? + Who made thee parent of perpetual streams? + + And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! + Who called you forth from night and utter death, + From dark and icy caverns called you forth,[166] + Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, + For ever shattered, and the same for ever? + Who gave you your invulnerable life, + Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, + Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam? + And who commanded--and the silence came-- + Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?[167] + + Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow + Adown enormous ravines slope amain-- + Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, + And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!-- + Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! + Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven + Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun + Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers + Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?-- + _God!_ let the torrents, like a shout of nations, + Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, _God!_ + _God!_ sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! + Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! + And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, + And in their perilous fall shall thunder, _God!_ + Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! + Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! + Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! + Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! + Ye signs and wonders of the element! + Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise. + + Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, + Oft from whose[168] feet the avalanche, unheard, + Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene + Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast-- + Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou + That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low + In adoration--upward from thy base + Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears-- + Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud, + To rise before me! rise, O ever rise; + Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth! + Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills! + Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven! + Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, + And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, + Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. + +Here is one little poem I think most valuable, both from its fulness of +meaning, and the form, as clear as condensed, in which that is embodied. + + + ON AN INFANT + + _Which died before baptism._ + + "_Be_ rather than _be called_ a child of God," + Death whispered. With assenting nod, + Its head upon its mother's breast + The baby bowed without demur-- + Of the kingdom of the blest + Possessor, not inheritor. + +Next the father let me place the gifted son, Hartley Coleridge. He was +born in 1796, and died in 1849. Strange, wayward, and in one respect +faulty, as his life was, his poetry--strange, and exceedingly wayward +too--is often very lovely. The following sonnet is all I can find room +for:-- + + + "SHE LOVED MUCH." + + She sat and wept beside his feet. The weight + Of sin oppressed her heart; for all the blame, + And the poor malice of the worldly shame, + To her was past, extinct, and out of date; + Only the _sin_ remained--the leprous state. + She would be melted by the heat of love, + By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove + And purge the silver ore adulterate. + She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair + Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch; + And he wiped off the soiling of despair + From her sweet soul, because she loved so much. + I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears: + Make me a humble thing of love and tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +THE FERVOUR OF THE IMPLICIT. INSIGHT OF THE HEART. + + +The late Dean Milman, born in 1791, best known by his very valuable +labours in history, may be taken as representing a class of writers in +whom the poetic fire is ever on the point, and only on the point, of +breaking into a flame. His composition is admirable--refined, scholarly, +sometimes rich and even gorgeous in expression--yet lacking that radiance +of the unutterable to which the loftiest words owe their grandest power. +Perhaps the best representative of his style is the hymn on the +Incarnation, in his dramatic poem, _The Fall of Jerusulem_. But as an +extract it is tolerably known. I prefer giving one from his few _Hymns +for Church Service_. + + + EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. + + When God came down from heaven--the living God-- + What signs and wonders marked his stately way? + Brake out the winds in music where he trod? + Shone o'er the heavens a brighter, softer day? + + The dumb began to speak, the blind to see, + And the lame leaped, and pain and paleness fled; + The mourner's sunken eye grew bright with glee, + And from the tomb awoke the wondering dead. + + When God went back to heaven--the living God-- + Rode he the heavens upon a fiery car? + Waved seraph-wings along his glorious road? + Stood still to wonder each bright wandering star? + + Upon the cross he hung, and bowed his head, + And prayed for them that smote, and them that curst; + And, drop by drop, his slow life-blood was shed, + And his last hour of suffering was his worst. + +_The Christian Year_ of the Rev. John Keble (born in 1800) is perhaps +better known in England than any other work of similar church character. +I must confess I have never been able to enter into the enthusiasm of its +admirers. Excellent, both in regard of their literary and religious +merits, true in feeling and thorough in finish, the poems always remind +me of Berlin work in iron--hard and delicate. Here is a portion of one of +the best of them. + + + ST. MATTHEW. + + Ye hermits blest, ye holy maids, + The nearest heaven on earth, + Who talk with God in shadowy glades, + Free from rude care and mirth; + To whom some viewless teacher brings + The secret lore of rural things, + The moral of each fleeting cloud and gale, + The whispers from above, that haunt the twilight vale: + + Say, when in pity ye have gazed + On the wreath'd smoke afar, + That o'er some town, like mist upraised, + Hung hiding sun and star; + Then as ye turned your weary eye + To the green earth and open sky, + Were ye not fain to doubt how Faith could dwell + Amid that dreary glare, in this world's citadel? + + But Love's a flower that will not die + For lack of leafy screen, + And Christian Hope can cheer the eye + That ne'er saw vernal green: + Then be ye sure that Love can bless + Even in this crowded loneliness, + Where ever-moving myriads seem to say, + Go--thou art nought to us, nor we to thee--away! + + There are in this loud stunning tide + Of human care and crime, + With whom the melodies abide + Of the everlasting chime; + Who carry music in their heart + Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, + Plying their daily task with busier feet, + Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat. + +There are here some indications of that strong reaction of the present +century towards ancient forms of church life. This reaction seems to me a +further consequence of that admiration of power of which I have spoken. +For, finding the progress of discovery in the laws of nature constantly +bring an assurance most satisfactory to the intellect, men began to +demand a similar assurance in other matters; and whatever department of +human thought could not be subjected to experiment or did not admit of +logical proof began to be regarded with suspicion. The highest realms of +human thought--where indeed only grand conviction, and that the result +not of research, but of obedience to the voice within, can be had--came +to be by such regarded as regions where, no scientific assurance being +procurable, it was only to his loss that a man should go wandering: the +whole affair was unworthy of him. And if there be no guide of humanity +but the intellect, and nothing worthy of its regard but what that +intellect can isolate and describe in the forms peculiar to its +operations,--that is, if a man has relations to nothing beyond his +definition, is not a creature of the immeasurable,--then these men are +right. But there have appeared along with them other thinkers who could +not thus be satisfied--men who had in their souls a hunger which the +neatest laws of nature could not content, who could not live on +chemistry, or mathematics, or even on geology, without the primal law of +_their_ many dim-dawning wonders--that is, the Being, if such there might +be, who thought their laws first and then embodied them in a world of +aeonian growth. These indeed seek law likewise, but a perfect law--a law +they can believe perfect beyond the comprehension of powers of whose +imperfection they are too painfully conscious. They feel in their highest +moments a helplessness that drives them to search after some Power with a +heart deeper than his power, who cares for the troubled creatures he has +made. But still under the influence of that faithless hunger for +intellectual certainty, they look about and divide into two parties: both +would gladly receive the reported revelation in Jesus, the one if they +could have evidence enough from without, the other if they could only get +rid of the difficulties it raises within. I am aware that I distinguish +in the mass, and that both sides would be found more or less influenced +by the same difficulties--but _more_ and _less_, and therefore thus +classified by the driving predominance. Those of the one party, then, +finding no proof to be had but that in testimony, and anxious to have all +they can--delighting too in a certain holy wilfulness of intellectual +self-immolation, accept the testimony in the mass, and become Roman +Catholics. Nor is it difficult to see how they then find rest. It is not +the dogma, but the contact with Christ the truth, with Christ the man, +which the dogma, in pacifying the troubles of the intellect--if only by a +soporific, has aided them in reaching, that gives them peace: it is the +truth itself that makes them free. + +The worshippers of science will themselves allow, that when they cannot +gain observations enough to satisfy them upon any point in which a law of +nature is involved, they must, if possible, institute experiments. I say +therefore to those whose observation has not satisfied them concerning +the phenomenon Christianity,--"Where is your experiment? Why do you not +thus try the utterance claiming to be the law of life? Call it a +hypothesis, and experiment upon it. Carry into practice, well justified +of your conscience, the words which the Man spoke, for therein he says +himself lies the possibility of your acceptance of his mission; and if, +after reasonable time thus spent, you are not yet convinced enough to +give testimony--I will not annoy you by saying _to facts_, but--to +conviction, I think neither will you be ready to abandon the continuous +experiment." These Roman Catholics have thus met with Jesus, come into +personal contact with him: by the doing of what he tells us, and by +nothing else, are they blessed. What if their theories show to me like a +burning of the temple and a looking for the god in the ashes? They know +in whom they have believed. And if some of us think we have a more +excellent way, we shall be blessed indeed if the result be no less +excellent than in such men as Faber, Newman, and Aubrey de Vere. No man +needs be afraid that to speak the truth concerning such will hasten the +dominance of alien and oppressive powers; the truth is free, and to be +just is to be strong. Should the time come again when Liberty is in +danger, those who have defended the truth even in her adversaries, if +such there be, will be found the readiest to draw the sword for her, and, +hating not, yet smite for the liberty to do even them justice. To give +the justice we claim for ourselves is, if there be a Christ, the law of +Christ, to obey which is eternally better than truest theory. + +I should like to give many of the hymns of Dr. Faber. Some of them are +grand, others very lovely, and some, of course, to my mind considerably +repulsive. He seems to me to go wrong nowhere in originating--he produces +nothing unworthy except when he reproduces what he never could have +entertained but for the pressure of acknowledged authority. Even such +things, however, he has enclosed in pearls, as the oyster its incommoding +sand-grains. + +His hymn on _The Greatness of God_ is profound; that on _The Will of God_ +is very wise; that to _The God of my Childhood_ is full of quite womanly +tenderness: all are most simple in speech, reminding us in this respect +of John Mason. In him, no doubt, as in all of his class, we find traces +of that sentimentalism in the use of epithets--small words, as +distinguished from homely, applied to great things--of which I have +spoken more than once; but criticism is not to be indulged in the +reception of great gifts--of such a gift as this, for instance:-- + + + THE ETERNITY OF GOD. + + O Lord! my heart is sick, + Sick of this everlasting change; + And life runs tediously quick + Through its unresting race and varied range: + Change finds no likeness to itself in Thee, + And wakes no echo in Thy mute eternity. + + Dear Lord! my heart is sick + Of this perpetual lapsing time, + So slow in grief, in joy so quick, + Yet ever casting shadows so sublime: + Time of all creatures is least like to Thee, + And yet it is our share of Thine eternity. + + Oh change and time are storms + For lives so thin and frail as ours; + For change the work of grace deforms + With love that soils, and help that overpowers; + And time is strong, and, like some chafing sea, + It seems to fret the shores of Thine eternity. + + Weak, weak, for ever weak! + We cannot hold what we possess; + Youth cannot find, age will not seek,-- + Oh weakness is the heart's worst weariness: + But weakest hearts can lift their thoughts to Thee; + It makes us strong to think of Thine eternity. + + Thou hadst no youth, great God! + An Unbeginning End Thou art; + Thy glory in itself abode, + And still abides in its own tranquil heart: + No age can heap its outward years on Thee: + Dear God! Thou art Thyself Thine own eternity! + + Without an end or bound + Thy life lies all outspread in light; + Our lives feel Thy life all around, + Making our weakness strong, our darkness bright; + Yet is it neither wilderness nor sea, + But the calm gladness of a full eternity. + + Oh Thou art very great + To set Thyself so far above! + But we partake of Thine estate, + Established in Thy strength and in Thy love: + That love hath made eternal room for me + In the sweet vastness of its own eternity. + + Oh Thou art very meek + To overshade Thy creatures thus! + Thy grandeur is the shade we seek; + To be eternal is Thy use to us: + Ah, Blessed God! what joy it is to me + To lose all thought of self in Thine eternity. + + Self-wearied, Lord! I come; + For I have lived my life too fast: + Now that years bring me nearer home + Grace must be slowly used to make it last; + When my heart beats too quick I think of Thee, + And of the leisure of Thy long eternity. + + Farewell, vain joys of earth! + Farewell, all love that it not His! + Dear God! be Thou my only mirth, + Thy majesty my single timid bliss! + Oh in the bosom of eternity + Thou dost not weary of Thyself, nor we of Thee! + +How easily his words flow, even when he is saying the deepest things! +The poem is full of the elements of the finest mystical metaphysics, and +yet there is no effort in their expression. The tendency to find God +beyond, rather than in our daily human conditions, is discernible; but +only as a tendency. + +What a pity that the sects are so slow to become acquainted with the +grand best in each other! + +I do not find in Dr. Newman either a depth or a precision equal to that +of Dr. Faber. His earlier poems indicate a less healthy condition of +mind. His _Dream of Gerontius_ is, however, a finer, as more ambitious +poem than any of Faber's. In my judgment there are weak passages in it, +with others of real grandeur. But I am perfectly aware of the difficulty, +almost impossibility, of doing justice to men from some of whose forms of +thought I am greatly repelled, who creep from the sunshine into every +ruined archway, attracted by the brilliance with which the light from its +loophole glows in its caverned gloom, and the hope of discovering within +it the first steps of a stair winding up into the blue heaven. I +apologize for the unavoidable rudeness of a critic who would fain be +honest if he might; and I humbly thank all such as Dr. Newman, whose +verses, revealing their saintship, make us long to be holier men. + +Of his, as of Faber's, I have room for no more than one. It was written +off Sardinia. + + + DESOLATION. + + O say not thou art left of God, + Because His tokens in the sky + Thou canst not read: this earth He trod + To teach thee He was ever nigh. + + He sees, beneath the fig-tree green, + Nathaniel con His sacred lore; + Shouldst thou thy chamber seek, unseen + He enters through the unopened door. + + And when thou liest, by slumber bound, + Outwearied in the Christian fight, + In glory, girt with saints around, + He stands above thee through the night. + + When friends to Emmaus bend their course, + He joins, although He holds their eyes: + Or, shouldst thou feel some fever's force, + He takes thy hand, He bids thee rise. + + Or on a voyage, when calms prevail, + And prison thee upon the sea, + He walks the waves, He wings the sail, + The shore is gained, and thou art free. + +Sir Aubrey de Vere is a poet profound in feeling, and gracefully tender +in utterance. I give one short poem and one sonnet. + + + REALITY. + + Love thy God, and love Him only: + And thy breast will ne'er be lonely. + In that one great Spirit meet + All things mighty, grave, and sweet. + Vainly strives the soul to mingle + With a being of our kind: + Vainly hearts with hearts are twined: + For the deepest still is single. + An impalpable resistance + Holds like natures still at distance. + Mortal! love that Holy One! + Or dwell for aye alone. + +I respond most heartily to the last two lines; but I venture to add, with +regard to the preceding six, "Love that holy One, and the impalpable +resistance will vanish; for when thou seest him enter to sup with thy +neighbour, thou wilt love that neighbour as thyself." + + + SONNET. + + Ye praise the humble: of the meek ye say, + "Happy they live among their lowly bowers; + "The mountains, and the mountain-storms are ours." + Thus, self-deceivers, filled with pride alway, + Reluctant homage to the good ye pay, + Mingled with scorn like poison sucked from flowers-- + Revere the humble; godlike are their powers: + No mendicants for praise of men are they. + The child who prays in faith "Thy will be done" + Is blended with that Will Supreme which moves + A wilderness of worlds by Thought untrod; + He shares the starry sceptre, and the throne: + The man who as himself his neighbour loves + Looks down on all things with the eyes of God! + +Is it a fancy that, in the midst of all this devotion and lovely thought, +I hear the mingled mournful tone of such as have cut off a right hand and +plucked out a right eye, which had _not_ caused them to offend? This is +tenfold better than to have spared offending members; but the true +Christian ambition is to fill the divine scheme of humanity--abridging +nothing, ignoring nothing, denying nothing, calling nothing unclean, but +burning everything a thank-offering in the flame of life upon the altar +of absolute devotion to the Father and Saviour of men. We must not throw +away half his gifts, that we may carry the other half in both hands to +his altar. + +But sacred fervour is confined to no sect. Here it is of the profoundest, +and uttered with a homely tenderness equal to that of the earliest +writers. Mrs. Browning, the princess of poets, was no partisan. If my +work were mainly critical, I should feel bound to remark upon her false +theory of English rhyme, and her use of strange words. That she is +careless too in her general utterance I cannot deny; but in idea she is +noble, and in phrase magnificent. Some of her sonnets are worthy of being +ranged with the best in our language--those of Milton and Wordsworth. + + + BEREAVEMENT. + + When some Beloveds, 'neath whose eyelids lay + The sweet lights of my childhood, one by one + Did leave me dark before the natural sun, + And I astonied fell, and could not pray, + A thought within me to myself did say, + "Is God less God that _thou_ art left undone? + Rise, worship, bless Him! in this sackcloth spun, + As in that purple!"--But I answer, Nay! + What child his filial heart in words can loose, + If he behold his tender father raise + The hand that chastens sorely? Can he choose + But sob in silence with an upward gaze? + And _my_ great Father, thinking fit to bruise, + Discerns in speechless tears both prayer and praise. + + + COMFORT. + + Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet, + From out the hallelujahs sweet and low, + Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so, + Who art not missed by any that entreat. + Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet-- + And if no precious gums my hands bestow, + Let my tears drop like amber, while I go + In reach of thy divinest voice complete + In humanest affection--thus, in sooth + To lose the sense of losing! As a child, + Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore, + Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth; + Till sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, + He sleeps the faster that he wept before. + +Gladly would I next give myself to the exposition of several of the poems +of her husband, Robert Browning, especially the _Christmas Eve_ and +_Easter Day_; in the first of which he sets forth in marvellous rhymes +the necessity both for widest sympathy with the varied forms of +Christianity, and for individual choice in regard to communion; in the +latter, what it is to choose the world and lose the life. But this would +take many pages, and would be inconsistent with the plan of my book. + +When I have given two precious stanzas, most wise as well as most lyrical +and lovely, from the poems of our honoured Charles Kingsley, I shall turn +to the other of the classes into which the devout thinkers of the day +have divided. + + + A FAREWELL. + + My fairest child, I have no song to give you; + No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey; + Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you + For every day. + + Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; + Do noble things, not dream them, all day long; + And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever + One grand, sweet song. + +Surely these last, who have not accepted tradition in the mass, who +believe that we must, as our Lord demanded of the Jews, of our own selves +judge what is right, because therein his spirit works with our +spirit,--worship the Truth not less devotedly than they who rejoice in +holy tyranny over their intellects. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE QUESTIONING FERVOUR. + + +And now I turn to the other class--that which, while the former has fled +to tradition for refuge from doubt, sets its face towards the spiritual +east, and in prayer and sorrow and hope looks for a dawn--the noble band +of reverent doubters--as unlike those of the last century who scoffed, as +those of the present who pass on the other side. They too would know; but +they know enough already to know further, that it is from the hills and +not from the mines their aid must come. They know that a perfect +intellectual proof would leave them doubting all the same; that their +high questions cannot be answered to the intellect alone, for their whole +nature is the questioner; that the answers can only come as questioners +and their questions grow towards them. Hence, growing hope, blossoming +ever and anon into the white flower of confidence, is their answer as +yet; their hope--the Beatific Vision--the _happy-making sight_, as Milton +renders the word of the mystics. + +It is strange how gentle a certain large class of the priesthood will be +with those who, believing there is a God, find it hard to trust him, and +how fierce with those who, unable, from the lack of harmony around and in +them, to say they are sure there is a God, would yet, could they find +him, trust him indeed. "Ah, but," answer such of the clergy and their +followers, "you want a God of your own making." "Certainly," the doubters +reply, "we do not want a God of your making: that would be to turn the +universe into a hell, and you into its torturing demons. We want a God +like that man whose name is so often on your lips, but whose spirit you +understand so little--so like him that he shall be the bread of life to +_all_ our hunger--not that hunger only already satisfied in you, who take +the limit of your present consciousness for that of the race, and say, +'This is all the world needs:' we know the bitterness of our own hearts, +and your incapacity for intermeddling with its joy. We + + have another mountain-range, from whence + Bursteth a sun unutterably bright; + +nor for us only, but for you also, who will not have the truth except it +come to you in a system authorized of man." + +I have attributed a general utterance to these men, widely different from +each other as I know they are. + +Here is a voice from one of them, Arthur Hugh Clough, who died in 1861, +well beloved. It follows upon two fine poems, called _The Questioning +Spirit_, and _Bethesda_, in which is represented the condition of many of +the finest minds of the present century. Let us receive it as spoken by +one in the foremost ranks of these doubters, men reviled by their +brethren who dare not doubt for fear of offending the God to whom they +attribute their own jealousy. But God is assuredly pleased with those who +will neither lie for him, quench their dim vision of himself, nor count +_that_ his mind which they would despise in a man of his making. + + Across the sea, along the shore, + In numbers more and ever more, + From lonely hut and busy town, + The valley through, the mountain down, + What was it ye went out to see, + Ye silly folk of Galilee? + The reed that in the wind doth shake? + The weed that washes in the lake? + The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?-- + young man preaching in a boat. + + What was it ye went out to hear + By sea and land, from far and near? + A teacher? Rather seek the feet + Of those who sit in Moses' seat. + Go humbly seek, and bow to them, + Far off in great Jerusalem. + From them that in her courts ye saw, + Her perfect doctors of the law, + What is it came ye here to note?-- + A young man preaching in a boat + + A prophet! Boys and women weak! + Declare, or cease to rave: + Whence is it he hath learned to speak? + Say, who his doctrine gave? + A prophet? Prophet wherefore he + Of all in Israel tribes?-- + _He teacheth with authority, + And not as do the Scribes_. + +Here is another from one who will not be offended if I class him with +this school--the finest of critics as one of the most finished of +poets--Matthew Arnold. Only my reader must remember that of none of my +poets am I free to choose that which is most characteristic: I have the +scope of my volume to restrain me. + + + THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH THE KID. + + He saves the sheep; the goats he doth not save! + So rang Tertullian's sentence, on the side + Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried: + "Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, + Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave!" + So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed, + The infant Church: of love she felt the tide + Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave. + And then she smiled, and in the Catacombs, + With eye suffused but heart inspired true, + On those walls subterranean, where she hid + Her head in ignominy, death, and tombs, + She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew; + And on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid. + +Of these writers, Tennyson is the foremost: he has written _the_ poem of +the hoping doubters, _the_ poem of our age, the grand minor organ-fugue +of _In Memoriam_. It is the cry of the bereaved Psyche into the dark +infinite after the vanished Love. His friend is nowhere in his sight, and +God is silent. Death, God's final compulsion to prayer, in its dread, its +gloom, its utter stillness, its apparent nothingness, urges the cry. +Meanings over the dead are mingled with profoundest questionings of +philosophy, the signs of nature, and the story of Jesus, while now and +then the star of the morning, bright Phosphor, flashes a few rays through +the shifting cloudy dark. And if the sun has not arisen on the close of +the book, yet the Aurora of the coming dawn gives light enough to make +the onward journey possible and hopeful: who dares say that he walks in +the full light? that the counsels of God are to him not a matter of +faith, but of vision? + +Bewildered in the perplexities of nature's enigmas, and driven by an +awful pain of need, Tennyson betakes himself to the God of nature, thus: + + + LIV. + + The wish, that of the living whole + No life may fail beyond the grave; + Derives it not from what we have + The likest God within the soul? + + Are God and Nature then at strife, + That Nature lends such evil dreams, + So careful of the type she seems, + So careless of the single life; + + That I, considering everywhere + Her secret meaning in her deeds, + And finding that of fifty seeds + She often brings but one to bear; + + I falter where I firmly trod, + And falling with my weight of cares + Upon the great world's altar-stairs + That slope thro' darkness up to God; + + I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, + And gather dust and chaff, and call + To what I feel is Lord of all, + And faintly trust the larger hope. + +[Illustration: + + "... he was dead, and there he sits, + And he that brought him back is there."] + +Once more, this is how he uses the gospel-tale: Mary has returned home +from the sepulchre, with Lazarus so late its prey, and her sister and +Jesus:-- + + + XXXII. + + Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, + Nor other thought her mind admits + But, he was dead, and there he sits, + And he that brought him back is there. + + Then one deep love doth supersede + All other, when her ardent gaze + Roves from the living brother's face, + And rests upon the Life indeed. + + All subtle thought, all curious fears, + Borne down by gladness so complete, + She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet + With costly spikenard and with tears. + + Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, + Whose loves in higher love endure; + What souls possess themselves so pure, + Or is there blessedness like theirs? + + * * * * * + +I have thus traced--how slightly!--the course of the religious poetry of +England, from simple song, lovingly regardful of sacred story and legend, +through the chant of philosophy, to the full-toned lyric of adoration. I +have shown how the stream sinks in the sands of an evil taste generated +by the worship of power and knowledge, and that a new growth of the love +of nature--beauty counteracting not contradicting science--has led it by +a fair channel back to the simplicities of faith in some, and to a holy +questioning in others; the one class having for its faith, the other for +its hope, that the heart of the Father is a heart like ours, a heart that +will receive into its noon the song that ascends from the twilighted +hearts of his children. + +Gladly would I have prayed for the voices of many more of the singers of +our country's psalms. Especially do I regret the arrival of the hour, +because of the voices of living men and women. But the time is over and +gone. The twilight has already embrowned the gray glooms of the cathedral +arches, and is driving us forth to part at the door. + +But the singers will yet sing on to him that hath ears to hear. When he +returns to seek them, the shadowy door will open to his touch, the +long-drawn aisles receding will guide his eye to the carven choir, and +there they still stand, the sweet singers, content to repeat ancient +psalm and new song to the prayer of the humblest whose heart would join +in England's Antiphon. + + + + +THE END. + + + + +[1] The rhymes of the first and second and of the fourth and fifth lines +throughout the stanzas, are all, I think, what the French call feminine +rhymes, as in the words "sleeping," "weeping." This I think it better +not to attempt retaining, because the final unaccented syllable is +generally one of those _e_'s which, having first become mute, have since +been dropped from our spelling altogether. + +[2] For the grammatical interpretation of this line, I am indebted to Mr. +Richard Morris. _Shall_ is here used, as it often is, in the sense of +_must_, and _rede_ is a noun; the paraphrase of the whole being, "_Son, +what must be to me for counsel?_" "_What counsel must I follow?_" + +[3] "Do not blame me, it is my nature." + +[4] _Mon_ is used for _man_ or _woman_: human being. It is so used in +Lancashire still: they say _mon_ to a woman. + +[5] "They weep quietly and _becomingly_." I think there must be in this +word something of the sense of _gently,-uncomplainingly_. + +[6] "And are shrunken (_clung_ with fear) _like_ the clay." _So_ here is +the same as _as_. For this interpretation I am indebted to Mr. Morris. + +[7] "It is no wonder though it pleases me very ill." + +[8] I think the poet, wisely anxious to keep his last line just what it +is, was perplexed for a rhyme, and fell on the odd device of saying, for +"both day and night," "both day and the other." + +[9] "All as if it were not never, I wis." + +[10] "So that many men say--True it is, all goeth but God's will." + +[11] I conjecture "All that grain (me) groweth green." + +[12] _Not_ is a contraction for _ne wat, know not_. "For I know not +whither I must go, nor how long here I dwell." I think _y_ is omitted by +mistake before _duelle_. + +[13] This is very poor compared with the original. + +[14] I owe almost all my information on the history of these plays to Mr. +Collier's well-known work on English Dramatic Poetry. + +[15] _Able to suffer_, deserving, subject to, obnoxious to, liable to +death and vengeance. + +[16] The word _harry_ is still used in Scotland, but only in regard to a +bird's nest. + +[17] Do-well, Do-better, and Do-best. + +[18] Complexion. + +[19] Ruddiness--complexion. + +[20] Twig. + +[21] Life (?).--I think _she_ should be _he_. + +[22] Field. + +[23] "Carry you beyond this region." + +[24] For the knowledge of this poem I am indebted to the Early English +Text Society, now printing so many valuable manuscripts. + +[25] The _for_ here is only an intensive. + +[26] _Pref_ is _proof_. _Put in pref_ seems to stand for something more +than _being tested_. Might it not mean _proved to be a pearl of price?_ + +[27] A word acknowledged to be obscure. Mr. Morris suggests _on the left +hand_, as unbelieved. + +[28] "Except that which his sole wit may judge." + +[29] "Be equal to thy possessions:" "fit thy desires to thy means." + +[30] "Ambition has uncertainty." We use the word _ticklish_ still. + +[31] "Is mingled everywhere." + +[32] To relish, to like. "Desire no more than is fitting for thee." + +[33] For. + +[34] "Let thy spiritual and not thine animal nature guide thee." + +[35] "And I dare not falsely judge the reverse." + +[36] A poem so like this that it may have been written immediately after +reading it, is attributed to Robert Henryson, the Scotch poet. It has the +same refrain to every verse as Lydgate's. + +[37] "Mourning for mishaps that I had caught made me almost mad." + +[38] "Led me all one:" "brought me back to peace, unity, harmony." (?) + +[39] "That I read on (it)." + +[40] _Of_ in the original, as in the title. + +[41] Does this mean by contemplation on it? + +[42] "I paid good attention to it." + +[43] "Greeted thee"--_in the very affliction._ + +[44] "For Christ's love let us do the same." + +[45] "Whatever grief or woe enslaves thee." But _thrall_ is a blunder, +for the word ought to have rhymed with _make._ + +[46] "The precious leader that shall judge us." + +[47] "When thou art in sorry plight, think of this." + +[48] "And death, beyond renewal, lay hold upon their life." + +[49] _Sending, message:_ "whatever varying decree God sends thee." + +[50] "Receives his message;" "accepts his will." + +[51] Recently published by the Early English Text Society. S.L. IV. + +[52] "Child born of a bright lady." _Bird, berd, brid, burd_, means +_lady_ originally: thence comes our _bride_. + +[53] In _Chalmers' English Poets_, from which I quote, it is +_selly-worme;_ but I think this must be a mistake. _Silly_ would here +mean _weak_. + +[54] The first poem he wrote, a very fine one, _The Shepheard's +Calender_, is so full of old and provincial words, that the educated +people of his own time required a glossary to assist them in the reading +of it. + +[55] _Eyas_ is a young hawk, whose wings are not fully fledged. + +[56] "What less than that is fitting?" + +[57] _For_, even in Collier's edition, but certainly a blunder. + +[58] _Was_, in the editions; clearly wrong. + +[59] "Of the same mould and hand as we." + +[60] There was no contempt in the use of this word then. + +[61] Simple-hearted, therefore blessed; like the German _selig_. + +[62] A shell plentiful on the coast of Palestine, and worn by pilgrims to +show that they had visited that country. + +[63] _Evil_ was pronounced almost as a monosyllable, and was at last +contracted to _ill_. + +[64] "Come to find a place." The transitive verb _stow_ means to put in a +place: here it is used intransitively. + +[65] The list of servants then kept in large houses, the number of such +being far greater than it is now. + +[66] There has been some blundering in the transcription of the last two +lines of this stanza. In the former of the two I have substituted _doth_ +for _dost_, evidently wrong. In the latter, the word _cradle_ is +doubtful. I suggest _cradled_, but am not satisfied with it. The meaning +is, however, plain enough. + +[67] "The very blessing the soul needed." + +[68] An old English game, still in use in Scotland and America, but +vanishing before cricket. + +[69] _Silly_ means _innocent_, and therefore _blessed_; ignorant of evil, +and in so far helpless. It is easy to see how affection came to apply it +to idiots. It is applied to the ox and ass in the next stanza, and is +often an epithet of shepherds. + +[70] See _Poems by Sir Henry Wotton and others. Edited by the Rev. John +Hannah_. + +[71] "Know thyself." + +[72] "And I have grown their map." + +[73] The guilt of Adam's first sin, supposed by the theologians of Dr. +Donne's time to be imputed to Adam's descendants. + +[74] The past tense: ran. + +[75] Their door to enter into sin--by his example. + +[76] He was sent by James I. to assist an embassy to the Elector +Palatine, who had married his daughter Elizabeth. + +[77] He had lately lost his wife, for whom he had a rare love. + +[78] "If they know us not by intuition, but by judging from circumstances +and signs." + +[79] "With most willingness." + +[80] "Art proud." + +[81] A strange use of the word; but it evidently means _recovered_, and +has some analogy with the French _repasser_. + +[82] _To_ understood: _to sweeten_. + +[83] He plays upon the astrological terms, _houses_ and _schemes_. The +astrologers divided the heavens into twelve _houses_; and the diagrams by +which they represented the relative positions of the heavenly bodies, +they called _schemes_. + +[84] The tree of knowledge. + +[85] Dyce, following Seward, substitutes _curse_. + +[86] A glimmer of that Platonism of which, happily, we have so much more +in the seventeenth century. + +[87] Should this be "_in_ fees;" that is, in acknowledgment of his feudal +sovereignty? + +[88] _Warm_ is here elongated, almost treated as a dissyllable. + +[89] "He ought not to be forsaken: whoever weighs the matter rightly, +will come to this conclusion." + +[90] The _Eridan_ is the _Po_.--As regards classical allusions in +connexion with sacred things, I would remind my reader of the great +reverence our ancestors had for the classics, from the influence they had +had in reviving the literature of the country.--I need hardly remind him +of the commonly-received fancy that the swan does sing once--just as his +death draws nigh. Does this come from the legend of Cycnus changed into a +swan while lamenting the death of his friend Phaeton? or was that legend +founded on the yet older fancy? The glorious bird looks as if he ought to +sing. + +[91] The poet refers to the singing of the hymn before our Lord went to +the garden by the brook Cedron. + +[92] The construction is obscure just from the insertion of the _to_ +before _breathe_, where it ought not to be after the verb _hear_. The +poet does not mean that he delights to hear that voice more than to +breathe gentle airs, but more than to hear gentle airs (to) breathe. _To +hear_, understood, governs all the infinitives that follow; among the +rest, _the winds (to) chide_. + +[93] _Rut_ is used for the sound of the tide in Cheshire. (See +_Halliwell's Dictionary_.) Does _rutty_ mean _roaring?_ or does it +describe the deep, rugged shores of the Jordan? + +[94] A monosyllable, contracted afterwards into _bloom_. + +[95] Willows. + +[96] _Groom_ originally means just _a man_. It was a word much used when +pastoral poetry was the fashion. Spenser has _herd-grooms_ in his +_Shepherd's Calendar_. This last is what it means here: _shepherds_. + +[97] Obtain, save. + +[98] Equivalent to "What are those hands of yours for?" + +[99] He was but thirty-nine when he died. + +[100] To rhyme with _pray_ in the second line. + +[101] Bunch of flowers. He was thinking of Aaron's rod, perhaps. + +[102] To correspond to that of Christ. + +[103] Again a touch of holy humour: to match his Master's predestination, +he will contrive something three years beforehand, with an _if_. + +[104] The _here_ in the preceding line means _his book_; hence the _thy +book_ is antithetical. + +[105] _Concent_ is a singing together, or harmoniously. + +[106] Music depends all on proportions. + +[107] The diapason is the octave. Therefore "all notes true." See note 2, +p. 205. + +[108] An intransitive verb: _he was wont_. + +[109] The birds called _halcyons_ were said to build their nests on the +water, and, while they were brooding, to keep it calm. + +[110] The morning star. + +[111] The God of shepherds especially, but the God of all nature--the All +in all, for _Pan_ means the _All_. + +[112] Milton here uses the old Ptolemaic theory of a succession of solid +crystal concentric spheres, in which the heavenly bodies were fixed, and +which revolving carried these with them. The lowest or innermost of these +spheres was that of the moon. "The hollow round of Cynthia's seat" is, +therefore, this sphere in which the moon sits. + +[113] That cannot be expressed or described. + +[114] By _hinges_ he means the axis of the earth, on which it turns as on +a hinge. The origin of _hinge_ is _hang_. It is what anything hangs on. + +[115] This is an apostrophe to the nine spheres (_see former note_), +which were believed by the ancients to send forth in their revolutions a +grand harmony, too loud for mortals to hear. But no music of the lower +region can make up full harmony without the bass of heaven's organ. The +_music of the spheres_ was to Milton the embodiment of the theory of the +universe. He uses the symbol often. + +[116] _Consort_ is the right word scientifically. It means the _fitting +together_ of sounds according to their nature. _Concert_, however, is not +wrong. It is even more poetic than _consort_, for it means a _striving +together_, which is the idea of all peace: the strife is _together_, and +not of one against the other. All harmony is an ordered, a divine strife. +In the contest of music, every tone restrains its foot and bows its head +to the rest in holy dance. + +[117] _Symphony_ is here used for _chorus_, and quite correctly; for +_symphony_ is a _voicing together_. To this symphony of the angels the +spheres and the heavenly organ are the accompaniment. + +[118] Die of the music. + +[119] Not merely _swings_, but _lashes about_. + +[120] Full of folds or coils. + +[121] The legend concerning this cessation of the oracles associates it +with the Crucifixion. Milton in _The Nativity_ represents it as the +consequence of the very presence of the infant Saviour. War and lying are +banished together. + +[122] The _genius_ is the local god, the god of the place as a place. + +[123] The _Lars_ were the protecting spirits of the ancestors of the +family; the _Lemures_ were evil spirits, spectres, or bad ghosts. But the +notions were somewhat indefinite. + +[124] _Flamen_ was the word used for _priest_ when the Romans spoke of +the priest of any particular divinity. Hence the _peculiar power_ in the +last line of the stanza. + +[125] Jupiter Ammon, worshipped in Libya, in the north of Africa, under +the form of a goat. "He draws in his horn." + +[126] The Syrian Adonis. + +[127] Frightful, horrible, as, _a grisly bear_. + +[128] Isis, Orus, Anubis, and Osiris, all Egyptian divinities--the last +worshipped in the form of a bull. + +[129] No rain falls in Egypt. + +[130] Last-born: the star in the east. + +[131] Bright-armoured. + +[132] Ready for what service may arise. + +[133] The _with_ we should now omit, for when we use it we mean the +opposite of what is meant here. + +[134] It is the light of the soul going out from the eyes, as certainly +as the light of the world coming in at the eyes that makes things seen. + +[135] The action by which a body attacked collects force by opposition. + +[136] Cut roughly through. + +[137] Intransitively used. They touch each other. + +[138] Self-desire, which is death's pit, &c. + +[139] _Which_ understood. + +[140] How unpleasant conceit can become. The joy of seeing the Saviour +was _stolen_ because they gained it in the absence of the sun! + +[141] A trisyllable. + +[142] His garland. + +[143] The "sunny seed" in their hearts. + +[144] From _tine_ or _tind_, to set on fire. Hence _tinder_. + +[145] The body of Jesus. + +[146] Mark i. 35; Luke xxi. 37. The word _time_ must be associated both +with _progress_ and _prayer_--his walking-time and prayer-time. + +[147] This is an allusion to the sphere-music: the great heavens is a +clock whose hours are those when Jesus retires to his Father; and to +these hours the sphere-music gives the chime. + +[148] He continues his poetic synonyms for the night. + +[149] "Behold I stand at the door and knock." + +[150] A monosyllable. + +[151] Often used for _chambers_. + +[152] "The creation looks for the light, thy shadow?" Or, "The light +looks for thy shadow, the sun"? + +[153] _Perforce_: of necessity. + +[154] He does not mean his fellows, but his bodily nature. + +[155] _Savourest?_ + +[156] The first I ever saw of its hymns was on a broad-sheet of Christmas +Carols, with coloured pictures, printed in Seven Dials. + +[157] They passed through twenty editions, not to mention one lately +published (_by Daniel Sedgwick, of 81, Sun-street, Bishopsgate, a man +who, concerning hymns and their writers, knows more than any other man I +have met_), from which, carefully edited, I have gathered all my +_information_, although I had known the book itself for many years. + +[158] The animal _spirits_ of the old physiologists. + +[159] In the following five lines I have adopted the reading of the first +edition, which, although a little florid, I prefer to the scanty two +lines of the later. + +[160] False in feeling, nor like God at all, although a ready pagan +representation of him. There is much of the pagan left in many +Christians--poets too. + +[161] _Insisting--persistent_. + +[162] Great cloudy ridges, one rising above the other, like a grand stair +up to the heavens. _See Wordsworth's note_. + +[163] The mountain. + +[164] These two lines are just the symbol for the life of their author. + +[165] From the rose-light on the snow of its peak. + +[166] They all flow from under the glaciers, fed by their constant +melting. + +[167] Turning for contrast to the glaciers, which he apostrophizes in the +next line. + +[168] Antecedent, _peaks_. + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: In this electronic edition, the footnotes have been +numbered and relocated to the end of the work. In chapter 14, the word +"Iris", which appears in our print copy, seems to be a misprint for +"Isis" and was corrected as such.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of England's Antiphon, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLAND'S ANTIPHON *** + +***** This file should be named 10375.txt or 10375.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/7/10375/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Tom Allen and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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