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.



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]