For if such holy song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back and fetch the age of gold; And speckled vanity Will sicken soon and die;[119] And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould; And hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

Yea, truth and justice then Will down return to men, Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Throned in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; And heaven, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.

But wisest Fate says "No; This must not yet be so." The babe lies yet in smiling infancy, That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss, So both himself and us to glorify. Yet first, to those y-chained in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang, While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake: The aged earth, aghast With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake, When, at the world's last sessioen, The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is: But now begins; for from this happy day, The old dragon, under ground In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway; And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swinges[120] the scaly horror of his folded tail.[121]

The oracles are dumb:[122] No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving; Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving; No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale, Edged with poplar pale, The parting genius[123] is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn, The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, The Lars and Lemures[124] moan with midnight plaint; In urns and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the flamens[125] at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baaelim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-battered god of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, the Assyrian Venus. Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn;[126] In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz[127] mourn.

And sullen Moloch, fled, Hath left in shadows dread His burning idol, all of blackest hue: In vain with cymbals' ring They call the grisly[128] king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue. The brutish gods of Nile as fast— Isis and Orus and the dog Anubis—haste.

Nor is Osiris[129] seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshowered[130] grass with lowings loud; Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest; Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark, The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark:

He feels, from Judah's land, The dreaded infant's hand; The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn. Nor all the gods beside Longer dare abide— Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine: Our babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.

So, when the sun in bed, Curtained with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail— Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted fays Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

But see, the Virgin blest Hath laid her babe to rest: Time is our tedious song should here have ending; Heaven's youngest-teemed star[131] Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed[132] angels sit, in order serviceable.[133]

If my reader should think some of the rhymes bad, and some of the words oddly used, I would remind him that both pronunciations and meanings have altered since: the probability is, that the older forms in both are the better. Milton will not use a wrong word or a bad rhyme. With regard to the form of the poem, let him observe the variety of length of line in the stanza, and how skilfully the varied lines are associated—two of six syllables and one of ten; then the same repeated; then one of eight and one of twelve—no two, except of the shortest, coming together of the same length. Its stanza is its own: I do not know another poem written in the same; and its music is exquisite. The probability is that, if the reader note any fact in the poem, however trifling it might seem to the careless eye, it will repay him by unfolding both individual and related beauty. Then let him ponder the pictures given: the sudden arraying of the shame-faced night in long beams; the amazed kings silent on their thrones; the birds brooding on the sea: he will find many such. Let him consider the clear-cut epithets, so full of meaning. A true poet may be at once known by the justice and force of the adjectives he uses, especially when he compounds them,—that is, makes one out of two. Here are some examples: meek-eyed Peace; pale-eyed priest; speckled vanity; smouldering clouds; hideous hum; dismal dance; dusky eyne: there are many such, each almost a poem in itself. The whole is a succession of pictures set in the loveliest music for the utterance of grandest thoughts.

No doubt there are in the poem instances of such faults in style as were common in the age in which his verse was rooted: for my own part, I never liked the first two stanzas of the hymn. But such instances are few; while for a right feeling of the marvel of this poem and of the two preceding it, we must remember that Milton was only twenty-one when he wrote them.

Apparently to make one of a set with the Nativity, he began to write an ode on the Passion, but, finding the subject "above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished." The fragment is full of unworthy, though skilful, and, for such, powerful conceits, but is especially interesting as showing how even Milton, trying to write about what he felt, but without yet having generated thoughts enow concerning the subject itself, could only fall back on conventionalities. Happy the young poet the wisdom of whose earliest years was such that he recognized his mistake almost at the outset, and dropped the attempt! Amongst the stanzas there is, however, one of exceeding loveliness:

He, sovereign priest, stooping his regal head, That dropped with odorous oil down his fair eyes, Poor fleshly tabernacle entered, His starry front low-roofed beneath the skies. Oh what a masque was there! what a disguise! Yet more! the stroke of death he must abide; Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethren's side.

In this it will be seen that he has left the jubilant measure of the Hymn, and returned to the more stately and solemn rhyme-royal of its overture, as more suited to his subject. Milton could not be wrong in his music, even when he found the quarry of his thought too hard to work.



CHAPTER XV.

EDMUND WALLER, THOMAS BROWN, AND JEREMY TAYLOR.

Edmund Waller, born in 1605, was three years older than Milton; but I had a fancy for not dividing Herbert and Milton. As a poet he had a high reputation for many years, gained chiefly, I think, by a regard to literary proprieties, combined with wit. He is graceful sometimes; but what in his writings would with many pass for grace, is only smoothness and the absence of faults. His horses were not difficult to drive. He dares little and succeeds in proportion—occasionally, however, flashing out into true song. In politics he had no character—let us hope from weakness rather than from selfishness; yet, towards the close of his life, he wrote some poems which reveal a man not unaccustomed to ponder sacred things, and able to express his thoughts concerning them with force and justice. From a poem called Of Divine Love, I gather the following very remarkable passages: I wish they had been enforced by greater nobility of character. Still they are in themselves true. Even where we have no proof of repentance, we may see plentiful signs of a growth towards it. We cannot tell how long the truth may of necessity require to interpenetrate the ramifications of a man's nature. By slow degrees he discovers that here it is not, and there it is not. Again and again, and yet again, a man finds that he must be born with a new birth.

The fear of hell, or aiming to be blest, Savours too much of private interest: This moved not Moses, nor the zealous Paul, Who for their friends abandoned soul and all; A greater yet from heaven to hell descends, To save and make his enemies his friends.

* * * * *

That early love of creatures yet unmade, To frame the world the Almighty did persuade. For love it was that first created light, Moved on the waters, chased away the night From the rude chaos; and bestowed new grace On things disposed of to their proper place— Some to rest here, and some to shine above: Earth, sea, and heaven, were all the effects of love.

* * * * *

Not willing terror should his image move, He gives a pattern of eternal love: His son descends, to treat a peace with those Which were, and must have ever been, his foes. Poor he became, and left his glorious seat, To make us humble, and to make us great; His business here was happiness to give To those whose malice could not let him live.

* * * * *

He to proud potentates would not be known: Of those that loved him, he was hid from none. Till love appear, we live in anxious doubt; But smoke will vanish when that flame breaks out: This is the fire that would consume our dross, Refine, and make us richer by the loss.

* * * * *

Who for himself no miracle would make, Dispensed with[134] several for the people's sake. He that, long-fasting, would no wonder show, Made loaves and fishes, as they eat them, grow. Of all his power, which boundless was above, Here he used none but to express his love; And such a love would make our joy exceed, Not when our own, but others' mouths we feed.

* * * * *

Love as he loved! A love so unconfined With arms extended would embrace mankind. Self-love would cease, or be dilated, when We should behold as many selfs as men; All of one family, in blood allied, His precious blood that for our ransom died.

* * * * *

Amazed at once and comforted, to find A boundless power so infinitely kind, The soul contending to that light to fly From her dark cell, we practise how to die, Employing thus the poet's winged art To reach this love, and grave it in our heart. Joy so complete, so solid, and severe, Would leave no place for meaner pleasures there: Pale they would look, as stars that must be gone When from the east the rising sun comes on.

* * * * *

To that and some other poems he adds the following—a kind of epilogue.

ON THE FOREGOING DIVINE POEMS.

When we for age could neither read nor write, The subject made us able to indite: The soul with nobler resolutions decked, The body stooping, does herself erect: No mortal parts are requisite to raise Her that unbodied can her Maker praise. The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er: So calm are we when passions are no more; For then we know how vain it was to boast Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost. Clouds of affection from our younger eyes passion. Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light, through chinks that time has made: Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view That stand upon the threshold of the new.

It would be a poor victory where age was the sole conqueror. But I doubt if age ever gains the victory alone. Let Waller, however, have this praise: his song soars with his subject. It is a true praise. There are men who write well until they try the noble, and then they fare like the falling star, which, when sought where it fell, is, according to an old fancy, discovered a poor jelly.

Sir Thomas Brown, a physician, whose prose writings are as peculiar as they are valuable, was of the same age as Waller. He partakes to a considerable degree of the mysticism which was so much followed in his day, only in his case it influences his literature most—his mode of utterance more than his mode of thought. His True Christian Morals is a very valuable book, notwithstanding the obscurity that sometimes arises in that, as in all his writings, from his fondness for Latin words. The following fine hymn occurs in his Religio Medici, in which he gives an account of his opinions. I am not aware of anything else that he has published in verse, though he must probably have written more to be able to write this so well. It occurs in the midst of prose, as the prayer he says every night before he yields to the death of sleep. I follow it with the succeeding sentence of the prose.

The night is come. Like to the day, Depart not thou, great God, away. Let not my sins, black as the night, Eclipse the lustre of thy light. Keep still in my horizon, for to me The sun makes not the day but thee. Thou whose nature cannot sleep, On my temples sentry keep; Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes Whose eyes are open while mine close. Let no dreams my head infest But such as Jacob's temples blest. While I do rest, my soul advance; Make my sleep a holy trance, That I may, my rest being wroughtt Awake into some holy thought, And with as active vigour run My course as doth the nimble sun. Sleep is a death: O make me try By sleeping what it is to die, And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed. Howe'er I rest, great God, let me Awake again at least with thee. And thus assured, behold I lie Securely, or to wake or die. These are my drowsy days: in vain I do now wake to sleep again: O come that hour when I shall never Sleep again, but wake for ever.

"This is the dormitive I take to bedward. I need no other laudanum than this to make me sleep; after which I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection."

Jeremy Taylor, born in 1613, was the most poetic of English prose-writers: if he had written verse equal to his prose, he would have had a lofty place amongst poets as well as amongst preachers. Taking the opposite side from Milton, than whom he was five years younger, he was, like him, conscientious and consistent, suffering while Milton's cause prospered, and advanced to one of the bishoprics hated of Milton's soul when the scales of England's politics turned in the other direction. Such men, however, are divided only by their intellects. When men say, "I must or I must not, for it is right or it is not right," then are they in reality so bound together, even should they not acknowledge it themselves, that no opposing opinions, no conflicting theories concerning what is or is not right, can really part them. It was not wonderful that a mind like that of Jeremy Taylor, best fitted for worshipping the beauty of holiness, should mourn over the disrupted order of his church, or that a mind like Milton's, best fitted for the law of life, should demand that every part of that order which had ceased to vibrate responsive to every throb of the eternal heart of truth, should fall into the ruin which its death had preceded. The church was hardly dealt with, but the rulers of the church have to bear the blame.

Here are those I judge the best of the bishop's Festival Hymns, printed as part of his Golden Grove, or Gide to Devotion. In the first there is a little confusion of imagery; and in others of them will be found a little obscurity. They bear marks of the careless impatience of rhythm and rhyme of one who though ever bursting into a natural trill of song, sometimes with more rhymes apparently than he intended, would yet rather let his thoughts pour themselves out in that unmeasured chant, that "poetry in solution," which is the natural speech of the prophet-orator. He is like a full river that must flow, which rejoices in a flood, and rebels against the constraint of mole or conduit. He exults in utterance itself, caring little for the mode, which, however, the law of his indwelling melody guides though never compels. Charmingly diffuse in his prose, his verse ever sounds as if it would overflow the banks of its self-imposed restraints.

THE SECOND HYMN FOR ADVENT; OR, CHRIST'S COMING TO JERUSALEM IN TRIUMPH.

Lord, come away; Why dost thou stay? Thy road is ready; and thy paths made straight With longing expectation wait The consecration of thy beauteous feet. Ride on triumphantly: behold we lay Our lusts and proud wills in thy way. Hosanna! welcome to our hearts! Lord, here Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear As that of Sion, and as full of sin: Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein. Enter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor; Crucify them, that they may never more Profane that holy place Where thou hast chose to set thy face. And then if our stiff tongues shall be Mute in the praises of thy deity, The stones out of the temple-wall Shall cry aloud and call Hosanna! and thy glorious footsteps greet.

HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY; BEING A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THREE SHEPHERDS.

1. Where is this blessed babe That hath made All the world so full of joy And expectation; That glorious boy That crowns each nation With a triumphant wreath of blessedness?

2. Where should he be but in the throng, And among His angel ministers that sing And take wing Just as may echo to his voice, And rejoice, When wing and tongue and all May so procure their happiness?

3. But he hath other waiters now: A poor cow An ox and mule stand and behold, And wonder That a stable should enfold Him that can thunder.

Chorus. O what a gracious God have we! How good? How great? Even as our misery.

A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY.

Awake, my soul, and come away; Put on thy best array, Lest if thou longer stay, Thou lose some minutes of so blest a day.

Go run, And bid good-morrow to the sun; Welcome his safe return To Capricorn, And that great morn Wherein a God was born, Whose story none can tell But he whose every word's a miracle.

To-day Almightiness grew weak; The Word itself was mute, and could not speak.

That Jacob's star which made the sun To dazzle if he durst look on, Now mantled o'er in Bethlehem's night, Borrowed a star to show him light.

He that begirt each zone, To whom both poles are one, Who grasped the zodiac in his hand, And made it move or stand, Is now by nature man, By stature but a span; Eternity is now grown short; A king is born without a court; The water thirsts; the fountain's dry; And life, being born, made apt to die.

Chorus. Then let our praises emulate and vie With his humility! Since he's exiled from skies That we might rise,— From low estate of men Let's sing him up again! Each man wind up his heart To bear a part In that angelic choir, and show His glory high, as he was low. Let's sing towards men goodwill and charity, Peace upon earth, glory to God on high! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

THE PRAYER.

My soul doth pant towards thee, My God, source of eternal life. Flesh fights with me: Oh end the strife, And part us, that in peace I may Unclay My wearied spirit, and take My flight to thy eternal spring, Where, for his sake Who is my king, I may wash all my tears away, That day.

Thou conqueror of death, Glorious triumpher o'er the grave, Whose holy breath Was spent to save Lost mankind, make me to be styled Thy child, And take me when I die And go unto my dust; my soul Above the sky With saints enrol, That in thy arms, for ever, I May lie.

This last is quite regular, that is, the second stanza is arranged precisely as the first, though such will not appear to be the case without examination: the disposition of the lines, so various in length, is confusing though not confused.

In these poems will be found that love of homeliness which is characteristic of all true poets—and orators too, in as far as they are poets. The meeting of the homely and the grand is heaven. One more.

A PRAYER FOR CHARITY.

Full of mercy, full of love, Look upon us from above; Thou who taught'st the blind man's night To entertain a double light, Thine and the day's—and that thine too: The lame away his crutches threw; The parched crust of leprosy Returned unto its infancy; The dumb amazed was to hear His own unchain'd tongue strike his ear; Thy powerful mercy did even chase The devil from his usurped place, Where thou thyself shouldst dwell, not he: Oh let thy love our pattern be; Let thy mercy teach one brother To forgive and love another; That copying thy mercy here, Thy goodness may hereafter rear Our souls unto thy glory, when Our dust shall cease to be with men. Amen.



CHAPTER XVI.

HENRY MORE AND RICHARD BAXTER.

Dr. Henry More was born in the year 1614. Chiefly known for his mystical philosophy, which he cultivated in retirement at Cambridge, and taught not only in prose, but in an elaborate, occasionally poetic poem, of somewhere about a thousand Spenserian stanzas, called A Platonic Song of the Soul, he has left some smaller poems, from which I shall gather good store for my readers. Whatever may be thought of his theories, they belong at least to the highest order of philosophy; and it will be seen from the poems I give that they must have borne their part in lifting the soul of the man towards a lofty spiritual condition of faith and fearlessness. The mystical philosophy seems to me safe enough in the hands of a poet: with others it may degenerate into dank and dusty materialism.

RESOLUTION.

Where's now the objects of thy fears, Needless sighs, and fruitless tears? They be all gone like idle dream Suggested from the body's steam.

* * * * *

What's plague and prison? Loss of friends? War, dearth, and death that all things ends? Mere bugbears for the childish mind; Pure panic terrors of the blind.

Collect thy soul unto one sphere Of light, and 'bove the earth it rear; Those wild scattered thoughts that erst Lay loosely in the world dispersed, Call in:—thy spirit thus knit in one Fair lucid orb, those fears be gone Like vain impostures of the night, That fly before the morning bright. Then with pure eyes thou shalt behold How the first goodness doth infold All things in loving tender arms; That deemed mischiefs are no harms, But sovereign salves and skilful cures Of greater woes the world endures; That man's stout soul may win a state Far raised above the reach of fate.

Then wilt thou say, God rules the world, Though mountain over mountain hurled Be pitched amid the foaming main Which busy winds to wrath constrain;

* * * * *

Though pitchy blasts from hell up-born Stop the outgoings of the morn, And Nature play her fiery games In this forced night, with fulgurant flames:

* * * * *

All this confusion cannot move The purged mind, freed from the love Of commerce with her body dear, Cell of sad thoughts, sole spring of fear.

Whate'er I feel or hear or see Threats but these parts that mortal be. Nought can the honest heart dismay Unless the love of living clay,

And long acquaintance with the light Of this outworld, and what to sight Those two officious beams[135] discover Of forms that round about us hover.

Power, wisdom, goodness, sure did frame This universe, and still guide the same. But thoughts from passions sprung, deceive Vain mortals. No man can contrive A better course than what's been run Since the first circuit of the sun.

He that beholds all from on high Knows better what to do than I. I'm not mine own: should I repine If he dispose of what's not mine? Purge but thy soul of blind self-will, Thou straight shall see God doth no ill. The world he fills with the bright rays Of his free goodness. He displays Himself throughout. Like common air That spirit of life through all doth fare, Sucked in by them as vital breath That willingly embrace not death. But those that with that living law Be unacquainted, cares do gnaw; Mistrust of God's good providence Doth daily vex their wearied sense.

Now place me on the Libyan soil, With scorching sun and sands to toil, Far from the view of spring or tree, Where neither man nor house I see;

* * * * *

Commit me at my next remove To icy Hyperborean ove; Confine me to the arctic pole, Where the numb'd heavens do slowly roll; To lands where cold raw heavy mist Sol's kindly warmth and light resists; Where lowering clouds full fraught with snow Do sternly scowl; where winds do blow With bitter blasts, and pierce the skin, Forcing the vital spirits in, Which leave the body thus ill bested, In this chill plight at least half-dead; Yet by an antiperistasis[136] My inward heat more kindled is; And while this flesh her breath expires, My spirit shall suck celestial fires By deep-fetched sighs and pure devotion. Thus waxen hot with holy motion, At once I'll break forth in a flame; Above this world and worthless fame I'll take my flight, careless that men Know not how, where I die, or when.

Yea, though the soul should mortal prove, So be God's life but in me move To my last breath—I'm satisfied A lonesome mortal God to have died.

This last paragraph is magnificent as any single passage I know in literature.

Is it lawful, after reading this, to wonder whether Henry More, the retired, and so far untried, student of Cambridge, would have been able thus to meet the alternations of suffering which he imagines? It is one thing to see reasonableness, another to be reasonable when objects have become circumstances. Would he, then, by spiritual might, have risen indeed above bodily torture? It is possible for a man to arrive at this perfection; it is absolutely necessary that a man should some day or other reach it; and I think the wise doctor would have proved the truth of his principles. But there are many who would gladly part with their whole bodies rather than offend, and could not yet so rise above the invasions of the senses. Here, as in less important things, our business is not to speculate what we would do in other circumstances, but to perform the duty of the moment, the one true preparation for the duty to come. Possibly, however, the right development of our human relations in the world may be a more difficult and more important task still than this condition of divine alienation. To find God in others is better than to grow solely in the discovery of him in ourselves, if indeed the latter were possible.

DEVOTION.

Good God, when them thy inward grace dost shower Into my breast, How full of light and lively power Is then my soul! How am I blest! How can I then all difficulties devour! Thy might, Thy spright, With ease my cumbrous enemy control.

If thou once turn away thy face and hide Thy cheerful look, My feeble flesh may not abide That dreadful stound; hour. I cannot brook Thy absence. My heart, with care and grief then gride, Doth fail, Doth quail; My life steals from me at that hidden wound.

My fancy's then a burden to my mind; Mine anxious thought Betrays my reason, makes me blind; Near dangers drad dreaded. Make me distraught; Surprised with fear my senses all I find: In hell I dwell, Oppressed with horror, pain, and sorrow sad.

My former resolutions all are fled— Slipped over my tongue; My faith, my hope, and joy are dead. Assist my heart, Rather than my song, My God, my Saviour! When I'm ill-bested. Stand by, And I Shall bear with courage undeserved smart.

THE PHILOSOPHER'S DEVOTION.

Sing aloud!—His praise rehearse Who hath made the universe. He the boundless heavens has spread, All the vital orbs has kned, kneaded. He that on Olympus high Tends his flocks with watchful eye, And this eye has multiplied suns, as centres of systems. Midst each flock for to reside. Thus, as round about they stray, Toucheth[137] each with outstretched ray; Nimble they hold on their way, Shaping out their night and day. Summer, winter, autumn, spring, Their inclined axes bring. Never slack they; none respires, Dancing round their central fires.

In due order as they move, Echoes sweet be gently drove Thorough heaven's vast hollowness, Which unto all corners press: Music that the heart of Jove Moves to joy and sportful love; Fills the listening sailers' ears Riding on the wandering spheres: Neither speech nor language is Where their voice is not transmiss.

God is good, is wise, is strong, Witness all the creature throng, Is confessed by every tongue; All things back from whence they sprung, go back—a verb. As the thankful rivers pay What they borrowed of the sea.

Now myself I do resign: Take me whole: I all am thine. Save me, God, from self-desire— Death's pit, dark hell's raging fire—[138] Envy, hatred, vengeance, ire; Let not lust my soul bemire.

Quit from these, thy praise I'll sing, Loudly sweep the trembling string. Bear a part, O Wisdom's sons, Freed from vain religions! Lo! from far I you salute, Sweetly warbling on my lute— India, Egypt, Araby, Asia, Greece, and Tartary, Carmel-tracts, and Lebanon, With the Mountains of the Moon, From whence muddy Nile doth run, Or wherever else you won: dwell. Breathing in one vital air, One we are though distant far.

Rise at once;—let's sacrifice: Odours sweet perfume the skies; See how heavenly lightning fires Hearts inflamed with high aspires! All the substance of our souls Up in clouds of incense rolls. Leave we nothing to ourselves Save a voice—what need we else! Or an hand to wear and tire On the thankful lute or lyre!

Sing aloud!—His praise rehearse Who hath made the universe.

In this Philosopher's Devotion he has clearly imitated one of those psalms of George Sandys which I have given.

CHARITY AND HUMILITY.

Far have I clambered in my mind, But nought so great as love I find: Deep-searching wit, mount-moving might, Are nought compared to that good sprite. Life of delight and soul of bliss! Sure source of lasting happiness! Higher than heaven! lower than hell! What is thy tent? Where may'st thou dwell?

"My mansion hight Humility, is named. Heaven's vastest capability. The further it doth downward tend, The higher up it doth ascend; If it go down to utmost nought, It shall return with that it sought."

Lord, stretch thy tent in my strait breast; Enlarge it downward, that sure rest May there be pight for that pure fire pitched. Wherewith thou wontest to inspire All self-dead souls: my life is gone; Sad solitude's my irksome won; dwelling. Cut off from men and all this world, In Lethe's lonesome ditch I'm hurled; Nor might nor sight doth ought me move, Nor do I care to be above. O feeble rays of mental light, That best be seen in this dark night, What are you? What is any strength If it be not laid in one length With pride or love? I nought desire But a new life, or quite to expire. Could I demolish with mine eye Strong towers, stop the fleet stars in sky, Bring down to earth the pale-faced moon, Or turn black midnight to bright noon; Though all things were put in my hand— As parched, as dry as the Libyan sand Would be my life, if charity Were wanting. But humility Is more than my poor soul durst crave That lies entombed in lowly grave; But if 'twere lawful up to send My voice to heaven, this should it rend: "Lord, thrust me deeper into dust, That thou may'st raise me with the just."

There are strange things and worth pondering in all these. An occasional classical allusion seems to us quite out of place, but such things we must pass. The poems are quite different from any we have had before. There has been only a few of such writers in our nation, but I suspect those have had a good deal more influence upon the religious life of it than many thinkers suppose. They are in closest sympathy with the deeper forms of truth employed by St. Paul and St. John. This last poem, concerning humility as the house in which charity dwells, is very truth. A repentant sinner feels that he is making himself little when he prays to be made humble: the Christian philosopher sees such a glory and spiritual wealth in humility that it appears to him almost too much to pray for.

The very essence of these mystical writers seems to me to be poetry. They use the largest figures for the largest spiritual ideas—light for good, darkness for evil. Such symbols are the true bodies of the true ideas. For this service mainly what we term nature was called into being, namely, to furnish forms for truths, for without form truth cannot be uttered. Having found their symbols, these writers next proceed to use them logically; and here begins the peculiar danger. When the logic leaves the poetry behind, it grows first presumptuous, then hard, then narrow and untrue to the original breadth of the symbol; the glory of the symbol vanishes; and the final result is a worship of the symbol, which has withered into an apple of Sodom. Witness some of the writings of the European master of the order—Swedenborg: the highest of them are rich in truth; the lowest are poverty-stricken indeed.

In 1615 was born Richard Baxter, one of the purest and wisest and devoutest of men—and no mean poet either. If ever a man sought between contending parties to do his duty, siding with each as each appeared right, opposing each as each appeared wrong, surely that man was Baxter. Hence he fared as all men too wise to be partisans must fare—he pleased neither Royalists nor Puritans. Dull of heart and sadly unlike a mother was the Church when, by the Act of Uniformity of Charles II., she drove from her bosom such a son, with his two thousand brethren of the clergy!

He has left us a good deal of verse—too much, perhaps, if we consider the length of the poems and the value of condensation. There is in many of them a delightful fervour of the simplest love to God, uttered with a plain half poetic, half logical strength, from which sometimes the poetry breaks out clear and fine. Much that he writes is of death, from the dread of which he evidently suffered—a good thing when it drives a man to renew his confidence in his Saviour's presence. It has with him a very different origin from the vulgar fancy that to talk about death is religious. It was refuge from the fear of death he sought, and that is the part of every man who would not be a slave. The door of death of which he so often speaks is to him a door out of the fear of death.

The poem from which the following excerpt is made was evidently written in view of some imminent suffering for conscience-sake, probably when the Act of Uniformity was passed: twenty years after, he was imprisoned at the age of sixty-seven, and lay nearly a year and a half.—I omit many verses.

THE RESOLUTION.

It's no great matter what men deem, Whether they count me good or bad: In their applause and best esteem, There's no contentment to be had. Thy steps, Lord, in this dirt I see; And lest my soul from God should stray, I'll bear my cross and follow thee: Let others choose the fairer way. My face is meeter for the spit; I am more suitable to shame, And to the taunts of scornful wit: It's no great matter for my name.

My Lord hath taught me how to want A place wherein to put my head: While he is mine, I'll be content To beg or lack my daily bread. Must I forsake the soil and air Where first I drew my vital breath? That way may be as near and fair: Thence I may come to thee by death. All countries are my Father's lands; Thy sun, thy love, doth shine on all; We may in all lift up pure hands, And with acceptance on thee call.

What if in prison I must dwell? May I not there converse with thee? Save me from sin, thy wrath, and hell, Call me thy child, and I am free. No walls or bars can keep thee out; None can confine a holy soul; The streets of heaven it walks about; None can its liberty control. This flesh hath drawn my soul to sin: If it must smart, thy will be done! O fill me with thy joys within, And then I'll let it grieve alone.

Frail, sinful flesh is loath to die; Sense to the unseen world is strange; The doubting soul dreads the Most High, And trembleth at so great a change. O let me not be strange at home, Strange to the sun and life of souls, Choosing this low and darkened room, Familiar with worms and moles! Am I the first that go this way? How many saints are gone before! How many enter every day Into thy kingdom by this door! Christ was once dead, and in a grave; Yet conquered death, and rose again; And by this method he will save His servants that with him shall reign. The strangeness will be quickly over, When once the heaven-born soul is there: One sight of God will it recover From all this backwardness and fear. To us, Christ's lowest parts, his feet, Union and faith must yet suffice To guide and comfort us: it's meet We trust our head who hath our eyes.

We see here that faith in the Lord leads Richard Baxter to the same conclusions immediately to which his faithful philosophy led Henry More.

There is much in Baxter's poems that I would gladly quote, but must leave with regret. Here is a curious, skilful, and, in a homely way, poetic ballad, embodying a good parable. I give only a few of the stanzas.

THE RETURN.

Who was it that I left behind When I went last from home, That now I all disordered find When to myself I come?

I left it light, but now all's dark, And I am fain to grope: Were it not for one little spark I should be out of hope.

My Gospel-book I open left, Where I the promise saw; But now I doubt it's lost by theft: I find none but the Law.

The stormy rain an entrance hath Through the uncovered top: How should I rest when showers of wrath Upon my conscience drop?

I locked my jewel in my chest; I'll search lest that be gone:— If this one guest had quit my breast, I had been quite undone.

My treacherous Flesh had played its part, And opened Sin the door; And they have spoiled and robbed my heart, And left it sad and poor.

Yet have I one great trusty friend That will procure my peace, And all this loss and ruin mend, And purchase my release.

The bellows I'll yet take in hand, Till this small spark shall flame: Love shall my heart and tongue command To praise God's holy name.

I'll mend the roof; I'll watch the door, And better keep the key; I'll trust my treacherous flesh no more, But force it to obey.

What have I said? That I'll do this That am so false and weak, And have so often done amiss, And did my covenants break?

I mean, Lord—all this shall be done If thou my heart wilt raise; And as the work must be thine own, So also shall the praise.

The allegory is so good that one is absolutely sorry when it breaks down, and the poem says in plain words that which is the subject of the figures, bringing truths unmasked into the midst of the maskers who represent truths—thus interrupting the pleasure of the artistic sense in the transparent illusion.

The command of metrical form in Baxter is somewhat remarkable. He has not much melody, but he keeps good time in a variety of measures.



CHAPTER XVII.

CRASHAW AND MARVELL.

I come now to one of the loveliest of our angel-birds, Richard Crashaw. Indeed he was like a bird in more senses than one; for he belongs to that class of men who seem hardly ever to get foot-hold of this world, but are ever floating in the upper air of it.

What I said of a peculiar AEolian word-music in William Drummond applies with equal truth to Crashaw; while of our own poets, somehow or other, he reminds me of Shelley, in the silvery shine and bell-like melody both of his verse and his imagery; and in one of his poems, Music's Duel, the fineness of his phrase reminds me of Keats. But I must not forget that it is only with his sacred, his best poems too, that I am now concerned.

The date of his birth is not known with certainty, but it is judged about 1616, the year of Shakspere's death. He was the son of a Protestant clergyman zealous even to controversy. By a not unnatural reaction Crashaw, by that time, it is said, a popular preacher, when expelled from Oxford in 1644 by the Puritan Parliament because of his refusal to sign their Covenant, became a Roman Catholic. He died about the age of thirty-four, a canon of the Church of Loretto. There is much in his verses of that sentimentalism which, I have already said in speaking of Southwell, is rife in modern Catholic poetry. I will give from Crashaw a specimen of the kind of it. Avoiding a more sacred object, one stanza from a poem of thirty-one, most musical, and full of lovely speech concerning the tears of Mary Magdalen, will suit my purpose.

Hail, sister springs, Parents of silver-footed rills! Ever-bubbling things! Thawing crystal! Snowy hills, Still spending, never spent!—I mean Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene!

The poem is called The Weeper, and is radiant of delicate fancy. But surely such tones are not worthy of flitting moth-like about the holy sorrow of a repentant woman! Fantastically beautiful, they but play with her grief. Sorrow herself would put her shoes off her feet in approaching the weeping Magdalene. They make much of her indeed, but they show her little reverence. There is in them, notwithstanding their fervour of amorous words, a coldness like that which dwells in the ghostly beauty of icicles shining in the moon.

But I almost reproach myself for introducing Crashaw thus. I had to point out the fact, and now having done with it, I could heartily wish I had room to expatiate on his loveliness even in such poems as The Weeper.

His Divine Epigrams are not the most beautiful, but they are to me the most valuable of his verses, inasmuch as they make us feel afresh the truth which he sets forth anew. In them some of the facts of our Lord's life and teaching look out upon us as from clear windows of the past. As epigrams, too, they are excellent—pointed as a lance.

Upon the Sepulchre of our Lord.

Here, where our Lord once laid his head, Now the grave lies buried.

The Widow's Mites.

Two mites, two drops, yet all her house and land, Fall from a steady heart, though trembling hand; The other's wanton wealth foams high and brave: The other cast away—she only gave.

On the Prodigal.

Tell me, bright boy! tell me, my golden lad! Whither away so frolic? Why so glad?

What! all thy wealth in council? all thy state? Are husks so dear? Troth, 'tis a mighty rate!

I value the following as a lovely parable. Mary is not contented: to see the place is little comfort. The church itself, with all its memories of the Lord, the gospel-story, and all theory about him, is but his tomb until we find himself.

Come, see the place-where the Lord lay.

Show me himself, himself, bright sir! Oh show Which way my poor tears to himself may go. Were it enough to show the place, and say, "Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay;" Then could I show these arms of mine, and say, "Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay."

From one of eight lines, on the Mother Mary looking on her child in her lap, I take the last two, complete in themselves, and I think best alone.

This new guest to her eyes new laws hath given: 'Twas once look up, 'tis now look down to heaven.

And here is perhaps his best.

Two went up into the Temple to pray.

Two went to pray? Oh rather say, One went to brag, the other to pray.

One stands up close, and treads on high, Where the other dares not lend his eye.

One nearer to God's altar trod; The other to the altar's God.

This appears to me perfect. Here is the true relation between the forms and the end of religion. The priesthood, the altar and all its ceremonies, must vanish from between the sinner and his God. When the priest forgets his mediation of a servant, his duty of a door-keeper to the temple of truth, and takes upon him the office of an intercessor, he stands between man and God, and is a Satan, an adversary. Artistically considered, the poem could hardly be improved.

Here is another containing a similar lesson.

I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof.

Thy God was making haste into thy roof; Thy humble faith and fear keeps him aloof. He'll be thy guest: because he may not be, He'll come—into thy house? No; into thee.

The following is a world-wide intercession for them that know not what they do. Of those that reject the truth, who can be said ever to have truly seen it? A man must be good to see truth. It is a thought suggested by our Lord's words, not an irreverent opposition to the truth of them.

But now they have seen and hated.

Seen? and yet hated thee? They did not see— They saw thee not, that saw and hated thee! No, no; they saw thee not, O Life! O Love! Who saw aught in thee that their hate could move.

We must not be too ready to quarrel with every oddity: an oddity will sometimes just give the start to an outbreak of song. The strangeness of the following hymn rises almost into grandeur.

EASTER DAY.

Rise, heir of fresh eternity, From thy virgin-tomb; Rise, mighty man of wonders, and thy world with thee; Thy tomb, the universal East— Nature's new womb; Thy tomb—fair Immortality's perfumed nest.

Of all the glories[139] make noon gay This is the morn; This rock buds forth the fountain of the streams of day; In joy's white annals lives this hour, When life was born, No cloud-scowl on his radiant lids, no tempest-lower.

Life, by this light's nativity, All creatures have; Death only by this day's just doom is forced to die. Nor is death forced; for, may he lie Throned in thy grave, Death will on this condition be content to die.

When we come, in the writings of one who has revealed masterdom, upon any passage that seems commonplace, or any figure that suggests nothing true, the part of wisdom is to brood over that point; for the probability is that the barrenness lies in us, two factors being necessary for the result of sight—the thing to be seen and the eye to see it. No doubt the expression may be inadequate, but if we can compensate the deficiency by adding more vision, so much the better for us.

In the second stanza there is a strange combination of images: the rock buds; and buds a fountain; the fountain is light. But the images are so much one at the root, that they slide gracefully into each other, and there is no confusion or incongruity: the result is an inclined plane of development.

I now come to the most musical and most graceful, therefore most lyrical, of his poems. I have left out just three stanzas, because of the sentimentalism of which I have spoken: I would have left out more if I could have done so without spoiling the symmetry of the poem. My reader must be friendly enough to one who is so friendly to him, to let his peculiarities pass unquestioned—amongst the rest his conceits, as well as the trifling discord that the shepherds should be called, after the classical fashion—ill agreeing, from its associations, with Christian song—Tityrus and Thyrsis.

A HYMN OF THE NATIVITY SUNG BY THE SHEPHERDS.

Chorus. Come, we shepherds, whose blest sight Hath met love's noon in nature's night; Come, lift we up our loftier song, And wake the sun that lies too long.

To all our world of well-stolen[140] joy He slept, and dreamed of no such thing, While we found out heaven's fairer eye, And kissed the cradle of our king: Tell him he rises now too late To show us aught worth looking at.

Tell him we now can show him more Than he e'er showed to mortal sight— Than he himself e'er saw before, Which to be seen needs not his light: Tell him, Tityrus, where thou hast been; Tell him, Thyrsis, what thou hast seen.

Tityrus. Gloomy night embraced the place Where the noble infant lay: The babe looked up and showed his face: In spite of darkness it was day. It was thy day, sweet, and did rise Not from the east, but from thy eyes. Chorus. It was thy day, sweet, &c.

Thyrsis. Winter chid aloud, and sent The angry north to wage his wars: The north forgot his fierce intent, And left perfumes instead of scars. By those sweet eyes' persuasive powers, Where he meant frosts, he scattered flowers. Chorus. By those sweet eyes', &c.

Both. We saw thee in thy balmy nest, Young dawn of our eternal day; We saw thine eyes break from the east, And chase the trembling shades away. We saw thee, and we blessed the sight; We saw thee by thine own sweet light. Chorus. We saw thee, &c.

Tityrus. "Poor world," said I, "what wilt thou do To entertain this starry stranger? Is this the best thou canst bestow— A cold and not too cleanly manger? Contend, the powers of heaven and earth, To fit a bed for this huge birth." Chorus. Contend, the powers, &c.

Thyrsis. "Proud world," said I, "cease your contest, And let the mighty babe alone: The phoenix builds the phoenix' nest— Love's architecture is his own. The babe, whose birth embraves this morn, Made his own bed ere he was born." Chorus. The babe, whose birth, &c.

Tityrus. I saw the curl'd drops, soft and slow, Come hovering o'er the place's head, Offering their whitest sheets of snow To furnish the fair infant's bed: "Forbear," said I; "be not too bold: Your fleece is white, but 'tis too cold." Chorus. "Forbear," said I, &c.

Thyrsis. I saw the obsequious seraphim Their rosy fleece of fire bestow; For well they now can spare their wings, Since heaven itself lies here below. "Well done," said I; "but are you sure Your down, so warm, will pass for pure?" Chorus. "Well done," said I, &c.

* * * * *

Full Chorus. Welcome all wonders in one sight! Eternity shut in a span! Summer in winter! day in night! Heaven in earth, and God in man! Great little one, whose all-embracing birth Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth!

* * * * *

Welcome—though not to those gay flies Gilded i' th' beams of earthly kings— Slippery souls in smiling eyes— But to poor shepherds, homespun things, Whose wealth's their flocks, whose wit's to be Well read in their simplicity.

Yet when young April's husband showers Shall bless the fruitful Maia's bed, We'll bring the firstborn of her flowers To kiss thy feet, and crown thy head: To thee, dear Lamb! whose love must keep The shepherds while they feed their sheep.

To thee, meek Majesty, soft king Of simple graces and sweet loves, Each of us his lamb will bring, Each his pair of silver doves. At last, in fire of thy fair eyes, Ourselves become our own best sacrifice.

A splendid line to end with! too good for the preceding one. All temples and altars, all priesthoods and prayers, must vanish in this one and only sacrifice. Exquisite, however, as the poem is, we cannot help wishing it looked less heathenish. Its decorations are certainly meretricious.

From a few religious poems of Sir Edward Sherburne, another Roman Catholic, and a firm adherent of Charles I., I choose the following—the only one I care for.

AND THEY LAID HIM IN A MANGER.

Happy crib, that wert, alone, To my God, bed, cradle, throne! Whilst thy glorious vileness I View with divine fancy's eye, Sordid filth seems all the cost, State, and splendour, crowns do boast.

See heaven's sacred majesty Humbled beneath poverty; Swaddled up in homely rags, On a bed of straw and flags! He whose hands the heavens displayed, And the world's foundations laid, From the world's almost exiled, Of all ornaments despoiled. Perfumes bathe him not, new-born; Persian mantles not adorn; Nor do the rich roofs look bright With the jasper's orient light.

Where, O royal infant, be The ensigns of thy majesty; Thy Sire's equalizing state; And thy sceptre that rules fate? Where's thy angel-guarded throne, Whence thy laws thou didst make known— Laws which heaven, earth, hell obeyed? These, ah! these aside he laid; Would the emblem be—of pride By humility outvied.

I pass by Abraham Cowley, mighty reputation as he has had, without further remark than that he is too vulgar to be admired more than occasionally, and too artificial almost to be, as a poet, loved at all.

Andrew Marvell, member of Parliament for Hull both before and after the Restoration, was twelve years younger than his friend Milton. Any one of some half-dozen of his few poems is to my mind worth all the verse that Cowley ever made. It is a pity he wrote so little; but his was a life as diligent, I presume, as it was honourable.

ON A DROP OF DEW.

See how the orient dew, Shed from the bosom of the morn Into the blowing roses, Yet careless of its mansion new For the clear region where 'twas born, Round in itself encloses, used intransitively. And in its little globe's extent, Frames as it can its native element. How it the purple flower does slight, Scarce touching where it lies, But gazing back upon the skies, Shines with a mournful light, Like its own tear, Because so long divided from the sphere: Restless it rolls, and unsecure, Trembling lest it grow impure, Till the warm sun pity its pain, And to the skies exhale it back again. So the soul, that drop, that ray Of the clear fountain of eternal day, Could it within the human flower be seen, Remembering still its former height, Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green; And, recollecting its own light, Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express The greater heaven in an heaven less. In how coy a figure wound, Every way it turns away, So the world excluding round, Yet receiving in the day; Dark beneath but bright above, Here disdaining, there in love. How loose and easy hence to go! How girt and ready to ascend! Moving but on a point below, It all about does upwards bend. Such did the manna's sacred dew distil— White and entire,[141] though congealed and chill— Congealed on earth, but does, dissolving, run Into the glories of the almighty sun.

Surely a lovely fancy of resemblance, exquisitely wrought out; an instance of the lighter play of the mystical mind, which yet shadows forth truth.

THE CORONET.

When for the thorns with which I long too long, With many a piercing wound, My Saviour's head have crowned, I seek with garlands to redress that wrong, Through every garden, every mead I gather flowers—my fruits are only flowers— Dismantling all the fragrant towers That once adorned my shepherdess's head; And now, when I have summed up all my store, Thinking—so I myself deceive— So rich a chaplet thence to weave As never yet the King of glory wore; Alas! I find the serpent old, That, twining in his speckled breast, About the flowers disguised does fold, With wreaths of fame and interest. Ah, foolish man that wouldst debase with them And mortal glory, heaven's diadem! But thou who only couldst the serpent tame, Either his slippery knots at once untie, And disentangle all his winding snare, Or shatter too with him my curious frame,[142] And let these wither, that so he may die, Though set with skill, and chosen out with care; That they, while thou on both their spoils dost tread, May crown thy feet that could not crown thy head.

A true sacrifice of worship, if not a garland of praise! The disciple would have his works tried by the fire, not only that the gold and the precious stones may emerge relucent, but that the wood and hay and stubble may perish. The will of God alone, not what we may have effected, deserves our care. In the perishing of our deeds they fall at his feet: in our willing their loss we crown his head.



CHAPTER XVIII.

A MOUNT OF VISION—HENRY VAUGHAN.

We have now arrived at the borders of a long, dreary tract, which, happily for my readers, I can shorten for them in this my retrospect. From the heights of Henry Vaughan's verse, I look across a stony region, with a few feeble oases scattered over it, and a hazy green in the distance. It does not soften the dreariness that its stones are all laid in order, that the spaces which should be meadows are skilfully paved.

Henry Vaughan belongs to the mystical school, but his poetry rules his theories. You find no more of the mystic than the poet can easily govern; in fact, scarcely more than is necessary to the highest poetry. He develops his mysticism upwards, with relation to his higher nature alone: it blossoms into poetry. His twin-brother Thomas developed his mysticism downwards in the direction of the material sciences—a true effort still, but one in which the danger of ceasing to be true increases with increasing ratio the further it is carried.

They were born in South Wales in the year 1621. Thomas was a clergyman; Henry a doctor of medicine. Both were Royalists, and both suffered in the cause—Thomas by expulsion from his living, Henry by imprisonment. Thomas died soon after the Restoration; Henry outlived the Revolution.

Henry Vaughan was then nearly thirty years younger than George Herbert, whom he consciously and intentionally imitates. His art is not comparable to that of Herbert: hence Herbert remains the master; for it is not the thought that makes the poet; it is the utterance of that thought in worthy presence of speech. He is careless and somewhat rugged. If he can get his thought dressed, and thus made visible, he does not mind the dress fitting awkwardly, or even being a little out at elbows. And yet he has grander lines and phrases than any in Herbert. He has occasionally a daring success that strikes one with astonishment. In a word, he says more splendid things than Herbert, though he writes inferior poems. His thought is profound and just; the harmonies in his soul are true; its artistic and musical ear is defective. His movements are sometimes grand, sometimes awkward. Herbert is always gracious—I use the word as meaning much more than graceful.

The following poem will instance Vaughan's fine mysticism and odd embodiment:

COCK-CROWING.

Father of lights! what sunny seed, What glance of day hast thou confined Into this bird? To all the breed This busy ray thou hast assigned; Their magnetism works all night, And dreams of Paradise and light.

Their eyes watch for the morning hue; Their little grain,[143] expelling night, So shines and sings, as if it knew The path unto the house of light: It seems their candle, howe'er done, Was tined[144] and lighted at the sun.

If such a tincture, such a touch, So firm a longing can empower, Shall thy own image think it much To watch for thy appearing hour? If a mere blast so fill the sail, Shall not the breath of God prevail?

O thou immortal Light and Heat, Whose hand so shines through all this frame, That by the beauty of the seat, We plainly see who made the same! Seeing thy seed abides in me, Dwell thou in it, and I in thee.

To sleep without thee is to die; Yea, 'tis a death partakes of hell; For where thou dost not close the eye, It never opens, I can tell: In such a dark, Egyptian border The shades of death dwell and disorder

Its joys and hopes and earnest throws, And hearts whose pulse beats still for light, Are given to birds, who but thee knows A love-sick soul's exalted flight? Can souls be tracked by any eye But his who gave them wings to fly?

Only this veil, which thou hast broke, And must be broken yet in me; This veil, I say, is all the cloak And cloud which shadows me from thee. This veil thy full-eyed love denies, And only gleams and fractions spies.

O take it off. Make no delay, But brush me with thy light, that I May shine unto a perfect day, And warm me at thy glorious eye. O take it off; or, till it flee, Though with no lily, stay with me.

I have no room for poems often quoted, therefore not for that lovely one beginning "They are all gone into the world of light;" but I must not omit The Retreat, for besides its worth, I have another reason for presenting it.

THE RETREAT.

Happy those early days when I Shined in my angel-infancy! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy ought But a white, celestial thought; When yet I had not walked above A mile or two from my first love, And, looking back, at that short space Could see a glimpse of his bright face; When on some gilded cloud or flower My gazing soul would dwell an hour, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity; Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, Or had the black art to dispense A several sin to every sense; But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness. O how I long to travel back, And tread again that ancient track! That I might once more reach that plain Where first I left my glorious train, From whence the enlightened spirit sees That shady city of palm-trees. But ah! my soul with too much stay Is drunk, and staggers in the way! Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move; And when this dust falls to the urn, In that state I came return.

Let any one who is well acquainted with Wordsworth's grand ode—that on the Intimations of Immortality—turn his mind to a comparison between that and this: he will find the resemblance remarkable. Whether The Retreat suggested the form of the Ode is not of much consequence, for the Ode is the outcome at once and essence of all Wordsworth's theories; and whatever he may have drawn from The Retreat is glorified in the Ode. Still it is interesting to compare them. Vaughan believes with Wordsworth and some other great men that this is not our first stage of existence; that we are haunted by dim memories of a former state. This belief is not necessary, however, to sympathy with the poem, for whether the present be our first life or no, we have come from God, and bring from him conscience and a thousand godlike gifts.—"Happy those early days," Vaughan begins: "There was a time," begins Wordsworth, "when the earth seemed apparelled in celestial light." "Before I understood this place," continues Vaughan: "Blank misgivings of a creature moving about in worlds not realized," says Wordsworth. "A white celestial thought," says Vaughan: "Heaven lies about us in our infancy," says Wordsworth. "A mile or two off, I could see his face," says Vaughan: "Trailing clouds of glory do we come," says Wordsworth. "On some gilded cloud or flower, my gazing soul would dwell an hour," says Vaughan: "The hour of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower," says Wordsworth.

Wordsworth's poem is the profounder in its philosophy, as well as far the grander and lovelier in its poetry; but in the moral relation, Vaughan's poem is the more definite of the two, and gives us in its close, poor as that is compared with the rest of it, just what we feel is wanting in Wordsworth's—the hope of return to the bliss of childhood. We may be comforted for what we lose by what we gain; but that is not a recompense large enough to be divine: we want both. Vaughan will be a child again. For the movements of man's life are in spirals: we go back whence we came, ever returning on our former traces, only upon a higher level, on the next upward coil of the spiral, so that it is a going back and a going forward ever and both at once. Life is, as it were, a constant repentance, or thinking of it again: the childhood of the kingdom takes the place of the childhood of the brain, but comprises all that was lovely in the former delight. The heavenly children will subdue kingdoms, work righteousness, wax valiant in fight, rout the armies of the aliens, merry of heart as when in the nursery of this world they fought their fancied frigates, and defended their toy-battlements.

Here are the beginning and end of another of similar purport:

CHILDHOOD.

I cannot reach it; and my striving eye Dazzles at it, as at eternity. Were now that chronicle alive, Those white designs which children drive, And the thoughts of each harmless hour, With their content too in my power, Quickly would I make my path even, And by mere playing go to heaven.

* * * * *

An age of mysteries! which he Must live twice that would God's face see; Which angels guard, and with it play— Angels which foul men drive away.

How do I study now, and scan Thee more than e'er I studied man, And only see, through a long night, Thy edges and thy bordering light! O for thy centre and mid-day! For sure that is the narrow way!

Many a true thought comes out by the help of a fancy or half-playful exercise of the thinking power. There is a good deal of such fancy in the following poem, but in the end it rises to the height of the purest and best mysticism. We must not forget that the deepest man can utter, will be but the type or symbol of a something deeper yet, of which he can perceive only a doubtful glimmer. This will serve for general remark upon the mystical mode, as well as for comment explanatory of the close of the poem.

THE NIGHT.

JOHN iii. 2.

Through that pure virgin-shrine, That sacred veil[145] drawn o'er thy glorious noon, That men might look and live, as glowworms shine, And face the moon, Wise Nicodemus saw such light As made him know his God by night.

Most blest believer he, Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes, Thy long-expected healing wings could see When thou didst rise! And, what can never more be done, Did at midnight speak with the sun!

O who will tell me where He found thee at that dead and silent hour? What hallowed solitary ground did bear So rare a flower, Within whose sacred leaves did lie The fulness of the Deity?

No mercy-seat of gold, No dead and dusty cherub, nor carved stone, But his own living works did my Lord hold And lodge alone, Where trees and herbs did watch and peep And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.

Dear night! this world's defeat; The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb, The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat Which none disturb! Christ's progress, and his prayer time,[146] The hours to which high heaven doth chime![147]

God's silent, searching flight;[148] When my Lord's head is filled with dew, and all His locks are wet with the clear drops of night, His still, soft call; His knocking time;[149] the soul's dumb watch, When spirits their fair kindred catch.

Were all my loud, evil[150] days Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent, Whose peace but by some angel's wing or voice Is seldom rent, Then I in heaven all the long year Would keep, and never wander here.

But living where the sun Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire Themselves and others, I consent and run To every mire; And by this world's ill guiding light, Err more than I can do by night

There is in God, some say, A deep but dazzling darkness; as men here Say it is late and dusky, because they See not all clear: O for that night! where I in him Might live invisible and dim!

This is glorious; and its lesson of quiet and retirement we need more than ever in these hurried days upon which we have fallen. If men would but be still enough in themselves to hear, through all the noises of the busy light, the voice that is ever talking on in the dusky chambers of their hearts! Look at his love for Nature, too; and read the fourth stanza in connexion with my previous remarks upon symbolism. I think this poem grander than any of George Herbert's. I use the word with intended precision.

Here is one, the end of which is not so good, poetically considered, as the magnificent beginning, but which contains striking lines throughout:—

THE DAWNING.

Ah! what time wilt thou come? When shall that cry, The Bridegroom's coming, fill the sky? Shall it in the evening run When our words and works are done? Or will thy all-surprising light Break at midnight, When either sleep or some dark pleasure Possesseth mad man without measure? Or shail these early, fragrant hours Unlock thy bowers,[151] And with their blush of light descry Thy locks crowned with eternity? Indeed, it is the only time That with thy glory doth best chime: All now are stirring; every field Full hymns doth yield; The whole creation shakes off night, And for thy shadow looks the light;[152] Stars now vanish without number; Sleepy planets set and slumber; The pursy clouds disband and scatter;— All expect some sudden matter; Not one beam triumphs, but, from far, That morning-star.

O, at what time soever thou, Unknown to us, the heavens wilt bow, And, with thy angels in the van, Descend to judge poor careless man, Grant I may not like puddle lie In a corrupt security, Where, if a traveller water crave, He finds it dead, and in a grave; But as this restless, vocal spring All day and night doth run and sing, And though here born, yet is acquainted Elsewhere, and, flowing, keeps untainted, So let me all my busy age In thy free services engage; And though, while here, of force,[153] I must Have commerce sometimes with poor dust,[154] And in my flesh, though vile and low, As this doth in her channel, flow, Yet let my course, my aim, my love, And chief acquaintance be above. So when that day and hour shall come, In which thyself will be the sun, Thou'lt find me drest and on my way, Watching the break of thy great day.

I do not think that description of the dawn has ever been surpassed. The verse "All expect some sudden matter," is wondrously fine. The water "dead and in a grave," because stagnant, is a true fancy; and the "acquainted elsewhere" of the running stream, is a masterly phrase. I need not point out the symbolism of the poem.

I do not know a writer, Wordsworth not excepted, who reveals more delight in the visions of Nature than Henry Vaughan. He is a true forerunner of Wordsworth, inasmuch as the latter sets forth with only greater profundity and more art than he, the relations between Nature and Human Nature; while, on the other hand, he is the forerunner as well of some one that must yet do what Wordsworth has left almost unattempted, namely—set forth the sympathy of Nature with the aspirations of the spirit that is born of God, born again, I mean, in the recognition of the child's relation to the Father. Both Herbert and Vaughan have thus read Nature, the latter turning many leaves which few besides have turned. In this he has struck upon a deeper and richer lode than even Wordsworth, although he has not wrought it with half his skill. In any history of the development of the love of the present age for Nature, Vaughan, although I fear his influence would be found to have been small as yet, must be represented as the Phosphor of coming dawn. Beside him, Thomson is cold, artistic, and gray: although larger in scope, he is not to be compared with him in sympathetic sight. It is this insight that makes Vaughan a mystic. He can see one thing everywhere, and all things the same—yet each with a thousand sides that radiate crossing lights, even as the airy particles around us. For him everything is the expression of, and points back to, some fact in the Divine Thought. Along the line of every ray he looks towards its radiating centre—the heart of the Maker.

I could give many instances of Vaughan's power in reading the heart of Nature, but I may not dwell upon this phase. Almost all the poems I give and have given will afford such.

I walked the other day, to spend my hour, Into a field, Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield A gallant flower; But winter now had ruffled all the bower And curious store I knew there heretofore.

Yet I whose search loved not to peep and peer I' th' face of things, Thought with myself, there might be other springs Besides this here, Which, like cold friends, sees us but once a year; And so the flower Might have some other bower.

Then taking up what I could nearest spy, I digged about That place where I had seen him to grow out; And by and by I saw the warm recluse alone to lie, Where fresh and green He lived of us unseen.

Many a question intricate and rare Did I there strow; But all I could extort was, that he now Did there repair Such losses as befell him in this air, And would ere long Come forth most fair and young.

This past, I threw the clothes quite o'er his head; And, stung with fear Of my own frailty, dropped down many a tear Upon his bed; Then sighing, whispered, Happy are the dead! What peace doth now Rock him asleep below!

And yet, how few believe such doctrine springs From a poor root Which all the winter sleeps here under foot, And hath no wings To raise it to the truth and light of things, But is still trod By every wandering clod!

O thou, whose spirit did at first inflame And warm the dead! And by a sacred incubation fed With life this frame, Which once had neither being, form, nor name! Grant I may so Thy steps track here below,

That in these masks and shadows I may see Thy sacred way; And by those hid ascents climb to that day Which breaks from thee, Who art in all things, though invisibly: Show me thy peace, Thy mercy, love, and ease.

And from this care, where dreams and sorrows reign, Lead me above, Where light, joy, leisure, and true comforts move Without all pain: There, hid in thee, show me his life again At whose dumb urn Thus all the year I mourn.

There are several amongst his poems lamenting, like this, the death of some dear friend—perhaps his twin-brother, whom he outlived thirty years.

According to what a man is capable of seeing in nature, he becomes either a man of appliance, a man of science, a mystic, or a poet.

I must now give two that are simple in thought, construction, and music. The latter ought to be popular, from the nature of its rhythmic movement, and the holy merriment it carries. But in the former, note how the major key of gladness changes in the third stanza to the minor key of aspiration, which has always some sadness in it; a sadness which deepens to grief in the next stanza at the consciousness of unfitness for Christ's company, but is lifted by hope almost again to gladness in the last.

CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

Awake, glad heart! Get up, and sing! It is the birthday of thy king! Awake! awake! The sun doth shake Light from his locks, and, all the way Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

Awake! awake! Hark how the wood rings Winds whisper, and the busy springs A concert make: Awake! awake! Man is their high-priest, and should rise To offer up the sacrifice.

I would I were some bird or star, Fluttering in woods, or lifted far Above this inn And road of sin! Then either star or bird should be Shining or singing still to thee.

I would I had in my best part Fit rooms for thee! or that my heart Were so clean as Thy manger was! But I am all filth, and obscene; Yet, if thou wilt, thou canst make clean.

Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no more This leper haunt and soil thy door. Cure him, ease him; O release him! And let once more, by mystic birth, The Lord of life be born in earth.

The fitting companion to this is his

EASTER HYMN.

Death and darkness, get you packing: Nothing now to man is lacking. All your triumphs now are ended, And what Adam marred is mended. Graves are beds now for the weary; Death a nap, to wake more merry; Youth now, full of pious duty, Seeks in thee for perfect beauty; The weak and aged, tired with length Of days, from thee look for new strength; And infants with thy pangs contest, As pleasant as if with the breast.

Then unto him who thus hath thrown Even to contempt thy kingdom down, And by his blood did us advance Unto his own inheritance— To him be glory, power, praise, From this unto the last of days!

We must now descend from this height of true utterance into the Valley of Humiliation, and cannot do better than console ourselves by listening to the boy in mean clothes, of the fresh and well-favoured countenance, whom Christiana and her fellow-pilgrims hear singing in that valley.

He that is down, needs fear no fall; He that is low, no pride; He that is humble ever shall Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have, Little be it or much; And, Lord, contentment still I crave, Because thou savest[155] such.

Fulness to such a burden is That go on pilgrimage; Here little, and hereafter bliss, Is best from age to age.

I could not have my book without one word in it of John Bunyan, the tinker, probably the gipsy, who although born only and not made a poet, like his great brother, John Milton, has uttered in prose a wealth of poetic thought. He was born in 1628, twenty years after Milton. I must not, however, remark on this noble Bohemian of literature and prophecy; but leaving at length these flowery hills and meadows behind me, step on my way across the desert.—England had now fallen under the influence of France instead of Italy, and that influence has never been for good to our literature, at least. Thence its chief aim grew to be a desirable trimness of speech and logical arrangement of matter—good external qualities purchased at a fearful price with the loss of all that makes poetry precious. The poets of England, with John Dryden at their head, ceased almost for a time to deal with the truths of humanity, and gave themselves to the facts and relations of society. The nation which could recall the family of the Stuarts must necessarily fall into such a decay of spiritual life as should render its literature only respectable at the best, and its religious utterances essentially vulgar. But the decay is gradual.

Bishop Ken, born in 1637, is known chiefly by his hymns for the morning and evening, deservedly popular. He has, however, written a great many besides—too many, indeed, for variety or excellence. He seems to have set himself to write them as acts of worship. They present many signs of a perversion of taste which, though not in them so remarkable, rose to a height before long. He annoys us besides by the constant recurrence of certain phrases, one or two of which are not admirable, and by using, in the midst of a simple style, odd Latin words. Here are portions of, I think, one of his best, and good it is.

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS.

* * * * *

Lord, 'tis thyself who hast impressed In native light on human breast, That their Creator all Mankind should Father call: A father's love all mortals know, And the love filial which they owe.

Our Father gives us heavenly light, And to be happy, ghostly sight; He blesses, guides, sustains; He eases us in pains; Abatements for our weakness makes, And never a true child forsakes.

He waits till the hard heart relents; Our self-damnation he laments; He sweetly them invites To share in heaven's delights; His arms he opens to receive All who for past transgressions grieve.

My Father! O that name is sweet To sinners mourning in retreat. God's heart paternal yearns When he a change discerns; He to his favour them restores; He heals their most inveterate sores.

* * * * *

Religious honour, humble awe; Obedience to our Father's law; A lively grateful sense Of tenderness immense; Full trust on God's paternal cares; Submission which chastisement bears;

Grief, when his goodness we offend; Zeal, to his likeness to ascend; Will, from the world refined, To his sole will resigned: These graces in God's children shine, Reflections of the love divine.

* * * * *

God's Son co-equal taught us all In prayer his Father ours to call: With confidence in need, We to our Father speed: Of his own Son the language dear Intenerates the Father's ear. makes tender.

Thou Father art, though to my shame, I often forfeit that dear name; But since for sin I grieve, Me father-like receive; O melt me into filial tears, To pay of love my vast arrears.

* * * * *

O Spirit of Adoption! spread Thy wings enamouring o'er my head; O Filial love immense! Raise me to love intense; O Father, source of love divine, My powers to love and hymn incline!

While God my Father I revere, Nor all hell powers, nor death I fear; I am my Father's care; His succours present are. All comes from my loved Father's will, And that sweet name intends no ill.

God's Son his soul, when life he closed, In his dear Father's hands reposed: I'll, when my last I breathe, My soul to God bequeath; And panting for the joys on high, Invoking Love Paternal, die.

Born in 1657, one of the later English Platonists, John Norris, who, with how many incumbents between I do not know, succeeded George Herbert in the cure of Bemerton, has left a few poems, which would have been better if he had not been possessed with the common admiration for the rough-shod rhythms of Abraham Cowley.

Here is one in which the peculiarities of his theories show themselves very prominently. There is a constant tendency in such to wander into the region half-spiritual, half-material.

THE ASPIRATION.

How long, great God, how long must I Immured in this dark prison lie; My soul must watch to have intelligence; Where at the grates and avenues of sense Where but faint gleams of thee salute my sight, Like doubtful moonshine in a cloudy night? When shall I leave this magic sphere, And be all mind, all eye, all ear?

How cold this clime! And yet my sense Perceives even here thy influence. Even here thy strong magnetic charms I feel, And pant and tremble like the amorous steel. To lower good, and beauties less divine, Sometimes my erroneous needle does decline, But yet, so strong the sympathy, It turns, and points again to thee.

I long to see this excellence Which at such distance strikes my sense. My impatient soul struggles to disengage Her wings from the confinement of her cage. Wouldst thou, great Love, this prisoner once set free, How would she hasten to be linked to thee! She'd for no angels' conduct stay, But fly, and love on all the way.

THE RETURN.

Dear Contemplation! my divinest joy! When I thy sacred mount ascend, What heavenly sweets my soul employ! Why can't I there my days for ever spend? When I have conquered thy steep heights with pain, What pity 'tis that I must down again!

And yet I must: my passions would rebel Should I too long continue here: No, here I must not think to dwell, But mind the duties of my proper sphere. So angels, though they heaven's glories know, Forget not to attend their charge below.

The old hermits thought to overcome their impulses by retiring from the world: our Platonist has discovered for himself that the world of duty is the only sphere in which they can be combated. Never perhaps is a saint more in danger of giving way to impulse, let it be anger or what it may, than in the moment when he has just descended from this mount of contemplation.

We find ourselves now in the zone of hymn-writing. From this period, that is, from towards the close of the seventeenth century, a large amount of the fervour of the country finds vent in hymns: they are innumerable. With them the scope of my book would not permit me to deal, even had I inclination thitherward, and knowledge enough to undertake their history. But I am not therefore precluded from presenting any hymn whose literary excellence makes it worthy.

It is with especial pleasure that I refer to a little book which was once a household treasure in a multitude of families,[156] the Spiritual Songs of John Mason, a clergyman in the county of Buckingham. The date of his birth does not appear to be known, but the first edition of these songs[157] was published in 1683. Dr. Watts was very fond of them: would that he had written with similar modesty of style! A few of them are still popular in congregational singing. Here is the first in the book: