England's Antiphon

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 with¹³⁴ several for the people's sake.
  He that, long-fasting, would no wonder show,
  Made loaves and fishes, as they eat them, grow.
  Of all his power, which boundless was above,
  Here he used none but to express his love;
  And such a love would make our joy exceed,
  Not when our own, but others' mouths we feed.
* * * * *
  Love as he loved! A love so unconfined
  With arms extended would embrace mankind.
  Self-love would cease, or be dilated, when
  We should behold as many selfs as men;
  All of one family, in blood allied,
  His precious blood that for our ransom died.
* * * * *
  Amazed at once and comforted, to find
  A boundless power so infinitely kind,
  The soul contending to that light to fly
  From her dark cell, we practise how to die,
  Employing thus the poet's wingéd art
  To reach this love, and grave it in our heart.
  Joy so complete, so solid, and severe,
  Would leave no place for meaner pleasures there:
  Pale they would look, as stars that must be gone
  When from the east the rising sun comes on.
* * * * *
 

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

ON THE FOREGOING DIVINE POEMS

 
  When we for age could neither read nor write,
  The subject made us able to indite:
  The soul with nobler resolutions decked,
  The body stooping, does herself erect:
  No mortal parts are requisite to raise
  Her that unbodied can her Maker praise.
  The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er:
  So calm are we when passions are no more;
  For then we know how vain it was to boast
  Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
  Clouds of affection from our younger eyes passion.
  Conceal that emptiness which age descries.
 
 
  The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
  Lets in new light, through chinks that time has made:
  Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
  As they draw near to their eternal home.
  Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
  That stand upon the threshold of the new.
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 
         1. Where is this blessed babe
                      That hath made
            All the world so full of joy
                      And expectation;
                      That glorious boy
                      That crowns each nation
            With a triumphant wreath of blessedness?
 
 
         2. Where should he be but in the throng,
                              And among
            His angel ministers that sing
                              And take wing
            Just as may echo to his voice,
                              And rejoice,
            When wing and tongue and all
            May so procure their happiness?
 
 
         3. But he hath other waiters now:
                              A poor cow
            An ox and mule stand and behold,
                              And wonder
            That a stable should enfold
                              Him that can thunder.
 
 
  Chorus. O what a gracious God have we!
            How good? How great? Even as our misery.
 

A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY

 
  Awake, my soul, and come away;
      Put on thy best array,
      Lest if thou longer stay,
  Thou lose some minutes of so blest a day.
 
 
                         Go run, And bid good-morrow to the sun;
    Welcome his safe return To Capricorn, And that great morn Wherein
    a God was born, Whose story none can tell But he whose every
 word's a miracle.
 
 
    To-day Almightiness grew weak;
  The Word itself was mute, and could not speak.
 
 
    That Jacob's star which made the sun
    To dazzle if he durst look on,
    Now mantled o'er in Bethlehem's night,
    Borrowed a star to show him light.
 
 
      He that begirt each zone,
      To whom both poles are one,
      Who grasped the zodiac in his hand,
      And made it move or stand,
      Is now by nature man,
      By stature but a span;
      Eternity is now grown short;
      A king is born without a court;
      The water thirsts; the fountain's dry;
      And life, being born, made apt to die.
 
 
  Chorus. Then let our praises emulate and vie
                     With his humility!
                 Since he's exiled from skies
                     That we might rise,—
                 From low estate of men
                 Let's sing him up again!
                 Each man wind up his heart
                     To bear a part
               In that angelic choir, and show
               His glory high, as he was low.
             Let's sing towards men goodwill and charity,
             Peace upon earth, glory to God on high!
                               Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
 

THE PRAYER

 
  My soul doth pant towards thee,
  My God, source of eternal life.
          Flesh fights with me:
          Oh end the strife,
  And part us, that in peace I may
                      Unclay
    My wearied spirit, and take
  My flight to thy eternal spring,
          Where, for his sake
          Who is my king,
  I may wash all my tears away,
                      That day.
 
 
    Thou conqueror of death,
  Glorious triumpher o'er the grave,
          Whose holy breath
          Was spent to save
  Lost mankind, make me to be styled
                      Thy child,
    And take me when I die
  And go unto my dust; my soul
          Above the sky
          With saints enrol,
  That in thy arms, for ever, I
                      May lie.
 

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

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

A PRAYER FOR CHARITY

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

CHAPTER XVI

HENRY MORE AND RICHARD BAXTER.

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

RESOLUTION

 
  Where's now the objects of thy fears,
  Needless sighs, and fruitless tears?
  They be all gone like idle dream
  Suggested from the body's steam.
* * * * *
  What's plague and prison? Loss of friends?
  War, dearth, and death that all things ends?
  Mere bugbears for the childish mind;
  Pure panic terrors of the blind.
 
 
  Collect thy soul unto one sphere
  Of light, and 'bove the earth it rear;
  Those wild scattered thoughts that erst
  Lay loosely in the world dispersed,
  Call in:—thy spirit thus knit in one
  Fair lucid orb, those fears be gone
  Like vain impostures of the night,
  That fly before the morning bright.
  Then with pure eyes thou shalt behold
  How the first goodness doth infold
  All things in loving tender arms;
  That deeméd mischiefs are no harms,
  But sovereign salves and skilful cures
  Of greater woes the world endures;
  That man's stout soul may win a state
  Far raised above the reach of fate.
 
 
  Then wilt thou say, God rules the world,
  Though mountain over mountain hurled
  Be pitched amid the foaming main
  Which busy winds to wrath constrain;
* * * * *
  Though pitchy blasts from hell up-born
  Stop the outgoings of the morn,
  And Nature play her fiery games
  In this forced night, with fulgurant flames:
* * * * *
  All this confusion cannot move
  The purgéd mind, freed from the love
  Of commerce with her body dear,
  Cell of sad thoughts, sole spring of fear.
 
 
  Whate'er I feel or hear or see
  Threats but these parts that mortal be.
  Nought can the honest heart dismay
  Unless the love of living clay,
 
 
  And long acquaintance with the light
  Of this outworld, and what to sight
  Those two officious beams¹³⁵ 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 antiperistasis¹³⁶
  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.