England's Antiphon

A LONG FAREWELL TO GLITTERING TRIFLES

 
  Leave me, O love, which reachest but to dust;
    And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things;
  Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:
    What ever fades but fading pleasure brings.
  Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might
    To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be;
  Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light
    That doth both shine and give us sight to see.
  Oh take fast hold; let that light be thy guide,
    In this small course which birth draws out to death;
  And think how evil⁶³ becometh him to slide
    Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.
      Then farewell, world; thy uttermost I see:
      Eternal love, maintain thy life in me.
 

Before turning to the treasury of his noblest verse, I shall give six lines from a poem in the Arcadia—chiefly for the sake of instancing what great questions those mighty men delighted in:

 
  What essence destiny hath; if fortune be or no;
  Whence our immortal souls to mortal earth do stow⁶⁴:
 
 
  What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather,
  With outward maker's force, or like an inward father.
  Such thoughts, me thought, I thought, and strained my single mind,
  Then void of nearer cares, the depth of things to find.
 

Lord Bacon was not the only one, in such an age, to think upon the mighty relations of physics and metaphysics, or, as Sidney would say, "of naturall and supernaturall philosophic." For a man to do his best, he must be upheld, even in his speculations, by those around him.

In the specimen just given, we find that our religious poetry has gone down into the deeps. There are indications of such a tendency in the older times, but neither then were the questions so articulate, nor were the questioners so troubled for an answer. The alternative expressed in the middle couplet seems to me the most imperative of all questions—both for the individual and for the church: Is man fashioned by the hands of God, as a potter fashioneth his vessel; or do we indeed come forth from his heart? Is power or love the making might of the universe? He who answers this question aright possesses the key to all righteous questions.

Sir Philip and his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, made between them a metrical translation of the Psalms of David. It cannot be determined which are hers and which are his; but if I may conclude anything from a poem by the sister, to which I shall by and by refer, I take those I now give for the brother's work.

The souls of the following psalms have, in the version I present, transmigrated into fairer forms than I have found them occupy elsewhere. Here is a grand hymn for the whole world: Sing unto the Lord.

PSALM XCVI

 
  Sing, and let your song be new,
    Unto him that never endeth;
  Sing all earth, and all in you—
  Sing to God, and bless his name.
    Of the help, the health he sendeth,
  Day by day new ditties frame.
 
 
  Make each country know his worth:
    Of his acts the wondered story
  Paint unto each people forth.
  For Jehovah great alone,
    All the gods, for awe and glory,
  Far above doth hold his throne.
 
 
  For but idols, what are they
    Whom besides mad earth adoreth?
  He the skies in frame did lay.
  Grace and honour are his guides;
    Majesty his temple storeth;
  Might in guard about him bides.
 
 
  Kindreds come! Jehovah give—
    O give Jehovah all together,
  Force and fame whereso you live.
  Give his name the glory fit:
    Take your off'rings, get you thither,
  Where he doth enshrined sit.
 
 
  Go, adore him in the place
    Where his pomp is most displayed.
  Earth, O go with quaking pace,
  Go proclaim Jehovah king:
    Stayless world shall now be stayed;
  Righteous doom his rule shall bring.
 
 
  Starry roof and earthy floor,
    Sea, and all thy wideness yieldeth,
  Now rejoice, and leap, and roar.
  Leafy infants of the wood,
    Fields, and all that on you feedeth,
  Dance, O dance, at such a good!
 
 
  For Jehovah cometh, lo!
    Lo to reign Jehovah cometh!
  Under whom you all shall go.
  He the world shall rightly guide—
    Truly, as a king becometh,
  For the people's weal provide.
 

Attempting to give an ascending scale of excellence—I do not mean in subject but in execution—I now turn to the national hymn, God is our Refuge.

PSALM XLIV

 
  God gives us strength, and keeps us sound—
    A present help when dangers call;
  Then fear not we, let quake the ground,
    And into seas let mountains fall;
    Yea so let seas withal
  In watery hills arise,
    As may the earthly hills appal
  With dread and dashing cries.
 
 
  For lo, a river, streaming joy,
    With purling murmur safely slides,
  That city washing from annoy,
    In holy shrine where God resides.
    God in her centre bides:
  What can this city shake?
    God early aids and ever guides:
  Who can this city take?
 
 
  When nations go against her bent,
    And kings with siege her walls enround;
  The void of air his voice doth rent,
    Earth fails their feet with melting ground.
    To strength and keep us sound,
  The God of armies arms;
    Our rock on Jacob's God we found,
  Above the reach of harms.
 
 
  O come with me, O come, and view
    The trophies of Jehovah's hand!
  What wrecks from him our foes pursue!
    How clearly he hath purged our land!
    By him wars silent stand:
  He brake the archer's bow,
    Made chariot's wheel a fiery brand,
  And spear to shivers go.
 
 
  Be still, saith he; know, God am I;
    Know I will be with conquest crowned
  Above all nations—raiséd high,
    High raised above this earthly round.
    To strength and keep us sound,
  The God of armies arms;
    Our rock on Jacob's God we found,
  Above the reach of harms.
 

"The God of armies arms" is a grand line.

Now let us have a hymn of Nature—a far finer, I think, than either of the preceding: Praise waiteth for thee.

PSALM LXV

 
  Sion it is where thou art praiséd,
    Sion, O God, where vows they pay thee:
  There all men's prayers to thee raiséd,
    Return possessed of what they pray thee.
  There thou my sins, prevailing to my shame,
  Dost turn to smoke of sacrificing flame.
 
 
  Oh! he of bliss is not deceivéd, disappointed.
    Whom chosen thou unto thee takest;
  And whom into thy court receivéd,
    Thou of thy checkrole⁶⁵ number makest:
  The dainty viands of thy sacred store
  Shall feed him so he shall not hunger more.
 
 
  From thence it is thy threat'ning thunder—
    Lest we by wrong should be disgracéd—
  Doth strike our foes with fear and wonder,
    O thou on whom their hopes are placéd,
  Whom either earth doth stedfastly sustain,
  Or cradle rocks the restless wavy plain.
 
 
  Thy virtue stays the mighty mountains, power.
    Girded with power, with strength abounding.
  The roaring dam of watery fountains the "dam of fountains"
    Thy beck doth make surcease her sounding. [is the ocean.
  When stormy uproars toss the people's brain,
  That civil sea to calm thou bring'st again. political, as opposed
                                                              [to natural.
 
 
  Where earth doth end with endless ending,
    All such as dwell, thy signs affright them;
  And in thy praise their voices spending,
    Both houses of the sun delight them–
  Both whence he comes, when early he awakes,
  And where he goes, when evening rest he takes.
 
 
  Thy eye from heaven this land beholdeth,
    Such fruitful dews down on it raining,
  That storehouse-like her lap enfoldeth
    Assuréd hope of ploughman's gaining:
  Thy flowing streams her drought doth temper so,
  That buried seed through yielding grave doth grow.
 
 
  Drunk is each ridge of thy cup drinking;
    Each clod relenteth at thy dressing; groweth soft.
  Thy cloud-borne waters inly sinking,
    Fair spring sprouts forth, blest with thy blessing.
  The fertile year is with thy bounty crowned;
  And where thou go'st, thy goings fat the ground.
 
 
  Plenty bedews the desert places;
    A hedge of mirth the hills encloseth;
  The fields with flocks have hid their faces;
    A robe of corn the valleys clotheth.
  Deserts, and hills, and fields, and valleys all,
  Rejoice, shout, sing, and on thy name do call.
 

The first stanza seems to me very fine, especially the verse, "Return possessed of what they pray thee." The third stanza might have been written after the Spanish Philip's Armada, but both King David and Sir Philip Sidney were dead before God brake that archer's bow.⁶⁶ The fourth line of the next stanza is a noteworthy instance of the sense gathering to itself the sound, and is in lovely contrast with the closing line of the same stanza.

One of the most remarkable specimens I know of the play with words of which I have already spoken as common even in the serious writings of this century, is to be found in the next line: "Where earth doth end with endless ending." David, regarding the world as a flat disc, speaks of the ends of the earth: Sidney, knowing it to be a globe, uses the word of the Psalmist, but re-moulds and changes the form of it, with a power fantastic, almost capricious in its wilfulness, yet causing it to express the fact with a marvel of precision. We see that the earth ends; we cannot reach the end we see; therefore the "earth doth end with endless ending." It is a case of that contradiction in the form of the words used, which brings out a truth in another plane as it were;—a paradox in words, not in meaning, for the words can bear no meaning but the one which reveals its own reality.

The following little psalm, The Lord reigneth, is a thunderous organ-blast of praise. The repetition of words in the beginning of the second stanza produces a remarkably fine effect.

PSALM XCIII

 
  Clothed with state, and girt with might,
    Monarch-like Jehovah reigns;
  He who earth's foundation pight— pitched.
    Pight at first, and yet sustains;
    He whose stable throne disdains
  Motion's shock and age's flight;
    He who endless one remains
  One, the same, in changeless plight.
 
 
  Rivers—yea, though rivers roar,
    Roaring though sea-billows rise,
  Vex the deep, and break the shore—
    Stronger art thou, Lord of skies!
    Firm and true thy promise lies
  Now and still as heretofore:
    Holy worship never dies
  In thy house where we adore.
 

I close my selections from Sidney with one which I consider the best of all: it is the first half of Lord, thou hast searched me.

PSALM CXXXIX

 
  O Lord, in me there lieth nought
    But to thy search revealed lies;
          For when I sit
          Thou markest it;
    No less thou notest when I rise:
  Yea, closest closet of my thought
    Hath open windows to thine eyes.
 
 
  Thou walkest with me when I walk
    When to my bed for rest I go,
          I find thee there,
          And every where:
    Not youngest thought in me doth grow,
  No, not one word I cast to talk
    But, yet unuttered, thou dost know.
 
 
  If forth I march, thou goest before;
    If back I turn, thou com'st behind:
          So forth nor back
          Thy guard I lack;
    Nay, on me too thy hand I find.
  Well I thy wisdom may adore,
    But never reach with earthy mind.
 
 
  To shun thy notice, leave thine eye,
    O whither might I take my way?
          To starry sphere?
          Thy throne is there.
    To dead men's undelightsome stay?
  There is thy walk, and there to lie
    Unknown, in vain I should assay.
 
 
  O sun, whom light nor flight can match!
    Suppose thy lightful flightful wings
          Thou lend to me,
          And I could flee
    As far as thee the evening brings:
  Ev'n led to west he would me catch,
    Nor should I lurk with western things.
 
 
  Do thou thy best, O secret night,
    In sable veil to cover me:
          Thy sable veil
          Shall vainly fail:
    With day unmasked my night shall be;
  For night is day, and darkness light,
    O father of all lights, to thee.
 

Note the most musical play with the words light and flight in the fifth stanza. There is hardly a line that is not delightful.

They were a wonderful family those Sidneys. Mary, for whom Philip wrote his chief work, thence called "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia," was a woman of rare gifts. The chief poem known to be hers is called Our Saviour's Passion. It is full of the faults of the age. Sir Philip's sport with words is so graceful and ordered as to subserve the utterance of the thought: his sister's fanciful convolutions appear to be there for their own sake—certainly are there to the obscuration of the sense. The difficulty of the poem arises in part, I believe, from corruption, but chiefly from a certain fantastic way of dealing with thought as well as word of which I shall have occasion to say more when we descend a little further. It is, in the main, a lamentation over our Saviour's sufferings, in which the countess is largely guilty of the very feminine fault of seeking to convey the intensity of her emotions by forcing words, accumulating forms, and exaggerating descriptions. This may indeed convince as to the presence of feeling, but cannot communicate the feeling itself. The right word will at once generate a sympathy of which all agonies of utterance will only render the willing mind more and more incapable.

The poem is likewise very diffuse—again a common fault with women of power; for indeed the faculty of compressing thought into crystalline form is one of the rarest gifts of artistic genius. It consists of a hundred and ten stanzas, from which I shall gather and arrange a few.

 
    He placed all rest, and had no resting place;
    He healed each pain, yet lived in sore distress;
    Deserved all good, yet lived in great disgrace;
    Gave all hearts joy, himself in heaviness;
      Suffered them live, by whom himself was slain:
      Lord, who can live to see such love again?
 
 
    Whose mansion heaven, yet lay within a manger;
    Who gave all food, yet sucked a virgin's breast;
    Who could have killed, yet fled a threatening danger;
    Who sought all quiet by his own unrest;
      Who died for them that highly did offend him,
      And lives for them that cannot comprehend him.
 
 
    Who came no further than his Father sent him,
    And did fulfil but what he did command him;
    Who prayed for them that proudly did torment him
    For telling truly of what they did demand him;
      Who did all good that humbly did intreat him,
      And bare their blows, that did unkindly beat him.
 
 
    Had I but seen him as his servants did,
    At sea, at land, in city, or in field,
    Though in himself he had his glory hid,
    That in his grace the light of glory held,
      Then might my sorrow somewhat be appeaséd,
      That once my soul had in his sight been pleaséd.
 
 
    No! I have run the way of wickedness,
    Forgetting what my faith should follow most;
    I did not think upon thy holiness,
    Nor by my sins what sweetness I have lost.
      Oh sin! for sin hath compassed me about,
      That, Lord, I know not where to find thee out.
 
 
    Where he that sits on the supernal throne,
    In majesty most glorious to behold,
    And holds the sceptre of the world alone,
    Hath not his garments of imbroidered gold,
      But he is clothed with truth and righteousness,
      Where angels all do sing with joyfulness,
 
 
    Where heavenly love is cause of holy life,
    And holy life increaseth heavenly love;
    Where peace established without fear or strife,
    Doth prove the blessing of the soul's behove;⁶⁷
      Where thirst nor hunger, grief nor sorrow dwelleth,
      But peace in joy, and joy in peace excelleth.
 

Had all the poem been like these stanzas, I should not have spoken so strongly concerning its faults. There are a few more such in it. It closes with a very fantastic use of musical terms, following upon a curious category of the works of nature as praising God, to which I refer for the sake of one stanza, or rather of one line in the stanza:

 
  To see the greyhound course, the hound in chase,
  Whilst little dormouse sleepeth out her eyne;
  The lambs and rabbits sweetly run at base,⁶⁸
  Whilst highest trees the little squirrels climb,
    The crawling worms out creeping in the showers,
    And how the snails do climb the lofty towers.
 

What a love of animated nature there is in the lovely lady! I am all but confident, however, that second line came to her from watching her children asleep. She had one child at least: that William Herbert, who is generally, and with weight, believed the W.H. of Shakspere's Sonnets, a grander honour than the earldom of Pembroke, or even the having Philip Sidney to his uncle: I will not say grander than having Mary Sidney to his mother.

Let me now turn to Sidney's friend, Sir Fulk Grevill, Lord Brooke, who afterwards wrote his life, "as an intended preface" to all his "Monuments to the memory of Sir Philip Sidney," the said monuments being Lord Brooke's own poems.

My extract is from A Treatise of Religion, in which, if the reader do not find much of poetic form, he will find at least some grand spiritual philosophy, the stuff whereof all highest poetry is fashioned. It is one of the first poems in which the philosophy of religion, and not either its doctrine, feeling, or history, predominates. It is, as a whole, poor, chiefly from its being so loosely written. There are men, and men whose thoughts are of great worth, to whom it never seems to occur that they may utter very largely and convey very little; that what is clear to themselves is in their speech obscure as a late twilight. Their utterance is rarely articulate: their spiritual mouth talks with but half-movements of its lips; it does not model their thoughts into clear-cut shapes, such as the spiritual ear can distinguish as they enter it. Of such is Lord Brooke. These few stanzas, however, my readers will be glad to have:

 
  What is the chain which draws us back again,
  And lifts man up unto his first creation?
  Nothing in him his own heart can restrain;
  His reason lives a captive to temptation;
    Example is corrupt; precepts are mixed;
    All fleshly knowledge frail, and never fixed.
 
 
  It is a light, a gift, a grace inspired;
  A spark of power, a goodness of the Good;
  Desire in him, that never is desired;
  An unity, where desolation stood;
    In us, not of us, a Spirit not of earth,
    Fashioning the mortal to immortal birth.
* * * * *
  Sense of this God, by fear, the sensual have,
  Distresséd Nature crying unto Grace;
  For sovereign reason then becomes a slave,
  And yields to servile sense her sovereign place,
    When more or other she affects to be
    Than seat or shrine of this Eternity.
 
 
  Yea, Prince of Earth let Man assume to be,
  Nay more—of Man let Man himself be God,
  Yet without God, a slave of slaves is he;
  To others, wonder; to himself, a rod;
    Restless despair, desire, and desolation;
    The more secure, the more abomination.
 
 
  Then by affecting power, we cannot know him.
  By knowing all things else, we know him less.
  Nature contains him not. Art cannot show him.
  Opinions idols, and not God, express.
    Without, in power, we see him everywhere;
    Within, we rest not, till we find him there.
 
 
  Then seek we must; that course is natural—
  For ownéd souls to find their owner out.
  Our free remorses when our natures fall—
  When we do well, our hearts made free from doubt—
    Prove service due to one Omnipotence,
    And Nature of religion to have sense.
 
 
  Questions again, which in our hearts arise—
  Since loving knowledge, not humility—
  Though they be curious, godless, and unwise,
  Yet prove our nature feels a Deity;
    For if these strifes rose out of other grounds,
    Man were to God as deafness is to sounds.
* * * * *
  Yet in this strife, this natural remorse,
  If we could bend the force of power and wit
  To work upon the heart, and make divorce
  There from the evil which preventeth it,
    In judgment of the truth we should not doubt
    Good life would find a good religion out.
 

If a fair proportion of it were equal to this, the poem would be a fine one, not for its poetry, but for its spiritual metaphysics. I think the fourth and fifth of the stanzas I have given, profound in truth, and excellent in utterance. They are worth pondering.

We now descend a decade of the century, to find another group of names within the immediate threshold of the sixties.

CHAPTER VI

LORD BACON AND HIS COEVALS.

Except it be Milton's, there is not any prose fuller of grand poetic embodiments than Lord Bacon's. Yet he always writes contemptuously of poetry, having in his eye no doubt the commonplace kinds of it, which will always occupy more bulk, and hence be more obtrusive, than that which is true in its nature and rare in its workmanship. Towards the latter end of his life, however, being in ill health at the time, he translated seven of the Psalms of David into verse, dedicating them to George Herbert. The best of them is Psalm civ.—just the one upon which we might suppose, from his love to the laws of Nature, he would dwell with the greatest sympathy. Partly from the wish to hear his voice amongst the rest of our singers, partly for the merits of the version itself, which has some remarkable lines, I have resolved to include it here. It is the first specimen I have given in the heroic couplet.

 
  Father and King of Powers both high and low,
  Whose sounding fame all creatures serve to blow;
  My soul shall with the rest strike up thy praise,
  And carol of thy works, and wondrous ways.
  But who can blaze thy beauties, Lord, aright?
  They turn the brittle beams of mortal sight.
  Upon thy head thou wear'st a glorious crown,
  All set with virtues, polished with renown:
  Thence round about a silver veil doth fall
  Of crystal light, mother of colours all.
  The compass, heaven, smooth without grain or fold,
  All set with spangs of glittering stars untold,
  And striped with golden beams of power unpent,
  Is raiséd up for a removing tent
  Vaulted and archéd are his chamber beams
  Upon the seas, the waters, and the streams;
  The clouds as chariots swift do scour the sky;
  The stormy winds upon their wings do fly
  His angels spirits are, that wait his will;
  As flames of fire his anger they fulfil.
  In the beginning, with a mighty hand,
  He made the earth by counterpoise to stand,
  Never to move, but to be fixed still;
  Yet hath no pillars but his sacred will.
  This earth, as with a veil, once covered was;
  The waters overflowéd all the mass;
  But upon his rebuke away they fled,
  And then the hills began to show their head;
  The vales their hollow bosoms opened plain,
  The streams ran trembling down the vales again;
  And that the earth no more might drowned be,
  He set the sea his bounds of liberty;
  And though his waves resound and beat the shore,
  Yet it is bridled by his holy lore.
  Then did the rivers seek their proper places,
  And found their heads, their issues, and their races;
  The springs do feed the rivers all the way,
  And so the tribute to the sea repay:
  Running along through many a pleasant field,
  Much fruitfulness unto the earth they yield;
  That know the beasts and cattle feeding by,
  Which for to slake their thirst do thither hie.
  Nay, desert grounds the streams do not forsake,
  But through the unknown ways their journey take;
  The asses wild that hide in wilderness,
  Do thither come, their thirst for to refresh.
  The shady trees along their banks do spring,
  In which the birds do build, and sit, and sing,
  Stroking the gentle air with pleasant notes,
  Plaining or chirping through their warbling throats.
  The higher grounds, where waters cannot rise,
  By rain and dews are watered from the skies,
  Causing the earth put forth the grass for beasts,
  And garden-herbs, served at the greatest feasts,
  And bread that is all viands' firmament,
  And gives a firm and solid nourishment;
  And wine man's spirits for to recreate,
  And oil his face for to exhilarate.
  The sappy cedars, tall like stately towers,
  High flying birds do harbour in their bowers;
  The holy storks that are the travellers,
  Choose for to dwell and build within the firs;
  The climbing goats hang on steep mountains' side;
  The digging conies in the rocks do bide.
  The moon, so constant in inconstancy,
  Doth rule the monthly seasons orderly;
  The sun, eye of the world, doth know his race,
  And when to show, and when to hide his face.
  Thou makest darkness, that it may be night,
  Whenas the savage beasts that fly the light,
  As conscious of man's hatred, leave their den,
  And range abroad, secured from sight of men.
  Then do the forests ring of lions roaring,
  That ask their meat of God, their strength restoring;
  But when the day appears, they back do fly,
  And in their dens again do lurking lie;
  Then man goes forth to labour in the field,
  Whereby his grounds more rich increase may yield.
  O Lord, thy providence sufficeth all;
  Thy goodness not restrained but general
  Over thy creatures, the whole earth doth flow
  With thy great largeness poured forth here below.
  Nor is it earth alone exalts thy name,
  But seas and streams likewise do spread the same.
  The rolling seas unto the lot do fall
  Of beasts innumerable, great and small;
  There do the stately ships plough up the floods;
  The greater navies look like walking woods;
  The fishes there far voyages do make,
  To divers shores their journey they do take;
  There hast thou set the great leviathan,
  That makes the seas to seethe like boiling pan:
  All these do ask of thee their meat to live,
  Which in due season thou to them dost give:
  Ope thou thy hand, and then they have good fare;
  Shut thou thy hand, and then they troubled are.
  All life and spirit from thy breath proceed,
  Thy word doth all things generate and feed:
  If thou withdraw'st it, then they cease to be,
  And straight return to dust and vanity;
  But when thy breath thou dost send forth again,
  Then all things do renew, and spring amain,
  So that the earth but lately desolate
  Doth now return unto the former state.
  The glorious majesty of God above
  Shall ever reign, in mercy and in love;
  God shall rejoice all his fair works to see,
  For, as they come from him, all perfect be.
  The earth shall quake, if aught his wrath provoke;
  Let him but touch the mountains, they shall smoke.
  As long as life doth last, I hymns will sing,
  With cheerful voice, to the Eternal King;
  As long as I have being, I will praise
  The works of God, and all his wondrous ways.
  I know that he my words will not despise:
  Thanksgiving is to him a sacrifice.
  But as for sinners, they shall be destroyed
  From off the earth—their places shall be void.
  Let all his works praise him with one accord!
  Oh praise the Lord, my soul! Praise ye the Lord!
 

His Hundred and Forty-ninth Psalm is likewise good; but I have given enough of Lord Bacon's verse, and proceed to call up one who was a poet indeed, although little known as such, being a Roman Catholic, a Jesuit even, and therefore, in Elizabeth's reign, a traitor, and subject to the penalties according. Robert Southwell, "thirteen times most cruelly tortured," could "not be induced to confess anything, not even the colour of the horse whereon on a certain day he rode, lest from such indication his adversaries might conjecture in what house, or in company of what Catholics, he that day was." I quote these words of Lord Burleigh, lest any of my readers, discovering weakness in his verse, should attribute weakness to the man himself.

It was no doubt on political grounds that these tortures, and the death that followed them, were inflicted. But it was for the truth as he saw it, that is, for the sake of duty, that Southwell thus endured. We must not impute all the evils of a system to every individual who holds by it. It may be found that a man has, for the sole sake of self-abnegation, yielded homage, where, if his object had been personal aggrandizement, he might have wielded authority. Southwell, if that which comes from within a man may be taken as the test of his character, was a devout and humble Christian. In the choir of our singers we only ask: "Dost thou lift up thine heart?" Southwell's song answers for him: "I lift it up unto the Lord."

His chief poem is called St. Peter's Complaint. It is of considerable length—a hundred and thirty-two stanzas. It reminds us of the Countess of Pembroke's poem, but is far more articulate and far superior in versification. Perhaps its chief fault is that the pauses are so measured with the lines as to make every line almost a sentence, the effect of which is a considerable degree of monotony. Like all writers of the time, he is, of course, fond of antithesis, and abounds in conceits and fancies; whence he attributes a multitude of expressions to St. Peter of which never possibly could the substantial ideas have entered the Apostle's mind, or probably any other than Southwell's own. There is also a good deal of sentimentalism in the poem, a fault from which I fear modern Catholic verse is rarely free. Probably the Italian poetry with which he must have been familiar in his youth, during his residence in Rome, accustomed him to such irreverences of expression as this sentimentalism gives occasion to, and which are very far from indicating a correspondent state of feeling. Sentiment is a poor ape of love; but the love is true notwithstanding. Here are a few stanzas from St. Peter's Complaint:

 
  Titles I make untruths: am I a rock,
    That with so soft a gale was overthrown?
  Am I fit pastor for the faithful flock
    To guide their souls that murdered thus mine own?
  A rock of ruin, not a rest to stay;
  A pastor,—not to feed, but to betray.
 
 
  Parting from Christ my fainting force declined;
    With lingering foot I followed him aloof;
  Base fear out of my heart his love unshrined,
    Huge in high words, but impotent in proof.
  My vaunts did seem hatched under Samson's locks,
  Yet woman's words did give me murdering knocks
* * * * *
  At Sorrow's door I knocked: they craved my name
    I answered, "One unworthy to be known."
  "What one?" say they. "One worthiest of blame."
    "But who?" "A wretch not God's, nor yet his own."
  "A man?" "Oh, no!" "A beast?" "Much worse." "What creature?"
    "A rock." "How called?" "The rock of scandal, Peter."
* * * * *
  Christ! health of fevered soul, heaven of the mind,
    Force of the feeble, nurse of infant loves,
  Guide to the wandering foot, light to the blind,
    Whom weeping wins, repentant sorrow moves!
  Father in care, mother in tender heart,
  Revive and save me, slain with sinful dart!
 
 
  If King Manasseh, sunk in depth of sin,
    With plaints and tears recovered grace and crown,
  A worthless worm some mild regard may win,
    And lowly creep where flying threw it down.
  A poor desire I have to mend my ill;
  I should, I would, I dare not say I will.
 
 
  I dare not say I will, but wish I may;
    My pride is checked: high words the speaker spilt.
  My good, O Lord, thy gift—thy strength, my stay—
    Give what thou bidst, and then bid what thou wilt.
  Work with me what of me thou dost request;
  Then will I dare the worst and love the best.
 

Here, from another poem, are two little stanzas worth preserving: