England's Antiphon

UPON AN HONEST MAN'S FORTUNE

 
  You that can look through heaven, and tell the stars;
  Observe their kind conjunctions, and their wars;
  Find out new lights, and give them where you please—
  To those men honours, pleasures, to those ease;
  You that are God's surveyors, and can show
  How far, and when, and why the wind doth blow;
  Know all the charges of the dreadful thunder,
  And when it will shoot over, or fall under;
  Tell me—by all your art I conjure ye—
  Yes, and by truth—what shall become of me.
  Find out my star, if each one, as you say,
  Have his peculiar angel, and his way;
  Observe my fate; next fall into your dreams;
  Sweep clean your houses, and new-line your schemes;⁸³
  Then say your worst. Or have I none at all?
  Or is it burnt out lately? or did fall?
  Or am I poor? not able? no full flame?
  My star, like me, unworthy of a name?
  Is it your art can only work on those
  That deal with dangers, dignities, and clothes,
  With love, or new opinions? You all lie:
  A fishwife hath a fate, and so have I—
  But far above your finding. He that gives,
  Out of his providence, to all that lives—
  And no man knows his treasure, no, not you;—
* * * * *
  He that made all the stars you daily read,
  And from them filch a knowledge how to feed,
  Hath hid this from you. Your conjectures all
  Are drunken things, not how, but when they fall:
  Man is his own star, and the soul that can
  Render an honest, and a perfect man,
  Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
  Nothing to him falls early, or too late.
  Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
  Our fatal shadows that walk by us still;
  And when the stars are labouring, we believe
  It is not that they govern, but they grieve
  For stubborn ignorance. All things that are
  Made for our general uses, are at war—
  Even we among ourselves; and from the strife
  Your first unlike opinions got a life.
  Oh man! thou image of thy Maker's good,
  What canst thou fear, when breathed into thy blood
  His spirit is that built thee? What dull sense
  Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence?
  Who made the morning, and who placed the light
  Guide to thy labours? Who called up the night,
  And bid her fall upon thee like sweet showers
  In hollow murmurs, to lock up thy powers?
  Who gave thee knowledge? Who so trusted thee,
  To let thee grow so near himself, the Tree?⁸⁴
  Must he then be distrusted? Shall his frame
  Discourse with him why thus and thus I am?
  He made the angels thine, thy fellows all;
  Nay, even thy servants, when devotions call.
  Oh! canst thou be so stupid then, so dim,
  To seek a saving influence, and lose him?
  Can stars protect thee? Or can poverty,
  Which is the light to heaven, put out his eye?
  He is my star; in him all truth I find,
  All influence, all fate; and when my mind
  Is furnished with his fulness, my poor story
  Shall outlive all their age, and all their glory.
  The hand of danger cannot fall amiss
  When I know what, and in whose power it is;
  Nor want, the cause⁸⁵ of man, shall make me groan:
  A holy hermit is a mind alone.⁸⁶
  Doth not experience teach us, all we can,
  To work ourselves into a glorious man?
* * * * *
  My mistress then be knowledge and fair truth;
  So I enjoy all beauty and all youth!
* * * * *
  Affliction, when I know it, is but this—
  A deep alloy, whereby man tougher is
  To bear the hammer; and the deeper still,
  We still arise more image of his will;
  Sickness, an humorous cloud 'twixt us and light;
  And death, at longest, but another night,
  Man is his own star, and that soul that can
  Be honest, is the only perfect man.
 

There is a tone of contempt in the verses which is not religious; but they express a true philosophy and a triumph of faith in God. The word honest is here equivalent to true.

I am not certain whether I may not now be calling up a singer whose song will appear hardly to justify his presence in the choir. But its teaching is of high import, namely, of content and cheerfulness and courage, and being both worthy and melodious, it gravitates heavenward. The singer is yet another dramatist: I presume him to be Thomas Dekker. I cannot be certain, because others were concerned with him in the writing of the drama from which I take it. He it is who, in an often-quoted passage, styles our Lord "The first true gentleman that ever breathed;" just as Chaucer, in a poem I have given, calls him "The first stock-father of gentleness."

We may call the little lyric

A SONG OF LABOUR

 
  Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
               Oh, sweet content!
    Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?
               Oh, punishment!
    Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed
  To add to golden numbers, golden numbers?
               Oh, sweet content!
   Chorus.—Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
              Honest labour bears a lovely face.
 
 
  Canst drink the waters of the crispéd spring?
               Oh, sweet content!
    Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?
               Oh, punishment!
    Then he that patiently want's burden bears,
  No burden bears, but is a king, a king!
               Oh, sweet content!
   Chorus.—Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
              Honest labour bears a lovely face.
 

It is a song of the poor in spirit, whose is the kingdom of heaven. But if my co-listeners prefer, we will call it the voice, not of one who sings in the choir, but of one who "tunes his instrument at the door."

CHAPTER X

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT AND DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.

Sir John Beaumont, born in 1582, elder brother to the dramatist who wrote along with Fletcher, has left amongst his poems a few fine religious ones. From them I choose the following:

OF THE EPIPHANY

 
  Fair eastern star, that art ordained to run
  Before the sages, to the rising sun,
  Here cease thy course, and wonder that the cloud
  Of this poor stable can thy Maker shroud:
  Ye, heavenly bodies, glory to be bright,
  And are esteemed as ye are rich in light;
  But here on earth is taught a different way,
  Since under this low roof the highest lay.
  Jerusalem erects her stately towers,
  Displays her windows, and adorns her bowers;
  Yet there thou must not cast a trembling spark:
  Let Herod's palace still continue dark;
  Each school and synagogue thy force repels,
  There Pride, enthroned in misty errors, dwells;
  The temple, where the priests maintain their choir,
  Shall taste no beam of thy celestial fire,
  While this weak cottage all thy splendour takes:
  A joyful gate of every chink it makes.
  Here shines no golden roof, no ivory stair,
  No king exalted in a stately chair,
  Girt with attendants, or by heralds styled,
  But straw and hay enwrap a speechless child;
  Yet Sabae's lords before this babe unfold
  Their treasures, offering incense, myrrh, and gold.
  The crib becomes an altar: therefore dies
  No ox nor sheep; for in their fodder lies
  The Prince of Peace, who, thankful for his bed,
  Destroys those rites in which their blood was shed:
  The quintessence of earth he takes and⁸⁷ fees,
  And precious gums distilled from weeping trees;
  Rich metals and sweet odours now declare
  The glorious blessings which his laws prepare,
  To clear us from the base and loathsome flood
  Of sense, and make us fit for angels' food,
  Who lift to God for us the holy smoke
  Of fervent prayers with which we him invoke,
  And try our actions in that searching fire,
  By which the seraphims our lips inspire:
  No muddy dross pure minerals shall infect,
  We shall exhale our vapours up direct:
  No storms shall cross, nor glittering lights deface
  Perpetual sighs which seek a happy place.
 

The creatures, no longer offered on his altar, standing around the Prince of Life, to whom they have given a bed, is a lovely idea. The end is hardly worthy of the rest, though there is fine thought involved in it.

The following contains an utterance of personal experience, the truth of which will be recognized by all to whom heavenly aspiration and needful disappointment are not unknown.

IN DESOLATION

 
  O thou who sweetly bend'st my stubborn will,
  Who send'st thy stripes to teach and not to kill!
  Thy cheerful face from me no longer hide;
  Withdraw these clouds, the scourges of my pride;
  I sink to hell, if I be lower thrown:
  I see what man is, being left alone.
  My substance, which from nothing did begin,
  Is worse than nothing by the weight of sin:
  I see myself in such a wretched state
  As neither thoughts conceive, nor words relate.
  How great a distance parts us! for in thee
  Is endless good, and boundless ill in me.
  All creatures prove me abject, but how low
  Thou only know'st, and teachest me to know.
  To paint this baseness, nature is too base;
  This darkness yields not but to beams of grace.
  Where shall I then this piercing splendour find?
  Or found, how shall it guide me, being blind?
  Grace is a taste of bliss, a glorious gift,
  Which can the soul to heavenly comforts lift:
  It will not shine to me, whose mind is drowned
  In sorrows, and with worldly troubles bound;
  It will not deign within that house to dwell,
  Where dryness reigns, and proud distractions swell.
  Perhaps it sought me in those lightsome days
  Of my first fervour, when few winds did raise
  The waves, and ere they could full strength obtain,
  Some whispering gale straight charmed them down again;
  When all seemed calm, and yet the Virgin's child
  On my devotions in his manger smiled;
  While then I simply walked, nor heed could take
  Of complacence, that sly, deceitful snake;
  When yet I had not dangerously refused
  So many calls to virtue, nor abused
  The spring of life, which I so oft enjoyed,
  Nor made so many good intentions void,
  Deserving thus that grace should quite depart,
  And dreadful hardness should possess my heart:
  Yet in that state this only good I found,
  That fewer spots did then my conscience wound;
  Though who can censure whether, in those times, judg
  The want of feeling seemed the want of crimes?
  If solid virtues dwell not but in pain,
  I will not wish that golden age again
  Because it flowed with sensible delights
  Of heavenly things: God hath created nights
  As well as days, to deck the varied globe;
  Grace comes as oft clad in the dusky robe
  Of desolation, as in white attire,
  Which better fits the bright celestial choir.
  Some in foul seasons perish through despair,
  But more through boldness when the days are fair.
  This then must be the medicine for my woes—
  To yield to what my Saviour shall dispose;
  To glory in my baseness; to rejoice
  In mine afflictions; to obey his voice,
  As well when threatenings my defects reprove,
  As when I cherished am with words of love;
  To say to him, in every time and place,
  "Withdraw thy comforts, so thou leave thy grace."
 

Surely this is as genuine an utterance, whatever its merits as a poem—and those I judge not small—as ever flowed from Christian heart!

Chiefly for the sake of its beauty, I give the last passage of a poem written upon occasion of the feasts of the Annunciation and the Resurrection falling on the same day.

 
  Let faithful souls this double feast attend
  In two processions. Let the first descend
  The temple's stairs, and with a downcast eye
  Upon the lowest pavement prostrate lie:
  In creeping violets, white lilies, shine
  Their humble thoughts and every pure design.
  The other troop shall climb, with sacred heat,
  The rich degrees of Solomon's bright seat: steps
 
 
  In glowing roses fervent zeal they bear,
  And in the azure flower-de-lis appear
  Celestial contemplations, which aspire
  Above the sky, up to the immortal choir.
 

William Drummond of Hawthornden, a Scotchman, born in 1585, may almost be looked upon as the harbinger of a fresh outburst of word-music. No doubt all the great poets have now and then broken forth in lyrical jubilation. Ponderous Ben Jonson himself, when he takes to song, will sing in the joy of the very sound; but great men have always so much graver work to do, that they comparatively seldom indulge in this kind of melody. Drummond excels in madrigals, or canzonets—baby-odes or songs—which have more of wing and less of thought than sonnets. Through the greater part of his verse we hear a certain muffled tone of the sweetest, like the music that ever threatens to break out clear from the brook, from the pines, from the rain-shower,—never does break out clear, but remains a suggested, etherially vanishing tone. His is a voix voilée, or veiled voice of song. It is true that in the time we are now approaching far more attention was paid not merely to the smoothness but to the melody of verse than any except the great masters had paid before; but some are at the door, who, not being great masters, yet do their inferior part nearly as well as they their higher, uttering a music of marvellous and individual sweetness, which no mere musical care could secure, but which springs essentially from music in the thought gathering to itself musical words in melodious division, and thus fashioning for itself a fitting body. The melody of their verse is all their own—as original as the greatest art-forms of the masters. Of Drummond, then, here are two sonnets on the Nativity; the first spoken by the angels, the second by the shepherds.

The Angels.

 
  Run, shepherds, run where Bethlehem blest appears.
    We bring the best of news; be not dismayed:
  A Saviour there is born more old than years,
    Amidst heaven's rolling height this earth who stayed.
    In a poor cottage inned, a virgin maid
  A weakling did him bear, who all upbears;
    There is he poorly swaddled, in manger laid,
  To whom too narrow swaddlings are our spheres:
  Run, shepherds, run, and solemnize his birth.
    This is that night—no, day, grown great with bliss,
    In which the power of Satan broken is:
  In heaven be glory, peace unto the earth!
    Thus singing, through the air the angels swam,
    And cope of stars re-echoëd the same.
 

The Shepherds.

 
  O than the fairest day, thrice fairer night!
    Night to best days, in which a sun doth rise
    Of which that golden eye which clears the skies
  Is but a sparkling ray, a shadow-light!
  And blessed ye, in silly pastors' sight, simple.
    Mild creatures, in whose warm⁸⁸ crib now lies
  That heaven-sent youngling, holy-maid-born wight,
    Midst, end, beginning of our prophecies!
  Blest cottage that hath flowers in winter spread!
    Though withered—blessed grass, that hath the grace
    To deck and be a carpet to that place!
  Thus sang, unto the sounds of oaten reed,
    Before the babe, the shepherds bowed on knees;
    And springs ran nectar, honey dropped from trees.
 

No doubt there is a touch of the conventional in these. Especially in the close of the last there is an attempt to glorify the true by the homage of the false. But verses which make us feel the marvel afresh—the marvel visible and credible by the depth of its heart of glory—make us at the same time easily forget the discord in themselves.

The following, not a sonnet, although it looks like one, measuring the lawful fourteen lines, is the closing paragraph of a poem he calls A Hymn to the Fairest Fair.

 
  O king, whose greatness none can comprehend,
  Whose boundless goodness doth to all extend!
  Light of all beauty! ocean without ground,
  That standing flowest, giving dost abound!
  Rich palace, and indweller ever blest,
  Never not working, ever yet in rest!
  What wit cannot conceive, words say of thee,
  Here, where, as in a mirror, we but see
  Shadows of shadows, atoms of thy might,
  Still owly-eyed while staring on thy light,
  Grant that, released from this earthly jail,
  And freed of clouds which here our knowledge veil,
  In heaven's high temples, where thy praises ring,
  I may in sweeter notes hear angels sing.
 

That is, "May I in heaven hear angels sing what wit cannot conceive here."

Drummond excels in nobility of speech, and especially in the fine line and phrase, so justly but disproportionately prized in the present day. I give an instance of each:

 
  Here do seraphim
  Burn with immortal love; there cherubim
  With other noble people of the light,
  As eaglets in the sun, delight their sight.
* * * * *
  Like to a lightning through the welkin hurled,
  That scores with flames the way, and every eye
  With terror dazzles as it swimmeth by.
 

Here are six fine verses, in the heroic couplet, from An Hymn of the Resurrection.

 
  So a small seed that in the earth lies hid
  And dies—reviving bursts her cloddy side;
  Adorned with yellow locks, of new is born,
  And doth become a mother great with corn;
  Of grains bring hundreds with it, which when old
  Enrich the furrows with a sea of gold.
 

But I must content myself now with a little madrigal, the only one fit for my purpose. Those which would best support what I have said of his music are not of the kind we want. Unfortunately, the end of this one is not equal to the beginning.

CHANGE SHOULD BREED CHANGE

 
      New doth the sun appear;
      The mountains' snows decay;
  Crowned with frail flowers comes forth the baby year.
      My soul, time posts away;
      And thou yet in that frost,
      Which flower and fruit hath lost,
    As if all here immortal were, dost stay!
      For shame! thy powers awake;
  Look to that heaven which never night makes black;
  And there, at that immortal sun's bright rays,
  Deck thee with flowers which fear not rage of days.
 

CHAPTER XI

THE BROTHERS FLETCHER.

I now come to make mention of two gifted brothers, Giles and Phineas Fletcher, both clergymen, the sons of a clergyman and nephews to the Bishop of Bristol, therefore the cousins of Fletcher the dramatist, a poem by whom I have already given Giles, the eldest, is supposed to have been born in 1588. From his poem Christ's Victory and Triumph, I select three passages.

To understand the first, it is necessary to explain that while Christ is on earth a dispute between Justice and Mercy, such as is often represented by the theologians, takes place in heaven. We must allow the unsuitable fiction attributing distraction to the divine Unity, for the sake of the words in which Mercy overthrows the arguments of Justice. For the poet unintentionally nullifies the symbolism of the theologian, representing Justice as defeated. He forgets that the grandest exercise of justice is mercy. The confusion comes from the fancy that justice means vengeance upon sin, and not the doing of what is right. Justice can be at no strife with mercy, for not to do what is just would be most unmerciful.

Mercy first sums up the arguments Justice has been employing against her, in the following stanza:

 
  He was but dust; why feared he not to fall?
      And being fallen how can he hope to live?
    Cannot the hand destroy him that made all?
      Could he not take away as well as give?
      Should man deprave, and should not God deprive?
    Was it not all the world's deceiving spirit
    (That, bladdered up with pride of his own merit,
  Fell in his rise) that him of heaven did disinherit?
 

To these she then proceeds to make reply:

 
  He was but dust: how could he stand before him?
      And being fallen, why should he fear to die?
    Cannot the hand that made him first, restore him?
      Depraved of sin, should he deprivéd lie
      Of grace? Can he not find infirmity
    That gave him strength?—Unworthy the forsaking
    He is, whoever weighs (without mistaking)
  Or maker of the man or manner of his making.⁸⁹
 
 
    Who shall thy temple incense any more,
      Or to thy altar crown the sacrifice,
    Or strew with idle flowers the hallowed floor?
      Or what should prayer deck with herbs and spice, why.
      Her vials breathing orisons of price,
    If all must pay that which all cannot pay?
    O first begin with me, and Mercy slay,
  And thy thrice honoured Son, that now beneath doth stray.
 
 
    But if or he or I may live and speak,
      And heaven can joy to see a sinner weep,
    Oh! let not Justice' iron sceptre break
      A heart already broke, that low doth creep,
      And with prone humbless her feet's dust doth sweep.
    Must all go by desert? Is nothing free?
    Ah! if but those that only worthy be,
  None should thee ever see! none should thee ever see!
 
 
    What hath man done that man shall not undo
      Since God to him is grown so near akin?
    Did his foe slay him? He shall slay his foe.
      Hath he lost all? He all again shall win.
      Is sin his master? He shall master sin.
    Too hardy soul, with sin the field to try!
    The only way to conquer was to fly;
  But thus long death hath lived, and now death's self shall die.
 
 
    He is a path, if any be misled;
      He is a robe, if any naked be;
    If any chance to hunger, he is bread;
      If any be a bondman, he is free;
      If any be but weak, how strong is he!
    To dead men life he is, to sick men health,
    To blind men sight, and to the needy wealth;
  A pleasure without loss, a treasure without stealth.
 
 
    Who can forget—never to be forgot—
      The time that all the world in slumber lies,
    When like the stars the singing angels shot
      To earth, and heaven awakéd all his eyes
      To see another sun at midnight rise?
    On earth was never sight of peril fame; pareil: equal.
    For God before man like himself did frame,
  But God himself now like a mortal man became.
* * * * *
    The angels carolled loud their song of peace;
      The cursed oracles were stricken dumb;
    To see their Shepherd the poor shepherds press;
      To see their King, the kingly Sophies come;
      And them to guide unto his master's home,
    A star comes dancing up the orient,
    That springs for joy over the strawy tent,
  Where gold, to make their prince a crown, they all present.
 

No doubt there are here touches of execrable taste, such as the punning trick with man and manners, suggesting a false antithesis; or the opposition of the words deprave and deprive; but we have in them only an instance of how the meretricious may co-exist with the lovely. The passage is fine and powerful, notwithstanding its faults and obscurities.

 
Here is another yet more beautiful:
  So down the silver streams of Eridan,⁹⁰
      On either side banked with a lily wall,
    Whiter than both, rides the triumphant swan,
      And sings his dirge, and prophesies his fall,
      Diving into his watery funeral!
    But Eridan to Cedron must submit
    His flowery shore; nor can he envy it,
  If, when Apollo sings, his swans do silent sit.⁹¹
 
 
    That heavenly voice I more delight to hear
      Than gentle airs to breathe; or swelling waves
    Against the sounding rocks their bosoms tear;⁹²
      Or whistling reeds that rutty⁹³ Jordan laves,
      And with their verdure his white head embraves; adorns.
    To chide the winds; or hiving bees that fly
    About the laughing blossoms⁹⁴ of sallowy,⁹⁵
  Rocking asleep the idle grooms⁹⁶ that lazy lie.
 
 
    And yet how can I hear thee singing go,
      When men, incensed with hate, thy death foreset?
    Or else, why do I hear thee sighing so,
      When thou, inflamed with love, their life dost get,⁹⁷
      That love and hate, and sighs and songs are met?
    But thus, and only thus, thy love did crave
    To send thee singing for us to thy grave,
  While we sought thee to kill, and thou sought'st us to save.
 
 
    When I remember Christ our burden bears,
      I look for glory, but find misery;
    I look for joy, but find a sea of tears;
      I look that we should live, and find him die;
      I look for angels' songs, and hear him cry:
    Thus what I look, I cannot find so well;
    Or rather, what I find I cannot tell,
  These banks so narrow are, those streams so highly swell.
 

We would gladly eliminate the few common-place allusions; but we must take them with the rest of the passage. Besides far higher merits, it is to my ear most melodious.

One more passage of two stanzas from Giles Fletcher, concerning the glories of heaven: I quote them for the sake of earth, not of heaven.

 
  Gaze but upon the house where man embowers:
      With flowers and rushes pavéd is his way;
    Where all the creatures are his servitours:
      The winds do sweep his chambers every day,
      And clouds do wash his rooms; the ceiling gay,
    Starréd aloft, the gilded knobs embrave:
    If such a house God to another gave,
  How shine those glittering courts he for himself will have!
 
 
    And if a sullen cloud, as sad as night,
      In which the sun may seem embodiéd,
    Depured of all his dross, we see so white,
      Burning in melted gold his watery head,
      Or round with ivory edges silvered;
    What lustre super-excellent will he
    Lighten on those that shall his sunshine see
  In that all-glorious court in which all glories be!
 

These brothers were intense admirers of Spenser. To be like him Phineas must write an allegory; and such an allegory! Of all the strange poems in existence, surely this is the strangest. The Purple Island is man, whose body is anatomically described after the allegory of a city, which is then peopled with all the human faculties personified, each set in motion by itself. They say the anatomy is correct: the metaphysics are certainly good. The action of the poem is just another form of the Holy War of John Bunyan—all the good and bad powers fighting for the possession of the Purple Island. What renders the conception yet more amazing is the fact that the whole ponderous mass of anatomy and metaphysics, nearly as long as the Paradise Lost, is put as a song, in a succession of twelve cantos, in the mouth of a shepherd, who begins a canto every morning to the shepherds and shepherdesses of the neighbourhood, and finishes it by folding-time in the evening. And yet the poem is full of poetry. He triumphs over his difficulties partly by audacity, partly by seriousness, partly by the enchantment of song. But the poem will never be read through except by students of English literature. It is a whole; its members are well-fitted; it is full of beauties—in parts they swarm like fire-flies; and yet it is not a good poem. It is like a well-shaped house, built of mud, and stuck full of precious stones. I do not care, in my limited space, to quote from it. Never was there a more incongruous dragon of allegory.

Both brothers were injured, not by their worship of Spenser, but by the form that worship took—imitation. They seem more pleased to produce a line or stanza that shall recall a line or stanza of Spenser, than to produce a fine original of their own. They even copy lines almost word for word from their great master. This is pure homage: it was their delight that such adaptations should be recognized—just as it was Spenser's hope, when he inserted translated stanzas from Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered in The Fairy Queen, to gain the honour of a true reproduction. Yet, strange fate for imitators! both, but Giles especially, were imitated by a greater than their worship—even by Milton. They make Spenser's worse; Milton makes theirs better. They imitate Spenser, faults and all; Milton glorifies their beauties.

From the smaller poems of Phineas, I choose the following version of