With honoured, thrice honoured George Herbert waiting at the door, I cannot ask Francis Quarles to remain longer: I can part with him without regret, worthy man and fair poet as he is.
But, with my hand on the lock, I shrink from opening the door. Here comes a poet indeed! and how am I to show him due honour? With his book humbly, doubtfully offered, with the ashes of the poems of his youth fluttering in the wind of his priestly garments, he crosses the threshold. Or rather, for I had forgotten the symbol of my book, let us all go from our chapel to the choir, and humbly ask him to sing that he may make us worthy of his song.
In George Herbert there is poetry enough and to spare: it is the household bread of his being. If I begin with that which first in the nature of things ought to be demanded of a poet, namely, Truth, Revelation—George Herbert offers us measure pressed down and running over. But let me speak first of that which first in time or order of appearance we demand of a poet, namely music. For inasmuch as verse is for the ear, not for the eye, we demand a good hearing first. Let no one undervalue it. The heart of poetry is indeed truth, but its garments are music, and the garments come first in the process of revelation. The music of a poem is its meaning in sound as distinguished from word—its meaning in solution, as it were, uncrystallized by articulation. The music goes before the fuller revelation, preparing its way. The sound of a verse is the harbinger of the truth contained therein. If it be a right poem, this will be true. Herein Herbert excels. It will be found impossible to separate the music of his words from the music of the thought which takes shape in their sound.
I got me flowers to strow thy way,I got me boughs off many a tree;But thou wast up by break of day,And brought'st thy sweets along with thee.
And the gift it enwraps at once and reveals is, I have said, truth of the deepest. Hear this song of divine service. In every song he sings a spiritual fact will be found its fundamental life, although I may quote this or that merely to illustrate some peculiarity of mode.
The Elixirwas an imagined liquid sought by the old physical investigators, in order that by its means they might turn every common metal into gold, a pursuit not quite so absurd as it has since appeared. They called this something, when regarded as a solid,the Philosopher's Stone. In the poem it is also called atincture.
Teach me, my God and King,In all things thee to see;And what I do in anything,To do it as for thee;
Not rudely, as a beast,To run into an action;But still to make thee prepossest,And give it his perfection.its.
A man that looks on glass,On it may stay his eye;Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass,And then the heaven spy.
All may of thee partake:Nothing can be so mean,Which with his tincture—for thy sake—its.Will not grow bright and clean.
A servant with this clauseMakes drudgery divine:Who sweeps a room as for thy laws,Makes that and the action fine.
This is the famous stoneThat turneth all to gold;For that which God doth touch and ownCannot for less be told.
With a conscience tender as a child's, almost diseased in its tenderness, and a heart loving as a woman's, his intellect is none the less powerful. Its movements are as the sword-play of an alert, poised, well-knit, strong-wristed fencer with the rapier, in which the skill impresses one more than the force, while without the force the skill would be valueless, even hurtful, to its possessor. There is a graceful humour with it occasionally, even in his most serious poems adding much to their charm. To illustrate all this, take the following, the title of which meansThe Retort.
The merry World did on a dayWith his train-bands and mates agreeTo meet together where I lay,And all in sport to jeer at me.
First Beauty crept into a rose;Which when I plucked not—"Sir," said she,"Tell me, I pray, whose hands are those?"[98]But thou shall answer, Lord, for me.
Then Money came, and, chinking still—"What tune is this, poor man?" said he:"I heard in music you had skill."But thou shall answer, Lord, for me.
Then came brave Glory puffing byIn silks that whistled—who but he?He scarce allowed me half an eye;But thou shall answer, Lord, for me.
Then came quick Wit-and-Conversation,And he would needs a comfort be,And, to be short, make an oration:But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.
Yet when the hour of thy designTo answer these fine things, shall come,Speak not at large—say I am thine;And then they have their answer home.
Here is another instance of his humour. It is the first stanza of a poem toDeath. He is glorying over Death as personified in a skeleton.
Death, thou wast once an uncouth, hideous thing—Nothing but bones,The sad effect of sadder groans:Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing.
No writer before him has shown such a love to God, such a childlike confidence in him. The love is like the love of those whose verses came first in my volume. But the nation had learned to think more, and new difficulties had consequently arisen. These, again, had to be undermined by deeper thought, and the discovery of yet deeper truth had been the reward. Hence, the love itself, if it had not strengthened, had at least grown deeper. And George Herbert had had difficulty enough in himself; for, born of high family, by nature fitted to shine in that society where elegance of mind, person, carriage, and utterance is most appreciated, and having indeed enjoyed something of the life of a courtier, he had forsaken all in obedience to the voice of his higher nature. Hence the struggle between his tastes and his duties would come and come again, augmented probably by such austere notions as every conscientious man must entertain in proportion to his inability to find God in that in which he might find him. From this inability, inseparable in its varying degrees from the very nature of growth, springs all the asceticism of good men, whose love to God will be the greater as their growing insight reveals him in his world, and their growing faith approaches to the giving of thanks in everything.
When we have discovered the truth that whatsoever is not of faith is sin, the way to meet it is not to forsake the human law, but so to obey it as to thank God for it. To leave the world and go into the desert is not thus to give thanks: it may have been the only way for this or that man, in his blameless blindness, to take. The divine mind of George Herbert, however, was in the main bent upon discovering God everywhere.
The poem I give next, powerfully sets forth the struggle between liking and duty of which I have spoken. It is at the same time an instance of wonderful art in construction, all the force of the germinal thought kept in reserve, to burst forth at the last. He calls it—meaning by the word,God's Restraint—
I struck the board, and cried "No more!—I will abroad.What! shall I ever sigh and pine?My lines and life are free—free as the road,Loose as the wind, as large as store.Shall I be still in suit?Have I no harvest but a thornTo let me blood, and not restoreWhat I have lost with cordial fruit?Sure there was wineBefore my sighs did dry it! There was cornBefore my tears did drown it!Is the year only lost to me?Have I no bays to crown it?No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?All wasted?Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,And thou hast hands.Recover all thy sigh-blown ageOn double pleasures. Leave thy cold disputeOf what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage,Thy rope of sands,Which petty thoughts have made—and made to theeGood cable, to enforce and draw,And be thy law,While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.Away! Take heed—I will abroad.Call in thy death's-head there. Tie up thy fears.He that forbearsTo suit and serve his need,Deserves his load."But as I raved, and grew more fierce and wildAt every word,Methought I heard one calling "Child!"And I replied, "My Lord!"
Coming now to speak of his art, let me say something first about his use of homeliest imagery for highest thought. This, I think, is in itself enough to class him with the highestkindof poets. If my reader will refer toThe Elixir, he will see an instance in the third stanza, "You may look at the glass, or at the sky:" "You may regard your action only, or that action as the will of God." Again, let him listen to the pathos and simplicity of this one stanza, from a poem he callsThe Flower. He has been in trouble; his times have been evil; he has felt a spiritual old age creeping upon him; but he is once more awake.
And now in age[99] I bud again;After so many deaths I live and write;I once more smell the dew and rain,And relish versing. O my only light,It cannot beThat I am heOn whom thy tempests fell all night!
Again:
Some may dream merrily, but when they wakeThey dress themselves and come to thee.
He has an exquisite feeling of lyrical art. Not only does he keep to one idea in it, but he finishes the poem like a cameo. Here is an instance wherein he outdoes the elaboration of a Norman trouvère; for not merely does each line in each stanza end with the same sound as the corresponding line in every other stanza, but it ends with the very same word. I shall hardly care to defend this if my reader chooses to call it a whim; but I do say that a large degree of the peculiar musical effect of the poem—subservient to the thought, keeping it dimly chiming in the head until it breaks out clear and triumphant like a silver bell in the last—is owing to this use of the same column of words at the line-ends of every stanza. Let him who doubts it, read the poem aloud.
Holiness on the head;Light and perfections on the breast;Harmonious bells below, raising the dead,To lead them unto life and rest—Thus are true Aarons drest.
Profaneness in my head;Defects and darkness in my breast;A noise of passions ringing me for deadUnto a place where is no rest—Poor priest, thus am I drest!
Only another headI have, another heart and breast,Another music, making live, not dead,Without whom I could have no rest—In him I am well drest.
Christ is my only head,My alone only heart and breast,My only music, striking me even dead,That to the old man I may rest,And be in him new drest.
So, holy in my head,Perfect and light in my dear breast,My doctrine turned by Christ, who is not dead,But lives in me while I do rest—Come, people: Aaron's drest.
Note the flow and the ebb of the lines of each stanza—from six to eight to ten syllables, and back through eight to six, the number of stanzas corresponding to the number of lines in each; only the poem itself begins with the ebb, and ends with a full spring-flow of energy. Note also the perfect antithesis in their parts between the first and second stanzas, and how the last line of the poem clenches the whole in revealing its idea—that for the sake of which it was written. In a word, note theunity.
Born in 1593, notwithstanding his exquisite art, he could not escape being influenced by the faulty tendencies of his age, borne in upon his youth by the example of his mother's friend, Dr. Donne. A man must be a giant like Shakspere or Milton to cast off his age's faults. Indeed no man has more of the "quips and cranks and wanton wiles" of the poetic spirit of his time than George Herbert, but with this difference from the rest of Dr. Donne's school, that such is the indwelling potency that it causes even these to shine with a radiance such that we wish them still to burn and not be consumed. His muse is seldom other than graceful, even when her motions are grotesque, and he is always a gentleman, which cannot be said of his master. We could not bear to part with his most fantastic oddities, they are so interpenetrated with his genius as well as his art.
In relation to the use he makes of these faulty forms, and to show that even herein he has exercised a refraining judgment, though indeed fancying he has quite discarded in only somewhat reforming it, I recommend the study of two poems, each of which he callsJordan, though why I have not yet with certainty discovered.
It is possible that not many of his readers have observed the following instances of the freakish in his rhyming art, which however result well. When I say so, I would not be supposed to approve of the freak, but only to acknowledge the success of the poet in his immediate intent. They are related to a certain tendency to mechanical contrivance not seldom associated with a love of art: it is art operating in the physical understanding. In the poem calledHome, every stanza is perfectly finished till the last: in it, with an access of art or artfulness, he destroys the rhyme. I shall not quarrel with my reader if he calls it the latter, and regards it as art run to seed. And yet—and yet—I confess I have a latent liking for the trick. I shall give one or two stanzas out of the rather long poem, to lead up to the change in the last.
Come, Lord; my head doth burn, my heart is sick,While thou dost ever, ever stay;Thy long deferrings wound me to the quick;My spirit gaspeth night and day.O show thyself to me,Or take me up to thee.
Nothing but drought and dearth, but bush and brake,Which way soe'er I look I see:Some may dream merrily, but when they wakeThey dress themselves and come to thee.O show thyself to me,Or take me up to thee.
Come, dearest Lord, pass not this holy season,My flesh and bones and joints do pray;And even my verse, when by the rhyme and reasonThe word isstay,[100] says evercome.O show thyself to me,Or take me up to thee.
Balancing this, my second instance is of the converse. In all the stanzas but the last, the last line in each hangs unrhymed: in the last the rhyming is fulfilled. The poem is calledDenial. I give only a part of it.
When my devotions could not pierceThy silent ears,Then was my heart broken as was my verse;My breast was full of fearsAnd disorder.
O that thou shouldst give dust a tongueTo cry to thee,And then not hear it crying! All day longMy heart was in my knee:But no hearing!
Therefore my soul lay out of sight,Untuned, unstrung;My feeble spirit, unable to look right,Like a nipt blossom, hungDiscontented.
O cheer and tune my heartless breast—Defer no time;That so thy favours granting my request,They and my mind may chime,And mend my rhyme.
It had been hardly worth the space to point out these, were not the matter itself precious.
Before making further remark on George Herbert, let me present one of his poems in which the oddity of the visual fancy is only equalled by the beauty of the result.
When God at first made man,Having a glass of blessing standing by,"Let us," said he, "pour on him all we can:Let the world's riches, which disperséd lie,Contract into a span."
So strength first made a way;Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honour, pleasure.When almost all was out, God made a stay,Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,Restin the bottom lay.
"For if I should," said he,"Bestow this jewel also on my creature,He would adore my gifts instead of me,And rest in nature, not the God of nature:So both should losers be.
"Yet let him keep the rest—But keep them with repining restlessness:Let him be rich and weary, that, at least,If goodness lead him not, yet wearinessMay toss him to my breast."
Is it not the story of the world written with the point of a diamond?
There can hardly be a doubt that his tendency to unnatural forms was encouraged by the increase of respect to symbol and ceremony shown at this period by some of the external powers of the church—Bishop Laud in particular. Had all, however, who delight in symbols, a power, like George Herbert's, of setting even within the horn-lanterns of the more arbitrary of them, such a light of poetry and devotion that their dull sides vanish in its piercing shine, and we forget the symbol utterly in the truth which it cannot obscure, then indeed our part would be to take and be thankful. But there never has been even a living true symbol which the dulness of those who will see the truth only in the symbol has not degraded into the very cockatrice-egg of sectarianism. The symbol is by such always more or less idolized, and the light within more or less patronized. If the truth, for the sake of which all symbols exist, were indeed the delight of those who claim it, the sectarianism of the church would vanish. But men on all sides call thatthe truthwhich is but its form or outward sign—material or verbal, true or arbitrary, it matters not which—and hence come strifes and divisions.
Although George Herbert, however, could thus illumine all with his divine inspiration, we cannot help wondering whether, if he had betaken himself yet more to vital and less to half artificial symbols, the change would not have been a breaking of the pitcher and an outshining of the lamp. For a symbol may remind us of the truth, and at the same time obscure it—present it, and dull its effect. It is the temple of nature and not the temple of the church, the things made by the hands of God and not the things made by the hands of man, that afford the truest symbols of truth.
I am anxious to be understood. The chief symbol of our faith,the Cross, it may be said, is not one of these natural symbols. I answer—No; but neither is it an arbitrary symbol. It is not a symbol ofa truthat all, but ofa fact, of the infinitely grandest fact in the universe, which is itself the outcome and symbol of the grandest Truth.The Crossis an historicalsign, not properlya symbol, except through the facts it reminds us of. On the other hand,baptismand theeucharistare symbols of the loftiest and profoundest kind, true to nature and all its meanings, as well as to the facts of which they remind us. They are in themselves symbols of the truths involved in the facts they commemorate.
Of Nature's symbols George Herbert has made large use; but he would have been yet a greater poet if he had made a larger use of them still. Then at least we might have got rid of such oddities as the stanzas for steps up to the church-door, the first at the bottom of the page; of the lines shaped into ugly altar-form; and of the absurd Easter wings, made of ever lengthening lines. This would not have been much, I confess, nor the gain by their loss great; but not to mention the larger supply of images graceful with the grace of God, who when he had made them said they were good, it would have led to the further purification of his taste, perhaps even to the casting out of all that could untimely move our mirth; until possibly (for illustration), instead of this lovely stanza, he would have given us even a lovelier:
Listen, sweet dove, unto my song,And spread thy golden wings on me;Hatching my tender heart so long,Till it get wing, and fly away with thee.
The stanza is indeed lovely, and true and tender and clever as well; yet who can help smiling at the notion of the incubation of the heart-egg, although what the poet means is so good that the smile almost vanishes in a sigh?
There is no doubt that the works of man's hands will also afford many true symbols; but I do think that, in proportion as a man gives himself to those instead of studying Truth's wardrobe of forms in nature, so will he decline from the high calling of the poet. George Herbert was too great to be himself much injured by the narrowness of the field whence he gathered his symbols; but his song will be the worse for it in the ears of all but those who, having lost sight of or having never beheld the oneness of the God whose creation exists in virtue of his redemption, feel safer in a low-browed crypt than under "the high embowed roof."
When the desire after system or order degenerates from a need into a passion, or ruling idea, it closes, as may be seen in many women who are especial house-keepers, like an unyielding skin over the mind, to the death of all development from impulse and aspiration. The same thing holds in the church: anxiety about order and system will kill the life. This did not go near to being the result with George Herbert: his life was hid with Christ in God; but the influence of hisprofession, as distinguished from his work, was hurtful to his calling as a poet. He of all men would scorn to claim social rank for spiritual service; he of all men would not commit the blunder of supposing that prayer and praise are that service of God: they areprayerandpraise, notservice; he knew that God can be served only through loving ministration to his sons and daughters, all needy of commonest human help: but, as the most devout of clergymen will be the readiest to confess, there is even a danger to their souls in the unvarying recurrence of the outward obligations of their service; and, in like manner, the poet will fare ill if the conventions from which the holiest system is not free send him soaring with sealed eyes. George Herbert's were but a little blinded thus; yet something, we must allow, his poetry was injured by his profession. All that I say on this point, however, so far from diminishing his praise, adds thereto, setting forth only that he was such a poet as might have been greater yet, had the divine gift had free course. But again I rebuke myself and say, "Thank God for George Herbert."
To rid our spiritual palates of the clinging flavour of criticism, let me choose another song from his precious legacy—one less read, I presume, than many. It shows his tendency to asceticism—the fancy of forsaking God's world in order to serve him; it has besides many of the faults of the age, even to that of punning; yet it is a lovely bit of art as well as a rich embodiment of tenderness.
Oh King of grief! a title strange yet true,To thee of all kings only due!Oh King of wounds! how shall I grieve for thee,Who in all grief preventest me?goest before me.Shall I weep blood? Why, thou hast wept such store,That all thy body was one gore.Shall I be scourgéd, flouted, boxéd, sold?'Tis but to tell the tale is told.My God, my God, why dost thou part from me?Was such a grief as cannot be.Shall I then sing, skipping thy doleful story,And side with thy triumphant glory?Shall thy strokes be my stroking? thorns my flower?Thy rod, my posy?[101] cross, my bower?But how then shall I imitate thee, andCopy thy fair, though bloody hand?Surely I will revenge me on thy love,And try who shall victorious prove.If thou dost give me wealth, I will restoreAll back unto thee by the poor.If thou dost give me honour, men shall seeThe honour doth belong to thee.I will not marry; or if she be mine,She and her children shall be thine.My bosom-friend, if he blaspheme thy name,I will tear thence his love and fame.One half of me being gone, the rest I giveUnto some chapel—die or live.As for my Passion[102]—But of that anon,When with the other I have done.For thy Predestination, I'll contriveThat, three years hence, if I survive,[103]I'll build a spital, or mend common ways,But mend my own without delays.Then I will use the works of thy creation,As if I used them but for fashion.The world and I will quarrel; and the yearShall not perceive that I am here.My music shall find thee, and every stringShall have his attribute to sing,its.That all together may accord in thee,And prove one God, one harmony.If thou shall give me wit, it shall appear;If thou hast given it me, 'tis here.Nay, I will read thy book,[104] and never moveTill I have found therein thy love—Thy art of love, which I'll turn back on thee:O my dear Saviour, Victory!Then for my Passion—I will do for that—Alas, my God! I know not what.
With the preceding must be taken the following, which comes immediately after it.
I have considered it, and findThere is no dealing with thy mighty Passion;For though I die for thee, I am behind:My sins deserve the condemnation.
O make me innocent, that IMay give a disentangled state and free;And yet thy wounds still my attempts defy,For by thy death I die for thee.
Ah! was it not enough that thouBy thy eternal glory didst outgo me?Couldst thou not grief's sad conquest me allow,But in all victories overthrow me?
Yet by confession will I comeInto the conquest: though I can do noughtAgainst thee, in thee I will overcomeThe man who once against thee fought.
Even embracing the feet of Jesus, Mary Magdalene or George Herbert must rise and go forth to do his will.
It will be observed how much George Herbert goes beyond all that have preceded him, in the expression of feeling as it flows from individual conditions, in the analysis of his own moods, in the logic of worship, if I may say so. His utterance is not merely of personal love and grief, but of the peculiar love and grief in the heart of George Herbert. There may be disease in such a mind; but, if there be, it is a disease that will burn itself out. Such disease is, for men constituted like him, the only path to health. By health I mean that simple regard to the truth, to the will of God, which will turn away a man's eyes from his own conditions, and leave God free to work his perfection in him—free, that is, of the interference of the man's self-consciousness and anxiety. To this perfection St. Paul had come when he no longer cried out against the body of his death, no more judged his own self, but left all to the Father, caring only to do his will. It was enough to him then that God should judge him, for his will is the one good thing securing all good things. Amongst the keener delights of the life which is at the door, I look for the face of George Herbert, with whom to talk humbly would be in bliss a higher bliss.
John Milton, born in 1608, was twenty-four years of age when George Herbert died. Hardly might two good men present a greater contrast than these. In power and size, Milton greatly excels. If George Herbert's utterance is like the sword-play of one skilful with the rapier, that of Milton is like the sword-play of an old knight, flashing his huge but keen-cutting blade in lightnings about his head. Compared with Herbert, Milton was a man in health. He nevershows, at least, any diseased regard of himself. His eye is fixed on the truth, and he knows of no ill-faring. While a man looks thitherward, all the movements of his spirit reveal themselves only in peace.
Everything conspired, or, should I not rather say? everything was freely given, to make Milton a great poet. Leaving the original seed of melody, the primordial song in the soul which all his life was an effort to utter, let us regard for a moment the circumstances that favoured its development.
[Illustration:
His volant touchFied and pursued transverse the resonant fugue.]
From childhood he had listened to the sounds of the organ; doubtless himself often gave breath to the soundboard with his hands on the lever of the bellows, while his father's
volant touch,Instinct through all proportions low and high,Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue;
and the father's organ-harmony we yet hear in the son's verse as in none but his. Those organ-sounds he has taken for the very breath of his speech, and articulated them. He had education and leisure, freedom to think, to travel, to observe: he was more than thirty before he had to earn a mouthful of bread by his own labour. Rushing at length into freedom's battle, he stood in its storm with his hand on the wheel of the nation's rudder, shouting many a bold word for God and the Truth, until, fulfilled of experience as of knowledge, God set up before him a canvas of utter darkness: he had to fill it with creatures of radiance. God blinded him with his hand, that, like the nightingale, he might "sing darkling." Beyond all, his life was pure from his childhood, without which such poetry as his could never have come to the birth. It is the pure in heart who shall see God at length; the pure in heart who now hear his harmonies. More than all yet, he devoted himself from the first to the will of God, and his prayer that he might write a great poem was heard.
The unity of his being is the strength of Milton. He is harmony, sweet and bold, throughout. Not Philip Sidney, not George Herbert loved words and their melodies more than he; while in their use he is more serious than either, and harder to please, uttering a music they have rarely approached. Yet even when speaking with "most miraculous organ," with a grandeur never heard till then, he overflows in speech more like that of other men than theirs—he utters himself more simply, straightforwardly, dignifiedly, than they. His modes are larger and more human, more near to the forms of primary thought. Faithful and obedient to his art, he spends his power in no diversions. Like Shakspere, he can be silent, never hesitating to sweep away the finest lines should they mar the intent, progress, and flow of his poem. Even while he sings most abandonedly, it is ever with a care of his speech, it is ever with ordered words: not one shall dull the clarity of his verse by unlicensed, that is, needless presence. But let not my reader fancy that this implies laborious utterance and strained endeavour. It is weakness only which by the agony of visible effort enhances the magnitude of victory. The trained athlete will move with the grace of a child, for he has not to seek how to effect that which he means to perform. Milton has only to take good heed, and with no greater effort than it costs the ordinary man to avoid talking like a fool, he sings like an archangel.
But I must not enlarge my remarks, for of his verse even I can find room for only a few lyrics. In them, however, we shall still find the simplest truth, the absolute of life, the poet's aim. He is ever soaring towards the region beyond perturbation, the true condition of soul; that is, wherein a man shall see things even as God would have him see them. He has no time to droop his pinions, and sit moody even on the highest pine: the sun is above him; he must fly upwards.
The youth who at three-and-twenty could write the following sonnet, might well at five-and-forty be capable of writing the one that follows:
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!My hasting days fly on with full career,But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truthThat I to manhood am arrived so near;And inward ripeness doth much less appear,That some more timely happy spirits endu'th.Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,It shall be still in strictest measure evenTo that same lot, however mean or high,Toward which time leads me and the will of heaven:All is—if I have grace to use it soAs ever in my great Task-master's eye.
TheItwhich is the subject of the last six lines is hisRipeness: it will keep pace with his approaching lot; when it arrives he will be ready for it, whatever it may be. The will of heaven is his happy fate. Even at three-and-twenty, "he that believeth shall not make haste." Calm and open-eyed, he works to be ripe, and waits for the work that shall follow.
At forty-five, then, he writes thus concerning his blindness:
When I consider how my life is spentEre half my days in this dark world and wide,And that one talent, which is death to hide,Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bentTo serve therewith my Maker, and presentMy true account, lest he, returning, chide—"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"I fondly ask. But Patience, to preventfoolishly.That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not needEither man's work or his own gifts: who bestBear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his stateIs kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,And post o'er land and ocean without rest:They also serve who only stand and wait."
That is, "stand and wait, ready to go when they are called." Everybody knows the sonnet, but how could I omit it? Both sonnets will grow more and more luminous as they are regarded.
The following I incline to think the finest of his short poems, certainly the grandest of them. It is a little ode, writtento be set on a clock-case.
Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race.Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace,And glut thyself with what thy womb devours—Which is no more than what is false and vain,And merely mortal dross:So little is our loss!So little is thy gain!For whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed,And last of all thy greedy self consumed,Then long eternity shall greet our blissWith an individual kiss;that cannot be divided—And joy shall overtake us as a flood; [eternal.When everything that is sincerely good,And perfectly divineWith truth and peace and love, shall ever shineAbout the supreme throneOf him to whose happy-making sight aloneWhen once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,Then, all this earthy grossness quit,Attired with stars, we shall for ever sitTriumphing over Death and Chance and thee, O Time.
The next I give is likewise an ode—a morebeautifulone. Observe in both the fine effect of the short lines, essential to the nature of the ode, being that which gives its solemnity the character yet of a song, or rather, perhaps, of a chant.
In this he calls upon Voice and Verse to rouse and raise our imagination until we hear the choral song of heaven, and hearing become able to sing in tuneful response.
Blest pair of sirens, pledges of heaven's joySphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ—Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce—And to our high-raised phantasy presentThat undisturbed song of pure concent[105]Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throneTo him that sits thereon,With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee;Where the bright seraphim, in burning row,Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow;And the cherubic host in thousand choirs,Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,Hymns devout and holy psalmsSinging everlastingly;That we on earth, with undiscording voice,May rightly answer that melodious noise—As once we did, till disproportioned[106] SinJarred against Nature's chime, and with harsh dinBroke the fair music that all creatures madeTo their great Lord, whose love their motion swayedIn perfect diapason,[107] whilst they stoodIn first obedience and their state of good.O may we soon again renew that song,And keep in tune with heaven, till God ere longTo his celestial consort[108] us unite,To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light!
Music was the symbol of all Truth to Milton. He would count it falsehood to write an unmusical verse. I allow that some of his blank lines may appear unrhythmical; but Experience, especially if she bring with her a knowledge of Dante, will elucidate all their movements. I exhort my younger friends to read Milton aloud when they are alone, and thus learn the worth of word-sounds. They will find him even in this an educating force. The last ode ought to be thus read for the magnificent dance-march of its motion, as well as for its melody.
Show me one who delights in theHymn on the Nativity, and I will show you one who may never indeed be a singer in this world, but who is already a listener to the best. But how different it is from anything of George Herbert's! It sets forth no feeling peculiar to Milton; it is an outburst of the gladness of the company of believers. Every one has at least read the glorious poem; but were I to leave it out I should have lost, not the sapphire of aspiration, not the topaz of praise, not the emerald of holiness, but the carbuncle of delight from the high priest's breast-plate. And I must give the introduction too: it is the cloudy grove of an overture, whence rushes the torrent of song.
This is the month, and this the happy morn,Wherein the son of heaven's eternal king,Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,Our great redemption from above did bring;For so the holy sages once did sing,That he our deadly forfeit should release,And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.
That glorious form, that light insufferable,And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,Wherewith he wont[109] at heaven's high council-tableTo sit the midst of trinal unity,He laid aside, and here with us to be,Forsook the courts of everlasting day,And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred veinAfford a present to the infant God?Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strainTo welcome him to this his new abode,Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod,Hath took no print of the approaching light,And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?
See how, from far upon the eastern road,The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet!O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet;And join thy voice unto the angel choir,From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.
It was the winter wildWhile the heaven-born childAll meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;Nature, in awe to him,Had doffed her gaudy trim,With her great master so to sympathize:It was no season then for herTo wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.
Only with speeches fairShe woos the gentle airTo hide her guilty front with innocent snow;And on her naked shame,Pollute with sinful blame,The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;Confounded that her maker's eyesShould look so near upon her foul deformities.
But he, her fears to cease,Sent down the meek-eyed Peace.She, crowned with olive green, came softly slidingDown through the turning sphere,His ready harbinger,With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;And waving wide her myrtle wand,She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.
No war, or battle's sound,Was heard the world around;The idle spear and shield were high uphung;The hookéd chariot stoodUnstained with hostile blood;The trumpet spake not to the arméd throng;And kings sat still with awful eye,awe-filled.As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by.
But peaceful was the nightWherein the Prince of LightHis reign of peace upon the earth began;The winds, with wonder whist,silent.Smoothly the water kissed,Whispering new joys to the mild Oceän,Who now hath quite forgot to rave,While birds of calm[110] sit brooding on the charméd wave.
The stars with deep amazeStand fixed in stedfast gaze,Bending one way their precious influence;And will not take their flightFor all the morning light,Or Lucifer,[111] that often warned them thence;But in their glimmering orbs did glowUntil their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
And though the shady gloomHad given day her room,The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,And hid his head for shame,As his inferior flameThe new enlightened world no more should need:He saw a greater sun appearThan his bright throne or burning axle-tree could bear.
The shepherds on the lawn,Or e'er the point of dawn,ere ever.Sat simply chatting in a rustic row:Full little thought they thanthen.That the mighty Pan[112]Was kindly come to live with them below;Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.
When such music sweetTheir hearts and ears did greetAs never was by mortal finger strook—Divinely warbled voiceAnswering the stringéd noise,As all their souls in blissful rapture took:The air, such pleasure loath to lose,With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.
Nature, that heard such sound,Beneath the hollow roundOf Cynthia's seat[113] the airy region thrilling,Now was almost wonTo think her part was done,And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:She knew such harmony aloneCould hold all heaven and earth in happier union.
At last surrounds their sightA globe of circular light,That with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed;The helméd cherubimAnd sworded seraphimAre seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,Harping in loud and solemn choir,With unexpressive[114] notes to heaven's new-born heir.
Such music, as 'tis said,Before was never made,But when of old the sons of morning sung,While the Creator greatHis constellations set,And the well-balanced world on hinges hung,[115]And cast the dark foundations deep,And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.
Ring out, ye crystal spheres;Once bless our human ears—If ye have power to touch our senses so;[116]And let your silver chimeMove in melodious time;And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow;And, with your ninefold harmony,Make up full consort[117] to the angelic symphony.[118]
For if such holy songEnwrap our fancy long,Time will run back and fetch the age of gold;And speckled vanityWill 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 thenWill 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 crossMust 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 clangAs on Mount Sinai rang,While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:The agéd earth, aghastWith terror of that blast,Shall from the surface to the centre shake,When, at the world's last sessiön,The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
And then at last our blissFull and perfect is:But now begins; for from this happy day,The old dragon, under groundIn 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 humRuns through the archéd roof in words deceiving;Apollo from his shrineCan 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 soundAffrights the flamens[125] at their service quaint;And the chill marble seems to sweat,While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat.
Peor and BaälimForsake their temples dim,With that twice-battered god of Palestine;And moonéd 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 dreadHis burning idol, all of blackest hue:In vain with cymbals' ringThey 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] seenIn Memphian grove or green,Trampling the unshowered[130] grass with lowings loud;Nor can he be at restWithin his sacred chest;Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud;In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark,The sable-stoléd 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 besideLonger dare abide—Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine:Our babe, to show his Godhead true,Can in his swaddling bands control the damnéd crew.
So, when the sun in bed,Curtained with cloudy red,Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,The flocking shadows paleTroop to the infernal jail—Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave;And the yellow-skirted faysFly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.
But see, the Virgin blestHath 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 stableBright-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 theNativity, he began to write an ode on thePassion, 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 enteréd,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 theHymn, 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.
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 calledOf 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 nightFrom the rude chaos; and bestowed new graceOn 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 thoseWhich 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 giveTo 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 unconfinedWith arms extended would embrace mankind.Self-love would cease, or be dilated, whenWe 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 findA boundless power so infinitely kind,The soul contending to that light to flyFrom her dark cell, we practise how to die,Employing thus the poet's wingéd artTo 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 goneWhen from the east the rising sun comes on.
* * * * *
To that and some other poems he adds the following—a kind of epilogue.
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 raiseHer 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 boastOf fleeting things, so certain to be lost.Clouds of affection from our younger eyespassion.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 viewThat 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. HisTrue Christian Moralsis 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 hisReligio 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 meThe sun makes not the day but thee.Thou whose nature cannot sleep,On my temples sentry keep;Guard me 'gainst those watchful foesWhose eyes are open while mine close.Let no dreams my head infestBut 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 wroughttAwake into some holy thought,And with as active vigour runMy course as doth the nimble sun.Sleep is a death: O make me tryBy sleeping what it is to die,And as gently lay my headOn my grave, as now my bed.Howe'er I rest, great God, let meAwake again at least with thee.And thus assured, behold I lieSecurely, or to wake or die.These are my drowsy days: in vainI do now wake to sleep again:O come that hour when I shall neverSleep 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'sFestival Hymns, printed as part of hisGolden Grove, orGide 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.
Lord, come away;Why dost thou stay?Thy road is ready; and thy paths made straightWith longing expectation waitThe consecration of thy beauteous feet.Ride on triumphantly: behold we layOur lusts and proud wills in thy way.Hosanna! welcome to our hearts! Lord, hereThou hast a temple too, and full as dearAs 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 moreProfane that holy placeWhere thou hast chose to set thy face.And then if our stiff tongues shall beMute in the praises of thy deity,The stones out of the temple-wallShall cry aloud and callHosanna! and thy glorious footsteps greet.
1. Where is this blessed babeThat hath madeAll the world so full of joyAnd expectation;That glorious boyThat crowns each nationWith a triumphant wreath of blessedness?
2. Where should he be but in the throng,And amongHis angel ministers that singAnd take wingJust as may echo to his voice,And rejoice,When wing and tongue and allMay so procure their happiness?
3. But he hath other waiters now:A poor cowAn ox and mule stand and behold,And wonderThat a stable should enfoldHim that can thunder.