In the meantime, while Dryden and Milton both had their schools, most of our seventeenth-century poetry fell into an almost complete oblivion. Dryden's satiric, and Milton's epic strains engrossed attention, and shaped the verses of an age. But the seventeenth century was extraordinarily wealthy in poetic kinds quite distinct from these: in metaphysic, and mysticism, in devotional ecstasy, and love-lyric, and romance. The English genius in poetry is essentially metaphysical and romantic. Milton was neither. He could not have excelled in any of these kinds; nor have come near to Suckling, or Crashaw, or Vaughan, or Herrick, or Marvell, in their proper realms. It is a permissible indulgence, therefore, in taking leave of Milton, to turn from theParadise Lostfor a moment, and, escaping from the solid materialism of the heroic and epic strain, to find passion once more among the Court lyrists, and spiritual insight among the retired mystics, to find Religion and Love, and the humility that has access to both.A profound humility, impossible to Milton, inspired Vaughan when he wrote such a verse as this:--
There is in God, some say,A deep but dazzling darkness; as men hereSay it is late and dusky, because theySee not all clear.O for that night! where I in himMight live invisible and dim!
There is in God, some say,
A deep but dazzling darkness; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that night! where I in him
Might live invisible and dim!
There is a natural vision, and there is a spiritual vision; the spiritual belongs to Vaughan, not to Milton. If Milton persuades us to a willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, Vaughan thrills us with a sense of vivid reality. HisAscension Dayis a thing seen, as if it were a memory of yesterday:--
The day-star smiles, and light, with thee deceast,Now shines in all the chambers of the East.What stirs, what posting intercourse and mirthOf Saints and Angels glorifie the earth!What sighs, what whispers, busie stops and stays;Private and holy talk fill all the ways!They pass as at the last great day, and runIn their white robes to seek the risen Sun;I see them, hear them, mark their haste, and moveAmongst them, with them, wing'd with faith and love.
The day-star smiles, and light, with thee deceast,
Now shines in all the chambers of the East.
What stirs, what posting intercourse and mirth
Of Saints and Angels glorifie the earth!
What sighs, what whispers, busie stops and stays;
Private and holy talk fill all the ways!
They pass as at the last great day, and run
In their white robes to seek the risen Sun;
I see them, hear them, mark their haste, and move
Amongst them, with them, wing'd with faith and love.
To the intensity of his aspiration and hushed expectance the world seems only a turbulent passing pageant, or a hard wayfaring, suffered in a dream:--
Who staysHere long must passeO'er dark hills, swift streames, and steep waysAs smooth as glasse.
Who stays
Here long must passe
O'er dark hills, swift streames, and steep ways
As smooth as glasse.
Or a brief sickness:--
So for this night I linger here,And, full of tossings to and fro,Expect still when thou wilt appear,That I may get me up and go.
So for this night I linger here,
And, full of tossings to and fro,
Expect still when thou wilt appear,
That I may get me up and go.
His eyes are fixed on the shining lights that beckon him; the world is full of voices, but its sights and sounds appeal to him in vain; the beauties that surround him are things of naught--
Glorious deceptions, gilded mists,False joyes, phantastick flights.
Glorious deceptions, gilded mists,
False joyes, phantastick flights.
In the distance before him there shines
An air of gloryWhose light doth trample on my days;My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,Meer glimmering and decays;
An air of glory
Whose light doth trample on my days;
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Meer glimmering and decays;
and he lifts up his voice in passionate desire for the ultimate deliverance:--
Ah! what time will it come? When shall that crieThe Bridegroome's comming! fill the sky?Shall it in the evening run,When our words and works are done?Or will thy all-surprising lightBreak at midnight?
Ah! what time will it come? When shall that crie
The Bridegroome's comming! fill the sky?
Shall it in the evening run,
When our words and works are done?
Or will thy all-surprising light
Break at midnight?
He broods over it till nothing else is present to him in the night-watches:--
I saw Eternity the other nightLike a great ring of calm and endless light.
I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great ring of calm and endless light.
The history of the struggles and corruption of mankind may close at any moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at a signal given:--
All's in deep sleep and night; thick darkness lyesAnd hatcheth o'er thy people--But hark! what trumpet's that, what angel criesArise! Thrust in thy sickle!
All's in deep sleep and night; thick darkness lyes
And hatcheth o'er thy people--
But hark! what trumpet's that, what angel cries
Arise! Thrust in thy sickle!
Here is a religious poet indeed, a visionary, a mystic, and a Christian; none of which names can be truly applied to Milton. And if we wish to find Love enjoying his just supremacy in poetry, we cannot do better than seek him among the lyrists of the Court of Charles II. Milton, self-sufficient and censorious, denies the name of love to these songs of the sons of Belial. Love, he says, reigns and revels in Eden, not
in court amours,Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,Or serenate, which the starved lover singsTo his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.
in court amours,
Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,
Or serenate, which the starved lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.
Yet for the quick and fresh spirit of love in the poetry of that time we must go to the sons of Belial. There is a pathetic passage in one of Milton's divorce pamphlets, where, speaking ofthe unhappy choices in marriage to which "soberest and best governed men" are liable, he remarks:--"It is not strange though many, who have spent their youth chastely, are in some things not so quick-sighted while they haste too eagerly to light the nuptial torch; nor is it therefore that for a modest error a man should forfeit so great a happiness, and no charitable means to release him, since they who have lived most loosely, by reason of their bold accustoming, prove most successful in their matches, because their wild affections, unsettling at will, have been as so many divorces to teach them experience."
The wild affections, unsettling at will, wrote better love-songs than the steadfast principles of the sober and well-governed. Roystering libertines like Sir Charles Sedley were more edifying lovers than the austere husbands of Mary Powell and of Eve. Milton would have despised and detested the pleasure-seeking philosophy of Sedley:--
Let us then ply those joys we have,'Tis vain to think beyond the grave;Out of our reach the Gods have laidOf Time to come th' event,And laugh to see the Fools afraidOf what the Knaves invent.
Let us then ply those joys we have,
'Tis vain to think beyond the grave;
Out of our reach the Gods have laid
Of Time to come th' event,
And laugh to see the Fools afraid
Of what the Knaves invent.
But the self-abandonment and the passion of two or three of Sedley's songs are out of Milton's reach:--
NotCeliathat I juster am,Or better than the rest,For I would change each hour like them,Were not my heart at rest.
NotCeliathat I juster am,
Or better than the rest,
For I would change each hour like them,
Were not my heart at rest.
But I am ty'd to very theeBy every thought I have,Thy face I only care to see,Thy heart I only crave.
But I am ty'd to very thee
By every thought I have,
Thy face I only care to see,
Thy heart I only crave.
All that in woman is ador'dIn thy dear self I find,For the whole sex can but affordThe handsome and the kind.
All that in woman is ador'd
In thy dear self I find,
For the whole sex can but afford
The handsome and the kind.
Why should I then seek further store,And still make love anew;When change itself can give no more,'Tis easie to be true.
Why should I then seek further store,
And still make love anew;
When change itself can give no more,
'Tis easie to be true.
It is like a cup of cold water after the didactic endearments of Adam, and his repeated apostrophe:
Daughter of God and Man, immortal Eve--For such thou art, from sin and blame entire.
Daughter of God and Man, immortal Eve--
For such thou art, from sin and blame entire.
Then there was John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. He was drunk for five years on end,--so his biographer, who had it from his own lips, alleges--and he died at the age of thirty-two. Like Sedley, he professes no virtues, and holds no far-reaching views. But what a delicate turn of personal affection he gives to the expression of his careless creed:--
The time that is to come is not,How can it then be mine?The present moment's all my lot,And that, as fast as it is got,Phyllis, is only thine.
The time that is to come is not,
How can it then be mine?
The present moment's all my lot,
And that, as fast as it is got,
Phyllis, is only thine.
Then talk not of inconstancy,False hearts, and broken vowsIf I by miracle can beThis live-long minute true to thee,'Tis all that Heaven allows.
Then talk not of inconstancy,
False hearts, and broken vows
If I by miracle can be
This live-long minute true to thee,
'Tis all that Heaven allows.
Rochester's best love-poetry reaches the topmost pinnacle of achievement in that kind. None has ever been written more movingly beautiful than this:--
When, wearied with a world of woe,To thy safe bosom I retire,Where love and peace and truth does flow,May I contented there expire!
When, wearied with a world of woe,
To thy safe bosom I retire,
Where love and peace and truth does flow,
May I contented there expire!
Lest, once more wandering from that heaven,I fall on some base heart unblest--Faithless to thee, false, unforgiven--And lose my everlasting rest!
Lest, once more wandering from that heaven,
I fall on some base heart unblest--
Faithless to thee, false, unforgiven--
And lose my everlasting rest!
Or than that other piece (too beautiful and too intense to be cited as a sudden illustration of a thesis) beginning--
Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O whyDoes that eclipsing hand of thine denyThe sunshine of the Sun's enlivening eye?
Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why
Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny
The sunshine of the Sun's enlivening eye?
The wind bloweth where it listeth; the wandering fire of song touches the hearts and lipsof whom it will. Milton built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he made a great trench about the altar, and he put the wood in order, and loaded the altar with rich exotic offerings, cassia and nard, odorous gums and balm, and fruit burnished with golden rind. But the fire from Heaven descended on the hastily piled altars of the sons of Belial, and left Milton's gorgeous altar cold.
His fame is now old-established and settled, so there is no place left for the eloquence of the memorialist, or the studied praises of the pleader. I have tried to understand Milton; and have already praised him as well as I know how, with no stinted admiration, I trust, and certainly with no merely superstitious reverence. If I must round my discourse by repeating something that I have already said or suggested, it shall be this--that as he stands far aloof from his contemporaries, so in the succession of great figures that mark for us the centuries of our literature he is seen once more singular and a stranger. We bred Shakespeare in our Midlands; he was nourished from the soil that still grows our daily bread. But Milton was an alien conqueror. The crowd of native-born Puritans, who sometimes (not without many searchings of heart and sharp misgivings) attempt to claim him for their leader, have no title in him. It is a proof of his dominatingpower, and no credit to their intelligence, that they accept him as their representative. His influence on the destinies and history of our literature might be compared to the achievement of Napoleon while he was winning the victories that changed the map of Europe. He could not change the character of a people, nor perpetuate his dynasty. But nothing is as it would have been without him. Our literature is as hospitable as the Hindoo pantheon; the great revolutionary has won a place even in our creed. And the writer has this advantage, at least, over the conqueror and legislator, that he has bequeathed to us not maps, nor laws, but poems, whose beauty, like the World's unwithered countenance, is bright as at the day of their creation.
[For the following Index I am indebted to the kindness of three of my pupils, Miss F. Marston, Miss E. L. Morice, and Miss D. E. Yates.]