Chapter 9

The “Prelude” is extremely interesting as a poet’s autobiography.

LONG EXPECTED

O many and many a day before we met,I knew some spirit walked the world alone,Awaiting the Belovèd from afar;And I was the anointed chosen oneOf all the world to crown her queenly browsWith the imperial crown of human love.I knew my sunshine somewhere warmed the world,And I should reach it, in His own good timeWho sendeth sun, and dew, and love for all....Earth, with her thousand voices, talked of thee—Sweet winds, and whispering leaves, and piping birds,The hum of happiness in summer woods,And the light dropping of the silver rain;And standing as in God’s own presence-chamber.When silence lay like sleep upon the world,And it seemed rich to die, alone with Night,Like Moses ’neath the kisses of God’s lips,The stars have trembled thro’ the holy hush,And smiled down tenderly, and read to meThe love hid for me in a budding breast,Like incense folded in a young flower’s heart.Gerald Massey

O many and many a day before we met,

I knew some spirit walked the world alone,

Awaiting the Belovèd from afar;

And I was the anointed chosen one

Of all the world to crown her queenly brows

With the imperial crown of human love.

I knew my sunshine somewhere warmed the world,

And I should reach it, in His own good time

Who sendeth sun, and dew, and love for all....

Earth, with her thousand voices, talked of thee—Sweet winds, and whispering leaves, and piping birds,The hum of happiness in summer woods,And the light dropping of the silver rain;And standing as in God’s own presence-chamber.When silence lay like sleep upon the world,And it seemed rich to die, alone with Night,Like Moses ’neath the kisses of God’s lips,The stars have trembled thro’ the holy hush,And smiled down tenderly, and read to meThe love hid for me in a budding breast,Like incense folded in a young flower’s heart.

Earth, with her thousand voices, talked of thee—

Sweet winds, and whispering leaves, and piping birds,

The hum of happiness in summer woods,

And the light dropping of the silver rain;

And standing as in God’s own presence-chamber.

When silence lay like sleep upon the world,

And it seemed rich to die, alone with Night,

Like Moses ’neath the kisses of God’s lips,

The stars have trembled thro’ the holy hush,

And smiled down tenderly, and read to me

The love hid for me in a budding breast,

Like incense folded in a young flower’s heart.

Gerald Massey

“Rich to die” is reminiscent of Keats’Ode to a Nightingale:Now more than ever seems it rich to die,To cease upon the midnight with no pain.

“Rich to die” is reminiscent of Keats’Ode to a Nightingale:

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,To cease upon the midnight with no pain.

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain.

“Come back, come back”; behold with straining mastAnd swelling sail, behold her steaming fast;With one new sun to see her voyage o’er,With morning light to touch her native shore,“Come back, come back.”“Come back, come back”; across the flying foam,We hear faint far-off voices call us home,“Come back,” ye seem to say; “Ye seek in vain;We went, we sought, and homeward turned again.Come back, come back.”“Come back, come back”; and whither back or why?To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try;Walk the old fields; pace the familiar street;Dream with the idlers, with the bards compete.“Come back, come back.”“Come back, come back”; and whither and for what?To finger idly some old Gordian knot,Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave,And with much toil attain to half-believe.“Come back, come back.”“Come back, come back”; yea back, indeed, do goSighs panting thick, and tears that want to flow;Fond fluttering hopes upraise their useless wings,And wishes idly struggle in the strings;“Come back, come back.”...“Come back, come back!”Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back;The long smoke wavers on the homeward track,Back fly with winds things which the winds obey—The strong ship follows its appointed way.A. H. Clough(Songs in Absence).

“Come back, come back”; behold with straining mast

And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast;

With one new sun to see her voyage o’er,

With morning light to touch her native shore,

“Come back, come back.”

“Come back, come back”; across the flying foam,We hear faint far-off voices call us home,“Come back,” ye seem to say; “Ye seek in vain;We went, we sought, and homeward turned again.Come back, come back.”

“Come back, come back”; across the flying foam,

We hear faint far-off voices call us home,

“Come back,” ye seem to say; “Ye seek in vain;

We went, we sought, and homeward turned again.

Come back, come back.”

“Come back, come back”; and whither back or why?To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try;Walk the old fields; pace the familiar street;Dream with the idlers, with the bards compete.“Come back, come back.”

“Come back, come back”; and whither back or why?

To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try;

Walk the old fields; pace the familiar street;

Dream with the idlers, with the bards compete.

“Come back, come back.”

“Come back, come back”; and whither and for what?To finger idly some old Gordian knot,Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave,And with much toil attain to half-believe.“Come back, come back.”

“Come back, come back”; and whither and for what?

To finger idly some old Gordian knot,

Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave,

And with much toil attain to half-believe.

“Come back, come back.”

“Come back, come back”; yea back, indeed, do goSighs panting thick, and tears that want to flow;Fond fluttering hopes upraise their useless wings,And wishes idly struggle in the strings;“Come back, come back.”...

“Come back, come back”; yea back, indeed, do go

Sighs panting thick, and tears that want to flow;

Fond fluttering hopes upraise their useless wings,

And wishes idly struggle in the strings;

“Come back, come back.”...

“Come back, come back!”Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back;The long smoke wavers on the homeward track,Back fly with winds things which the winds obey—The strong ship follows its appointed way.

“Come back, come back!”

Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back;

The long smoke wavers on the homeward track,

Back fly with winds things which the winds obey—

The strong ship follows its appointed way.

A. H. Clough(Songs in Absence).

I have ventured to put quotation marks in the above to make the meaning clear at first view. Also—but that italics seldom look well in a poem—I would have written the last two lines as follows:Backfly with windsthings which the winds obey—Thestrongship follows its appointed way.

I have ventured to put quotation marks in the above to make the meaning clear at first view. Also—but that italics seldom look well in a poem—I would have written the last two lines as follows:

Backfly with windsthings which the winds obey—Thestrongship follows its appointed way.

Backfly with windsthings which the winds obey—

Thestrongship follows its appointed way.

When thou must home to shades of underground,And there arrived, a new admirèd guest,The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,To hear the stories of thy finished loveFrom that smooth tongue whose music hell can moveThen wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,And all these triumphs for thy beauty’s sake:When thou hast told these honours done to thee,Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me.Thomas Campion.

When thou must home to shades of underground,

And there arrived, a new admirèd guest,

The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,

White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,

To hear the stories of thy finished love

From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move

Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,And all these triumphs for thy beauty’s sake:When thou hast told these honours done to thee,Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me.

Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,

Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,

Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,

And all these triumphs for thy beauty’s sake:

When thou hast told these honours done to thee,

Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me.

Thomas Campion.

A QUESTION

To Fausta.

Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flowsLike the wave;Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of menLove lends life a little grace,A few sad smiles; and then,Both are laid in one cold place,In the grave.Dreams dawn and fly, friends smile and dieLike spring flowers;Our vaunted life is one long funeral.Men dig graves with bitter tearsFor their dead hopes; and all,Mazed with doubts and sick with fears,Count the hours.We count the hours! These dreams of ours,False and hollow,Do we go hence and find they are not dead?Joys we dimly apprehend,Faces that smiled and fled,Hopes born here, and born to end,Shall we follow?Matthew Arnold.

Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows

Like the wave;

Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men

Love lends life a little grace,

A few sad smiles; and then,

Both are laid in one cold place,

In the grave.

Dreams dawn and fly, friends smile and dieLike spring flowers;Our vaunted life is one long funeral.Men dig graves with bitter tearsFor their dead hopes; and all,Mazed with doubts and sick with fears,Count the hours.

Dreams dawn and fly, friends smile and die

Like spring flowers;

Our vaunted life is one long funeral.

Men dig graves with bitter tears

For their dead hopes; and all,

Mazed with doubts and sick with fears,

Count the hours.

We count the hours! These dreams of ours,False and hollow,Do we go hence and find they are not dead?Joys we dimly apprehend,Faces that smiled and fled,Hopes born here, and born to end,Shall we follow?

We count the hours! These dreams of ours,

False and hollow,

Do we go hence and find they are not dead?

Joys we dimly apprehend,

Faces that smiled and fled,

Hopes born here, and born to end,

Shall we follow?

Matthew Arnold.

Dead! that is the wordThat rings through my brain till it crazes!Dead, while the mayflowers bud and blow,While the green creeps over the white of the snow,While the wild woods ring with the song of the bird,And the fields are a-bloom with daisies.See! even the clodThrills, with life’s glad passion shaken!The vagabond weeds, with their vagrant train,Laugh in the sun, and weep in the rain,The blue sky smiles like the eye of God,Only my dead do not waken.Dead! There is the wordThat I sit in the darkness and ponder!Why should the river, the sky and the seaBabble of summer and joy to me,While a strong, true heart, with its pulse unstirred,Lies hushed in the silence yonder?Author not traced.

Dead! that is the word

That rings through my brain till it crazes!

Dead, while the mayflowers bud and blow,

While the green creeps over the white of the snow,

While the wild woods ring with the song of the bird,

And the fields are a-bloom with daisies.

See! even the clodThrills, with life’s glad passion shaken!The vagabond weeds, with their vagrant train,Laugh in the sun, and weep in the rain,The blue sky smiles like the eye of God,Only my dead do not waken.

See! even the clod

Thrills, with life’s glad passion shaken!

The vagabond weeds, with their vagrant train,

Laugh in the sun, and weep in the rain,

The blue sky smiles like the eye of God,

Only my dead do not waken.

Dead! There is the wordThat I sit in the darkness and ponder!Why should the river, the sky and the seaBabble of summer and joy to me,While a strong, true heart, with its pulse unstirred,Lies hushed in the silence yonder?

Dead! There is the word

That I sit in the darkness and ponder!

Why should the river, the sky and the sea

Babble of summer and joy to me,

While a strong, true heart, with its pulse unstirred,

Lies hushed in the silence yonder?

Author not traced.

Our voices one by oneFail in the hymn begun;Our last sad song of Life is done,Our first sweet song of Death.Edmund Gosse(Encomium Mortis).

Our voices one by oneFail in the hymn begun;Our last sad song of Life is done,Our first sweet song of Death.

Our voices one by one

Fail in the hymn begun;

Our last sad song of Life is done,

Our first sweet song of Death.

Edmund Gosse(Encomium Mortis).

This poem appeared in early editions ofOn viol and Flute, but is now omitted from Mr. Gosse’s poems.

There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals,Whose form is not like unto man’s, and as unlike his nature;But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten,With human sensations and voice and corporeal members;So, if oxen or lions had hands and could work in man’s fashion,And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead,Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen,Each kind the divine with its own form and nature endowing.Xenophanes of Colophon(About 570 B.C.).

There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals,

Whose form is not like unto man’s, and as unlike his nature;

But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten,

With human sensations and voice and corporeal members;

So, if oxen or lions had hands and could work in man’s fashion,

And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead,

Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen,

Each kind the divine with its own form and nature endowing.

Xenophanes of Colophon(About 570 B.C.).

I do not know whose paraphrase this is; it was prefixed by Tyndall to his Belfast Address, 1874. He probably imagined that these lines contained an argument in favour of materialism; but on the contrary the Greek philosopher affirms the existence of a supreme God. All that he says is that the conception of him as resembling a mortal in his physical attributes is wrong.At the back of Tyndall’s mind was no doubt the prevalent idea that any “anthropomorphic” conception of thenatureof the Deity is necessarily absurd. But there is nothing unreasonable in believing that His nature, though immeasurably superior, is neverthelessakinto our own. Theargument is that the source or power of the world must be greater than the highest thing it has produced, the mind of man; and that it must more nearly resemble the higher than the lower of its products. In particular it is impossible for us to believe that our moral ideas of truth, justice, right and wrong, etc., can differ at all inkind, however much indegree, from those of God. So also ourreasonmust be akin to Hisinsight. Such a belief should be regarded, not as “anthropomorphic,” but as (in a sense different from that of Clifford and Harrison) a “deification of man”—the recognition of the Divine that is in him.

At the back of Tyndall’s mind was no doubt the prevalent idea that any “anthropomorphic” conception of thenatureof the Deity is necessarily absurd. But there is nothing unreasonable in believing that His nature, though immeasurably superior, is neverthelessakinto our own. Theargument is that the source or power of the world must be greater than the highest thing it has produced, the mind of man; and that it must more nearly resemble the higher than the lower of its products. In particular it is impossible for us to believe that our moral ideas of truth, justice, right and wrong, etc., can differ at all inkind, however much indegree, from those of God. So also ourreasonmust be akin to Hisinsight. Such a belief should be regarded, not as “anthropomorphic,” but as (in a sense different from that of Clifford and Harrison) a “deification of man”—the recognition of the Divine that is in him.

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,And the winter winds are wearily sighing:Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,And tread softly and speak low,For the old year lies a-dying....Close up his eyes: tie up his chin:Step from the corpse, and let him inThat standeth there alone,And waiteth at the door.There’s a new foot on the floor, my friendAnd a new face at the door, my friend,A new face at the door.Tennyson(The Death of the Old Year).

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,And the winter winds are wearily sighing:Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,And tread softly and speak low,For the old year lies a-dying....

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,

And the winter winds are wearily sighing:

Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,

And tread softly and speak low,

For the old year lies a-dying....

Close up his eyes: tie up his chin:Step from the corpse, and let him inThat standeth there alone,And waiteth at the door.There’s a new foot on the floor, my friendAnd a new face at the door, my friend,A new face at the door.

Close up his eyes: tie up his chin:

Step from the corpse, and let him in

That standeth there alone,

And waiteth at the door.

There’s a new foot on the floor, my friend

And a new face at the door, my friend,

A new face at the door.

Tennyson(The Death of the Old Year).

To see the soul as she really is, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the body and other miseries, you must contemplate her with the eye of reason, in her original purity—and then her beauty will be revealed.... We must remember that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken off and crushed and damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown over them of seaweed and shells and stones, so that he is more like some monster than his own natural form. And the soul which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look.

Where then!

At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what society and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal and divine; also how different she would become if wholly following this superior principle, and borneby a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up around her because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things of this life as they are termed: then you would see her as she is, and know ... what her nature is.

Plato(Republic, Bk. 10, Jowett’s translation).

Apart from the intrinsic interest of such a passage, the picture of the old sea-god, with long hair and long beard, his body ending in a scaly tail, battered about by the waves, and overgrown with seaweed and shells, is very curious. Without discussing how far the great philosopher himself or some other advanced thinkers believed in such divinities, it must be remembered that to the Greeks generally the gods were very real personages.

Youth’s quick and warm, old age is slow and tame,And only Heaven can fairly halve their blame.To-day the passionate roses breathe and blowAnd ask no counsel from to-morrow’s snow,Whose fretwork sparkles to the winter moonWhite, as if roses never flushed in June.Author not traced.

Youth’s quick and warm, old age is slow and tame,

And only Heaven can fairly halve their blame.

To-day the passionate roses breathe and blow

And ask no counsel from to-morrow’s snow,

Whose fretwork sparkles to the winter moon

White, as if roses never flushed in June.

Author not traced.

Ah, gracious powers! I wish you would send me an old aunt—a maiden aunt—an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage and a front of light, coffee-coloured hair—how my children should work work-bags for her, and my Julia and I would make her comfortable! Sweet—sweet vision! Foolish—foolish dream!

Thackeray(Vanity Fair).

IDENTITY.

Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space—In Twilight-land—in No-Man’s land—Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,And bade each other stand.“And who are you?” cried one a-gape,Shuddering in the gloaming light.“I know not,” said the second Shape,“I only died last night!”Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space—In Twilight-land—in No-Man’s land—Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,And bade each other stand.

Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space—

In Twilight-land—in No-Man’s land—

Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,

And bade each other stand.

“And who are you?” cried one a-gape,Shuddering in the gloaming light.“I know not,” said the second Shape,“I only died last night!”

“And who are you?” cried one a-gape,

Shuddering in the gloaming light.

“I know not,” said the second Shape,

“I only died last night!”

Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

Veil not thy mirror, sweet Amine,Till night shall also veil each star!Thou seeest a twofold marvel there:The only face so fair as thine,The only eyes that, near or far,Can gaze on thine without despair.J. C. Mangan.

Veil not thy mirror, sweet Amine,

Till night shall also veil each star!

Thou seeest a twofold marvel there:

The only face so fair as thine,

The only eyes that, near or far,

Can gaze on thine without despair.

J. C. Mangan.

Has anyone ever pinched into its pillulous smallness the cobweb of pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship?

George Eliot(Middlemarch).

TO R.K.

As long I dwell on some stupendousAnd tremendous (Heaven defend us!)Monstr’-inform’-ingens-horrendousDemoniaco-seraphicPenman’s latest piece of graphic.Browning.

As long I dwell on some stupendousAnd tremendous (Heaven defend us!)Monstr’-inform’-ingens-horrendousDemoniaco-seraphicPenman’s latest piece of graphic.

As long I dwell on some stupendous

And tremendous (Heaven defend us!)

Monstr’-inform’-ingens-horrendous

Demoniaco-seraphic

Penman’s latest piece of graphic.

Browning.

Will there never come a seasonWhich shall rid us from the curseOf a prose which knows no reasonAnd an unmelodious verse:When the world shall cease to wonderAt the genius of an Ass,And a boy’s eccentric blunderShall not bring success to pass:When mankind shall be delivered,From the clash of magazines,And the inkstand shall be shiveredInto countless smithereens:When there stands a muzzled stripling,Mute, beside a muzzled bore:When the Rudyards cease from KiplingAnd the Haggards Ride no more.James Kenneth Stephen.

Will there never come a season

Which shall rid us from the curse

Of a prose which knows no reason

And an unmelodious verse:

When the world shall cease to wonder

At the genius of an Ass,

And a boy’s eccentric blunder

Shall not bring success to pass:

When mankind shall be delivered,From the clash of magazines,And the inkstand shall be shiveredInto countless smithereens:When there stands a muzzled stripling,Mute, beside a muzzled bore:When the Rudyards cease from KiplingAnd the Haggards Ride no more.

When mankind shall be delivered,

From the clash of magazines,

And the inkstand shall be shivered

Into countless smithereens:

When there stands a muzzled stripling,

Mute, beside a muzzled bore:

When the Rudyards cease from Kipling

And the Haggards Ride no more.

James Kenneth Stephen.

“R.K.” is Rudyard Kipling, but what was the “boy’s eccentric blunder” that brought him success I do not know. Stephen in this instance showed a want of judgment. The books Kipling had then produced,Plain Tales from the Hills,Departmental Ditties, and the six little books,Soldiers Three, etc., all written before the age of twenty-four, should have been sufficient to show that the author was certainly not a stripling to be “muzzled.” Stephen’s misjudgment was, however, trivial when we remember how many important writers have failed to understand and appreciate the most beautiful poems. Jeffrey (1773-1850) thought to the end of his days that of the poets of his time Keats and Shelley would die and Campbell and Rogers alone survive. Shelley wasveryunfortunate in his critics. Matthew Arnold and Carlyle also disparaged him, Theodore Hook said “Prometheus Unbound” was properly named as no one would think of binding it; and worst of all was Emerson. He said Shelley was not a poet, had no imagination and his muse was uniformly imitative (“Thoughts on Modern Literature”); his poetry was ‘rhymed English’ which ‘had no charm’ (“Poetry and Imagination”). Just as amazing was the article inThe Edinburgh Review, 1816, on Coleridge’s volume containing “Christabel,” “Kubla Khan,” etc. This article, usually attributed to Hazlitt, and certainly having Jeffrey’s sanction, said: “We look upon this publication as one of the most notable pieces of impertinence of which the press has lately been guilty; and one of the boldest experiments that have as yet been made upon the patience or understanding of the public.” De Quincey said the style of Keats “belonged essentially to the vilest collections of waxwork filigree or gilt gingerbread.” Other instances are Swinburne’s abuse of George Eliot and Walt Whitman, Carlyle’s brutality towards Lamb, Jeffrey’s savage attack on Wordsworth (the famous “This will never do” article—although it was not so very inexcusable), Edward Fitzgerald’s letter that Mrs. Browning’s death was a relief to him (“No more Aurora Leighs, thank God!”), Samuel Rogers’ statement that he “could not relish Shakespeare’s sonnets,” and Steevens’ far worse condemnation of them, and indeed the list could be extended indefinitely. On the other hand, unmerited praise was given by whole generations of writers to poems which are now properly forgotten. In face of such facts it is somewhat of a mystery why the best thingsdosurvive. See next quotation.

If it be true, and it can scarcely be disputed, that nothing has been for centuries consecrated by public admiration, without possessing in a high degree some kind of sterling excellence, it is not because the average intellect and feeling of the majority of the public are competent in any way to distinguish what is really excellent, but because all erroneous opinion is inconsistent, and all ungrounded opinion transitory; so that while the fancies and feelings which deny deserved honour, and award what is undue, have neither root nor strength sufficient to maintain consistent testimony for a length of time, the opinions formed on right grounds by those few who are in reality competent judges, being necessarily stable, communicate themselves gradually from mind to mind, descending lower as they extend wider, until they leaven the whole lump, and rule by absoluteauthority, even where the grounds and reasons for them cannot be understood. On this gradual victory of what is consistent over what is vacillating, depends the reputation of all that is highest in art and literature.

John Ruskin(Modern Painters, I, 1).

This is an excellent suggestion in explanation of the question raised in the preceding note. It is also interesting because of the youth of this great writer at the time. Ruskin was born in 1819, and the volume waspublishedin 1843, when he was twenty-four. Because of his youth, it was thought inadvisable to give his name as author, and, therefore, the book was published as “by an Oxford Graduate.”

The ages have exulted in the manners of a youth, who owed nothing to fortune, and who was hanged at the Tyburn of his nation, who, by the pure quality of his nature, shed an epic splendour around the facts of his death, which has transfigured every particular into an universal symbol for the eyes of mankind. This great defeat is hitherto our highest fact.

Emerson(Essay on Character).

The best of menThat e’er wore earth about him was a sufferer;A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;The first true gentleman that ever breathed.Thomas Dekker(1570-1641).

The best of menThat e’er wore earth about him was a sufferer;A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;The first true gentleman that ever breathed.

The best of men

That e’er wore earth about him was a sufferer;

A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;

The first true gentleman that ever breathed.

Thomas Dekker(1570-1641).

Thou with strong prayer and very much entreatingWillest be asked, and Thou shalt answer then,Show the hid heart beneath creation beating,Smile with kind eyes, and be a man with men.Were it not thus, O King of my salvation,Many would curse to Thee, and I for one,Fling Thee thy bliss and snatch at thy damnation,Scorn and abhor the shining of the sun.Ring with a reckless shivering of laughterWroth at the woe which Thou hast seen so long;Question if any recompense hereafterWaits to atone the intolerable wrong.F. W. H. Myers(1843-1901.) (Saint Paul).

Thou with strong prayer and very much entreatingWillest be asked, and Thou shalt answer then,Show the hid heart beneath creation beating,Smile with kind eyes, and be a man with men.

Thou with strong prayer and very much entreating

Willest be asked, and Thou shalt answer then,

Show the hid heart beneath creation beating,

Smile with kind eyes, and be a man with men.

Were it not thus, O King of my salvation,Many would curse to Thee, and I for one,Fling Thee thy bliss and snatch at thy damnation,Scorn and abhor the shining of the sun.

Were it not thus, O King of my salvation,

Many would curse to Thee, and I for one,

Fling Thee thy bliss and snatch at thy damnation,

Scorn and abhor the shining of the sun.

Ring with a reckless shivering of laughterWroth at the woe which Thou hast seen so long;Question if any recompense hereafterWaits to atone the intolerable wrong.

Ring with a reckless shivering of laughter

Wroth at the woe which Thou hast seen so long;

Question if any recompense hereafter

Waits to atone the intolerable wrong.

F. W. H. Myers(1843-1901.) (Saint Paul).

Willest be asked, “requirest to be asked,” as in “God willeth Samuel to yield unto the importunity of the people” (1 Sam. viii., in margin).Saint Paulwas written for the Seatonian prize for religious English verse, Cambridge, about 1866, but failed to secure the prize!

Willest be asked, “requirest to be asked,” as in “God willeth Samuel to yield unto the importunity of the people” (1 Sam. viii., in margin).

Saint Paulwas written for the Seatonian prize for religious English verse, Cambridge, about 1866, but failed to secure the prize!

(Speaking of future state) “Those who are neither good nor bad, or are too insignificant for notice, will be dropt entirely. This is my opinion. It is consistent with my idea of God’s justice, and with the reason that God has given me, and I gratefully know that He has given me a large share of that Divine gift”(!)

Thomas Paine(Age of Reason).

SIXTEEN CHARACTERISTICS OF LOVE (ΑΓΑΠΗ).

St. Paul(1 Cor.xiii.)

Ἀγάπη, brotherly love, “Though I have all knowledge and all faith, though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not ἀγάπη, it profiteth me nothing.” (1 Cor. xiii, 2).

In the Eighth Century B.C., in the heart of a world of idolatrous polytheists, the Hebrew prophets put forth a conception of religion which appears to be as wonderful an inspiration of genius as the art of Pheidias or the science of Aristotle. “And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”[20]

T. H. Huxley(Essays, IV, 161).

The best of all we do and are,Just God, forgive.Wordsworth(Thoughts near the Residence of Burns).

The best of all we do and are,Just God, forgive.

The best of all we do and are,

Just God, forgive.

Wordsworth(Thoughts near the Residence of Burns).

LOST DAYS.

The lost days of my life until to-day,What were they, could I see them on the streetLie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheatSown once for food but trodden into clay?Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheatThe undying throats of Hell, athirst alway?I do not see them there; but after deathGod knows I know the faces I shall see,Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.“I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?”“And I—and I—thyself,” (lo! each one saith,)“And thou thyself to all eternity!”D. G. Rossetti.

The lost days of my life until to-day,

What were they, could I see them on the street

Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat

Sown once for food but trodden into clay?

Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?

Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?

Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat

The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway?

I do not see them there; but after deathGod knows I know the faces I shall see,Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.“I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?”“And I—and I—thyself,” (lo! each one saith,)“And thou thyself to all eternity!”

I do not see them there; but after death

God knows I know the faces I shall see,

Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.

“I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?”

“And I—and I—thyself,” (lo! each one saith,)

“And thou thyself to all eternity!”

D. G. Rossetti.

Count that day lost, whose low descending sunViews from thy hand no worthy action done.Anon.

Count that day lost, whose low descending sunViews from thy hand no worthy action done.

Count that day lost, whose low descending sun

Views from thy hand no worthy action done.

Anon.

BIRTHDAYS.

“Time is the stuff of life”—then spend not thy days while they lastIn dreams of an idle future, regrets for a vanished past;The tombstones lie thickly behind thee, but the stream still hurries thee on,New worlds of thought to be traversed, new fields to be fought and won.Let work be thy measure of life—then only the end is well—The birthdays we hail so blithely are strokes of the passing bell.W. E. H. Lecky.

“Time is the stuff of life”—then spend not thy days while they last

In dreams of an idle future, regrets for a vanished past;

The tombstones lie thickly behind thee, but the stream still hurries thee on,

New worlds of thought to be traversed, new fields to be fought and won.

Let work be thy measure of life—then only the end is well—

The birthdays we hail so blithely are strokes of the passing bell.

W. E. H. Lecky.

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” (Franklin,Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1757.)

Nothing is of greater value than a single day.Goethe(Spruche im Prosa).

Nothing is of greater value than a single day.

Goethe(Spruche im Prosa).

Tears for the passionate hearts I might have won,Tears for the age with which I might have striven,Tears for a hundred years of work undone,Crying like blood to Heaven.Wm. Alexander.

Tears for the passionate hearts I might have won,Tears for the age with which I might have striven,Tears for a hundred years of work undone,Crying like blood to Heaven.

Tears for the passionate hearts I might have won,

Tears for the age with which I might have striven,

Tears for a hundred years of work undone,

Crying like blood to Heaven.

Wm. Alexander.

My life, my beautiful life, all wasted;The gold days, the blue days, to darkness sunk;The bread was here, and I have not tasted:The wine was here, and I have not drunk.Richard Middleton.

My life, my beautiful life, all wasted;The gold days, the blue days, to darkness sunk;The bread was here, and I have not tasted:The wine was here, and I have not drunk.

My life, my beautiful life, all wasted;

The gold days, the blue days, to darkness sunk;

The bread was here, and I have not tasted:

The wine was here, and I have not drunk.

Richard Middleton.

I do not find these lines in Middleton’s collected works, but I think they are his.

And the nightingale thought, “I have sung many songs,But never a one so gay,For he sings of what the world will beWhen the years have died away.”Tennyson(The Poet’s Song).

And the nightingale thought, “I have sung many songs,But never a one so gay,For he sings of what the world will beWhen the years have died away.”

And the nightingale thought, “I have sung many songs,

But never a one so gay,

For he sings of what the world will be

When the years have died away.”

Tennyson(The Poet’s Song).

This often-quoted verse does not give the highest view of poetry, as Tennyson’s own poems show. The poet sings of a Universe,Which moves with light and life informed,Actual, divine and true.He sings of Nature, Man, God, Immortality. (This note is from an early letter of Hodgson’s. His quotation is fromThe Prelude, Bk. XIV.)

This often-quoted verse does not give the highest view of poetry, as Tennyson’s own poems show. The poet sings of a Universe,

Which moves with light and life informed,Actual, divine and true.

Which moves with light and life informed,

Actual, divine and true.

He sings of Nature, Man, God, Immortality. (This note is from an early letter of Hodgson’s. His quotation is fromThe Prelude, Bk. XIV.)

Why are Time’s feet so swift and ours so slow!Author not traced.

Why are Time’s feet so swift and ours so slow!

Author not traced.

Who is the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England, that passeth all the rest in doing his office? It is the Devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all other, he is never out of his diocese, ye shall never find him unoccupied, ye shall never find him out of the way, call for him when you will; he is ever at home, the diligentest preacher in all the Realm; ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you.... He is no lordly loiterer, but a busy ploughman, so that among all the pack of them the Devil shall go for my money! Therefore, ye prelates, learn of the Devil to be diligent in doing of your office. If you will not learn of God nor good men: for shame learn of the Devil.

Bishop Latimer(Sermon on the Ploughers, 1549).

APPRECIATION.

To the sea-shell’s spiral round’Tis your heart that brings the sound:The soft sea-murmurs, that you hearWithin, are captured from your ear.You do poets and their songA grievous wrong,If your own soul does not bringTo their high imaginingAs much beauty as they sing.Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

To the sea-shell’s spiral round’Tis your heart that brings the sound:The soft sea-murmurs, that you hearWithin, are captured from your ear.

To the sea-shell’s spiral round

’Tis your heart that brings the sound:

The soft sea-murmurs, that you hear

Within, are captured from your ear.

You do poets and their songA grievous wrong,If your own soul does not bringTo their high imaginingAs much beauty as they sing.

You do poets and their song

A grievous wrong,

If your own soul does not bring

To their high imagining

As much beauty as they sing.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

In the present day it is not easy to find a well-meaning man among our more earnest thinkers, who will not take upon himself to dispute the whole system of redemption, because he cannot unravel the mystery of the punishment of sin. But can he unravel the mystery of the punishment of NO sin? Can he entirely account for all that happens to a cab-horse? Has he ever looked fairly at the fate of one of those beasts as it is dying—measured the work it has done, and the reward it has got—put his hand upon the bloody wounds through which its bones are piercing, and so looked up to Heaven with an entire understanding of Heaven’s ways about the horse? Yet the horse is a fact—no dream—no revelation among the myrtle trees by night;and the dust it dies upon, and the dogs that eat it, are facts; and yonder happy person, whose the horse was, till its knees were broken over the hurdles; who had an immortal soul to begin with, and wealth and peace to help forward his immortality; who has also devoted the powers of his soul, and body, and wealth, and peace, to the spoiling of houses, the corruption of the innocent, and the oppression of the poor; and has, at this actual moment of his prosperous life, as many curses waiting round about him in calm shadow, with their death-eyes fixed upon him, biding their time, as ever the poor cab-horse had launched at him in meaningless blasphemies, when his failing feet stumbled at the stones,—this happy person shall have no stripes,—shall have only the horse’s fate of annihilation! Or, if other things are indeed reserved for him, Heaven’s kindness or omnipotence is to be doubted therefore!

We cannot reason of these things. But this I know—and this may by all men be known—that no good or lovely thing exists in this world without its correspondent darkness; and that the universe presents itself continually to mankind under the stern aspect of warning, or of choice, the good and the evil set on the right hand and the left.

John Ruskin (Modern Painters, V, 19).

It is one of the arguments in Plato’sPhaedothat the soul must survive, since otherwise terribly wicked and cruel men would escape retribution; annihilation would be a good thing for them.

All creatures and all objects, in degree,Are friends and patrons of humanity.There are to whom the garden, grove and fieldPerpetual lessons of forbearance yield;Who would not lightly violate the graceThe lowliest flower possesses in its place,Nor shorten the sweet life, too fugitive,Which nothing less than Infinite Power could give.Wordsworth(Humanity).

All creatures and all objects, in degree,

Are friends and patrons of humanity.

There are to whom the garden, grove and field

Perpetual lessons of forbearance yield;

Who would not lightly violate the grace

The lowliest flower possesses in its place,

Nor shorten the sweet life, too fugitive,

Which nothing less than Infinite Power could give.

Wordsworth(Humanity).

Every man is not a proper Champion for Truth, nor fit to take up the Gauntlet in the cause of Verity: many, from the ignorance of these Maximes, and an inconsiderate Zeal unto Truth, have too rashly charged the troops of Error, and remain as Trophies unto the enemies of Truth. A man may be in as just possession ofTruth as of a City and yet be forced to surrender; ’tis therefore far better to enjoy her with peace than to hazzard her on a battle.

Sir Thomas Browne(Religio Medici).

“Very well,” cried I, “that’s a good girl; I find you are perfectly qualified for making converts, and so go help your mother to make a gooseberry pye.”

Goldsmith(The Vicar of Wakefield).

White-handed Hope,Thou hovering Angel girt with golden wings.Milton(Comus).

White-handed Hope,Thou hovering Angel girt with golden wings.

White-handed Hope,

Thou hovering Angel girt with golden wings.

Milton(Comus).

Hope, folding her wings, looked backward and became Regret.

George Eliot(Silas Marner, ch. 15).

By desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don’t quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil—widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.

George Eliot(Middlemarch, ch. 39).

Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin!Here is custom come your way;Take my brute, and lead him in,Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay....I am old, but let me drink;Bring me spices, bring me wine;I remember, when I think,That my youth was half divine....Fill the cup, and fill the can:Have a rouse before the morn:Every moment dies a man,Every moment one is born....Chant me now some wicked stave,Till thy drooping courage rise,And the glow-worm of the graveGlimmer in thy rheumy eyes....Change, reverting to the years,When thy nerves could understandWhat there is in loving tears,And the warmth of hand in hand....Fill the can, and fill the cup:All the windy days of menAre but dust that rises up,And is lightly laid again.Tennyson(The Vision of Sin).

Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin!Here is custom come your way;Take my brute, and lead him in,Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay....

Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin!

Here is custom come your way;

Take my brute, and lead him in,

Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay....

I am old, but let me drink;Bring me spices, bring me wine;I remember, when I think,That my youth was half divine....

I am old, but let me drink;

Bring me spices, bring me wine;

I remember, when I think,

That my youth was half divine....

Fill the cup, and fill the can:Have a rouse before the morn:Every moment dies a man,Every moment one is born....

Fill the cup, and fill the can:

Have a rouse before the morn:

Every moment dies a man,

Every moment one is born....

Chant me now some wicked stave,Till thy drooping courage rise,And the glow-worm of the graveGlimmer in thy rheumy eyes....

Chant me now some wicked stave,

Till thy drooping courage rise,

And the glow-worm of the grave

Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes....

Change, reverting to the years,When thy nerves could understandWhat there is in loving tears,And the warmth of hand in hand....

Change, reverting to the years,

When thy nerves could understand

What there is in loving tears,

And the warmth of hand in hand....

Fill the can, and fill the cup:All the windy days of menAre but dust that rises up,And is lightly laid again.

Fill the can, and fill the cup:

All the windy days of men

Are but dust that rises up,

And is lightly laid again.

Tennyson(The Vision of Sin).

Change—i.e., change the subject. Many verses are omitted for the sake of brevity.

A world without a contingency or an agony could have no hero and no saint, and enable no Son of Man to discover that he was a Son of God. But for the suspended plot, that is folded in every life, history is a dead chronicle of what was known before as well as after; art sinks into the photograph of a moment, that hints at nothing else; and poetry breaks the cords and throws the lyre away. There is no Epic of the certainties; and no lyric without the surprise of sorrow and the sigh of fear. Whatever touches and ennobles us in the lives and in the voices of the past is a divine birth from human doubt and pain. Let then the shadows lie, and the perspective of the light still deepen beyond our view; else, while we walk together, our hearts will never burn within us as we go, and the darkness as it falls, will deliver us into no hand that is Divine.

Jas. Martineau(Hours of Thought, 1, 328).

The subject of the sermon is theuncertaintiesof life, the perils and catastrophies that cannot be foreseen or provided for, death, disease, and other ills which may fall upon us at any moment, the crises that arise in the history of men and nations. It is by reason of these thatcharacteris formed. If everything happened by known rule, and could be predicted as surely as the movements of the stars, we should have no affections or emotions and would be mere creatures of habit.From a recent book of poems,The Lily of Malud, by J. C. Squire, I take the following musical verse. (“The Stronghold” is where pain, hate, and all unpleasant things are excluded and peace only reigns.)But O, if you find that castle,Draw back your foot from the gateway,Let not its peace invite you,Let not its offerings tempt you,For faded and decayed like a garment,Love to a dust will have fallen,And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow,And hope will have gone with pain;And of all the throbbing heart’s high courageNothing will remain.Martineau not only did important work in philosophy, but he was also eminent as a moral teacher. Taking together his originality, sublimity of soul, and beauty of expression, the sermons inHours of Thoughtand other similar writings are the finest product of modern religious thought. They indeed stand among the best productions of ourliterature, and should be read even by those (if there are any such persons) who love literature and thought but are indifferent to religion. To illustrate this, I choose—almost at random—a passage where the thought itself has no interest outside religion (Hours of Thought, II. 334):—Worship is the free offering of ourselves to God; ever renewed, because ever imperfect. It expresses the consciousness that we are His by right, yet have not duly passed into His hand; that the soul has no true rest but in Him, yet has wandered in strange flights until her wing is tired. It is her effort to return home, the surrender again of her narrow self-will, her prayer to be merged in a life diviner than her own. It is at once the lowliest and loftiest attitude of her nature: we never hide ourselves in ravine so deep; yet overhead we never see the stars so clear and high. The sense of saddest estrangement, yet the sense also of eternal affinity between us and God meet and mingle in the act; breaking into the strains, now penitential and now jubilant, that, to the critic’s reason, may sound at variance but melt into harmony in the ear of a higher love. This twofold aspect devotion must ever have, pale with weeping, flushed with joy; deploring the past, trusting for the future; ashamed of what is, kindled by what is meant to be; shadow behind, and light before. Were we haunted by no presence of sin and want, we should only browse on the pasture of nature; were we stirred by no instinct of a holier kindred, we should not be drawn towards the life of God.

From a recent book of poems,The Lily of Malud, by J. C. Squire, I take the following musical verse. (“The Stronghold” is where pain, hate, and all unpleasant things are excluded and peace only reigns.)

But O, if you find that castle,Draw back your foot from the gateway,Let not its peace invite you,Let not its offerings tempt you,For faded and decayed like a garment,Love to a dust will have fallen,And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow,And hope will have gone with pain;And of all the throbbing heart’s high courageNothing will remain.

But O, if you find that castle,

Draw back your foot from the gateway,

Let not its peace invite you,

Let not its offerings tempt you,

For faded and decayed like a garment,

Love to a dust will have fallen,

And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow,

And hope will have gone with pain;

And of all the throbbing heart’s high courage

Nothing will remain.

Martineau not only did important work in philosophy, but he was also eminent as a moral teacher. Taking together his originality, sublimity of soul, and beauty of expression, the sermons inHours of Thoughtand other similar writings are the finest product of modern religious thought. They indeed stand among the best productions of ourliterature, and should be read even by those (if there are any such persons) who love literature and thought but are indifferent to religion. To illustrate this, I choose—almost at random—a passage where the thought itself has no interest outside religion (Hours of Thought, II. 334):—

Worship is the free offering of ourselves to God; ever renewed, because ever imperfect. It expresses the consciousness that we are His by right, yet have not duly passed into His hand; that the soul has no true rest but in Him, yet has wandered in strange flights until her wing is tired. It is her effort to return home, the surrender again of her narrow self-will, her prayer to be merged in a life diviner than her own. It is at once the lowliest and loftiest attitude of her nature: we never hide ourselves in ravine so deep; yet overhead we never see the stars so clear and high. The sense of saddest estrangement, yet the sense also of eternal affinity between us and God meet and mingle in the act; breaking into the strains, now penitential and now jubilant, that, to the critic’s reason, may sound at variance but melt into harmony in the ear of a higher love. This twofold aspect devotion must ever have, pale with weeping, flushed with joy; deploring the past, trusting for the future; ashamed of what is, kindled by what is meant to be; shadow behind, and light before. Were we haunted by no presence of sin and want, we should only browse on the pasture of nature; were we stirred by no instinct of a holier kindred, we should not be drawn towards the life of God.

GROWN UP.

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