3.
The captain calls his warriors to arms,
And at the trumpet's sound they all
Under one sign and standard come.
But yet for some in vain the call is heard,
Heedless and unprepared, they mind it not.
One foe he kills, and the insane unborn,
He banishes from out the camp in scorn.
And thus the soul, when foiled her high designs,
Would have all those opponents dead or gone;
One object only I regard,
One face alone my mind does fill,
One beauty keeps me fixed and still;
One arrow pierced my heart, and one
The fire with which alone I burn,
And towards one paradise I turn.
This captain is the human will, which dwells in the depths of the soul
with the small helm of reason to govern and guide the interior powers
against the wave of natural impulses. He, with the sound of the
trumpet--that is, by fixed resolve--calls all the warriors or invokes
all the powers; called warriors because they are in continual strife and
opposition; and their affections, which are all contrary thoughts, some
towards one and some towards the other side inclining, and he tries to
bring them all under one flag--one settled end and aim. Some are called
in vain to put in a ready appearance, and are chiefly those which
proceed from the lower instincts, and which obey the reason either not
at all, or very little; and forcing himself to prevent their actions and
condemn those which cannot be prevented, he shows himself as one who
would kill those and banish these, now by the scourge of scorn, now by
the sword of anger. One only is the object of his regards, and on this
he is intently fixed; one prospect delights and fills his imagination,
one beauty pleases, and he rests in that, because the operation of the
intelligence is not a work of movement but of quiet; from thence alone
he derives that barb which, killing him, constitutes the consummation of
perfection. He burns with one fire alone; that is, one affection
consumes him.