"to his breathing flute and sounding lyre
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire."
He wrote a war chant; he wrote psalms; and there is a song in the
"Litchfield Collection" in which he attempts to kindle soft desire. Here
is an extract:--
No longer, then, fair maid, delay
The promised scenes of bliss,
Nor idly give another day
The joys assigned to this.
"Quit, then, oh, quit, thou lovely maid!
Thy bashful virgin pride,"--
and so on sings the Doctor. Who would have thought that
"profound Solomon would tune a jig,
Or Nestor play at pushpin with the boys,"
as Shakspeare has it? who would have expected erotic tints and Epicurean
morality from the author of "The Conquest of Canaan," and of four
volumes of orthodox and weighty theology?