And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table
To 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.
III.
Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To 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?
IV.
See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wizards haste with odors sweet!
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honor first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel Choir,
From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.
* * * * *
THE HYMN.
1.
It was the winter wild,
While the Heaven-born child,
All meanly wrapt, in the rude manger lies;
Nature, in awe to him,
Had doff'd her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun, her lusty paramour.
2.
Only, with speeches fair,
She woos the gentle Air
To 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 eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
3.
But he, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace:
She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding
Down 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.
4.
No war, or battle's sound,
Was heard the world around:
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hooked chariot stood,
Unstain'd with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;
And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
5.
But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds, with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kiss'd,
Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.
6.
The stars, with deep amaze,
Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze,
Bending one way their precious influence;
And will not take their flight,
For all the morning light,
Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence;
But in their glimmering orbs did glow,
Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
7.
And, though the shady gloom
Had given day her room,
The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed;
And hid his head for shame,
As his inferior flame
The new-enlighten'd world no more should need;
He saw a greater Sun appear
Than his bright throne or burning axletree could bear.
8.
The shepherds on the lawn,
Or ere the point of dawn,
Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;
Full little thought they then
That the mighty Pan
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.
9.
When such music sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet,
As never was by mortal finger strook,
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringed noise,
As all their souls in blissful rapture took:
The Air, such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.
10.
Nature, that heard such sound
Beneath the hollow round
Of Cynthia's seat, the Airy region thrilling,
Now was almost won
To think her part was done,
And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:
She knew such harmony alone
Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.
11.
At last surrounds their sight
A globe of circular light,
That with long beams the shame-faced Night array'd;
The helmed cherubim,
And sworded seraphim,
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd,
Harping in loud and solemn choir,
With unexpressive notes to Heaven's new-born Heir.
12.
Such music (as 'tis said)
Before was never made,
But when of old the Sons of Morning sung,
While the Creator great
His constellations set,
And the well-balanced world on hinges hung,
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the welt'ring waves their oozy channel keep.
13.
Ring out, ye crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears,
(If ye have power to touch our senses so,)
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.
14.
For, if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,
Time will run back, and fetch the Age of Gold;
And speckled Vanity
Will sicken soon and die;
And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;
And Hell itself will pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.
15.
Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between,
Thron'd in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissu'd clouds down steering;
And Heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.
16.
But wisest Fate says, No,
This must not yet be so;
The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy,
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss;
So both himself and us to glorify:
Yet first, to those ychain'd in sleep,
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep.
17.
With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang,
While the red fire and smould'ring clouds out brake:
The aged Earth, aghast,
With terror of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the centre shake;
When, at the world's last session,
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
18.
And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is,
But now begins; for from this happy day
The Old Dragon under ground,
In straiter limits bound,
Not half so far casts his usurped sway;
And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.
19.
The Oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,
Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell.
20.
The lonely mountains o'er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
From haunted spring, and dale
Edg'd with poplar pale,
The parting Genius is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses torn
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
21.
In consecrated earth,
And on the holy hearth,
The Lars, and Lemures, moan with midnight plaint;
In urns, and altars round,
A drear and dying sound
Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar Power forgoes his wonted seat.
22.
Peor, and Baaelim,
Forsake their temples dim,
With that twice-batter'd God of Palestine;
And mooned Ashtaroth,
Heaven's queen and mother both,
Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine:
The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.
23.
And sullen Moloch, fled,
Hath left in shadows dread,
His burning idol all of blackest hue
In vain with cymbals' ring
They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.
24.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green,
Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud;
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest;
Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;
In vain, with timbrell'd anthems dark,
The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark.
25.
He feels from Juda's land
The dreaded Infant's hand;
The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor all the gods beside
Longer dare abide,
Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.
26.
So, when the sun in bed,
Curtain'd with cloudy red,
Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale
Troop to the infernal jail,
Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;
And the yellow-skirted fays
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze.
27.
But see! the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest.
Time is our tedious song should here have ending:
Heaven's youngest-teemed star,
Hath fix'd her polish'd car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable
Bright-harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable.
X. CHARACTER OF LORD FALKLAND.
LORD CLARENDON.--1608-1674.
_From_ HISTORY OF THE REBELLION.
In this unhappy battle [of Newbury] was slain the Lord Viscount
Falkland; a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge,
of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing
and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive
simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon
this odious and accursed civil war, than that single loss, it must be
most infamous, and execrable to all posterity.
Before this parliament, his condition of life was so happy that it was
hardly capable of improvement. Before he came to be twenty years of age,
he was master of a noble fortune, which descended to him by the gift of
a grandfather, without passing through his father or mother, who were
then both alive, and not well enough contented to find themselves passed
by in the descent. His education for some years had been in Ireland,
where his father was lord-deputy; so that, when he returned into
England, to the possession of his fortune, he was unentangled with any
acquaintance or friends, which usually grow up by the custom of
conversation; and therefore was to make a pure election of his company;
which he chose by other rules than were prescribed to the young nobility
of that time. And it cannot be denied, though he admitted some few to
his friendship for the agreeableness of their natures, and their
undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity and friendship, for the
most part, was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts, and of
untouched reputation in point of integrity; and such men had a title to
his bosom.
He was a great cherisher of wit, and fancy, and good parts in any man;
and, if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a most liberal and
bountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune; of which, in
those administrations, he was such a dispenser, as, if he had been
trusted with it to such uses, and if there had been the least of vice in
his expense, he might have been thought too prodigal. He was constant
and pertinacious in whatsoever he resolved to do, and not to be wearied
by any pains that were necessary to that end. And, therefore, having
once resolved not to see London, which he loved above all places, till
he had perfectly learned the Greek tongue, he went to his own house in
the country, and pursued it with that indefatigable industry, that it
will not be believed in how short a time he was master of it, and
accurately read all the Greek historians.
In this time, his house being within little more than ten miles of
Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite
and accurate men of that university; who found such an immenseness of
wit, and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a fancy, bound
in by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast knowledge, that he was
not ignorant in anything, yet such an excessive humility, as if he had
known nothing, that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him, as in a
college situated in a purer air; so that his house was a university in a
less volume; whither they came not so much for repose as study; and to
examine and refine those grosser propositions, which laziness and
consent made current in vulgar conversation....
He was superior to all those passions and affections which attend vulgar
minds, and was guilty of no other ambition than of knowledge, and to be
reputed a lover of all good men; and that made him too much a contemner
of those arts, which must be indulged in the transactions of human
affairs....
He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and so far from
fear, that he seemed not without some appetite of danger; and therefore,
upon any occasion of action, he always engaged his person in those
troops which he thought, by the forwardness of the commanders, to be
most like to be farthest engaged; and in all such encounters, he had
about him an extraordinary cheerfulness, without at all affecting the
execution that usually attended them; in which he took no delight, but
took pains to prevent it, where it was not by resistance made necessary:
insomuch that at Edge-hill, when the enemy was routed, he was like to
have incurred great peril, by interposing to save those who had thrown
away their arms, and against whom, it may be, others were more fierce
for their having thrown them away: so that a man might think he came
into the field chiefly out of curiosity to see the face of danger, and
charity to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet, in his natural
inclination, he acknowledged he was addicted to the profession of a
soldier; and shortly after he came to his fortune, before he was of
age, he went into the Low Countries, with a resolution of procuring
command, and to give himself up to it; from which he was diverted by the
complete inactivity of that summer; so he returned into England, and
shortly after entered upon that vehement course of study we mentioned
before, till the first alarm from the north; then again he made ready
for the field, and though he received some repulse in the command of a
troop of horse, of which he had a promise, he went a volunteer with the
earl of Essex.
From the entrance into this unnatural war, his natural cheerfulness and
vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit
stole upon him, which he had never been used to; yet being one of those
who believed that one battle would end all differences, and that there
would be so great a victory on one side, that the other would be
compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor--which supposition
and conclusion generally sunk into the minds of most men, and prevented
the looking after many advantages that might then have been laid hold
of--he resisted those indispositions. But after the king's return from
Brentford, and the furious resolution of the two Houses not to admit any
treaty for peace, those indispositions, which had before touched him,
grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he, who had been so
exactly unreserved and affable to all men, that his face and countenance
was always present, and vacant, to his company, and held any cloudiness,
and less pleasantness of the visage, a kind of rudeness or incivility,
became, on a sudden, less communicable; and thence, very sad, pale, and
exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he
had minded before always with more neatness, and industry, and expense,
than is usual to so great a soul, he was not now only incurious, but too
negligent; and in his reception of suitors, and the necessary or casual
addresses to his place, so quick, and sharp, and severe, that there
wanted not some men--strangers to his nature and disposition--who
believed him proud and imperious; from which no mortal man was ever more
free....
When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would be more erect and
vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press anything which he thought
might promote it; and sitting among his friends, often, after a deep
silence, and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent,
ingeminate the word _Peace, Peace_; and would passionately profess,
"that the very agony of the war, and the view of the calamities and
desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and
would shortly break his heart." This made some think, or pretend to
think, "that he was so much enamoured of peace, that he would have been
glad the king should have bought it at any price;" which was a most
unreasonable calumny. As if a man, that was himself the most punctual
and precise in every circumstance that might reflect upon conscience or
honor, could have wished the king to have committed a trespass against
either....
In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, he was very
cheerful, and put himself into the first rank of the Lord Byron's
regiment, then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on
both sides with musketeers; from whence he was shot with a musket in the
lower part of the belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his
body was not found till the next morning; till when, there was some
hope he might have been a prisoner; though his nearest friends, who knew
his temper, received small comfort from that imagination. Thus fell that
incomparable young man, in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age,
having so much despatched the true business of life, that the oldest
rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into
the world with more innocency: whosoever leads such a life, needs be the
less anxious upon how short warning it is taken from him.
XI. VENI, CREATOR SPIRITUS.
JOHN DRYDEN.--1631-1700.
Creator Spirit, by whose aid
The world's foundations first were laid,
Come, visit every pious mind;
Come, pour thy joys on humankind;
From sin and sorrow set us free,
And make thy temples worthy thee.
O source of uncreated light,
The Father's promis'd Paraclete!
Thrice holy fount, thrice holy fire,
Our hearts with heavenly love inspire;
Come, and thy sacred unction bring
To sanctify us, while we sing.
Plenteous of grace, descend from high,
Rich in thy sevenfold energy!
Thou strength of his Almighty hand,
Whose power does heaven and earth command;
Proceeding Spirit, our defence,
Who dost the gift of tongues dispense,
And crown'st thy gift with eloquence.
Refine and purge our earthy parts;
But, oh, inflame and fire our hearts!
Our frailties help, our vice control,
Submit the senses to the soul;
And when rebellious they are grown,
Then lay thy hand, and hold them down.
Chase from our minds the infernal foe,
And peace, the fruit of Love, bestow;
And lest our feet should step astray,
Protect and guide us in the way.
Make us eternal truths receive,
And practise all that we believe:
Give us thy self, that we may see
The Father and the Son by thee.
Immortal honor, endless fame,
Attend the Almighty Father's name:
The Saviour Son be glorified,
Who for lost man's redemption died:
And equal adoration be,
Eternal Paraclete, to thee!
XII. LINES PRINTED UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF MILTON.
DRYDEN.
Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd,
The next in majesty, in both the last.
The force of Nature could no farther go;
To make a third she join'd the former two.
XIII. REASON.
DRYDEN.
_From_ RELIGIO LAICI.
Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,
Is Reason to the soul; and as on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here; so Reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day
And as those nightly tapers disappear,
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere;
So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight;
So dies, and so dissolves, in supernatural light.
XIV. ON THE LOVE OF COUNTRY AS A PRINCIPLE OF ACTION.
RICHARD STEELE.--1672-1729.
_From_ THE TATLER, June 10, 1710.
When men look into their own bosoms, and consider the generous seeds
which are there planted, that might, if rightly cultivated, ennoble
their lives, and make their virtue venerable to futurity; how can they,
without tears, reflect on the universal degeneracy from that public
spirit, which ought to be the first and principal motive of all their
actions? In the Grecian and Roman nations, they were wise enough to keep
up this great incentive, and it was impossible to be in the fashion
without being a patriot. All gallantry had its first source from hence;
and to want a warmth for the public welfare, was a defect so scandalous,
that he who was guilty of it had no pretence to honor or manhood. What
makes the depravity among us, in this behalf, the more vexatious and
irksome to reflect upon, is, that the contempt of life is carried as far
amongst us, as it could be in those memorable people; and we want only a
proper application of the qualities which are frequent among us, to be
as worthy as they. There is hardly a man to be found who will not fight
upon any occasion, which he thinks may taint his own honor. Were this
motive as strong in everything that regards the public, as it is in this
our private case, no man would pass his life away without having
distinguished himself by some gallant instance of his zeal towards it in
the respective incidents of his life and profession. But it is so far
otherwise, that there cannot at present be a more ridiculous animal,
than one who seems to regard the good of others. He, in civil life,
whose thoughts turn upon schemes which may be of general benefit,
without further reflection, is called a projector; and the man whose
mind seems intent upon glorious achievements, a knight-errant. The
ridicule among us runs strong against laudable actions; nay, in the
ordinary course of things, and the common regards of life, negligence of
the public is an epidemic vice. The brewer in his excise, the merchant
in his customs, and, for aught we know, the soldier in his muster-rolls,
think never the worse of themselves for being guilty of their respective
frauds towards the public. This evil is come to such a fantastical
height, that he is a man _of_ a public spirit, and heroically affected
to his country, who can go so far as even to turn usurer with all he
has in her funds. There is not a citizen in whose imagination such a one
does not appear in the same light of glory, as Codrus, Scaevola, or any
other great name in old Rome. Were it not for the heroes of so much _per
cent._ as have regard enough for themselves and their nation to trade
with her with their wealth, the very notion of public love would long
ere now have vanished from among us. But however general custom may
hurry us away in the stream of a common error, there is no evil, no
crime, so great as that of being cold in matters relating to the common
good. This is in nothing more conspicuous than in a certain willingness
to receive anything that tends to the diminution of such as have been
conspicuous instruments in our service. Such inclinations proceed from
the most low and vile corruption, of which the soul of man is capable.
This effaces not only the practice, but the very approbation of honor
and virtue; and has had such an effect, that, to speak freely, the very
sense of public good has no longer a part even in our conversations. Can
then the most generous motive of life, the good of others, be so easily
banished the breast of man? Is it possible to draw all our passions
inward? Shall the boiling heat of youth be sunk in pleasures, the
ambition of manhood in selfish intrigues? Shall all that is glorious,
all that is worth the pursuit of great minds, be so easily rooted out?
When the universal bent of a people seems diverted from the sense of
their common good, and common glory, it looks like a fatality, and
crisis of impending misfortune.