SPENSER AND HIS FRIENDS.
We have now arrived at the period of English history in every way fullest
of marvel--the period of Elizabeth. As in a northern summer the whole
region bursts into blossom at once, so with the thought and feeling of
England in this glorious era.
The special development of the national mind with which we are now
concerned, however, did not by any means arrive at its largest and
clearest result until the following century. Still its progress is
sufficiently remarkable. For, while everything that bore upon the mental
development of the nation must bear upon its poetry, the fresh vigour
given by the doctrines of the Reformation to the sense of personal
responsibility, and of immediate relation to God, with the grand
influences, both literary and spiritual, of the translated, printed, and
studied Bible, operated more immediately upon its devotional utterance.
Towards the close of the sixteenth century, we begin to find such verse
as I shall now present to my readers. Only I must first make a few
remarks upon the great poem of the period: I mean, of course, _The Faerie
Queen_.
I dare not begin to set forth after any fashion the profound religious
truth contained in this poem; for it would require a volume larger than
this to set forth even that of the first book adequately. In this case it
is well to remember that the beginning of comment, as well as of strife,
is like the letting out of water.
The direction in which the wonderful allegory of the latter moves may be
gathered from the following stanza, the first of the eighth canto:
Ay me! how many perils do enfold
The righteous man to make him daily fail;
Were not that heavenly grace doth him uphold, _it_ understood.
And steadfast Truth acquit him out of all!
Her love is firm, her care continual,
So oft as he, through his own foolish pride
Or weakness, is to sinful bands made thrall:
Else should this Redcross Knight in bands have died,
For whose deliverance she this Prince doth thither guide.
Nor do I judge it good to spend much of my space upon remarks personal to
those who have not been especially writers of sacred verse. When we come
to the masters of such song, we cannot speak of their words without
speaking of themselves; but when in the midst of many words those of the
kind we seek are few, the life of the writer does not justify more than a
passing notice here.
We know but little of Spenser's history: if we might know all, I do not
fear that we should find anything to destroy the impression made by his
verse--that he was a Christian gentleman, a noble and pure-minded man, of
highest purposes and aims.
His style is injured by the artistic falsehood of producing antique
effects in the midst of modern feeling.[54] It was scarcely more
justifiable, for instance, in Spenser's time than it would be in ours to
use _glitterand_ for _glittering_; or to return to a large use of
alliteration, three, four, sometimes even five words in the same line
beginning with the same consonant sound. Everything should look like what
it is: prose or verse should be written in the language of its own era.
No doubt the wide-spreading roots of poetry gather to it more variety of
expression than prose can employ; and the very nature of verse will make
it free of times and seasons, harmonizing many opposites. Hence, through
its mediation, without discord, many fine old words, by the loss of which
the language has grown poorer and feebler, might be honourably enticed to
return even into our prose. But nothing ought to be brought back
_because_ it is old. That it is out of use is a presumptive argument that
it ought to remain out of use: good reasons must be at hand to support
its reappearance. I must not, however, enlarge upon this wide-reaching
question; for of the two portions of Spenser's verse which I shall quote,
one of them is not at all, the other not so much as his great poem,
affected with this whim.
The first I give is a sonnet, one of eighty-eight which he wrote to his
wife before their marriage. Apparently disappointed in early youth, he
did not fall in love again,--at least there is no sign of it that I
know,--till he was middle-aged. But then--woman was never more grandly
wooed than was his Elizabeth. I know of no marriage-present worthy to be
compared with the Epithalamion which he gave her "in lieu of many
ornaments,"--one of the most stately, melodious, and tender poems in the
world, I fully believe.
But now for the sonnet--the sixty-eighth of the _Amoretti_:
Most glorious Lord of Life! that, on this day,
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin,
And having harrowed hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin;
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die,
Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin,
May live for ever in felicity!
And that thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love thee for the same again;
And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear love, like as we ought:
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
Those who have never felt the need of the divine, entering by the channel
of will and choice and prayer, for the upholding, purifying, and
glorifying of that which itself first created human, will consider this
poem untrue, having its origin in religious affectation. Others will
think otherwise.
The greater part of what I shall next quote is tolerably known even to
those who have made little study of our earlier literature, yet it may
not be omitted here. It is from _An Hymne of Heavenly Love_, consisting
of forty-one stanzas, written in what was called _Rime Royal_--a
favourite with Milton, and, next to the Spenserian, in my opinion the
finest of stanzas. Its construction will reveal itself. I take two
stanzas from the beginning of the hymn, then one from the heart of it,
and the rest from the close. It gives no feeling of an outburst of song,
but rather of a brooding chant, most quiet in virtue of the depth of its
thoughtfulness. Indeed, all his rhythm is like the melodies of water, and
I could quote at least three passages in which he speaks of rhythmic
movements and watery progressions together. His thoughts, and hence his
words, flow like a full, peaceful stream, diffuse, with plenteousness
unrestrained.
AN HYMN OF HEAVENLY LOVE.
Before this world's great frame, in which all things
Are now contained, found any being place,
Ere flitting Time could wag his eyas[55] wings
About that mighty bound which doth embrace
The rolling spheres, and parts their hours by space,
That high eternal power, which now doth move
In all these things, moved in itself by love.
It loved itself, because itself was fair,
For fair is loved; and of itself begot
Like to itself his eldest son and heir,
Eternal, pure, and void of sinful blot,
The firstling of his joy, in whom no jot
Of love's dislike or pride was to be found,
Whom he therefore with equal honour crowned.
* * * * *
Out of the bosom of eternal bliss,
In which he reignéd with his glorious Sire,
He down descended, like a most demisse _humble._
And abject thrall, in flesh's frail attire,
That he for him might pay sin's deadly hire,
And him restore unto that happy state
In which he stood before his hapless fate.
* * * * *
O blessed well of love! O flower of grace!
O glorious Morning-Star! O Lamp of Light!
Most lively image of thy Father's face!
Eternal King of Glory, Lord of might!
Meek Lamb of God, before all worlds behight! _promised._
How can we thee requite for all this good?
Or what can prize that thy most precious blood? _equal in value._
Yet nought thou ask'st in lieu of all this love
But love of us for guerdon of thy pain:
Ay me! what can us less than that behove?[56]
Had he required life of[57] us again,
Had it been wrong to ask his own with gain?
He gave us life, he it restored lost;
Then life were least, that us so little cost.
But he our life hath left unto us free--
Free that was thrall, and blessed that was banned; _enslaved; cursed._
Nor aught demands but that we loving be,
As he himself hath loved us aforehand,
And bound thereto with an eternal band--
Him first to love that us[58] so dearly bought,
And next our brethren, to his image wrought.
Him first to love great right and reason is,
Who first to us our life and being gave,
And after, when we faréd had amiss,
Us wretches from the second death did save;
And last, the food of life, which now we have,
Even he himself, in his dear sacrament,
To feed our hungry souls, unto us lent.
Then next, to love our brethren that were made
Of that self mould, and that self Maker's hand,
That[59] we, and to the same again shall fade,
Where they shall have like heritage of land, _the same grave-room._
However here on higher steps we stand;
Which also were with selfsame price redeemed,
That we, however, of us light esteemed. _as._
And were they not, yet since that loving Lord
Commanded us to love them for his sake,
Even for his sake, and for his sacred word,
Which in his last bequest he to us spake,
We should them love, and with their needs partake; _share their
Knowing that, whatsoe'er to them we give, [needs._
We give to him by whom we all do live.
Such mercy he by his most holy rede _instruction._
Unto us taught, and to approve it true,
Ensampled it by his most righteous deed,
Shewing us mercy, miserable crew!
That we the like should to the wretches[60] shew,
And love our brethren; thereby to approve
How much himself that loved us we love.
Then rouse thyself, O earth! out of thy soil,
In which thou wallowest like to filthy swine,
And dost thy mind in dirty pleasures moyle, _defile._
Unmindful of that dearest Lord of thine;
Lift up to him thy heavy clouded eyne,
That thou this sovereign bounty mayst behold,
And read through love his mercies manifold.
Begin from first, where he encradled was
In simple cratch, wrapt in a wad of hay, _a rack or crib._
Between the toilful ox and humble ass;
And in what rags, and in what base array
The glory of our heavenly riches lay,
When him the silly[61] shepherds came to see,
Whom greatest princes sought on lowest knee.
From thence read on the story of his life,
His humble carriage, his unfaulty ways,
His cankered foes, his fights, his toil, his strife,
His pains, his poverty, his sharp assays, _temptations_ or _trials._
Through which he passed his miserable days,
Offending none, and doing good to all,
Yet being maliced both by great and small.
And look at last, how of most wretched wights
He taken was, betrayed, and false accused;
How with most scornful taunts and fell despites
He was reviled, disgraced, and foul abused;
How scourged, how crowned, how buffeted, how bruised;
And, lastly, how 'twixt robbers crucified,
With bitter wounds through hands, through feet, and side!
* * * * *
With sense whereof whilst so thy softened spirit
Is inly touched, and humbled with meek zeal
Through meditation of his endless merit,
Lift up thy mind to th' author of thy weal,
And to his sovereign mercy do appeal;
Learn him to love that lovéd thee so dear,
And in thy breast his blessed image bear.
With all thy heart, with all thy soul and mind,
Thou must him love, and his behests embrace; _commands._
All other loves with which the world doth blind
Weak fancies, and stir up affections base,
Thou must renounce and utterly displace,
And give thyself unto him full and free,
That full and freely gave himself to thee.
* * * * *
Thenceforth all world's desire will in thee die,
And all earth's glory, on which men do gaze,
Seem dust and dross in thy pure-sighted eye,
Compared to that celestial beauty's blaze,
Whose glorious beams all fleshly sense do daze
With admiration of their passing light,
Blinding the eyes and lumining the sprite.
Then shalt thy ravished soul inspiréd be
With heavenly thoughts far above human skill, _reason._
And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainly see
The Idea of his pure glory present still
Before thy face, that all thy spirits shall fill
With sweet enragement of celestial love,
Kindled through sight of those fair things above.
There is a companion to the poem of which these verses are a portion,
called _An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie_, filled like this, and like two
others on Beauty and Love, with Platonic forms both of thought and
expression; but I have preferred quoting a longer part of the former to
giving portions of both. My reader will recognize in the extract a fuller
force of intellect brought to bear on duty; although it would be unwise
to take a mind like Spenser's for a type of more than the highest class
of the age. Doubtless the division in the country with regard to many of
the Church's doctrines had its part in bringing out and strengthening
this tendency to reasoning which is so essential to progress. Where
religion itself is not the most important thing with the individual, all
reasoning upon it must indeed degenerate into strifes of words,
_vermiculate_ questions, as Lord Bacon calls them--such, namely, as like
the hoarded manna reveal the character of the owner by breeding of
worms--yet on no questions may the light of the candle of the Lord, that
is, the human understanding, be cast with greater hope of discovery than
on those of religion, those, namely, that bear upon man's relation to God
and to his fellow. The most partial illumination of this region, the very
cause of whose mystery is the height and depth of its _truth_, is of more
awful value to the human being than perfect knowledge, if such were
possible, concerning everything else in the universe; while, in fact, in
this very region, discovery may bring with it a higher kind of conviction
than can accompany the results of investigation in any other direction.
In these grandest of all thinkings, the great men of this time showed a
grandeur of thought worthy of their surpassing excellence in other
noblest fields of human labour. They thought greatly because they aspired
greatly.
Sir Walter Raleigh was a personal friend of Edmund Spenser. They were
almost of the same age, the former born in 1552, the latter in the
following year. A writer of magnificent prose, itself full of religion
and poetry both in thought and expression, he has not distinguished
himself greatly in verse. There is, however, one remarkable poem fit for
my purpose, which I can hardly doubt to be his. It is called _Sir Walter
Raleigh's Pilgrimage_. The probability is that it was written just after
his condemnation in 1603--although many years passed before his sentence
was carried into execution.
Give me my scallop-shell[62] of Quiet;
My staff of Faith to walk upon;
My scrip of Joy, immortal diet;
My bottle of Salvation;
My gown of Glory, hope's true gage;
And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.
Blood must be my body's balmer,--
No other balm will there be given--
Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer,
Travelleth towards the land of Heaven;
Over the silver mountains,
Where spring the nectar fountains--
There will I kiss
The bowl of Bliss,
And drink mine everlasting fill
Upon every milken hill:
My soul will be a-dry before,
But after, it will thirst no more.
Then by that happy blissful day,
More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,
That have cast off their rags of clay,
And walk apparelled fresh like me:
I'll take them first,
To quench their thirst,
And taste of nectar's suckets, _sweet things--things to suck._
At those clear wells
Where sweetness dwells,
Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.
And when our bottles and all we
Are filled with immortality,
Then the blessed paths we'll travel,
Strowed with rubies thick as gravel.
Ceilings of diamonds! sapphire floors!
High walls of coral, and pearly bowers!--
From thence to Heaven's bribeless hall,
Where no corrupted voices brawl;
No conscience molten into gold;
No forged accuser bought or sold;
No cause deferred; no vain-spent journey;
For there Christ is the King's Attorney,
Who pleads for all without degrees, _irrespective of rank._
And he hath angels, but no fees.
And when the grand twelve million jury
Of our sins, with direful fury,
'Gainst our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live.
Be thou my speaker, taintless Pleader,
Unblotted Lawyer, true Proceeder!
Thou giv'st salvation even for alms,--
Not with a bribéd lawyer's palms.
And this is my eternal plea
To him that made heaven, earth, and sea,
That, since my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,--
Just at the stroke, when my veins start and spread,
Set on my soul an everlasting head:
Then am I ready, like a palmer fit,
To tread those blest paths which before I writ.
Of death and judgment, heaven and hell
Who oft doth think, must needs die well.
This poem is a somewhat strange medley, with a confusion of figure, and a
repeated failure in dignity, which is very far indeed from being worthy
of Raleigh's prose. But it is very remarkable how wretchedly some men
will show, who, doing their own work well, attempt that for which
practice has not--to use a word of the time--_enabled_ them. There is
real power in the poem, however, and the confusion is far more indicative
of the pleased success of an unaccustomed hand than of incapacity for
harmonious work. Some of the imagery, especially the "crystal buckets,"
will suggest those grotesque drawings called _Emblems_, which were much
in use before and after this period, and, indeed, were only a putting
into visible shape of such metaphors and similes as some of the most
popular poets of the time, especially Doctor Donne, indulged in; while
the profusion of earthly riches attributed to the heavenly paths and the
places of repose on the journey, may well recall Raleigh's own
descriptions of South American glories. Englishmen of that era believed
in an earthly Paradise beyond the Atlantic, the wonderful reports of
whose magnificence had no doubt a share in lifting the imaginations and
hopes of the people to the height at which they now stood.
There may be an appearance of irreverence in the way in which he
contrasts the bribeless Hall of Heaven with the proceedings at his own
trial, where he was browbeaten, abused, and, from the very commencement,
treated as a guilty man by Sir Edward Coke, the king's attorney. He even
puns with the words _angels_ and _fees_. Burning from a sense of
injustice, however, and with the solemnity of death before him, he could
not be guilty of _conscious_ irreverence, at least. But there is another
remark I have to make with regard to the matter, which will bear upon
much of the literature of the time: even the great writers of that period
had such a delight in words, and such a command over them, that like
their skilful horsemen, who enjoyed making their steeds show off the
fantastic paces they had taught them, they played with the words as they
passed through their hands, tossing them about as a juggler might his
balls. But even herein the true master of speech showed his masterdom:
his play must not be by-play; it must contribute to the truth of the idea
which was taking form in those words. We shall see this more plainly when
we come to transcribe some of Sir Philip Sidney's work. There is no
irreverence in it. Nor can I take it as any sign of hardness that Raleigh
should treat the visual image of his own anticipated death with so much
coolness, if the writer of a little elegy on his execution, when Raleigh
was fourteen years older than at the presumed date of the foregoing
verses, describes him truly when he says:
I saw in every stander-by
Pale death, life only in thy eye.
The following hymn is also attributed to Raleigh. If it has less
brilliance of fancy, it has none of the faults of the preceding, and is
far more artistic in construction and finish, notwithstanding a degree of
irregularity.
Rise, oh my soul, with thy desires to heaven;
And with divinest contemplation use
Thy time, where time's eternity is given;
And let vain thoughts no more thy thoughts abuse,
But down in darkness let them lie:
So live thy better, let thy worse thoughts die!
And thou, my soul, inspired with holy flame,
View and review, with most regardful eye,
That holy cross, whence thy salvation came,
On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die!
For in that sacred object is much pleasure,
And in that Saviour is my life, my treasure.
To thee, O Jesus, I direct my eyes;
To thee my hands, to thee my humble knees,
To thee my heart shall offer sacrifice;
To thee my thoughts, who my thoughts only sees--
To thee myself,--myself and all I give;
To thee I die; to thee I only live!
See what an effect of stately composure quiet artistic care produces, and
how it leaves the ear of the mind in a satisfied peace!
There are a few fine lines in the poem. The last two lines of the first
stanza are admirable; the last two of the second very weak. The last
stanza is good throughout.
But it would be very unfair to judge Sir Walter by his verse. His prose
is infinitely better, and equally displays the devout tendency of his
mind--a tendency common to all the great men of that age. The worst I
know of him is the selfishly prudent advice he left behind for his son.
No doubt he had his faults, but we must not judge a man even by what he
says in an over-anxiety for the prosperity of his child.
Another remarkable fact in the history of those great men is that they
were all men of affairs. Raleigh was a soldier, a sailor, a discoverer, a
politician, as well as an author. His friend Spenser was first secretary
to Lord Grey when he was Governor of Ireland, and afterwards Sheriff of
Cork. He has written a large treatise on the state of Ireland. But of all
the men of the age no one was more variously gifted, or exercised those
gifts in more differing directions, than the man who of them all was most
in favour with queen, court, and people--Philip Sidney. I could write
much to set forth the greatness, culture, balance, and scope of this
wonderful man. Renowned over Europe for his person, for his dress, for
his carriage, for his speech, for his skill in arms, for his
horsemanship, for his soldiership, for his statesmanship, for his
learning, he was beloved for his friendship, his generosity, his
steadfastness, his simplicity, his conscientiousness, his religion.
Amongst the lamentations over his death printed in Spenser's works, there
is one poem by Matthew Roydon, a few verses of which I shall quote, being
no vain eulogy. Describing his personal appearance, he says:
A sweet, attractive kind of grace,
A full assurance given by looks,
Continual comfort in a face,
The lineaments of Gospel books!--
I trow, that countenance cannot lie
Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.
Was ever eye did see that face,
Was ever ear did hear that tongue,
Was ever mind did mind his grace
That ever thought the travel long?
But eyes and ears, and every thought,
Were with his sweet perfections caught.
His _Arcadia_ is a book full of wisdom and beauty. None of his writings
were printed in his lifetime; but the _Arcadia_ was for many years after
his death one of the most popular books in the country. His prose, as
prose, is not equal to his friend Raleigh's, being less condensed and
stately. It is too full of fancy in thought and freak in rhetoric to find
now-a-days more than a very limited number of readers; and a good deal of
the verse that is set in it, is obscure and uninteresting, partly from
some false notions of poetic composition which he and his friend Spenser
entertained when young; but there is often an exquisite art in his other
poems.
The first I shall transcribe is a sonnet, to which the Latin words
printed below it might be prefixed as a title: _Splendidis longum
valedico nugis._
A LONG FAREWELL TO GLITTERING TRIFLES.
Leave me, O love, which reachest but to dust;
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things;
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:
What ever fades but fading pleasure brings.
Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might
To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be;
Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light
That doth both shine and give us sight to see.
Oh take fast hold; let that light be thy guide,
In this small course which birth draws out to death;
And think how evil[63] becometh him to slide
Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.
Then farewell, world; thy uttermost I see:
Eternal love, maintain thy life in me.
Before turning to the treasury of his noblest verse, I shall give six
lines from a poem in the _Arcadia_--chiefly for the sake of instancing
what great questions those mighty men delighted in:
What essence destiny hath; if fortune be or no;
Whence our immortal souls to mortal earth do stow[64]:
What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather,
With outward maker's force, or like an inward father.
Such thoughts, me thought, I thought, and strained my single mind,
Then void of nearer cares, the depth of things to find.
Lord Bacon was not the only one, in such an age, to think upon the mighty
relations of physics and metaphysics, or, as Sidney would say, "of
naturall and supernaturall philosophic." For a man to do his best, he
must be upheld, even in his speculations, by those around him.
In the specimen just given, we find that our religious poetry has gone
down into the deeps. There are indications of such a tendency in the
older times, but neither then were the questions so articulate, nor were
the questioners so troubled for an answer. The alternative expressed in
the middle couplet seems to me the most imperative of all questions--both
for the individual and for the church: Is man fashioned by the hands of
God, as a potter fashioneth his vessel; or do we indeed come forth from
his heart? Is power or love the making might of the universe? He who
answers this question aright possesses the key to all righteous
questions.
Sir Philip and his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, made between them a
metrical translation of the Psalms of David. It cannot be determined
which are hers and which are his; but if I may conclude anything from a
poem by the sister, to which I shall by and by refer, I take those I now
give for the brother's work.
The souls of the following psalms have, in the version I present,
transmigrated into fairer forms than I have found them occupy elsewhere.
Here is a grand hymn for the whole world: _Sing unto the Lord._
PSALM XCVI.
Sing, and let your song be new,
Unto him that never endeth;
Sing all earth, and all in you--
Sing to God, and bless his name.
Of the help, the health he sendeth,
Day by day new ditties frame.
Make each country know his worth:
Of his acts the wondered story
Paint unto each people forth.
For Jehovah great alone,
All the gods, for awe and glory,
Far above doth hold his throne.
For but idols, what are they
Whom besides mad earth adoreth?
He the skies in frame did lay.
Grace and honour are his guides;
Majesty his temple storeth;
Might in guard about him bides.
Kindreds come! Jehovah give--
O give Jehovah all together,
Force and fame whereso you live.
Give his name the glory fit:
Take your off'rings, get you thither,
Where he doth enshrined sit.
Go, adore him in the place
Where his pomp is most displayed.
Earth, O go with quaking pace,
Go proclaim Jehovah king:
Stayless world shall now be stayed;
Righteous doom his rule shall bring.
Starry roof and earthy floor,
Sea, and all thy wideness yieldeth,
Now rejoice, and leap, and roar.
Leafy infants of the wood,
Fields, and all that on you feedeth,
Dance, O dance, at such a good!
For Jehovah cometh, lo!
Lo to reign Jehovah cometh!
Under whom you all shall go.
He the world shall rightly guide--
Truly, as a king becometh,
For the people's weal provide.
Attempting to give an ascending scale of excellence--I do not mean in
subject but in execution--I now turn to the national hymn, _God is our
Refuge._
PSALM XLIV.
God gives us strength, and keeps us sound--
A present help when dangers call;
Then fear not we, let quake the ground,
And into seas let mountains fall;
Yea so let seas withal
In watery hills arise,
As may the earthly hills appal
With dread and dashing cries.
For lo, a river, streaming joy,
With purling murmur safely slides,
That city washing from annoy,
In holy shrine where God resides.
God in her centre bides:
What can this city shake?
God early aids and ever guides:
Who can this city take?
When nations go against her bent,
And kings with siege her walls enround;
The void of air his voice doth rent,
Earth fails their feet with melting ground.
To strength and keep us sound,
The God of armies arms;
Our rock on Jacob's God we found,
Above the reach of harms.
O come with me, O come, and view
The trophies of Jehovah's hand!
What wrecks from him our foes pursue!
How clearly he hath purged our land!
By him wars silent stand:
He brake the archer's bow,
Made chariot's wheel a fiery brand,
And spear to shivers go.
Be still, saith he; know, God am I;
Know I will be with conquest crowned
Above all nations--raiséd high,
High raised above this earthly round.
To strength and keep us sound,
The God of armies arms;
Our rock on Jacob's God we found,
Above the reach of harms.
"The God of armies arms" is a grand line.
Now let us have a hymn of Nature--a far finer, I think, than either of
the preceding: _Praise waiteth for thee._
PSALM LXV.
Sion it is where thou art praiséd,
Sion, O God, where vows they pay thee:
There all men's prayers to thee raiséd,
Return possessed of what they pray thee.
There thou my sins, prevailing to my shame,
Dost turn to smoke of sacrificing flame.
Oh! he of bliss is not deceivéd, _disappointed._
Whom chosen thou unto thee takest;
And whom into thy court receivéd,
Thou of thy checkrole[65] number makest:
The dainty viands of thy sacred store
Shall feed him so he shall not hunger more.
From thence it is thy threat'ning thunder--
Lest we by wrong should be disgracéd--
Doth strike our foes with fear and wonder,
O thou on whom their hopes are placéd,
Whom either earth doth stedfastly sustain,
Or cradle rocks the restless wavy plain.
Thy virtue stays the mighty mountains, _power._
Girded with power, with strength abounding.
The roaring dam of watery fountains _the "dam of fountains"
Thy beck doth make surcease her sounding. [is the ocean._
When stormy uproars toss the people's brain,
That civil sea to calm thou bring'st again. _political, as opposed
[to natural._
Where earth doth end with endless ending,
All such as dwell, thy signs affright them;
And in thy praise their voices spending,
Both houses of the sun delight them---
Both whence he comes, when early he awakes,
And where he goes, when evening rest he takes.
Thy eye from heaven this land beholdeth,
Such fruitful dews down on it raining,
That storehouse-like her lap enfoldeth
Assuréd hope of ploughman's gaining:
Thy flowing streams her drought doth temper so,
That buried seed through yielding grave doth grow.
Drunk is each ridge of thy cup drinking;
Each clod relenteth at thy dressing; _groweth soft._
Thy cloud-borne waters inly sinking,
Fair spring sprouts forth, blest with thy blessing.
The fertile year is with thy bounty crowned;
And where thou go'st, thy goings fat the ground.
Plenty bedews the desert places;
A hedge of mirth the hills encloseth;
The fields with flocks have hid their faces;
A robe of corn the valleys clotheth.
Deserts, and hills, and fields, and valleys all,
Rejoice, shout, sing, and on thy name do call.
The first stanza seems to me very fine, especially the verse, "Return
possessed of what they pray thee." The third stanza might have been
written after the Spanish Philip's Armada, but both King David and Sir
Philip Sidney were dead before God brake that archer's bow.[66] The
fourth line of the next stanza is a noteworthy instance of the sense
gathering to itself the sound, and is in lovely contrast with the closing
line of the same stanza.
One of the most remarkable specimens I know of the play with words of
which I have already spoken as common even in the serious writings of
this century, is to be found in the next line: "Where earth doth end with
endless ending." David, regarding the world as a flat disc, speaks of the
_ends_ of the earth: Sidney, knowing it to be a globe, uses the word of
the Psalmist, but re-moulds and changes the form of it, with a power
fantastic, almost capricious in its wilfulness, yet causing it to express
the fact with a marvel of precision. We _see_ that the earth ends; we
cannot reach the end we see; therefore the "earth doth end with endless
ending." It is a case of that contradiction in the form of the words
used, which brings out a truth in another plane as it were;--a paradox in
words, not in meaning, for the words can bear no meaning but the one
which reveals its own reality.
The following little psalm, _The Lord reigneth_, is a thunderous
organ-blast of praise. The repetition of words in the beginning of the
second stanza produces a remarkably fine effect.
PSALM XCIII.
Clothed with state, and girt with might,
Monarch-like Jehovah reigns;
He who earth's foundation pight-- _pitched._
Pight at first, and yet sustains;
He whose stable throne disdains
Motion's shock and age's flight;
He who endless one remains
One, the same, in changeless plight.
Rivers--yea, though rivers roar,
Roaring though sea-billows rise,
Vex the deep, and break the shore--
Stronger art thou, Lord of skies!
Firm and true thy promise lies
Now and still as heretofore:
Holy worship never dies
In thy house where we adore.
I close my selections from Sidney with one which I consider the best of
all: it is the first half of _Lord, thou hast searched me._
PSALM CXXXIX.
O Lord, in me there lieth nought
But to thy search revealed lies;
For when I sit
Thou markest it;
No less thou notest when I rise:
Yea, closest closet of my thought
Hath open windows to thine eyes.
Thou walkest with me when I walk
When to my bed for rest I go,
I find thee there,
And every where:
Not youngest thought in me doth grow,
No, not one word I cast to talk
But, yet unuttered, thou dost know.
If forth I march, thou goest before;
If back I turn, thou com'st behind:
So forth nor back
Thy guard I lack;
Nay, on me too thy hand I find.
Well I thy wisdom may adore,
But never reach with earthy mind.
To shun thy notice, leave thine eye,
O whither might I take my way?
To starry sphere?
Thy throne is there.
To dead men's undelightsome stay?
There is thy walk, and there to lie
Unknown, in vain I should assay.
O sun, whom light nor flight can match!
Suppose thy lightful flightful wings
Thou lend to me,
And I could flee
As far as thee the evening brings:
Ev'n led to west he would me catch,
Nor should I lurk with western things.
Do thou thy best, O secret night,
In sable veil to cover me:
Thy sable veil
Shall vainly fail:
With day unmasked my night shall be;
For night is day, and darkness light,
O father of all lights, to thee.
Note the most musical play with the words _light_ and _flight_ in the
fifth stanza. There is hardly a line that is not delightful.
They were a wonderful family those Sidneys. Mary, for whom Philip wrote
his chief work, thence called "The Countess of Pembroke's _Arcadia,_" was
a woman of rare gifts. The chief poem known to be hers is called _Our
Saviour's Passion_. It is full of the faults of the age. Sir Philip's
sport with words is so graceful and ordered as to subserve the utterance
of the thought: his sister's fanciful convolutions appear to be there for
their own sake--certainly are there to the obscuration of the sense. The
difficulty of the poem arises in part, I believe, from corruption, but
chiefly from a certain fantastic way of dealing with thought as well as
word of which I shall have occasion to say more when we descend a little
further. It is, in the main, a lamentation over our Saviour's sufferings,
in which the countess is largely guilty of the very feminine fault of
seeking to convey the intensity of her emotions by forcing words,
accumulating forms, and exaggerating descriptions. This may indeed
convince as to the presence of feeling, but cannot communicate the
feeling itself. _The_ right word will at once generate a sympathy of
which all agonies of utterance will only render the willing mind more and
more incapable.
The poem is likewise very diffuse--again a common fault with women of
power; for indeed the faculty of compressing thought into crystalline
form is one of the rarest gifts of artistic genius. It consists of a
hundred and ten stanzas, from which I shall gather and arrange a few.
He placed all rest, and had no resting place;
He healed each pain, yet lived in sore distress;
Deserved all good, yet lived in great disgrace;
Gave all hearts joy, himself in heaviness;
Suffered them live, by whom himself was slain:
Lord, who can live to see such love again?
Whose mansion heaven, yet lay within a manger;
Who gave all food, yet sucked a virgin's breast;
Who could have killed, yet fled a threatening danger;
Who sought all quiet by his own unrest;
Who died for them that highly did offend him,
And lives for them that cannot comprehend him.
Who came no further than his Father sent him,
And did fulfil but what he did command him;
Who prayed for them that proudly did torment him
For telling truly of what they did demand him;
Who did all good that humbly did intreat him,
And bare their blows, that did unkindly beat him.
Had I but seen him as his servants did,
At sea, at land, in city, or in field,
Though in himself he had his glory hid,
That in his grace the light of glory held,
Then might my sorrow somewhat be appeaséd,
That once my soul had in his sight been pleaséd.
No! I have run the way of wickedness,
Forgetting what my faith should follow most;
I did not think upon thy holiness,
Nor by my sins what sweetness I have lost.
Oh sin! for sin hath compassed me about,
That, Lord, I know not where to find thee out.
Where he that sits on the supernal throne,
In majesty most glorious to behold,
And holds the sceptre of the world alone,
Hath not his garments of imbroidered gold,
But he is clothed with truth and righteousness,
Where angels all do sing with joyfulness,
Where heavenly love is cause of holy life,
And holy life increaseth heavenly love;
Where peace established without fear or strife,
Doth prove the blessing of the soul's behove;[67]
Where thirst nor hunger, grief nor sorrow dwelleth,
But peace in joy, and joy in peace excelleth.
Had all the poem been like these stanzas, I should not have spoken so
strongly concerning its faults. There are a few more such in it. It
closes with a very fantastic use of musical terms, following upon a
curious category of the works of nature as praising God, to which I refer
for the sake of one stanza, or rather of one line in the stanza:
To see the greyhound course, the hound in chase,
_Whilst little dormouse sleepeth out her eyne;_
The lambs and rabbits sweetly run at base,[68]
Whilst highest trees the little squirrels climb,
The crawling worms out creeping in the showers,
And how the snails do climb the lofty towers.
What a love of animated nature there is in the lovely lady! I am all but
confident, however, that second line came to her from watching her
children asleep. She had one child at least: that William Herbert, who is
generally, and with weight, believed the W.H. of Shakspere's Sonnets, a
grander honour than the earldom of Pembroke, or even the having Philip
Sidney to his uncle: I will not say grander than having Mary Sidney to
his _mother_.
Let me now turn to Sidney's friend, Sir Fulk Grevill, Lord Brooke, who
afterwards wrote his life, "as an intended preface" to all his "Monuments
to the memory of Sir Philip Sidney," the said _monuments_ being Lord
Brooke's own poems.
My extract is from _A Treatise of Religion_, in which, if the reader do
not find much of poetic form, he will find at least some grand spiritual
philosophy, the stuff whereof all highest poetry is fashioned. It is one
of the first poems in which the philosophy of religion, and not either
its doctrine, feeling, or history, predominates. It is, as a whole, poor,
chiefly from its being so loosely written. There are men, and men whose
thoughts are of great worth, to whom it never seems to occur that they
may utter very largely and convey very little; that what is clear to
themselves is in their speech obscure as a late twilight. Their utterance
is rarely articulate: their spiritual mouth talks with but half-movements
of its lips; it does not model their thoughts into clear-cut shapes, such
as the spiritual ear can distinguish as they enter it. Of such is Lord
Brooke. These few stanzas, however, my readers will be glad to have:
What is the chain which draws us back again,
And lifts man up unto his first creation?
Nothing in him his own heart can restrain;
His reason lives a captive to temptation;
Example is corrupt; precepts are mixed;
All fleshly knowledge frail, and never fixed.
It is a light, a gift, a grace inspired;
A spark of power, a goodness of the Good;
Desire in him, that never is desired;
An unity, where desolation stood;
In us, not of us, a Spirit not of earth,
Fashioning the mortal to immortal birth.
* * * * *
Sense of this God, by fear, the sensual have,
Distresséd Nature crying unto Grace;
For sovereign reason then becomes a slave,
And yields to servile sense her sovereign place,
When more or other she affects to be
Than seat or shrine of this Eternity.
Yea, Prince of Earth let Man assume to be,
Nay more--of Man let Man himself be God,
Yet without God, a slave of slaves is he;
To others, wonder; to himself, a rod;
Restless despair, desire, and desolation;
The more secure, the more abomination.
Then by affecting power, we cannot know him.
By knowing all things else, we know him less.
Nature contains him not. Art cannot show him.
Opinions idols, and not God, express.
Without, in power, we see him everywhere;
Within, we rest not, till we find him there.
Then seek we must; that course is natural--
For ownéd souls to find their owner out.
Our free remorses when our natures fall--
When we do well, our hearts made free from doubt--
Prove service due to one Omnipotence,
And Nature of religion to have sense.
Questions again, which in our hearts arise--
Since loving knowledge, not humility--
Though they be curious, godless, and unwise,
Yet prove our nature feels a Deity;
For if these strifes rose out of other grounds,
Man were to God as deafness is to sounds.
* * * * *
Yet in this strife, this natural remorse,
If we could bend the force of power and wit
To work upon the heart, and make divorce
There from the evil which preventeth it,
In judgment of the truth we should not doubt
Good life would find a good religion out.
If a fair proportion of it were equal to this, the poem would be a fine
one, not for its poetry, but for its spiritual metaphysics. I think the
fourth and fifth of the stanzas I have given, profound in truth, and
excellent in utterance. They are worth pondering.
We now descend a decade of the century, to find another group of names
within the immediate threshold of the sixties.