A FEW OF THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS.
From the nature of their adopted mode, we cannot look for much poetry of
a devotional kind from the dramatists. That mode admitting of no
utterance personal to the author, and requiring the scope of a play to
bring out the intended truth, it is no wonder that, even in the dramas of
Shakspere, profound as is the teaching they contain, we should find
nothing immediately suitable to our purpose; while neither has he left
anything in other form approaching in kind what we seek. Ben Jonson,
however, born in 1574, who may be regarded as the sole representative of
learning in the class, has left, amongst a large number of small pieces,
three _Poems of Devotion_, whose merit may not indeed be great, but whose
feeling is, I think, genuine. Whatever were his faults, and they were not
few, hypocrisy was not one of them. His nature was fierce and honest. He
might boast, but he could not pretend. His oscillation between the
reformed and the Romish church can hardly have had other cause than a
vacillating conviction. It could not have served any prudential end that
we can see, to turn catholic in the reign of Elizabeth, while in prison
for killing in a duel a player who had challenged him.
THE SINNER'S SACRIFICE.
1.--TO THE HOLY TRINITY.
O holy, blessed, glorious Trinity
Of persons, still one God in Unity,
The faithful man's believed mystery,
Help, help to lift
Myself up to thee, harrowed, torn, and bruised
By sin and Satan, and my flesh misused.
As my heart lies--in pieces, all confused--
O take my gift.
All-gracious God, the sinner's sacrifice,
A broken heart, thou wert not wont despise,
But, 'bove the fat of rams or bulls, to prize
An offering meet
For thy acceptance: Oh, behold me right,
And take compassion on my grievous plight!
What odour can be, than a heart contrite,
To thee more sweet?
Eternal Father, God, who didst create
This All of nothing, gav'st it form and fate,
And breath'st into it life and light, with state
To worship thee!
Eternal God the Son, who not deniedst
To take our nature, becam'st man, and diedst,
To pay our debts, upon thy cross, and criedst
_All's done in me!_
Eternal Spirit, God from both proceeding,
Father and Son--the Comforter, in breeding
Pure thoughts in man, with fiery zeal them feeding
For acts of grace!
Increase those acts, O glorious Trinity
Of persons, still one God in Unity,
Till I attain the longed-for mystery
Of seeing your face,
Beholding one in three, and three in one,
A Trinity, to shine in Union--
The gladdest light, dark man can think upon--
O grant it me,
Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, you three,
All co-eternal in your majesty,
Distinct in persons, yet in unity
One God to see;
My Maker, Saviour, and my Sanctifier,
To hear, to mediate,[82] sweeten my desire,
With grace, with love, with cherishing entire!
O then, how blest
Among thy saints elected to abide,
And with thy angels placéd, side by side!
But in thy presence truly glorified,
Shall I there rest!
2.--AN HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER.
Hear me, O God!
A broken heart
Is my best part:
Use still thy rod,
That I may prove
Therein thy love.
If thou hadst not
Been stern to me,
But left me free,
I had forgot
Myself and thee.
For sin's so sweet
As minds ill bent _that._
Rarely repent
Until they meet
Their punishment.
Who more can crave
Than thou hast done?
Thou gay'st a Son
To free a slave,
First made of nought,
With all since bought.
Sin, death, and hell
His glorious name
Quite overcame;
Yet I rebel,
And slight the same.
But I'll come in
Before my loss
Me farther toss,
As sure to win
Under his cross.
3.--AN HYMN ON THE NATIVITY OF MY SAVIOUR.
I sing the birth was born to-night,
The author both of life and light;
The angels so did sound it.
And like the ravished shepherds said,
Who saw the light, and were afraid,
Yet searched, and true they found it.
The Son of God, the eternal King,
That did us all salvation bring,
And freed the soul from danger;
He whom the whole world could not take,
The Word which heaven and earth did make,
Was now laid in a manger.
The Father's wisdom willed it so;
The Son's obedience knew no _No;_
Both wills were in one stature;
And, as that wisdom had decreed,
The Word was now made flesh indeed,
And took on him our nature.
What comfort by him do we win,
Who made himself the price of sin,
To make us heirs of glory!
To see this babe, all innocence,
A martyr born in our defence!--
Can man forget this story?
Somewhat formal and artificial, no doubt; rugged at the same time, like
him who wrote them. When a man would utter that concerning which he has
only felt, not thought, he can express himself only in the forms he has
been taught, conventional or traditional. Let his powers be ever so much
developed in respect of other things, here, where he has not meditated,
he must understand as a child, think as a child, speak as a child. He can
as yet generate no sufficing or worthy form natural to himself. But the
utterance is not therefore untrue. There was no professional bias to
cause the stream of Ben Jonson's verses to flow in that channel. Indeed,
feeling without thought, and the consequent combination of impulse to
speak with lack of matter, is the cause of much of that common-place
utterance concerning things of religion which is so wearisome, but which
therefore it is not always fair to despise as cant.
About the same age as Ben Jonson, though the date of his birth is
unknown, I now come to mention Thomas Heywood, a most voluminous writer
of plays, who wrote also a book, chiefly in verse, called _The Hierarchy
of the Blessed Angels_, a strange work, in which, amongst much that is
far from poetic, occur the following remarkable metaphysico-religious
verses. He had strong Platonic tendencies, interesting himself chiefly
however in those questions afterwards pursued by Dr. Henry More,
concerning witches and such like subjects, which may be called the shadow
of Platonism.
I have wandered like a sheep that's lost,
To find Thee out in every coast:
_Without_ I have long seeking bin, _been._
Whilst thou, the while, abid'st _within_.
Through every broad street and strait lane
Of this world's city, but in vain,
I have enquired. The reason why?
I sought thee ill: for how could I
Find thee _abroad_, when thou, mean space,
Hadst made _within_ thy dwelling-place?
I sent my messengers about,
To try if they could find thee out;
But all was to no purpose still,
Because indeed they sought thee ill:
For how could they discover thee
That saw not when thou entered'st me?
Mine eyes could tell me? If he were,
Not coloured, sure he came not there.
If not by sound, my ears could say
He doubtless did not pass my way.
My nose could nothing of him tell,
Because my God he did not smell.
None such I relished, said my taste,
And therefore me he never passed.
My feeling told me that none such
There entered, for he none did touch.
Resolved by them how should I be,
Since none of all these are in thee,
In thee, my God? Thou hast no hue
That man's frail optic sense can view;
No sound the ear hears; odour none
The smell attracts; all taste is gone
At thy appearance; where doth fail
A body, how can touch prevail?
What even the brute beasts comprehend--
To think thee such, I should offend.
Yet when I seek my God, I enquire
For light than sun and moon much higher,
More clear and splendrous, 'bove all light
Which the eye receives not, 'tis so bright.
I seek a voice beyond degree
Of all melodious harmony:
The ear conceives it not; a smell
Which doth all other scents excel:
No flower so sweet, no myrrh, no nard,
Or aloës, with it compared;
Of which the brain not sensible is.
I seek a sweetness--such a bliss
As hath all other sweets surpassed,
And never palate yet could taste.
I seek that to contain and hold
No touch can feel, no embrace enfold.
So far this light the rays extends,
As that no place it comprehends.
So deep this sound, that though it speak
It cannot by a sense so weak
Be entertained. A redolent grace
The air blows not from place to place.
A pleasant taste, of that delight
It doth confound all appetite.
A strict embrace, not felt, yet leaves
That virtue, where it takes it cleaves.
This light, this sound, this savouring grace,
This tasteful sweet, this strict embrace,
No place contains, no eye can see,
My God is, and there's none but he.
Very remarkable verses from a dramatist! They indicate substratum enough
for any art if only the art be there. Even those who cannot enter into
the philosophy of them, which ranks him among the mystics of whom I have
yet to speak, will understand a good deal of it symbolically: for how
could he be expected to keep his poetry and his philosophy distinct when
of themselves they were so ready to run into one; or in verse to define
carefully betwixt degree and kind, when kinds themselves may rise by
degrees? To distinguish without separating; to be able to see that what
in their effects upon us are quite different, may yet be a grand flight
of ascending steps, "to stop--no record hath told where," belongs to the
philosopher who is not born mutilated, but is a poet as well.
John Fletcher, likewise a dramatist, the author of the following poem,
was two years younger than Ben Jonson. It is, so far as I am aware, the
sole non-dramatic voice he has left behind him. Its opening is an
indignant apostrophe to certain men of pretended science, who in his time
were much consulted--the Astrologers.
UPON AN HONEST MAN'S FORTUNE.
You that can look through heaven, and tell the stars;
Observe their kind conjunctions, and their wars;
Find out new lights, and give them where you please--
To those men honours, pleasures, to those ease;
You that are God's surveyors, and can show
How far, and when, and why the wind doth blow;
Know all the charges of the dreadful thunder,
And when it will shoot over, or fall under;
Tell me--by all your art I conjure ye--
Yes, and by truth--what shall become of me.
Find out my star, if each one, as you say,
Have his peculiar angel, and his way;
Observe my fate; next fall into your dreams;
Sweep clean your houses, and new-line your schemes;[83]
Then say your worst. Or have I none at all?
Or is it burnt out lately? or did fall?
Or am I poor? not able? no full flame?
My star, like me, unworthy of a name?
Is it your art can only work on those
That deal with dangers, dignities, and clothes,
With love, or new opinions? You all lie:
A fishwife hath a fate, and so have I--
But far above your finding. He that gives,
Out of his providence, to all that lives--
And no man knows his treasure, no, not you;--
* * * * *
He that made all the stars you daily read,
And from them filch a knowledge how to feed,
Hath hid this from you. Your conjectures all
Are drunken things, not how, but when they fall:
Man is his own star, and the soul that can
Render an honest, and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early, or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still;
And when the stars are labouring, we believe
It is not that they govern, but they grieve
For stubborn ignorance. All things that are
Made for our general uses, are at war--
Even we among ourselves; and from the strife
Your first unlike opinions got a life.
Oh man! thou image of thy Maker's good,
What canst thou fear, when breathed into thy blood
His spirit is that built thee? What dull sense
Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence?
Who made the morning, and who placed the light
Guide to thy labours? Who called up the night,
And bid her fall upon thee like sweet showers
In hollow murmurs, to lock up thy powers?
Who gave thee knowledge? Who so trusted thee,
To let thee grow so near himself, the Tree?[84]
Must he then be distrusted? Shall his frame
Discourse with him why thus and thus I am?
He made the angels thine, thy fellows all;
Nay, even thy servants, when devotions call.
Oh! canst thou be so stupid then, so dim,
To seek a saving influence, and lose him?
Can stars protect thee? Or can poverty,
Which is the light to heaven, put out his eye?
He is my star; in him all truth I find,
All influence, all fate; and when my mind
Is furnished with his fulness, my poor story
Shall outlive all their age, and all their glory.
The hand of danger cannot fall amiss
When I know what, and in whose power it is;
Nor want, the cause[85] of man, shall make me groan:
A holy hermit is a mind alone.[86]
Doth not experience teach us, all we can,
To work ourselves into a glorious man?
* * * * *
My mistress then be knowledge and fair truth;
So I enjoy all beauty and all youth!
* * * * *
Affliction, when I know it, is but this--
A deep alloy, whereby man tougher is
To bear the hammer; and the deeper still,
We still arise more image of his will;
Sickness, an humorous cloud 'twixt us and light;
And death, at longest, but another night,
Man is his own star, and that soul that can
Be honest, is the only perfect man.
There is a tone of contempt in the verses which is not religious; but
they express a true philosophy and a triumph of faith in God. The word
_honest_ is here equivalent to _true_.
I am not certain whether I may not now be calling up a singer whose song
will appear hardly to justify his presence in the choir. But its teaching
is of high import, namely, of content and cheerfulness and courage, and
being both worthy and melodious, it gravitates heavenward. The singer is
yet another dramatist: I presume him to be Thomas Dekker. I cannot be
certain, because others were concerned with him in the writing of the
drama from which I take it. He it is who, in an often-quoted passage,
styles our Lord "The first true gentleman that ever breathed;" just as
Chaucer, in a poem I have given, calls him "The first stock-father of
gentleness."
We may call the little lyric
A SONG OF LABOUR.
Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
Oh, sweet content!
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?
Oh, punishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers?
Oh, sweet content!
_Chorus_.--Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face.
Canst drink the waters of the crispéd spring?
Oh, sweet content!
Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?
Oh, punishment!
Then he that patiently want's burden bears,
No burden bears, but is a king, a king!
Oh, sweet content!
_Chorus_.--Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face.
It is a song of the poor in spirit, whose is the kingdom of heaven. But
if my co-listeners prefer, we will call it the voice, not of one who
sings in the choir, but of one who "tunes his instrument at the door."