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_ CHAPTER XV. EDMUND WALLER, THOMAS BROWN, AND JEREMY TAYLOR
Edmund Waller, born in 1605, was three years older than Milton; but I had a fancy for not dividing Herbert and Milton. As a poet he had a high reputation for many years, gained chiefly, I think, by a regard to literary proprieties, combined with wit. He is graceful sometimes; but what in his writings would with many pass for grace, is only smoothness and the absence of faults. His horses were not difficult to drive. He dares little and succeeds in proportion--occasionally, however, flashing out into true song. In politics he had no character--let us hope from weakness rather than from selfishness; yet, towards the close of his life, he wrote some poems which reveal a man not unaccustomed to ponder sacred things, and able to express his thoughts concerning them with force and justice. From a poem called _Of Divine Love_, I gather the following very remarkable passages: I wish they had been enforced by greater nobility of character. Still they are in themselves true. Even where we have no proof of repentance, we may see plentiful signs of a growth towards it. We cannot tell how long the truth may of necessity require to interpenetrate the ramifications of a man's nature. By slow degrees he discovers that here it is not, and there it is not. Again and again, and yet again, a man finds that he must be born with a new birth.
The fear of hell, or aiming to be blest,
Savours too much of private interest:
This moved not Moses, nor the zealous Paul,
Who for their friends abandoned soul and all;
A greater yet from heaven to hell descends,
To save and make his enemies his friends.
* * * * *
That early love of creatures yet unmade,
To frame the world the Almighty did persuade.
For love it was that first created light,
Moved on the waters, chased away the night
From the rude chaos; and bestowed new grace
On things disposed of to their proper place--
Some to rest here, and some to shine above:
Earth, sea, and heaven, were all the effects of love.
* * * * *
Not willing terror should his image move,
He gives a pattern of eternal love:
His son descends, to treat a peace with those
Which were, and must have ever been, his foes.
Poor he became, and left his glorious seat,
To make us humble, and to make us great;
His business here was happiness to give
To those whose malice could not let him live.
* * * * *
He to proud potentates would not be known:
Of those that loved him, he was hid from none.
Till love appear, we live in anxious doubt;
But smoke will vanish when that flame breaks out:
This is the fire that would consume our dross,
Refine, and make us richer by the loss.
* * * * *
Who for himself no miracle would make,
Dispensed with[134] several for the people's sake.
He that, long-fasting, would no wonder show,
Made loaves and fishes, as they eat them, grow.
Of all his power, which boundless was above,
Here he used none but to express his love;
And such a love would make our joy exceed,
Not when our own, but others' mouths we feed.
* * * * *
Love as he loved! A love so unconfined
With arms extended would embrace mankind.
Self-love would cease, or be dilated, when
We should behold as many selfs as men;
All of one family, in blood allied,
His precious blood that for our ransom died.
* * * * *
Amazed at once and comforted, to find
A boundless power so infinitely kind,
The soul contending to that light to fly
From her dark cell, we practise how to die,
Employing thus the poet's winged art
To reach this love, and grave it in our heart.
Joy so complete, so solid, and severe,
Would leave no place for meaner pleasures there:
Pale they would look, as stars that must be gone
When from the east the rising sun comes on.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTE: [134] It is the light of the soul going out from the eyes, as certainly as the light of the world coming in at the eyes that makes things seen.
To that and some other poems he adds the following--a kind of epilogue.
ON THE FOREGOING DIVINE POEMS. When we for age could neither read nor write,
The subject made us able to indite:
The soul with nobler resolutions decked,
The body stooping, does herself erect:
No mortal parts are requisite to raise
Her that unbodied can her Maker praise.
The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er:
So calm are we when passions are no more;
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes _passion._
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light, through chinks that time has made:
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
That stand upon the threshold of the new.
It would be a poor victory where age was the sole conqueror. But I doubt if age ever gains the victory alone. Let Waller, however, have this praise: his song soars with his subject. It is a true praise. There are men who write well until they try the noble, and then they fare like the falling star, which, when sought where it fell, is, according to an old fancy, discovered a poor jelly.
Sir Thomas Brown, a physician, whose prose writings are as peculiar as they are valuable, was of the same age as Waller. He partakes to a considerable degree of the mysticism which was so much followed in his day, only in his case it influences his literature most--his mode of utterance more than his mode of thought. His _True Christian Morals_ is a very valuable book, notwithstanding the obscurity that sometimes arises in that, as in all his writings, from his fondness for Latin words. The following fine hymn occurs in his _Religio Medici_, in which he gives an account of his opinions. I am not aware of anything else that he has published in verse, though he must probably have written more to be able to write this so well. It occurs in the midst of prose, as the prayer he says every night before he yields to the death of sleep. I follow it with the succeeding sentence of the prose.
The night is come. Like to the day,
Depart not thou, great God, away.
Let not my sins, black as the night,
Eclipse the lustre of thy light.
Keep still in my horizon, for to me
The sun makes not the day but thee.
Thou whose nature cannot sleep,
On my temples sentry keep;
Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes
Whose eyes are open while mine close.
Let no dreams my head infest
But such as Jacob's temples blest.
While I do rest, my soul advance;
Make my sleep a holy trance,
That I may, my rest being wroughtt
Awake into some holy thought,
And with as active vigour run
My course as doth the nimble sun.
Sleep is a death: O make me try
By sleeping what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head
On my grave, as now my bed.
Howe'er I rest, great God, let me
Awake again at least with thee.
And thus assured, behold I lie
Securely, or to wake or die.
These are my drowsy days: in vain
I do now wake to sleep again:
O come that hour when I shall never
Sleep again, but wake for ever.
"This is the dormitive I take to bedward. I need no other laudanum than this to make me sleep; after which I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection."
Jeremy Taylor, born in 1613, was the most poetic of English prose-writers: if he had written verse equal to his prose, he would have had a lofty place amongst poets as well as amongst preachers. Taking the opposite side from Milton, than whom he was five years younger, he was, like him, conscientious and consistent, suffering while Milton's cause prospered, and advanced to one of the bishoprics hated of Milton's soul when the scales of England's politics turned in the other direction. Such men, however, are divided only by their intellects. When men say, "I must or I must not, for it is right or it is not right," then are they in reality so bound together, even should they not acknowledge it themselves, that no opposing opinions, no conflicting theories concerning what is or is not right, can really part them. It was not wonderful that a mind like that of Jeremy Taylor, best fitted for worshipping the beauty of holiness, should mourn over the disrupted order of his church, or that a mind like Milton's, best fitted for the law of life, should demand that every part of that order which had ceased to vibrate responsive to every throb of the eternal heart of truth, should fall into the ruin which its death had preceded. The church was hardly dealt with, but the rulers of the church have to bear the blame.
Here are those I judge the best of the bishop's _Festival Hymns_, printed as part of his _Golden Grove_, or _Gide to Devotion_. In the first there is a little confusion of imagery; and in others of them will be found a little obscurity. They bear marks of the careless impatience of rhythm and rhyme of one who though ever bursting into a natural trill of song, sometimes with more rhymes apparently than he intended, would yet rather let his thoughts pour themselves out in that unmeasured chant, that "poetry in solution," which is the natural speech of the prophet-orator. He is like a full river that must flow, which rejoices in a flood, and rebels against the constraint of mole or conduit. He exults in utterance itself, caring little for the mode, which, however, the law of his indwelling melody guides though never compels. Charmingly diffuse in his prose, his verse ever sounds as if it would overflow the banks of its self-imposed restraints.
THE SECOND HYMN FOR ADVENT; OR,
CHRIST'S COMING TO JERUSALEM IN TRIUMPH. Lord, come away;
Why dost thou stay?
Thy road is ready; and thy paths made straight
With longing expectation wait
The consecration of thy beauteous feet.
Ride on triumphantly: behold we lay
Our lusts and proud wills in thy way.
Hosanna! welcome to our hearts! Lord, here
Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear
As that of Sion, and as full of sin:
Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein.
Enter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor;
Crucify them, that they may never more
Profane that holy place
Where thou hast chose to set thy face.
And then if our stiff tongues shall be
Mute in the praises of thy deity,
The stones out of the temple-wall
Shall cry aloud and call
Hosanna! and thy glorious footsteps greet.
HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY;
BEING A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THREE SHEPHERDS.
1. Where is this blessed babe
That hath made
All the world so full of joy
And expectation;
That glorious boy
That crowns each nation
With a triumphant wreath of blessedness?
2. Where should he be but in the throng,
And among
His angel ministers that sing
And take wing
Just as may echo to his voice,
And rejoice,
When wing and tongue and all
May so procure their happiness?
3. But he hath other waiters now:
A poor cow
An ox and mule stand and behold,
And wonder
That a stable should enfold
Him that can thunder.
_Chorus_. O what a gracious God have we!
How good? How great? Even as our misery.
A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY.
Awake, my soul, and come away;
Put on thy best array,
Lest if thou longer stay,
Thou lose some minutes of so blest a day.
Go run, And bid good-morrow to the sun;
Welcome his safe return To Capricorn, And that great morn Wherein
a God was born, Whose story none can tell But he whose every
word's a miracle.
To-day Almightiness grew weak;
The Word itself was mute, and could not speak.
That Jacob's star which made the sun
To dazzle if he durst look on,
Now mantled o'er in Bethlehem's night,
Borrowed a star to show him light.
He that begirt each zone,
To whom both poles are one,
Who grasped the zodiac in his hand,
And made it move or stand,
Is now by nature man,
By stature but a span;
Eternity is now grown short;
A king is born without a court;
The water thirsts; the fountain's dry;
And life, being born, made apt to die.
_Chorus._ Then let our praises emulate and vie
With his humility!
Since he's exiled from skies
That we might rise,--
From low estate of men
Let's sing him up again!
Each man wind up his heart
To bear a part
In that angelic choir, and show
His glory high, as he was low.
Let's sing towards men goodwill and charity,
Peace upon earth, glory to God on high!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
THE PRAYER.
My soul doth pant towards thee,
My God, source of eternal life.
Flesh fights with me:
Oh end the strife,
And part us, that in peace I may
Unclay
My wearied spirit, and take
My flight to thy eternal spring,
Where, for his sake
Who is my king,
I may wash all my tears away,
That day.
Thou conqueror of death,
Glorious triumpher o'er the grave,
Whose holy breath
Was spent to save
Lost mankind, make me to be styled
Thy child,
And take me when I die
And go unto my dust; my soul
Above the sky
With saints enrol,
That in thy arms, for ever, I
May lie.
This last is quite regular, that is, the second stanza is arranged precisely as the first, though such will not appear to be the case without examination: the disposition of the lines, so various in length, is confusing though not confused.
In these poems will be found that love of homeliness which is characteristic of all true poets--and orators too, in as far as they are poets. The meeting of the homely and the grand is heaven. One more.
A PRAYER FOR CHARITY.
Full of mercy, full of love,
Look upon us from above;
Thou who taught'st the blind man's night
To entertain a double light,
Thine and the day's--and that thine too:
The lame away his crutches threw;
The parched crust of leprosy
Returned unto its infancy;
The dumb amazed was to hear
His own unchain'd tongue strike his ear;
Thy powerful mercy did even chase
The devil from his usurped place,
Where thou thyself shouldst dwell, not he:
Oh let thy love our pattern be;
Let thy mercy teach one brother
To forgive and love another;
That copying thy mercy here,
Thy goodness may hereafter rear
Our souls unto thy glory, when
Our dust shall cease to be with men. _Amen._ _
Read next: Chapter 16. Henry More And Richard Baxter
Read previous: Chapter 14. John Milton
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