The Oxford Book

of

English Mystical Verse

The

Oxford Book

Of English Mystical

Verse

Oxford University Press

London Edinburgh Glasgow New York

Toronto Melbourne Cape Town Bombay

Humphrey Milford M.A. Publisher to the University

The '

Oxford Book Of English Mystical Verse

Chosen by

D. H. S. Nicholson

and A. H. E. Lee

2

Oxford

At the Clarendon Press 1917

PRINTED IN ENGLAND AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY

INTRODUCTION

IN the early days of English mysticism the first transition of Dionysius' Mystical Theology was so readily welcomed that it is said, in a quaintly expressive phrase, to have 'run across England like deere'. Since that time the fortunes of mysticism in these islands have been various, but, despite all the chances of repute and disrepute which it has undergone, there has been a continual undercurrent of thought by which it has been not only tolerated but welcomed. There have been, of course, heights of enthusiasm as well as profound depths of apathy in regard to it, but even if the limitations of the greatest enthusiasm have always been evident, so also has been the continuing readiness of some portion of the religious consciousness of the people to respond to what has been most vital in it. It is, in fact, the hypothesis of mysticism that it is not utterly without its witness in any age, even though the voice of that witness be lost in the turmoil of surround ing things.

And now it appears — it has in fact been appearing for some years— that the fortunes of mysticism are mending.

vi INTRODUCTION

It has emerged from the morass of apathy which characterized the eighteenth and the greater part of the nineteenth century ; it is reawakening to the value of its own peculiar treasure of thought and word : on all sides there are signs that it is on the verge of entering into a kingdom of such breadth and fertility as it has perhaps never known. It is as though the world were undergoing a spiritual revitalization, spurring it on to experience — even through destruction and death — a further measure of Reality and Truth.

At such a time it is of interest to look back over the past and discover something of what has been already accomplished in the way of poetic expression of mystical themes and feelings. The most essential part of mys ticism cannot, of course, ever pass into expression, inas much as it consists in an experience which is in the most literal sense ineffable. The secret of the inmost sanctuary is not in danger of profanation, since none but those who penetrate into that sanctuary can understand it, and those even who penetrate find, on passing out again, that their lips are sealed by the sheer insufficiency of language as a medium for conveying the sense of their supreme adventure. The speech of every day has no terms for what they have seen and known, and least of all can they hope for adequate expression through the phrases and apparatus of logical reasoning. In

INTRODUCTION vii

despair of moulding the stubborn stuff of prose into a form that will even approximate to their need, many of them turn, therefore, to poetry as the medium which will convey least inadequately some hint of their ex perience. By the rhythm and the glamour of their verse, by its peculiar quality of suggesting infinitely more than it ever says directly, by its very elasticity, they struggle to give what hints they may of the Reality that is eternally underlying all things. And it is pre cisely through that rhythm and that glamour and the high enchantment of their writing that some rays gleam from the Light which is supernal.

The ways in which mystical experience will trans late itself into such measure of expression as is possible must evidently vary, both in kind and degree, with the experience itself. In sending out this anthology we have no desire to venture on a definition of what actually constitutes mysticism and what does not, since such an attempt would be clearly outside our province. Our conception of mysticism must be found in the poetry we have gathered together. But it may serve as a ground for comprehension to say that in making our selection we have been governed by a desire to include only such poems and extracts from poems as contain intimations of a consciousness wider and deeper than the normal. This is the connecting link between them — the thread,

viii INTRODUCTION

as it wejre, on which the individual pieces are strung. It is less a question of a common subject than of a com mon standpoint and in some sense a common atmo sphere, and our attempt has been to steer a middle course between the twin dangers of an uninspired piety on the one hand and mere intellectual speculation on the other. The claim to inclusion has in no case been that any particular poet is of sufficient importance to demand representation as such, but that a poet of no matter what general rank has written one or more poems which testify to the greater things and at the same time reach a certain level of expression. For similar reasons we have not included the work of any poet when there seemed no better reason for so doing than that he was representative of some particular period or style. It should be remembered, further, that this anthology makes no claim to be representative even of any poet whose work is included, since the great mass of writing by which he or she is commonly known may fall without our limits, and some little known poem or poems may have seemed to answer our requirements. The difficulty of selection has of course been greatest in the cases, like that of Thomas Traherne, where nearly all the poems are definitely mystical, and it is evident that, here and elsewhere, we have been compelled to choose from among many possible pieces. We cannot, therefore, pretend

INTRODUCTION ix

to have made an exhaustive collection of the mystical poetry of the English language or of any poet, but hope rather that our selections may be found to be adequately representative both of the one and the other.

Beyond this question of the immediate ground for choice, it may be well to mention the limits we have set ourselves in other directions. We have felt it desirable to admit any poetry written in English, from whatever country the poet may have hailed, as well as any native poetry written in Great Britain and Ireland in some other tongue than English, and subsequently translated. Thus translations from any European language have been excluded, often with very great regret, but translations from the Gaelic have been gladly admitted. In point of time we have set ourselves no limits, but have rather sought to show that the torch of the Inner Light has been handed down from age to age until the present day, when, as we believe, the world is near to a spiritual vitalization hitherto unimagined.

We offer our sincere thanks to the following authors for permission to include their own poems :

Mr. Lascelles Abercrombie, Mrs. de Bary (Anna Bunston), Mr. Clifford Bax, the Dean of Norwich (Dr. H. C. Beeching), Mr. A. C. Benson, Mr. F. W. Bourdillon,

x INTRODUCTION

Mr. F. G. Bowles, Miss A. M. Buckton (for two poems from Songs of Joy), Mr. Bliss Carman, Mr. Edward Carpenter, Miss Amy Clarke, Mr. Aleister Crowley, Dr. W. J. Dawson, Mrs. Margaret Deland, Mr. E. J. Ellis, Mr. Darrell Figgis, Mr. H. E. Goad, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Father John Gray, Miss Emily Hickey, Mrs. K. Tynan Hinkson, Mr. E. G. A. Holmes, Mr. Paul Hookham, Miss G. M. Hort, Mr. Laurence Housman, Mrs. H. E. Hamilton King, Mr. John Masefield, Mr. Eugene Mason, Mrs. Stuart Moore (Miss Evelyn Underhill), Mr. Henry Newbolt (for his own poem from Poems New and Old, published by Mr. John Murray, and for Miss Mary Coleridge's work from Poems, published by Mr. Elkin Mathews), Mr. Alfred Noyes, Mr. John Oxenham, Mr. James Rhoades, Sir Rennell Rodd, Mr. G. W. Russell ('A. E.'), Mr. G. Santayana, Mr. R. A. E. Shepherd, Mr. Arthur Symons, Mr. Herbert Trench, Mr. Samuel Waddington, Mr. A. E. Waite, the Rev. F. W. Orde Ward, and Mr. W. L. Wilmhurst (for his own poems and, as editor of The Seeker, for confirming Mr. Goad's permission).

We are further indebted for a similar courtesy to many publishers and private owners of copyrights, of whom the full list follows :

The editor of the Academy for confirming the per mission given by Miss Hort ; Messrs. George Allen &

INTRODUCTION xi

Unwin for two poems from The Mockers by Miss Bar low, and for the text of Richard Rolle's poem from Dr. Horstmann's edition of his works ; Messrs. Angus & Robertson of Sydney for a poem from At Dawn and Dusk by Mr. V. J. Daley ; Messrs. Appleton & Co. for three of the poems by Walt Whitman ; Mr. Edward Arnold for confirming the permission given by Sir Rennell Rodd ; Messrs. G. Bell & Sons for Coventry Patmore ; Mr. Mackenzie Bell for A. C. Swinburne ; Mr. B. H. Blackwell for the work of the Rev. A. S. Cripps, Mr. W. R. Childe, and Mr. J. S. Muirhead ; Messrs. Blackwood & Sons for confirming the per mission given by Mr. Noyes for poems from his Col lected Works-, Mr. Robert Bridges for Father Gerard Hopkins; Mr. A. H. Bullen for Mr. Horace Holley; Messrs. Burns & Oates for Mgr. R. H. Benson, Mr. J. C. Earle, Hon. Mrs. Lindsay, Mrs. Meynell, Father J. B. Tabb, and Francis Thompson ; the late Lady Victoria Buxton for the Hon. Roden Noel; Messrs. Chatto & Windus for George MacDonald and for confirming Miss Jay's permission for Robert Buchanan's work ; Mr. W. H. Chesson for Mrs. Chesson ; the Clarendon Press for its texts of Donne, Herrick, and Vaughan ; Messrs. Constable & Co. for George Meredith (by permission of Constable & Co., Ltd., London, and Charles Scribner's Sons, New York), for confirming Mr. E. G. A.

xii INTRODUCTION

Holmes's permission and for Mr. Harold Monro ; Mrs.P.L. Deacon for A. W. E. O'Shaughnessy ; Messrs. J. M. Dent & Sons for Mr. G. K. Chesterton ; Mr. Stephen de Vere for Aubrey de Vere ; Messrs. P. J. & A. E. Dobell for Thomas Traherne (printed here from Mr. Bertram DobelPs modernized text) ; Mrs. Dowden for Edward Dowden (including the poem ' Love's Lord ' from A Woman? s Reliquary) ; the Very Reverend Mother Provincial O.S.D. for Augusta Theodosia Drane ; Messrs. Duffield & Co. for Mrs. Elsa Barker ; the Early English Text Society for the text of Quia Amore Langueo\ Mr. H. J. Glaisher as literary executor for Mr. G. Barlow ; Canon Greenwell for Miss Dora Greenwell ; Messrs. Heinemann for ' The Soul's Prayer ' and * In S-alutation to the Eternal Peace ', from The Bird of Time by Sarojini Nayadu, London, Heinemann, and for ' To a Buddha seated on a Lotus ' from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Nayadu, London, Heinemann ; Mrs. Henley for W. E. Henley; the Houghton Mifflin Company for poems by Mr. H. B. Carpenter, Mr. C. P. Cranch, and Miss E. M. Thomas ; Miss Harriett Jay for Robert Buchanan ; Messrs. Kegan Paul & Co. for Archbishop Alexander, Sir Edwin Arnold, P. J. Bailey, and A. Gurney, as well as for confirming the permission given by Mrs. Hamilton King ; Mr. John Lane for Richard le Gallienne and for ' The Immortal Hour ' from Poems by Mrs. R. A. Taylor

INTRODUCTION xiii

and for confirming permissions given by Mr. Lascelles Abercrombie,Mr.A. C. Benson, and Mr. James Rhoades; Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. for poems by F. W. H. Myers and Miss E. Gore Booth ; Messrs. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. for D. A. Wasson ; Messrs. Mac- millan & Co. for T. E. Brown, Mrs. D. M. Craik (Miss Mulock), Christina Rossetti, Lord Tennyson, and Mrs. Fraser-Tytler,-and for confirming the permission given by Mr. G. W. Russell; Mr. Elkin Mathews for Miss May Probyn, Mrs. R. A. Taylor, and the Rev. A. S. Cripps (' The Death of St. Francis ') ; Messrs. Maunsel & Co. for Mr. J. H. Cousins, Miss S. L. Mitchell, J. M. Plunkett, and Mr. James Stephens ; Messrs. Methuen & Co. for Oscar Wilde; Lady Miller for Sir Alfred Lyall ; Mr. Arthur Morris for Sir Lewis Morris ; Mr. Eveleigh Nash for Michael Field ; Messrs. James Nisbet & Co., Ltd., for Frances Ridley Havergal ; the Rev. Conrad Noel for concurring in permission for the Hon. Roden Noel ; The Page Company for confirming Mr. Bliss Carman's permission; Mr. Herbert Paul for D. M. Dolben ; Messrs. Putnam's Sons for ' Sibylline ' from Madison Cawein's Intimations of the Beautiful, and for Mr. C. A. Walworth; Messrs. Routledge for P. J. Bailey and for confirming the permission given by Lady Miller ; Mr. Duncan C. Scott for Archibald Lamp- man ; Mrs. Elizabeth Sharp for William Sharp (Fiona

xiv INTRODUCTION

Macleod) ; Mr. Clement Shorter for Mrs. D. S. Shorter ; Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co. for two poems from The Poet, the Fool and the Faeries by Madison Cawein ; Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. for J. A. Symonds ; the editor of the Spectator for confirming Mr. F. W. Bour- dillon's permission ; Mr. Fisher Unwin for poems from Mr. W. B. Yeats's Poems and The Secret Rose, and from the Collected Poems of Mrs. Duclaux, and for Mr. C. Weekes ; Mr. A. S. Walker for J. S. Blackie ; and Mr. J. M. Watkins for Miss C. M. Verschoyle.

This completes the record of our indebtedness. We would simply add an expression of our regret that it has been impossible to obtain permission to include any of Sidney Lanier's writing, owing to copyright restrictions. But if we cannot reprint ' A Ballad of Trees and the Master ', which is the chief object of our regret, we can at least point to it as deserving inclusion in any such anthology as the present, and we can further draw attention to such other poems as * The Marshes of Glynn ' and ' A Florida Sunday '. We would gladly have included all these and even more, but we must now content ourselves with this mention of them. It is with equal regret that we offer a mere extract from George Meredith's ' Outer and Inner ', but in his case the rules now laid down for quotation from his poems make it impossible to do him justice.

INTRODUCTION xv

There are a very few poems the copyright-holders of which we have been unable to discover or to trace in spite of repeated efforts. To these unknown owners of treasure we would offer our acknowledgements and our apologies, as to those, if any, whose claims we have unknowingly overlooked.

D. H. S. NICHOLSON. A. H. E. LEE.

ANONYMOUS

Date unknown

Amergin

I AM the wind which breathes upon the sea, I am the wave of the ocean,

I am the murmur of the billows,

I am the ox of the seven combats,

I am the vulture upon the rocks,

I am a beam of the sun,

I am the fairest of plants,

I am a wild boar in valour,

I am a salmon in the water,

I am a lake in the plain,

I am a word of science,

I am the point of the lance in battle,

I am the God who creates in the head the fire. Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the

mountain ?

Who announces the ages of the moon ? Who teaches the place where couches the sun ?

RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE

12907-1349 Love is Life

i

E'F es lyf J?at lastes ay, ]?ar it in Criste es feste, For wele ne wa it chaunge may, a Is wryten has men wyseste.

pe nyght it tournes in til )?e day, \\ trauel in tyll reste ; If Ipou wil luf ]?us as I say, j?ou may be wyth J?e beste. >ar] when feste] fastened trauel] toil

2 RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE

ii

Lufe es thoght, wyth grete desyre, of a fayre louyng ; Lufe I lyken til a fyre J?at sloken may na thyng ; Lufe vs clenses of oure syn, lufe vs bote sail bryng ; Lufe )?e keynges hert may wyn, lufe of ioy may syng.

in

pe settel of lufe es lyft hee, for in til heuen it ranne ; Me thynk in erth it es sle, pat makes men pale and wanne. pe bede of blysse it gase ful nee, I tel )?e as I kanne, pof vs thynk J?e way be dregh ; luf copuls god & manne.

IV

Lufe es hatter ]?en j?e cole, lufe may nane be-swyke ; pe flawme of lufe wha myght it thole, if it war ay I-lyke ? Luf vs comf ortes, & mase in qwart, & lyf tes tyl heuen-ryke ; Luf rauysches Cryste in tylowr hert, I wate na lustitlyke.

v

Lere to luf, if ]?ou wyl lyfe when )?ou sail hethen fare. All YI thoght til hym J?ou gyf, j?at may |?e kepe fra kare ; Loke J?i hert fra hym noght twyn, if )?ou in wandreth ware, Sa ]?ou may hym welde & wyn and luf hym euer-mare.

VI

Ihesu J?at me lyfe hase lent, In til J?i lufe me bryng, Take til ]?e al myne entent, J?at j?ow be my 3hernyng. Wa fra me away war went & comne war my couytyng, If |?at my sawle had herd & hent J?e sang of J?i louyng.

louyng] object of love, beloved sloken] quench bote]

remedy settel] seat lyft] lifted hee] high sle] deceit ful ? bede] bed ? nee] nigh J>of] Though dregh] long hatter] hotter be-swyke] deceive thole] bear I-lyke] the same mase in qwart] makes healthy heuen-ryke]

heaven's kingdom lust] desire Lere] Learn hethen] hence twyn] separate in wandreth ware] shouldst be

in trouble welde] possess lent] given jhernyng]

desire hent] grasped, apprehended

RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE 3

VII

pi lufe es ay lastand, fra J?at we may it fele : pare-in make me byrnand, }?at na thyng gar it kele. My thoght take in to ]?i hand, & stabyl it ylk a dele, pat I be noght heldand to luf J?is worldes wele.

VIII

If I lufe any erthly thyng ]?at payes to my wyll, & settes my ioy & my lykyng when it may com me tyll, I mai drede of partyng, |?at wyll be hate and yll : For al my welth es bot wepyng, whenxpyne mi saule sal spyll.

IX

pe ioy )?at men hase sene, es lyckend tyl J?e haye, pat now es fayre & grene, and now wytes awaye. Swylk es }ns worlde, I wene, & bees till domes-daye, All in trauel & tene, fle bat na man it maye.

x

If ])ou luf in all bi thoght, and hate be fylth of syn, And gyf hym bi sawle ]7at it boght, bat he be dwell with-in : Als Crist bi sawle hase soght & ber-of walde noght blyn, Sa bou sal to blys be broght, & heuen won with-in.

XI

pe kynd of luf es bis, bar it es trayst and trew : To stand styll in stabylnes, & chaunge it for na new. pe lyfe ]?at lufe myght fynd or euer in hert it knew, Fra kare it tomes bat kyend, & lendes in myrth & glew.

fra ]>at] from the time that gar it kele] may cause it

to cool ylk a dele] every whit, completely [lit. every one part] heldand] inclined payes to] pleases hate] grievous

pyne] pain spyll] destroy haye] grass ready for mowing

wytes] passes Swylk] such ' tene] affliction J>at . . . it] which blyn] cease won] dwell kynd] nature, quality

J>ar] when trayst] faithful J>e lyfe] The man, the soul

kyend] nature, quality lendes] places glew] joy

4 RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE

XII

For now lufe J7ow, I rede, Cryste, as I J?e tell :

And with aungels take ]?i stede — ]?at ioy loke J?ou noght

sell!

In erth }?ow hate, I rede, all |?at |;i lufe may fell : For luf es stalworth as J?e dede, luf es hard as hell.

XIII

Luf es a lyght byrthen, lufe gladdes 3ong and aide, Lufe es with-owten pyne, als lofers hase me talde ; Lufe es a gastly wynne, J?at makes men bygge & balde, Of lufe sal he na thyng tyne ]?at hit in hert will halde.

XIV

Lufe es ]?e swettest thyng |?at man in erth hase tane, Lufe es goddes derlyng, lufe byndes blode & bane. In lufe be owre lykyng, Ine wate na better wane, For me & my lufyng lufe makes bath be ane.

xv

Bot fleschly lufe sal fare as dose )?e flowre in may, And lastand be na mare J?an ane houre of a day, And sythen syghe ful sare ]?ar lust, )?ar pride, }?ar play, When bai er casten in kare, til pyne J?at lastes ay.

XVI

When |?air bodys lyse in syn, bair sawls mai qwake & drede: For vp sal ryse al men, and answer for bair dede ; If bai be fonden in syn, als now bair lyfe bai lede, pai sail sytt hel within, & myrknes hafe to mede.

For now] Therefore rede] advise stede] place fell] abate J>e dede] death gastly] spiritual wynne] wine

bygge] strong tyne] lose wane] dwelling sythen]

afterwards syghe] lament myrknes] darkness

I

RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE 5

XVII

Riche men J?air handes sal wryng, & wicked werkes sal by In flawme of fyre bath knyght & keyng, with sorow

schamfully.

If J?ou wil lufe, ban may bou syng til Cryst in melody, pe lufe of hym ouercoms al thyng, J?arto J>ou traiste trewly.

XVIII

[I] sygh & sob, bath day & nyght, for ane sa fayre of hew. par es na thyng my hert mai light, bot lufe, bat es ay new. Wha sa had hym in his syght, or in his hert hym knew, His mournyng turned til ioy ful bryght, his sang in til glew.

XIX

In myrth he lyfes, nyght & day, j?at lufes J>at swete chylde : It es Ihesu, forsoth I say, of all mekest & mylde. Wreth fra hym walde al a-way, bof he wer neuer sa wylde ; He J?at in hert lufed hym, )?at day fra euel he wil hym

schylde.

xx

Of Ihesu mast lyst me speke, bat al my bale may bete. Me thynk my hert may al to-breke, when I thynk on J?at

swete.

In lufe lacyd he hase my thoght, j?at I sal neuer forgete : Ful dere me thynk he hase me boght, with blodi hende

& fete.

XXI

For luf my hert es bowne to brest, when I bat faire behalde. Lufe es fair bare it es fest, J^at neuer will be calde. Lufe vs reues be nyght rest, in grace it makes vs balde ; Of al warkes luf es be best, als haly men me talde.

by] pay dearly for hew] form, aspect turned]

would turn Wreth] Anger Jx>f] though bale]

woe bete] amend lacyd] caught hende] hands

bowne to brest] ready to burst reues] bereaves

6 RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE

XXII

Na wonder gyf I syghand be & si)?en in sorow be sette : Ihesu was nayled apon J?e tre, & al blody for-bette ; To |?ynk on hym es grete pyte, how tenderly he grette — pis hase he sufferde, man, for J?e, if ]?at ]?ou syn wyll lette.

XXIII

pare es na tonge in erth may tell of lufe j?e swetnesse ; pat stedfastly in lufe kan dwell, his ioy es endlesse. God schylde J?at he sulde til hell J?at lufes & langand es, Or euer his enmys sulde hym qwell, or make his luf be lesse !

XXIV

Ihesu es lufe j;at lastes ay : til hym es owre langyng ; Ihesu ]?e nyght turnes to ]?e day, J?e dawyng in til spryng. Ihesu, J?ynk on vs, now & ay : for )?e we halde oure keyng ; Ihesu, gyf vs grace, as J?ou wel may, to luf ]?e with-owten endyng.

ANONYMOUS

? i.fjth century

Quia Amore Langueo

IN the vaile of restles mynd I sowght in mownteyn & in mede, trustyng a treulofe for to fynd : vpon an hyll than toke I hede ; a voise I herd (and nere I yede)

in gret dolour complaynyng tho, ' see, dere soule, my sydes blede Quia amore langueo.'

for-bette] scourged grette] wept lette] leave

sulde] should [go] qwell] destroy, slay dawyng] dawn

spryng] day-spring nere] nearer yede] went

ANONYMOUS

Vpon thys mownt I fand a tree ; vndir thys tree a man sittyng ; from hede to fote wowndyd was he, hys hert blode I saw bledyng ; A semely man to be a kyng,

A graciose face to loke vnto. I askyd hym how he had paynyng. he said, ' Quia amore langueo S

I am treulove that fals was neuer ;

my sistur, mannys soule, I loued hyr thus ; By-cause I wold on no wyse disseuere, I left my kyngdome gloriouse ; I purueyd hyr a place full preciouse ; she flytt, I folowyd, I luffed her soo that I suffred thes paynes piteuouse Quia amore langueo.

My faire love and my spouse bryght,

I saued hyr fro betyng, and she hath me bett ; I clothed hyr in grace and heuenly lyght, this blody surcote she hath on me sett ; for langyng love ; I will not lett

swete strokys be thes, loo ; I haf loued euer als I hett,

Quia amore langueo. I crownyd hyr with blysse and she me with thorne,

I led hyr to chambre and she me to dye ; I browght hyr to worship and she me to skorne, I dyd hyr reuerence and she me velanye. To love that loueth is no maistrye,

hyr hate made neuer my love hyr foo ; ask than no moo questions whye, but Quia amore langueo.

hett] promised

8 ANONYMOUS

Loke vnto myn handys, man !

th.es gloues were geuen me whan I hyr sowght ; they be nat white, but rede and wan,

embrodred with blode my spouse them bowght ; they wyll not of, I lefe them nowght,

I wowe hyr with them where euer she goo ; thes handes full frendly for hyr fowght, Quia amore langueo.

Maruell not, man, thof I sitt styll,

my love hath shod me wondyr strayte ; she boklyd my fete as was hyr wyll

with sharp nailes, well thow maist waite ! in my love was neuer dissaite,

for all my membres I haf opynd hyr to ; my body I made hyr hertys baite, Quia amore langueo.

In my syde I haf made hyr nest,

loke, in me how wyde a wound is here ! this is hyr chambre,.here shall she rest, that she and I may slepe in fere, here may she wasshe, if any filth were ;

here is socour for all hyr woo ; cum if she will, she shall haf chere, Quia amore langueo.

I will abide till she be redy,

I will to hyr send or she sey nay ; If she be rechelesse I will be gredi, If she be dawngerouse I will hyr pray. If she do wepe, than byd I nay ;

myn armes ben spred to clypp hyr to ; crye onys, ' I cum ! ' now, soule, assaye ! Quia amore langueo.

waite] take heed baite] enticement, nourishment

in fere] together dawngerouse] difficult of approach,

haughty

ANONYMOUS 9

I sitt on an hille for to se farre,

I loke to the vayle, my spouse I see ; now rynneth she away ward, now cummyth she narre, yet fro myn eye syght she may nat be ; sum waite ther pray, to make hyr flee,

I rynne tofore to chastise hyr foo ; recouer, my soule, agayne to me, Quia amore langueo.

My swete spouse, will we goo play ?

apples ben rype in my gardine ; I shall clothe the in new array, thy mete shall be mylk, honye, & wyne ; now, dere soule, latt us go dyne,

thy sustenance is in my skrypp, loo ! tary not now, fayre spouse myne, Quia amore langueo.

Yf thow be fowle, I shall make thee clene,

if thow be seke, I shall the hele ; yf thow owght morne, I shall be-mene ;

spouse, why will thow nowght with me dele ? thow fowndyst neuer love so lele ;

what wilt thow, sowle, that I shall do ? I may of vnkyndnes the appele, Quia amore langueo.

What shall I do now with my spouse ?

abyde I will hyre iantilnesse ; wold she loke onys owt of hyr howse of flesshely affeccions and vnclennesse ; hyr bed is made, hyr bolstar is in blysse,

hyr chambre is chosen, suche ar no moo ; loke owt at the wyndows of kyndnesse, Quia amore langueo.

farre] farther narre] nearer

B3

io ANONYMOUS

Long and love thow neuer so hygh,

yit is my love more than thyfi may be ; thow gladdyst, thow wepist, I sitt the bygh, yit myght thow, spouse, loke onys at me ! spouse, shuld I alway fede the

with childys mete ? nay, love, nat so ! I pray the, love, with aduersite, Quia amore langueo.

My spouse is in chambre, hald }oure pease !

make no noyse, but lat hyr slepe ; my babe shall sofre noo disease,

I may not here my dere childe wepe, for with my pappe I shall hyr kepe ; no wondyr thowgh I tend hyr to, thys hoole in my side had neuer ben so depe, but Quia amore langueo.

Wax not wery, myn owne dere wyfe !

what mede is aye to lyffe in comfort ? for in tribulacion, I ryfi more ryfe ofter tymes than in disport ; In welth, in woo, euer I support ;

than, dere soule, go neuer me fro ! thy mede is markyd, whan thow art mort, in blysse ; Quia amore langueo.

II

ROBERT SOUTHWELL

? 1561-1595 / dye alive

OLIFE ! what letts thee from a quicke decease ? O death ! what drawes thee from a present praye? My feast is done, my soule would be at ease, My grace is saide ; O death ! come take awaye.

I live, but such a life as ever dyes ;

I dye, but such a death as never endes ; My death to end my dying life denyes,

And life my living death no whitt amends.

Thus still I dye, yet still I do revive ;

My living death by dying life is fedd ; Grace more then nature kepes my hart alive,

Whose idle hopes and vayne desires are deade.

Not where I breath, but where I love, I live ;

Not where I love, but where I am, I die ; The life I wish, must future glory give,

The deaths I feele in present daungers lye.

Of the Blessed Sacrament of the Aulter

r~T^HE angells' eyes, whome veyles cannot deceive, 1 Might best disclose that best they do descerne; Men must with sounde and silent faith receive

More then they can by sence or reason lerne ; God's poure our proofes, His workes our witt exceede, The doer's might is reason of His deede.

12 ROBERT SOUTHWELL

A body is endew'd with ghostly rightes ;

And Nature's worke from Nature's law is free ; In heavenly sunne lye hidd eternall lightes,

Lightes cleere and neere, yet them no eye can see ; Dedd formes a never-dyinge life do shroude ; A boundlesse sea lyes in a little cloude.

The God of hoastes in slender hoste doth dwell, Yea, God and man with all to ether dewe,

That God that rules the heavens and rifled hell, That man whose death did us to life renewe :

That God and man that is the angells' blisse,

In forme of bredd and wyne our nurture is.

Whole may His body be in smallest breadd,

Whole in the whole, yea whole in every crumme ;

With which be one or be tenn thowsand fedd, All to ech one, to all but one doth cumme ;

And though ech one as much as all receive,

Not one too much, nor all too little have.

One soule in man is all in everye part ;

One face at once in many mirrhors shynes ; One fearefull noyse doth make a thowsand start ;

One .eye at once of countlesse thinges defynes ; If proofes of one in many, Nature frame, God may in straunger sort performe the same.

God present is at once in everye place,

Yett God in every place is ever one ; So may there be by giftes of ghostly grace,

One man in many roomes, yett filling none ; Sith angells may effects of bodyes shewe, God angells' giftes on bodyes may bestowe.

13

HENRY CONSTABLE

? 1562-? 1613

To the Blessed Sacrament

WHEN thee (O holy sacrificed Lambe) In severed sygnes I whyte and liquide see, As on thy body slayne I thynke on thee, Which pale by sheddyng of thy bloode became.

And when agayne I doe behold the same Vayled in whyte to be receav'd of mee, Thou seemest in thy syndon wrapt to bee Lyke to a corse, whose monument I am.

Buryed in me, vnto my sowle appeare,

Pryson'd in earth, and bannisht from thy syght,

Lyke our forefathers who in lymbo were,

Cleere thou my thoughtes, as thou did'st gyve them light,

And as thou others freed from purgyng fyre

Quenche in my hart the flames of badd desyre.

JOSHUA SYLVESTER

1563-1618

The Father

A.PHA and Omega, God alone : Eloi, My God, the Holy-One ; Whose Power is Omnipotence : Whose Wisedome is Omni-science : Whose Beeing is All Soveraigne Blisse : Whose Worke Perfection's Fulnesse is ;

Under All things, not under-cast ; Over All things, not over-plac't ;

14 JOSHUA SYLVESTER

Within All things, not there included ; Without All things, not thence excluded :

Above All, over All things raigning ; Beneath All, All things aye sustaining : Without All, All conteyning sole : Within All, filling-full the Whole :

Within All, no where comprehended ; Without All, no where more extended ; Under, by nothing over-topped : Over, by nothing under-propped :

Unmov'd, Thou mov'st the World about ; Unplac't, Within it, or Without : Unchanged, time-lesse, Time Thou changest Th' unstable, Thou, still stable, rangest ; No outward Force, nor inward Fate, Can Thy drad Essence alterate :

To-day, To-morrow, yester-day, With Thee are One, and instant aye ; Aye undivided, ended never : To-day, with Thee, indures for-ever.

Thou, Father, mad'st this mighty Ball ; Of nothing thou created'st All, After, th' Idea of thy Minde, Conferring Forme to every kinde.

Thou wert, Thou art, Thou wilt be ever : And Thine Elect, rejectest never.

15

JOHN DONNE

1573-1631 Sonnet

BATTER my heart, three person'd God ; for, you As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new. I, like an usurpt towne, to 'another due, Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end, Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend, But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue. Yet dearely'I love you, 'and would be loved faine, But am betroth'd unto your enemie : Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe, Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free, Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

From ' The Crosse '

WHO can blot out the Crosse, which th'instrument Of God, dew'd on mee in the Sacrament ? Who can deny mee power, and liberty To stretch mine armes, and mine owne Crosse to be ? Swimme, and at every stroake, thou art thy Crosse ; The Mast and yard make one, where seas do tosse ; Looke downe, thou spiest out Crosses in small things ; Looke up, thou seest birds rais'd on crossed wings ; All the Globes frame, and spheares, is nothing else But the Meridians crossing Parallels. Material Crosses then, good physicke bee, But yet spirituall have chief e dignity. These for extracted chimique medicine serve, And cure much better, and as well preserve ;

16 JOHN DONNE

Then are you your own physicke, or need none,

When Still'd, or purg'd by tribulation.

For when that Crosse ungrudg'd, unto you stickes,

Then are you to your selfe, a Crucifixe.

As perchance, Carvers do not faces make,

But that away, which hid them there, do take ;

Let Crosses, soe, take what hid Christ in thee,

And be his image, or not his, but hee.

Resurrection^ imperfect

SLEEP sleep old Sun, thou canst not have repast As yet, the wound thou took'st on friday last ; Sleepe then, and rest ; The world may beare thy stay, A better Sun rose before thee to day, Who, not content to'enlighten all that dwell On the earths face, as thou, enlightned hell, And made the darke fires languish in that vale, As, at thy presence here, our fires grow pale. Whose body having walk'd on earth, and now Hasting to Heaven, would, that he might allow Himselfe unto all stations, and fill all, For these three daies become a minerall ; Hee was all gold when he lay downe, but rose All tincture, and doth not alone dispose Leaden and iron wills to good, but is Of power to make even sinfull flesh like his. Had one of those, whose credulous pietie Thought, that a Soule one might discerne and see Goe from a body,'at this sepulcher been, And, issuing from the sheet, this body seen, He would have justly thought this body a soule, If not of any man, yet of the whole. Desunt c&tera

JOHN DONNE 17

Goodfiiday, 1613. Riding Westward

I ET mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this, I ^The intelligence that moves, devotion is, And as the other Spheares, by being growne Subject to forraigne motions, lose their owne, And being by others hurried every day, Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey : Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit For their first mover, and are whirld by it. Hence is't, that I am carryed towards the West This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East. There I should see a Sunne, by rising set, And by that setting endlesse day beget ; But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall, Sinne had eternally benighted all. Yet dare Palmost be glad, I do not see That spectacle of too much weight for mee. Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye ; What a death were it then to see God dye ? It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke, It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke. Could I behold those hands which span the Poles, And turne all spheares at once, peirc'd with those holes ? Could I behold that endlesse height which is Zenith to us, and our Antipodes, Humbled below us ? or that blood which is The seat of all our Soules, if not of his, Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne By God, for his apparell, rag'd, and torne ? If on these things' I durst not looke, durst I Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye, Who was Gods partner here, and furnish'd thus Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom'd us ?

1 8 JOHN DONNE

Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye, They'are present yet unto my memory, For that looks towards them ; and thou look'st towards mee,

0 Saviour, as thou hang'st upon the tree ;

1 turne my backe to thee, but to receive Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave. O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee, Burne off my rusts, and my deformity, Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace, That thou may'st know mee, and I'll turne my face.

A Hymne to Christ \ at the Authors last going into Germany

IN what torne ship soever I embarke, That ship shall be my embleme of thy Arke ; What sea soever swallow mee, that flood Shall be to mee an embleme of thy blood ; Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise Thy face ; yet through that maske I know those eyes, Which, though they turne away sometimes, They never will despise.

I sacrifice this Hand unto thee, And all whom I lov'd there, and who lov'd mee ; When I have put our seas twixt them and mee, Put thou thy sea betwixt my sinnes and thee. As the trees sap doth seeke the root below In winter, in my winter now I goe, Where none but thee, th'Eternall root Of true Love I may know.

JOHN DONNE 19

Nor thou nor thy religion dost controule, The amorousnesse of an harmonious Soule, But thou would'st have that love thy selfe : As thou Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now, That lov'st not, till from loving more, thou free My soule : Who ever gives, takes libertie : O, if thou car'st not whom I love Alas, thou lov'st not mee.

Scale then this bill of my Divorce to All, On whom those fainter beames of love did fall ; Marry those loves, which in youth scattered bee On Fame, Wit, Hopes (false mistresses) to thee. Churches are best for Prayer, that have least light : To see God only, I goe out of sight : And to scape stormy dayes, I chuse An Everlasting night.

PHINEAS FLETCHER

1580-1650

The Divine Lover

ME Lord ? can'st thou mispend One word, misplace one look on me ? Call'st me thy Love, thy Friend ?

Can this poor soul the object be Of these love-glances, those life-kindling eyes ? What ? I the Centre of thy arms embraces ? Of all thy labour I the prize ? Love never mocks, Truth never lies. Oh how I quake : Hope fear, fear hope displaces : I would, but cannot hope : such wondrous love amazes.

20 PHINEAS FLETCHER

ii

See, I am black as night, See I am darkness : dark as hell.

Lord thou more fair than light ; Heav'ns Sun thy Shadow ; can Sunns dwell With Shades ? 'twixt light, and darkness what commerce ? True : thou art darkness, I thy Light : my ray Thy mists, and hellish foggs shall pierce. With me, black soul, with me converse. I make the foul December flowry May, Turn thou thy night to me : Fie turn thy night to day.

in

See Lord, see I am dead : Tomb'd in my self : my self my grave.

A drudge .: so born, so bred : My self even to my self a slave. Thou Freedome, Life : can Life, and Liberty Love bondage, death ? Thy Freedom I : I tyed To loose thy bonds : be bound to me : My Yoke shall ease, my bonds shall free. Dead soul, thy Spring of life, my dying side : There dye with me to live : to live in thee I dyed.

ROBERT HERRICK

1591-1674 Eternitie

OYEARES! and Age! Farewell: Behold I go, Where I do know Infinitie to dwell.

ROBERT HERRICK 21

And these mine eyes shall see

All times, how they

Are lost i' th' Sea Of vast Eternitie.

Where never Moone shall sway

The Starres ; but she,

And Night, shall be Drown'd in one endlesse Day.

FRANCIS QUARLES

1592-1644

Christ and Our Selves

I WISH a greater knowledge, then t'attaine The knowledge of my selfe : A greater Gaine Then to augment my selfe ; A greater Treasure Then to enjoy my selfe : A greater Pleasure Then to content my selfe ; How slight, and vaine Is all selfe-Knowledge, Pleasure, Treasure, Gaine ; Vnlesse my better knowledge could retrive My Christ ; unles my better Gaine could thrive In Christ ; unles my better Wealth grow rich In Christ ; unles my better Pleasure pitch On Christ ; Or else my Knowledge will proclaime To my owne heart how ignorant I am : Or else my Gaine, so ill improv'd, will shame My Trade, and shew how much declin'd I am ; Or else my Treasure will but blurre my name With Bankrupt, and divulge how poore I am ; Or else my Pleasures, that so much inflame My Thoughts, will blabb how full of sores I am : Lord, keepe me from my Selfe ; 'Tis best for me, Never to owne my Selfe, if not in Thee.

22 FRANCIS QUARLES

My beloved is mine^ and I am his y He feedeth among the lilies

EV'N like two little bank-dividing brooks, That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams, And having rang'd and search'd a thousand nooks, Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames,

Where in a greater current they conjoin : So I my best-beloved's am ; so he is mine.

Ev'n so we met ; and after long pursuit,

Ev'n so we joyn'd ; we both became entire ;

No need for either to renew a suit,

For I was flax and he was flames of fire :

Our firm-united souls did more than twine ;

So I my best-beloved's am ; so he is mine.

If all those glitt'ring Monarchs that command

The servile quarters of this earthly ball, Should tender, in exchange, their shares of land,

I would not change my fortunes for them all :

Their wealth is but a counter to my coin : The world 's but theirs ; but my beloved 's mine. Nay, more ; If the fair Thespian Ladies all

Should heap together their diviner treasure : That treasure should be deem'd a price too small

To buy a minute's lease of half my pleasure ;

'Tis not the sacred wealth of all the nine Can buy my heart from him, or his, from being mine.

Nor Time, nor Place, nor Chance, nor Death can bow My least desires unto the least remove ;

He 's firmly mine by oath ; I his by vow ; He 's mine by faith ; and I am his by love ; He 's mine by water ; I am his by wine ;

Thus I my best-beloved's am ; thus he is mine.

FRANCIS QUARLES 23

He is my Altar ; I, his Holy Place ;

I am his guest ; and he, my living food ; I'm his by penitence ; he mine by grace ;

I'm his by purchase ; he is mine, by blood ; He 's my supporting elm ; and I his vine ; Thus I my best beloved's am ; thus he is mine.

He gives me wealth ; I give him all my vows : I give him songs ; he gives me length of dayes ;

With wreaths of grace he crowns my conqu'ring brows, And I his temples with a crown of Praise, Which he accepts as an everlasting signe,

That I my best-beloved's am ; that he is mine.

GEORGE HERBERT

1593-1632

Raster Song

I GOT me flowers to straw Thy way, I got me boughs off many a tree ; But Thou wast up by break of day, And brought'st Thy sweets along with Thee.

The sunne arising in the East,

Though he give' light, and th' East perfume,

If they should offer to contest

With Thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this, Though many sunnes to shine endeavour ? We count three hundred, but we misse : There is but one, and that one ever.

24 GEORGE HERBERT

Affliction

MY heart did heave, and there came forth ' O God ! ' By that I knew that Thou wast in the grief, To guide and govern it to my relief, Making a scepter of the rod :

Hadst Thou not had Thy part, Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart.

But since Thy breath gave me both life and shape, Thou know'st my tallies ; and when there 's assign'd So much breath to a sigh, what 's then behinde ? Or if some yeares with it escape,

The sigh then onely is A gale to bring me sooner to my blisse.

Thy life on earth was grief, and Thou art still Constant unto it, making it to be A point of honour now to grieve in me, And in Thy members suffer ill. They who lament one crosse, Thou dying dayly, praise Thee to Thy losse.

Man

MY God, I heard this day That none doth build a stately habitation But he that means to dwell therein. What house more stately hath there been, Or can be, then is Man ? to whose creation All things are in decay.

GEORGE HERBERT 25

For Man is ev'ry thing, And more : he is a tree, yet bears no fruit ; A beast, yet is, or should be, more : Reason and speech we onely bring ; Parrats may thank us, if they are not mute, They go upon the score.

Man is all symmetric, Full of proportions, one limbe to another, And all to all the world besides ; Each part may call the farthest brother, For head with foot hath private amitie, And both with moons and tides.

Nothing hath got so farre But Man hath caught and kept it as his prey ; His eyes dismount the highest starre ; He is in little all the sphere ; Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they Find their acquaintance there.

For us the windes do blow,

The earth doth rest, heav'n move, and fountains flow ; Nothing we see but means our good, As our delight or as our treasure ; The whole is either our cupboard of food Or cabinet of pleasure.

The starres have us to bed,

Night draws the curtain, which the sunne withdraws ; Musick and light attend our head, All things unto our flesh are kinde In their descent and being ; to our minde In their ascent and cause.

26 GEORGE HERBERT

Each thing is full of dutie : Waters united are our navigation ; Distinguished, our habitation ; Below, our drink ; above, our meat ; Both are our cleanlinesse. Hath one such beautie? Then how are all things neat !

More servants wait on Man Than he'l take notice of : in ev'ry path He treads down that which doth befriend him When sicknesse makes him pale and wan. Oh mightie love ! Man is one world, and hath Another to attend him.

Since then, my God, Thou hast So brave a palace built, O dwell in it, That it may dwell with Thee at last ! Till then afford us so much wit, That, as the world serves us, we may serve Thee, And both Thy servants be.

s

Dialogue

Man

WEETEST Saviour, if my soul Were but worth the having, Quickly should I then controll

Any thought of waving. But when all my cares and pains Cannot give the name of gains To Thy wretch so full of stains, What delight or hope remains ?

GEORGE HERBERT 27

Saviour What, childe, is the ballance thine,

Thine the poise and measure ? If I say, ' Thou shalt be Mine,'

Finger not My treasure. What the gains in having thee Do amount to, onely He Who for man was sold can see ; That transferr'd th' accounts to Me.

Man But as I can see no merit

Leading to this favour, So the way to fit me for it

Is beyond my savour. As the reason, then, is Thine, So the way is none of mine : I disclaim the whole designe ; Sinne disclaims and I resigne.

Saviour That is all : — if that I could

Get without repining ; And My clay, My creature, would

Follow my resigning ; That as I did freely part With my glorie and desert, Left all joyes to feel all smart

Man Ah, no more : Thou break'st my heart.

28 GEORGE HERBERT

Clasping of Hands I ORD, Thou art mine, and I am Thine, Li If mine I am ; and Thine much more Then I or ought or can be mine. Yet to be Thine doth me restore, So that again I now am mine, And with advantage mine the more, Since this being mine brings with it Thine. And Thou with me dost Thee restore :

If I without Thee would be mine,

I neither should be mine nor Thine. Lord, I am Thine, and Thou art mine ; So mine Thou art, that something more I may presume Thee mine then Thine, For Thou didst suffer to restore Not Thee, but me, and to be mine : And with advantage mine the more, Since Thou in death wast none of Thine, Yet then as mine didst me restore :

O, be mine still ; still make me Thine ;

Or rather make no Thine and Mine.

The Pulley

WHEN God at first made man, Having a glasse of blessings standing by, * Let us,' said He, * poure on him all we can ; Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie, Contract into a span.'

So strength first made a way ;

Then beautie flow'd, then wisdome, honour, pleasure ; When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure,

Rest in the bottome lay.

GEORGE HERBERT 29

* For if I should,' said He,

* Bestow this Jewell also on My creature, He would adore My gifts in stead of Me, And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature : So both should losers be.

* Yet let him keep the rest,

But keep them with repining restlesnesse ; Let him be rich and wearie, that at least, If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse May tosse him to My breast.'

The El'txer

TEACH me, my God and King, In all things Thee to see, And what I do in any thing To do it as for Thee.

Not rudely, as a beast, To runne into an action ; But still to make Thee prepossest, And give it his perfection.

A man that looks on glasse, On it may stay his eye ; Or if he pleaseth, through it passe, And then the heav'n espie.

All may of Thee partake : Nothing can be so mean Which with his tincture, 'for Thy sake,' Will not grow bright and clean.

30 GEORGE HERBERT

A servant with this clause Makes drudgerie divine ; Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws Makes that and th' action fine.

This is the famous stone That turneth all to gold ; For that which God doth touch and own Cannot for lesse be told.

The Collar

I STRUCK the board, and cry'd, < No more ; I will abroad.'

What, shall I ever sigh and pine ? My lines and life are free ; free as the rode, Loose as the winde, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit ? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me bloud, and not restore What I have lost with cordiall fruit ? Sure there was wine Before my sighs did drie it ; there was corn

Before my tears did drown it. Is the yeare onely lost to me ? Have I no bayes to crown it, No flowers, no garlands gay ? all blasted,

All wasted ? Not so, my heart ; but there is fruit,

And thou hast hands. Recover all thy sigh-blown age On double pleasures ; leave thy cold dispute Of what is fit and not ; forsake thy cage, Thy rope of sands,

GEORGE HERBERT 31

Which pettie thoughts have made ; and made to thee Good cable, to enforce and draw,

And be thy law,

While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. Away ! take heed ; I will abroad. Call in thy death's-head there, tie up thy £ears ;

He that forbears To suit and serve his need

Deserves his load. But as I rav'd and grew more fierce and wilde

At every word,

Me thought I heard one calling, ' Childe ' ; And I reply'd, < My Lord.'

CHRISTOPHER HARVEY

1597-1663 The Nativity

UNFOLD thy face, unmaske thy ray, Shine forth, bright Sunne, double the day. Let no malignant misty fume, Nor foggy vapour, once presume To interpose thy perfect sight This day, which makes us love thy light For ever better, that we could That blessed object once behold, Which is both the circumference, And center of all excellence : Or rather neither, but a treasure Unconfined without measure, Whose center and circumference, Including all preheminence,

32 CHRISTOPHER HARVEY

Excluding nothing but defect, And infinite in each respect, Is equally both here and there, And now and then and every where, And alwaies, one, himselfe, the same, A beeing farre above a name. Draw neer then, and freely poure Forth all thy light into that houre, Which was crowned with his birth, And made heaven envy earth.

Let not his birth-day clouded be, By whom thou shinest, and we see.

RICHARD CRASHAW

? 1613-1649

' I am not worthy that thou should'st come under my roofe.'

'"T'HY God was making hast into thy roofe,

JL Thy humble faith, and feare, keepes him aloofe : Hee'l be thy guest, because he may not be, Hee'l come — into thy house ? no, into thee.

The Recommendation

HPHESE Houres, and that which hovers o're my End, 1 Into thy hands, and hart, lord, I commend.

Take Both to Thine Account, that I and mine In that Hour, and in these, may be all thine.

That as I dedicate my devoutest Breath To make a kind of Life for my lord's Death,

So from his living, and life-giving Death,

My dying Life may draw a new, and never fleeting Breath.

RICHARD CRASHAW 33

To the Name above every Name, the Name of Jesus

A HYMN

I SING the Name which None can say But touch't with An interiour Ray : The Name of our New Peace ; our Good : Our Blisse : and Supernaturall Blood : The Name of All our Lives and Loves. Hearken, And Help, ye holy Doves ! The high-born Brood of Day ; you bright Candidates of blissefull Light, The Heirs Elect of Love ; whose Names belong Unto The everlasting life of Song ; All ye wise Soules, who in the wealthy Brest Of This unbounded Name build your warm Nest. Awake, My glory. Soul, (if such thou be, And That fair Word at all referr to Thee)

Awake and sing

And be All Wing;

Bring hither thy whole Self ; and let me see What of thy Parent Heavn yet speakes in thee.

O thou art Poore

Of noble Powres, I see, And full of nothing else but empty Me, Narrow, and low, and infinitely lesse Then this Great mornings mighty Busynes.

One little World or two

(Alas) will never doe.

We must have store. Goe, Soul, out of thy Self, and seek for More.

Goe and request Great Nature for the Key of her huge Chest

54 RICHARD CRASHAW

Of Heavns, the self involving Sett of Sphears (Which dull mortality more Feeles then heares)

Then rouse the nest Of nimble Art, and traverse round The Aiery Shop of soul-appeasing Sound : And beat a summons in the Same

All-soveraign Name To warn each severall kind And shape of sweetnes, Be they such

As sigh with supple wind

Or answer Artfull Touch, That they convene and come away To wait at the love-crowned Doores of

This Illustrious Day.

Shall we dare This, my Soul ? we'l doe't and bring No Other note for't, but the Name we sing.

Wake Lute and Harp

And every sweet-lipp't Thing

That talkes with tunefull string ; Start into life, And leap with me Into a hasty Fitt-tun'd Harmony.

Nor must you think it much

T'obey my bolder touch ; I have Authority in Love's name to take you And to the worke of Love this morning wake you ;

Wake ; In the Name Of Him who never sleeps, All Things that Are,

Or, what's the same,

Are Musicall ;

Answer my Call

And come along ;

Help me to meditate mine Immortall Song. Come, ye soft ministers of sweet sad mirth, Bring All your houshold stuffe of Heavn on earth ;

RICHARD CRASHAW 35

O you, my Soul's most certain Wings, Complaining Pipes, and prattling Strings,

Bring All the store

Of Sweets you have ; And murmur that you have no more.

Come, nere to part,

Nature and Art !

Come ; and come strong, To the conspiracy of our Spatious song.

Bring All the Powres of Praise Your Provinces of well-united Worlds can raise ; Bring All your Lutes and Harps of Heavn and Earth ; What ere cooperates to The common mirthe

Vessells of vocall loyes,

Or You, more noble Architects of Intellectuall Noise, Cymballs of Heav'n, or Humane sphears, Sollickers of Soules or Eares ;

And when you'are come, with All That you can bring or we can call ;

O may you fix

For ever here, and mix

Your selves into the long And everlasting series of a deathlesse Song ; Mix All your many Worlds, Above, And loose them into One of Love.

Chear thee my Heart !

For Thou too hast thy Part

And Place in the Great Throng Of This unbounded All-imbracing Song.

Powres of my Soul, be Proud !

And speake lowd

To All the dear-bought Nations This Redeeming Name And in the wealth of one Rich Word proclaim New Similes to Nature.

36 RICHARD CRASHAW

May it be no wrong

Blest Heavns, to you, and your Superiour song, That we, dark Sons of Dust and Sorrow,

A while Dare borrow

The Name of Your Dilights and our Desires, And fitt it to so farr inferior Lyres. Our Murmurs have their Musick too, Ye mighty Orbes, as well as you,

Nor yeilds the noblest Nest Of warbling Seraphim to the eares of Love, A choicer Lesson then the joyfull Brest

Of a poor panting Turtle-Dove. And we, low Wormes have leave to doe The Same bright Busynes (ye Third Heavens) with you, Gentle Spirits, doe not complain.

We will have care

To keep it fair, And send it back to you again. Come, lovely Name ! Appeare from forth the Bright

Regions of peacefull Light, Look from thine own Illustrious Home, Fair King of Names, and come.

Leave All thy native Glories in their Georgeous Nest, And give thy Self a while The gracious Guest Of humble Soules, that seek to find

The hidden Sweets

Which man's heart meets When Thou art Master of the Mind. Come, lovely Name ; life of our hope ! Lo we hold our Hearts wide ope ! Unlock thy Cabinet of Day Dearest Sweet, and come away.

Lo how the thirsty Lands Gasp for thy Golden Showres 1 with longstretch't Hands.

RICHARD CRASHAW 37

Lo how the laboring Earth

That hopes to be

All Heaven by Thee,

Leapes at thy Birth. The' attending World, to wait thy Rise,

First turn'd to eyes ; And then, not knowing what to doe ; Turn'd Them to Teares, and spent Them too. Come Royall Name, and pay the expence Of All this Pretious Patience.

O come away

And kill the Death of This Delay. O see, so many Worlds of barren yeares Melted and measur'd out in Seas of Teares. O see, The Weary liddes of wakefull Hope (Love's Eastern windowes) All wide ope

With Curtains drawn, To catch The Day-break of Thy Dawn. O dawn, at last, long look't for Day ! Take thine own wings, and come away. Lo, where Aloft it comes ! It comes, Among The Conduct of Adoring Spirits, that throng Like diligent Bees, And swarm about it.

O they are wise ; And know what Sweetes are suck't from out it.

It is the Hive,

By which they thrive, Where All their Hoard of Hony lyes. Lo whereat comes, upon The snowy Dove's Soft Back ; And brings a Bosom big with Loves. Welcome to our dark world, Thou

Womb of Day !

Unfold thy fair Conceptions ; And display The Birth of our Bright loyes.

38 RICHARD CRASHAW

O thou compacted

Body of Blessings : spirit of Soules extracted ! O dissipate thy spicy Powres (Clowd of condensed sweets) and break upon us

In balmy showrs ; O fill our senses, And take from us All force of so Prophane a Fallacy To think ought sweet but that which smells of Thee. Fair, flowry Name ; In none but Thee And Thy Nectareall Fragrancy,

Hourly there meetes An universall Synod of All sweets ; By whom it is defined Thus

That no Perfume

For ever shall presume To passe for Odoriferous, But such alone whose sacred Pedigree Can prove it Self some kin (sweet name) to Thee. Sweet Name, in Thy each Syllable A Thousand Blest Arabias dwell ; A Thousand Hills of Frankincense ; Mountains of myrrh, and Beds of species, And ten Thousand Paradises, The soul that tasts thee takes from thence. How many unknown Worlds there are Of Comforts, which Thou hast in keeping ! How many Thousand Mercyes there In Pitty's soft lap ly a sleeping ! Happy he who has the art

To awake them,

And to take them

Home, and lodge them in his Heart. O that it were as it was wont to be ! When thy old Freinds of Fire, All full of Thee,

RICHARD CRASHAW

39

Fought against Frowns with smiles ; gave Glorious chase

To Persecutions ; And against the Face

Of Death and feircest Dangers, durst with Brave

And sober pace march on to meet A Grave.

On their Bold Brests about the world they bore thee

And to the Teeth of Hell stood up to teach thee,

In Center of their inmost Soules they wore thee,

Where Rackes and Torments striv'd, in vain, to reach thee.

Little, alas, thought They Who tore the Fair Brests of thy Freinds,

Their Fury but made way

For Thee ; And serv'd them in Thy glorious ends. What did Their weapons but with wider pores Inlarge thy flaming-brested Lovers

More freely to transpire

That impatient Fire

The Heart that hides Thee hardly covers. What did their Weapons but sett wide the Doores For Thee : Fair, purple Doores, of love's devising ; The Ruby windowes which inrich't the East Of Thy so oft repeated Rising. Each wound of Theirs was Thy new Morning ; And reinthron'd thee in thy Rosy Nest, With blush of thine own Blood thy day adorning, It was the witt of love oreflowd the Bounds Of Wrath, and made thee way through All Those wounds. Wellcome dear, All-Adored Name !

For sure there is no Knee

That knowes not Thee. Or if there be such sonns of shame,

Alas what will they doe

When stubborn Rocks shall bow And Hills hang down their Heavn-saluting Heads

To seek for humble Beds

40 RICHARD CRASHAW

Of Dust, where in the Bashfull shades of night

Next to their own low Nothing they may ly,

And couch before the dazeling light of thy dread majesty.

They that by Love's mild Dictate now

Will not adore thee, Shall Then with Just Confusion, bow

And break before thee.

A Hymn to the Name and Honor of the Admirable Samte Teresa

Fovndresse of the Reformation of the Discalced Carmelites, both men and Women ; a Woman for Angelicall heigth of speculation, for Masculine courage of performance, more then a woman. Who yet a child, out ran maturity, and durst plott a Martyrdome.

OVE, thou art Absolute sole lord

Life and Death. To prove the word, Wee'l now appeal to none of all Those thy old Souldiers, Great and tall, Ripe Men of Martyrdom, that could reach down With strong armes, their triumphant crown ; Such as could with lusty breath Speak lowd into the face of death Their Great Lord's glorious name, to none Of those whose spatious Bosomes spread a throne For Love at larg to fill, spare blood and sweat ; And see him take a private seat, Making his mansion in the mild And milky soul of a soft child.

Scarse has she learn't to lisp the name Of Martyr ; yet she thinks it shame Life should so long play with that breath Which spent can buy so brave a death.

RICHARD CRASHAW 41

She never undertook to know

What death with love should have to doe ;

Nor has she e're yet understood

Why to show love, she should shed blood

Yet though she cannot tell you why,

She can Love, and she can Dy.

Scarse has she Blood enough to make A guilty sword blush for her sake ; Yet has she'a Heart dares hope to prove How much lesse strong is Death then Love.

Be love but there ; let poor six yeares Be pos'd with the maturest Feares Man trembles at, you straight shall find Love knowes no nonage, nor the Mind. 'Tis Love, not Yeares or Limbs that can Make the Martyr, or the man.

Love touch't her Heart, and lo it beates High, and burnes with such brave heates ; Such thirsts to dy, as dares drink up, A thousand cold deaths in one cup. Good reason. For she breathes All fire. Her weake brest heaves with strong desire Of what she may with fruitles wishes Seek for amongst her Mother's kisses.

Since 'tis not to be had at home She'l travail to a Martyrdom. No home for hers confesses she But where she may a Martyr be.

Sh'el to the Moores ; And trade with them, For this unvalued Diadem. She'l offer them her dearest Breath, With Christ's Name in't, in change for deatlu Sh'el bargain with them ; and will give Them God ; teach them how to live

42 RICHARD CRASHAW

In him : or, if they this deny, For him she'l teach them how to Dy. So shall she leave amongst them sown Her Lord's Blood ; or at lest her own.

Farewel then, all the world ! Adieu. Teresa is no more for you. Farewell, all pleasures, sports, and ioyes, (Never till now esteemed toyes) Farewell what ever deare may be, Mother's armes or Father's knee. Farewell house, and farewell home ! She's for the Moores, and Martyrdom.

Sweet, not so fast ! lo thy fair Spouse Whom thou seekst with so swift vowes, Calls thee back, and bidds thee come T'embrace a milder Martyrdom.

Blest powres forbid, Thy tender life Should bleed upon a barborous knife ; Or some base hand have power to race Thy Brest's chast cabinet, and uncase A soul kept there so sweet, 6 no ; Wise heavn will never have it so. Thou art love's victime ; and must dy A death more mysticall and high. Into love's armes thou shalt let fall A still-surviving funerall. His is the Dart must make the Death Whose stroke shall tast thy hallow'd breath ; A Dart thrice dip't in that rich flame Which writes thy spouse's radiant Name Upon the roof of Heav'n ; where ay It shines, and with a soveraign ray Beates bright upon the burning faces Of soules which in that name's sweet graces

RICHARD CRASHAW 43

Find everlasting smiles. So rare, So spirituall, pure, and fair Must be th'immortall instrument Upon whose choice point shall be sent A life so lov'd ; And that there be Fitt executioners for Thee, The fair'st and first-born sons of fire Blest Seraphim, shall leave their quire And turn love's souldiers, upon Thee To exercise their archerie.

O how oft shalt thou complain Of a sweet and subtle Pain. Of intolerable loyes ; Of a Death, in which who dyes Loves his death, and dyes again. And would for ever so be slain. And lives, and dyes ; and knowes not why To live, But that he thus may never leave to Dy.

How kindly will thy gentle Heart Kisse the sweetly-killing Dart ! And close in his embraces keep Those delicious Wounds, that weep Balsom to heal themselves with. Thus When These thy Deaths, so numerous, Shall all at last dy into one, And melt thy Soul's sweet mansion ; Like a soft lump of incense, hasted By too hott a fire, and wasted Into perfuming clouds, so fast Shalt thou exhale to Heavn at last In a resolving Sigh, and then O what ? Ask not the Tongues of men. Angells cannot tell, suffice, Thy selfe shall feel thine own full ioyes

44 RICHARD CRASHAW

And hold them fast for ever there So soon as you first appear, The Moon of maiden Starrs, thy white Mistresse, attended by such bright Soules as thy shining self, shall come And in her first rankes make thee room ; Where 'mongst her snowy family Immortall wellcomes wait for thee.

O what delight, when reveal'd Life shall stand And teach thy lipps heav'n with his hand ; On which thou now maist to thy wishes Heap up thy consecrated kisses. What ioyes shall seize thy soul, when she Bending her blessed eyes on thee (Those second Smiles of Heav'n) shall dart Her mild rayes through thy melting heart !

Angels, thy old freinds, there shall greet thee Glad at their own home now to meet thee.

All thy good Workes which went before And waited for thee, at the door, Shall own thee there ; and all in one Weave a constellation

Of Crowns, with which the King thy spouse Shall build up thy triumphant browes.

All thy old woes shall now smile on thee And thy paines sitt bright upon thee, All thy Suffrings be divine. Teares shall take comfort, and turn gemms And Wrongs repent to Diademms. Ev'n thy Death shall live ; and new Dresse the soul that erst they slew. Thy wounds shall blush to such bright scarres As keep account of the Lamb's warres.

Those rare Workes where thou shalt leave writt

RICHARD CRASHAW 45

Love's noble history, with witt Taught thee by none but him, while here They feed our soules, shall cloth Thine there. Each heavnly word by whose hid flame Our hard Hearts shall strike fire, the same Shall flourish on thy browes, and be Both fire to us and flame to thee ; Whose light shall live bright in thy Face By glory, in our hearts by grace.

Thou shalt look round about, and see Thousands of crown'd Soules throng to be Themselves thy crown. Sons of thy vowes The virgin-births with which thy soveraign spouse Made fruitfull thy fair soul, goe now And with them all about thee bow To Him, put on (hee'l say) put on (My rosy love) That thy rich zone Sparkling with the sacred flames Of thousand soules, whose happy names Heav'n keep upon thy score,. (Thy bright Life brought them first to kisse the light That kindled them to Starrs.) and so Thou with the Lamb, thy lord, shalt goe ; And whereso'ere he setts his white Stepps, walk with Him those wayes of light Which who in death would live to see, Must learn in life to dy like thee.

46 RICHARD CRASHAW

The Flaming Heart

Vpon the look and. Picture of the seraphicall saint Teresa^ (as she is vsvally expressed with a Seraphim biside her)

WELL meaning readers ! you that come as freinds And catch the pretious name this peice pretends ; Make not too much hast to' admire That f air-cheek' t fallacy of fire. That is a Seraphim, they say And this the great Teresia. Readers, be rul'd by me ; and make Here a well-plac't and wise mistake. You must transpose the picture quite, And spell it wrong to read it right ; Read Him for her, and her for him ; And call the Saint the Seraphim.

Painter, what didst thou understand To put her dart into his hand ! See, even the yeares and size of him Showes this the mother Seraphim. This is the mistresse flame ; and duteous he Her happy fire-works, here, comes down to see. O most poor-spirited of men ! Had thy cold Pencil kist her Pen Thou couldst not so unkindly err To show us This faint shade for Her. Why man, this speakes pure mortall frame ; And mockes with female Frost love's manly flame. One would suspect thou meant'st to print Some weak, inferiour, woman saint. But had thy pale-fac't purple took Fire from the burning cheeks of that bright Booke Thou wouldst on her have heap't up all That could be found Seraphicall ;

RICHARD CRASHAW 47

What e're this youth of fire weares fair,

Rosy fingers, radiant hair,

Glowing cheek, and glistering wings,

All those fair and flagrant things,

But before all, that fiery Dart

Had fill'd the Hand of this great Heart.

Doe then as equall right requires, Since His the blushes be, and her's the fires, Resume and rectify thy rude design ; Undresse thy Seraphim into Mine. Redeem this injury of thy art ; Give Him the vail, give her the dart.

Give Him the vail ; that he may cover The Red cheeks of a rivall'd lover. Asham'd that our world, now, can show Nests of new Seraphims here below.

Give her the Dart for it is she (Fair youth) shootes both thy shaft and Thee Say, all ye wise and well-peirc't hearts That live and dy amidst her darts, What is't your tastfull spirits doe prove In that rare life of Her, and love ? Say and bear wittnes. Sends she not A Seraphim at every shott ? What magazins of immortall Armes there shine ! Heavn's great artillery in each love-spun line. Give then the dart to her who gives the flame ; Give him the veil, who gives the shame.

But if it be the frequent fate Of worst faults to be fortunate ; If all's prescription ; and proud wrong Hearkens not to an humble song ; For all the gallantry of him, Give me the suffring Seraphim.

48 RICHARD CRASHAW

His be the bravery of all those Bright things. The glowing cheekes, the glistering wings ; The Rosy hand, the radiant Dart ; Leave Her alone The Flaming Heart.

Leave her that ; and thou shalt leave her Not one loose shaft but love's whole quiver. For in love's feild was never found A nobler weapon then a Wound. Love's passives are his activ'st part. The wounded is the wounding heart. O Heart ! the sequall poise of love's both parts Bigge alike with wound and darts. Live in these conquering leaves ; live all the same ; And walk through all tongues one triumphant Flame. Live here, great Heart ; and love and dy and kill ; And bleed and wound ; and yeild and conquer still. Let this immortall life wherere it comes Walk in a crowd of loves and Martyrdomes. Let mystick Deaths wait on't ; and wise soules be The love-slain wittnesses of this life of thee. O sweet incendiary ! shew here thy art, Upon this carcasse of a hard, cold, hart, Let all thy scatter'd shafts of light, that play Among the leaves of thy larg Books of day, Combin'd against this Brest at once break in And take away from me my self and sin, This gratious Robbery shall thy bounty be ; And my best fortunes such fair spoiles of me. O thou undanted daughter of desires ! By all thy dowr of Lights and Fires ; By all the eagle in thee, all the dove ; By all thy lives and deaths of love ; By thy larg draughts of intellectuall day, And by thy thirsts of love more large then they;

RICHARD CRASHAW 49

By all thy brim-filPd Bowles of feirce desire

By thy last Morning's draught of liquid fire ;

By the full kingdome of that finall kisse

That seiz'd thy parting Soul, and seal'd thee his ;

By all the heav'ns thou hast in him

(Fair sister of the Seraphim !)

By all of Him we have in Thee ;

Leave nothing of my Self in me.

Let me so read thy life, that I

Unto all life of mine may dy.

A Song

ERD, when the sense of thy sweet grace Sends up my soul to seek thy face. Thy blessed eyes breed such desire, I dy in love's delicious Fire.

O love, I am thy Sacrifice. Be still triumphant, blessed eyes. Still shine on me, fair suns ! that I Still may behold, though still I dy.

Though still I dy, I live again ; Still longing so to be still slain, So gainfull is such losse of breath. I dy even in desire of death.

Still live in me this loving strife Of living Death and dying Life. For while thou sweetly slayest me Dead to my selfe, I live in Thee.

50 RICHARD CRASHAW

Prayer

An Ode which was prefixed to a little Prayer-book given to a young Gentle-woman

Ehere a little volume, but great Book A nest of new-born sweets ;

Whose native fires disdaining

To ly thus folded, and complaining

Of these ignoble sheets,

Affect more comly bands

(Fair one) from the kind hands

And confidently look

To find the rest Of a rich binding in your Brest. It is, in one choise handfull, heavenn ; and all Heavn's Royall host ; incamp't thus small To prove that true schooles use to tell, Ten thousand Angels in one point can dwell. It is love's great artillery Which here contracts itself, and comes to ly Close couch't in their white bosom : and from thence As from a snowy fortresse of defence, Against their ghostly foes to take their part, And fortify the hold of their chast heart. It is an armory of light Let constant use but keep it bright,

You'l find it yeilds To holy hands and humble hearts

More swords and sheilds Then sin hath snares, or Hell hath darts.

RICHARD CRASHAW 51

Only be sure

The hands be pure

That hold these weapons ; and the eyes Those of turtles, chast and true ;

Wakefull and wise ; Here is a freind shall fight for you, Hold but this book before their heart ; Let prayer alone to play his part,

But 6 the heart

That studyes this high Art

Must be a sure house-keeper ;

And yet no sleeper.

Dear soul, be strong.

Mercy will come e're long And bring his bosom fraught with blessings, Flowers of never fading graces To make immortall dressings For worthy soules, whose wise embraces Store up themselves for Him, who is alone The Spouse of Virgins and the Virgin's son. But if the noble Bridegroom, when he come Shall find the loytering Heart from home ;

Leaving her chast aboad

To gadde abroad

Among the gay mates of the god of flyes ; To take her pleasure and to play And keep the devill's holyday ; To dance th'sunshine of some smiling

But beguiling Spheares of sweet and sugred Lyes,

Some slippery Pair Of false, perhaps as fair, Flattering but forswearing eyes ;

52 RICHARD CRASHAW

Doubtlesse some other heart

Will gett the start Mean while, and stepping in before Will take possession of that sacred store Of hidden sweets and holy ioyes. Words which are not heard with Eares (Those tumultuous shops of noise) Effectuall wispers, whose still voice The soul it selfe more feeles then heares ; Amorous languishments ; luminous trances ; Sights which are not seen with eyes ; Spirituall and soul-peircing glances Whose pure and subtil lightning flyes Home to the heart, and setts the house on fire And melts it down in sweet desire

Yet does not stay

To ask the windows leave to passe that way ; Delicious Deaths ; soft exalations Of soul ; dear and divine annihilations ;

A thousand unknown rites Of ioyes and rarefy'd delights ; A hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces,

And many a mystick thing

Which the divine embraces Of the deare spouse of spirits with them will bring

For which it is no shame That dull mortality must not know a name.

Of all this store Of blessings and ten thousand more

(If when he come

He find the Heart from home)

Doubtlesse he will unload

Himself some other where,

And poure abroad

RICHARD CRASHAW 53

His pretious sweets On the fair soul whom first he meets. O fair, 6 fortunate ! O riche, 6 dear ! O happy and thrice happy she

Selected dove

Who ere she be,

Whose early love

With winged vowes Makes hast to meet her morning spouse And close with his immortall kisses. Happy indeed, who never misses To improve that pretious hour,

And every day

Seize her sweet prey All fresh and fragrant as he rises Dropping with a baulmy Showr A delicious dew of spices ; O let the blissfull heart hold fast Her heavnly arm-full, she shall tast At once ten thousand paradises ;

She shall have power

To rifle and deflour

The rich and roseall spring of those rare sweets Which with a swelling bosome there she meets

Boundles and infinite

Bottomles treasures Of pure inebriating pleasures Happy proof ! she shal discover

What ioy, what blisse, How many Heav'ns at once it is To have her God become her Lover.

54 ANDREW MARVELL

On a Drop of Dew

SEE how the orient dew Shed from the bosom of the Morn Into the blowing roses, Yet careless of its mansion new, For the clear region where 'twas born,

Round in its self incloses : And in its little globe's extent Frames, as it can, its native element. How it the purple flow'r does slight,

Scarce touching where it lyes,

But gazing back upon the skies,

Shines with a mournful light,

Like its own tear,

Because so long divided from the sphear. Restless it roules, and unsecure,

Trembling, lest it grow impure ; Till the warm sun pitty its pain And to the skies exhale it back again. So the soul, that drop, that ray, Of the clear fountain of eternal day, (Could it within the humane flow'r be seen) Rememb'ring still its former height, Shuns the sweat leaves and blossoms green, And, recollecting its own light, Does in its pure and circling thoughts express The greater heaven in an heaven less. In how coy a figure wound, Every way it turns away ; (So the world-excluding round) Yet receiving in the day.

1621-1678

ANDREW MARVELL 55

Dark beneath, but bright above,

Here disdaining, there in love.

How loose and easie hence to go ;

How girt and ready to ascend ;

Moving but on a point below,

It all about does upwards bend. Such did the manna's sacred dew destil, White and intire, though congeal'd and chill ; Congeal'd on Earth ; but does, dissolving, run Into the glories of th' almighty sun.

The Coronet

WHEN for the thorns with which I long, too long, With many a piercing wound, My Saviour's head have crowned,

I seek with garlands to redress that wrong ;

Through every garden, every mead,

I gather flow'rs (my fruits are only flow'rs), Dismantling all the fragrant towers

That once adorn'd my shepherdesse's head :

And now, when I have summ'd up all my store, Thinking (so I my self deceive) So rich a chaplet thence to weave

As never yet the King of Glory wore, Alas ! I find the Serpent old, That, twining in his speckled breast About the flowers disguis'd, does fold, With wreaths of fame and interest.

Ah, foolish man, that would'st debase with them

And mortal glory, Heaven's diadem !

But Thou who only could'st the Serpent tame,

Either his slipp'ry knots at once untie,

56 ANDREW MARVELL

And disintangle all his winding snare ; Or shatter too with him my curious frame, And let these wither — so that he may die — Though set with skill, and chosen out with care ; That they, while Thou on both their spoils dost tread, May crown Thy feet, that could not crown Thy head.

HENRY VAUGHAN

1621-1695 The Search

EWE, leave, thy gadding thoughts ; Who Pores and spies Still out of Doores,

descries Within them nought.

The skinne, and shell of things

Though faire,

are not Thy wish, nor pray'r,

but got By meer Despair

of wings.

To rack old Elements, or Dust and say Sure here he must

needs stay, Is not the way,

nor just.

Search well another world ; who studies this, Travels in Clouds, seeks Manna, where none is.

HENRY VAUGHAN 57

The Retreat e

HAPPY those early dayes ! when I Shin'd in my Angell-infancy. Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy ought But a white, Celestiall thought ; When yet I had not walkt above A mile, or two, from my first love, And looking back (at that short space,) Could see a glimpse of his bright-face* When on some gilded Cloud, orjlowre My gazing soul would dwell an houre, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity ; Before I taught my tongue to wound My Conscience with a sinfull sound, Or had the black art to dispence A sev'rall sinne to ev'ry sence, But felt through all this fleshly dresse Bright shootes of everlastingnesse.

O how I long to travell back And tread again that ancient track ! That I might once more reach that plain e, Where first I left my glorious traine, From whence th' Inlightned spirit sees That shady City of Palme trees ; But (ah !) my soul with too much stay Is drunk, and staggers in the way. Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move, And when this dust falls to the urn In that state I came return.

58 HENRY VAUGHAN

The Morning Watch

OJOYES ! Infinite sweetnes ! with what flowres, And shoots of glory, my soul breakes, and buds !

All the long houres

Of night, and Rest,

Through the still shrouds

Of sleep, and Clouds, This Dew fell on my Breast ;

O how it Blonds,

And Spirits all my Earth ! heark ! In what Rings, And Hymning Circulations the quick world

Awakes, and sings ;

The rising winds,

And falling springs,

Birds, beasts, all things Adore him in their kinds.

Thus all is hurl'd

In sacred Hymnes, and Order, The great Chime And Symphony of nature. Prayer is

The world in tune,

A spirit-voyce,

And vocall joyes Whose Eccho is heav'ns blisse.

O let me climbe

When I lye down ! The Pious soul by night Is like a clouded starre, whose beames though sed

To shed their light

Under some Cloud

Yet are above,

And shine, and move Beyond that mistie shrowd.

So in my Bed

That Curtain'd grave, though sleep, like ashes, hide My lamp, and life, both shall in thee abide.

HENRY VAUGHAN 59

Rules and Lessons

WHEN first thy Eies unveil, give thy Soul leave To do the like ; our Bodies but forerun The spirits duty ; True hearts spread, and heave Unto their God, as flow'rs do to the Sun.

Give him thy first thoughts then ; so shalt thou keep Him company all day, and in him sleep. . . .

Walk with thy fellow-creatures : note the hush And whispers amongst them. There 's not a Spring, Or Leafe but hath his Morning-hymn ; Each Bush And Oak doth know / AM ; canst thou not sing ? O leave thy Cares, and follies ! go this way And thou art sure to prosper all the day. . . .

Spend not an hour so, as to weep another, For tears are not thine own ; If thou giv'st words Dash not thy friend, nor Heaven ; O smother A vip'rous thought ; some Syllables are Swords.

Unbitted tongues are in their penance double, They shame their owners, and the hearers trouble. . . .

When Seasons change, then lay before thine Eys His wondrous Method ; mark the various Scenes In heav'n ; Hail, Thunder, Rain-bows, Snow, and Ice, Calmes, Tempests, Light, and darknes by his means ;

Thou canst not misse his Praise ; Each tree, herb, jlowre

Are shadows of his wisedome, and his Pow'r.

The

SAW Eternity the other night

Like a great Ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright,

6o

HENRY VAUGHAN

And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years

Driv'n by the spheres Like a vast shadow mov'd, In which the world

And all her train were hurl'd ; The doting Lover in his queintest strain

Did their Complain, Neer him, his Lute, his fancy, and his flights,

Wits sour delights, With gloves, and knots the silly snares of pleasure

Yet his dear Treasure All scatter'd lay, while he his eys did pour

Upon a flowr.

The darksome States-man hung with weights and woe Like a thick midnight-fog mov'd there so slow

He did nor stay, nor go ; Condemning thoughts (like sad Ecclipses) scowl

Upon his soul, And Clouds of crying witnesses without

Pursued him with one shout. Yet dig'd the Mole, and lest his ways be found

Workt under ground, Where he did Clutch his prey, but one did see

That policie, Churches and altars fed him, Perjuries

Were gnats and flies, It rain'd about him bloud and tears, but he

Drank them as free.

The fearfull miser on a heap of rust

Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust

His own hands with the dust, Yet would not place one peece above, but lives In feare of theeves.

HENRY VAUGHAN 61

Thousands there were as frantick as himself

And hug'd each one his pelf, The down-right Epicure plac'd heav'n in sense

And scornd pretence While others slipt into a wide Excesse

Said little lesse ; The weaker sort sKght, triviall wares Inslave

Who think them brave, And poor, despised truth sate Counting by

Their victory.

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing, And sing, and weep, soar'd up into the Ring,

But most would use no wing. O fools (said I,) thus to prefer dark night

Before true light, To live in grots, and caves, and hate the day

Because it shews the way, The way which from this dead and dark abode

Leads up to God, A way where you might tread the Sun, and be

More bright than he. But as I did their madnes so discusse

One whisper'd thus, This Ring the Bride-groome did for none provide

But for his bride.

The Knot

BRIGHT Queen of Heaven ! Gods Virgin Spouse The glad worlds blessed maid ! Whose beauty tyed life to thy house, And brought us saving ayd.

62 HENRY VAUGHAN

Thou art the true Loves-knot ; by thee

God is made our Allie, And mans inferior Essence he

With his did dignifie.

For Coalescent by that Band

We are his body grown, Nourished with favors from his hand

Whom for our head we own.

And such a Knot, what arm dares loose, What life, what death can sever r

Which us in him, and him in us United keeps for ever.

The Dwelling-place

WHAT happy, secret fountain, Fair shade, or mountain, Whose undiscover'd virgin glory Boasts it this day, though not in story, Was then thy dwelling ? did some cloud Fix'd to a Tent, descend and shrowd My distrest Lord ? or did a star, Becken'd by thee, though high and far, In sparkling smiles haste gladly down To lodge light, and increase her own ? My dear, dear God ! I do not know What lodgd thee then, nor where, nor how ; But I am sure, thou dost now come Oft to a narrow, homely room, Where thou too hast but the least part, My God, I mean my sinful heart.

HENRY VAUGHAN 63

Quickness

FALSE life ! a foil and no more, when Wilt thou be gone ? Thou foul deception of all men That would not have the true come on.

Thou art a Moon-like toil ; a blinde

Self-posing state ;

A dark contest of waves and winde ; A meer tempestuous debate.

Life is a fix'd, discerning light,

A knowing -Joy ;

No .chance, or fit : but ever bright, And calm and full, yet doth not cloy.

'Tis such a blissful thing, that still

Doth vivifie,

And shine and smile, and hath the skill To please without Eternity.

Thou art a toylsom Mole, or less

A moving mist

But life is, what none can express, /

A quickness^ which my God hath kist.

THOMAS TRAHERNE

? 1636-1674

Wonder

HOW like an Angel came I down ! How bright are all things here ! When first among His works I did appear O how their glory me did crown !

64 THOMAS TRAHERNE

The world resembled His Eternity,

In which my soul did walk ; And every thing that I did see Did with me talk.

The skies in their magnificence,

The lively, lovely air, Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair !

The stars did entertain my sense, And all the works of God, so bright and pure,

So rich and great did seem, As if they ever must endure In my esteem.

A native health and innocence Within my bones did grow, And while my God did all his Glories show,

I felt a vigour in my sense That was all Spirit. I within did flow

With seas of life, like wine ; I nothing in the world did know But 'twas divine.

Harsh ragged objects were concealed, ^ Oppressions, tears and cries, Sins, griefs, complaints, dissensions, weeping eyes

Were hid, and only things revealed Which heavenly Spirits and the Angels prize.

The state of Innocence And bliss, not trades and poverties, Did fill my sense.

The streets were paved with golden stones,

The boys and girls were mine,

Oh how did all their lovely faces shine !

The sons of men were holy ones,

THOMAS TRAHERNE 65

In joy and beauty they appeared to me,

And every thing which here I found, While like an Angel I did see, Adorned the ground.

Rich diamond and pearl and gold

In every place was seen ; Rare splendours, yellow, blue, red, white and green,

Mine eyes did everywhere behold. Great wonders clothed with glory did appear,

Amazement was my bliss, That and my wealth was everywhere ; No joy to this !

Cursed and devised proprieties,

With envy, avarice And fraud, those fiends that spoil even Paradise,

Flew from the splendour of mine eyes, And so did hedges, ditches, limits, bounds,

I dreamed not aught of those, But wandered over all men's grounds, And found repose.

Proprieties themselves were mine,

And hedges ornaments ; Walls, boxes, coffers, and their rich contents Did not divide my joys, but all combine. Clothes, ribbons, jewels, laces, I esteemed

My joys by others worn : For me they all to wear them seemed When I was born.

66 THOMAS TRAHERNE

The Frisian

FLIGHT is but the preparative. The sight Is deep and infinite, Ah me ! 'tis all the glory, love, light, space,

Joy, beauty and variety That doth adorn the Godhead's dwelling-place ;

'Tis all that eye can see. Even trades themselves seen in celestial light, And cares and sins and woes are bright.

Order the beauty even of beauty is,

It is the rule of bliss, The very life and form and cause of pleasure ;

Which if we do not understand, Ten thousand heaps of vain confused treasure

Will but oppress the land. In blessedness itself we that shall miss, Being blind, which is the cause of bliss.

First then behold the world as thine, and well Note that where thou dost dwell.

See all the beauty of the spacious case, Lift up thy pleas'd and ravisht eyes,

Admire the glory of the Heavenly place And all its blessings prize.

That sight well seen thy spirit shall prepare, The first makes all the other rare.

Men's woes shall be but foils unto thy bliss,

Thou once enjoying this : Trades shall adorn and beautify the earth,

Their ignorance shall make thee bright ;

THOMAS TRAHERNE 67

Were not their griefs Democritus his mirth ?

Their faults shall keep thee right : All shall be thine, because they all conspire To feed and make thy glory higher.

To see a glorious fountain and an end,

To see all creatures tend To thy advancements, and so sweetly close

In thy repose : to see them shine In use, in worth, in service, and even foes

Among the rest made thine : To see all these unite at once in thee Is to behold felicity.

To see the fountain is a blessed thing,

It is to see the King Of Glory face to face : but yet the end,

The glorious, wondrous end is more ; And yet the fountain there we comprehend,

The spring we there adore : For in the end the fountain best is shown, As by effects the cause is known.

From one, to one, in one to see all things,

To see the King of Kings But once in two ; to see His endless treasures

Made all mine own, myself the end Of all his labours ! 'Tis the life of pleasures !

To see myself His friend ! Who all things finds conjoined in Him alone, Sees and enjoys the Holy One.

68 THOMAS TRAHERNE

The Rapture

SWEET Infancy ! O fire of heaven i O sacred Light How fair and bright, How great am I, Whom all the world doth magnify !

O Heavenly Joy ! O great and sacred blessedness

Which I possess !

So great a joy Who did into my arms convey ?

From God above Being sent, the Heavens me enflame :

To praise his Name

The stars do move ! The burning sun doth shew His love.

O how divine

Am I ! To all this sacred wealth, This life and health, Who raised ? Who mine

Did make the same ? What hand divine ?

Dumbness

SURE Man was born to meditate on things, And to contemplate the eternal springs Of God and Nature, glory, bliss, and pleasure ; That life and love might be his Heavenly treasure ; And therefore speechless made at first, that He Might in himself profoundly busied be :

THOMAS TRAHERNE 69

And not vent out, before he hath ta'en in Those antidotes that guard his soul from sin.

Wise Nature made him deaf, too, that He might Not be disturbed, while he doth take delight In inward things, nor be depraved with tongues, Nor injured by the errors and the wrongs That mortal words convey. For sin and death Are most infused by accursed breath, That flowing from corrupted entrails, bear Those hidden plagues which souls may justly fear.

This, my dear friends, this was my blessed case ; For nothing spoke to me but the fair face Of Heaven and Earth, before myself could speak, / then my Bliss did, when my silence, break. My non-intelligence of human words Ten thousand pleasures unto me affords ; For while I knew not what they to me said, Before their souls were into mine conveyed, Before that living vehicle of wind Could breathe into me their infected mind, Before my thoughts were leavened with theirs, before There any mixture was ; the Holy Door, Or gate of souls was close, and mine being one Within itself to me alone was known. Then did I dwell within a world of light, Distinct and separate from all men's sight, Where I did feel strange thoughts, and such things see That were, or seemed, only revealed to me, There I saw all the world enjoyed by one ; There I was in the world myself alone ; No business serious seemed but one ; no work But one was found ; and that did in me lurk.

D'ye ask me what ? It was with clearer eyes To see all creatures full of Deities ;

70 THOMAS TRAHERNE

Especially one's self : And to admire

The satisfaction of all true desire :

'Twas to be pleased with all that God hath done ;

'Twas to enjoy even all beneath the sun :

'Twas with a steady and immediate sense

To feel and measure all the excellence

Of things ; 'twas to inherit endless treasure,

And to be rilled with everlasting pleasure :

To reign in silence, and to sing alone,

To see, love, covet, have, enjoy and praise, in one ;

To prize and to be ravished ; to be true,

Sincere and single in a blessed view

Of all His gifts. Thus was I pent within

A fort, impregnable to any sin :

Until the avenues being open laid

Whole legions entered, and the forts betrayed :

Before which time a pulpit in my mind,

A temple and a teacher I did find,

With a large text to comment on. No ear

But eyes themselves were all the hearers there,

And every stone, and every star a tongue,

And every gale of wind a curious song.

The Heavens were an oracle, and spake

Divinity : the Earth did undertake

The office of a priest ; and I being dumb

(Nothing besides was dumb), all things did come

With voices and instructions ; but when I

Had gained a tongue, their power began to die.

Mine ears let other noises in, not theirs,

A noise disturbing all my songs and prayers.

My foes pulled down the temple to the ground ;

They my adoring soul did deeply wound

And casting that into a swoon, destroyed

The Oracle, and all I there enjoyed :

THOMAS TRAHERNE 71

And having once inspired me with a sense Of foreign vanities, they march out thence In troops that cover and despoil my coasts, Being the invisible, most hurtful hosts.

Yet the first words mine infancy did hear, The things which in my dumbness did appear, Preventing all the rest, got such a root Within my heart, and stick so close unto 't, It may be trampled on, but still will grow And nutriment to soil itself will owe. The first Impressions are Immortal all, And let mine enemies hoop, cry, roar, or call, Yet these will whisper if I will but hear, And penetrate the heart, if not the ear.

My Spirit

MY naked simple Life was I ; That Act so strongly shin'd Upon the earth, the sea, the sky, It was the substance of my mind ;

The sense itself was I. I felt no dross nor matter in my soul, No brims nor borders, such as in a bowl We see. My essence was capacity, That felt all things ; The thought that springs Therefrom 's itself. It hath no other wings To spread abroad, nor eyes to see, Nor hands distinct to feel,

Nor knees to kneel ; But being simple like the Deity In its own centre is a sphere Not shut up here, but everywhere.

72 THOMAS TRAHERNE

It acts not from a centre to

Its object as remote, But present is when it doth view, Being with the Being it doth note

Whatever it doth do. It doth not by another engine work, But by itself ; which in the act doth lurk. Its essence is transformed into a true And perfect act. And so exact

Hath God appeared in this mysterious fact, That 'tis all eye, all act, all sight, And what it please can be,

Not only see,

Or do ; for 'tis more voluble than light, Which can put on ten thousand forms, Being cloth'd with what itself adorns.

This made me present evermore

With whatsoe'er I saw. An object, if it were before My eye, was by Dame Nature's law,

Within my soul. Her store Was all at once within me ; all Her treasures Were my immediate and internal pleasures, Substantial joys, which did inform my mind. With all she wrought My soul was fraught, And every object in my heart a thought Begot, or was ; I could not tell, Whether the things did there

Themselves appear,

Which in my Spirit truly seem'd to dwell ; Or whether my conforming mind Were not even all that therein shin'd.

THOMAS TRAHERNE

But yet of this I was most sure,

That at the utmost length, (So worthy was it to endure) My soul could best express its strength.

It was so quick and pure, That all my mind was wholly everywhere, Whate'er it saw, 'twas ever wholly there ; The sun ten thousand legions off, was nigh : The utmost star, Though seen from far, Was present in the apple of my eye. There was my sight, my life, my sense, My substance, and my mind ;

My spirit shin'd

Even there, not by a transient influence : The act was immanent, yet there : The thing remote, yet felt even here.

O Joy ! O wonder and delight !

O sacred mystery ! My Soul a Spirit infinite ! An image of the Deity !

A pure substantial light !

That Being greatest which doth nothing seem ! Why, 'twas my all, I nothing did esteem But that alone. A strange mysterious sphere ! A deep abyss That sees and is

The only proper place of Heavenly Bliss. To its Creator 'tis so near In love and excellence,

In life and sense,

In greatness, worth, and nature ; and so dear, In it, without hyperbole, The Son and friend of God we see.

73

74

THOMAS TRAHERNE

A strange extended orb of Joy,

Proceeding from within, Which did on every side, convey Itself, and being nigh of kin

To God did every way Dilate itself even in an instant, and Like an indivisible centre stand, At once surrounding all eternity. 'Twas not a sphere, Yet did appear,

One infinite. 'Twas somewhat every where, And though it had a power to see Far more, yet still it shin'd

And was a mind Exerted, for it saw Infinity.

'Twas not a sphere, but 'twas a might

Invisible, and yet gave light.

O wondrous Self ! O sphere of light,

O sphere of joy most fair O act, O power infinite ; O subtile and unbounded air !

O living orb of sight !

Thou which within me art, yet me ! Thou eye, And temple of His whole infinity !

O what a world art Thou ! A world within ! All things appear, All objects are

Alive in Thee ! Supersubstantial, rare,

Above themselves, and nigh of kin

To those pure things we find

In His great mind

Who made the world ! Tho' now eclipsed by sin There they are useful and divine, Exalted there they ought to shine.

THOMAS TRAHERNE 75

Amendment

all things should be mine, This makes His bounty most divine. But that they all more rich should be, And far more brightly shine,

As used by me ;

It ravishes my soul to see the end, To which this work so wonderful doth tend.

That we should make the skies More glorious far before Thine eyes Than Thou didst make them, and even Thee Far more Thy works to prize,

As used they be

Than as they're made, is a stupendous work, Wherein Thy wisdom mightily doth lurk.

Thy greatness, and Thy love, Thy power, in this, my joy doth move ; Thy goodness, and felicity In this exprest above

.All praise I see :

While Thy great Godhead over all doth reign, And such an end in such a sort attain.

What bound may we assign, O God, to any work of Thine ! Their endlessness discovers Thee In all to be divine ;

A Deity,

That will for evermore exceed the end Of all that creature's wit can comprehend.

76 THOMAS TRAHERNE

Am I a glorious spring Of joys and riches to my King ? Are men made Gods ? And may they see So wonderful a thing

As God in me ?

And is my soul a mirror that must shine Even like the sun and be far more divine ?

Thy Soul, O God, doth prize The seas, the earth, our souls, the skies ; As we return the same to Thee

They more delight Thine eyes,

And sweeter be

As unto Thee we offer up the same, Than as to us from Thee at first they came.

O how doth Sacred Love His gifts refine, exalt, improve ! Our love to creatures makes them be In Thine esteem above Themselves to Thee ! O here His goodness evermore admire ! He made our souls to make His creatures higher.

The Anticipation

MY contemplation dazzles in the End Of all I comprehend, And soars above all heights, Diving into the depths of all delights. Can He become the End, To whom all creatures tend, Who is the Father of all Infinites ? Then may He benefit receive from things, And be not Parent only of all springs.

THOMAS TRAHERNE 77

The End doth want the means, and is the cause,

Whose sake, by Nature's laws,

Is that for which they are. Such sands, such dangerous rocks we must beware :

From all Eternity

A perfect Deity

Most great and blessed He doth still appear ; His essence perfect was in all its features, He ever blessed in His joys and creatures.

From everlasting He those joys did need,

And all those joys proceed

From Him eternally. From everlasting His felicity

Complete and perfect was,

Whose bosom is the glass, Wherein we all things everlasting see. His name is Now, His Nature is For-ever : None can His creatures from their Maker sever.

The End in Him from everlasting is

The fountain of all bliss :

From everlasting it Efficient was, and influence did emit,

That caused all. Before

The world, we do adore This glorious End. Because all benefit From it proceeds : both are the very same, The End and Fountain differ but in Name.

That so the End should be the very Spring

Of every glorious thing ;

And that which seemeth last, The fountain and the cause ; attained so fast

78 THOMAS TRAHERNE

That it was first ; and mov'd

The Efficient, who so lov'd All worlds and made them for the sake of this ; It shews the End complete before, and is A perfect token of His perfect bliss.

The End complete, the means must needs be so,

By which we plainly know,

From all Eternity The means whereby God is, must perfect be.

God is Himself the means

Whereby He doth exist :

And as the Sun by shining 's cloth'd with beams, So from Himself to all His glory streams, Who is a Sun, yet what Himself doth list.

His endless wants and His enjoyments be

From all Eternity

Immutable in Him : They are His joys before the Cherubim.

His wants appreciate all,

And being infinite, Permit no being to be mean or small That He enjoys, or is before His sight. His satisfactions do His wants delight.

Wants are the fountains of Felicity ;

No joy could ever be

Were there no want. No bliss, No sweetness perfect, were it not for this.

Want is the greatest pleasure

Because it makes all treasure. O what a wonderful profound abyss Is God ! In whom eternal wants and treasures Are more delightful since they both are pleasures.

THOMAS TRAHERNE 79

He infinitely wanteth all His joys ;

(No want the soul e'er cloys.)

And all thqse wanted pleasures He infinitely hath. What endless measures,

What heights and depths may we

In His felicity

Conceive ! Whose very wants are endless pleasures. His life in wants and joys is infinite, And both are felt as His Supreme Delight.

He 's not like us ; possession doth not cloy,

Nor sense of want destroy ;

Both always are together ; No force can either from the other sever.

Yet there 's a space between

That 's endless. Both are seen Distinctly still, and both are seen for ever. As soon as e'er He wanteth all His bliss, His bliss, tho' everlasting, in Him is.

His Essence is all Act : He did that He

All Act might always be.

His nature burns like fire ; His goodness infinitely does desire

To be by all possesst ;

His love makes others blest. It is the glory of His high estate, And that which I for evermore admire, He is an Act that doth communicate.

From all to all Eternity He is

That Act : an Act of bliss :

Wherein all bliss to all That will receive the same, or on Him call,

8o THOMAS TRAHERNE

Is freely given : from whence

'Tis easy even to sense To apprehend that all receivers are In Him, all gifts, all joys, all eyes, even all At once, that ever will or shall appear.

He is the means of them, they not of Him.

The Holy Cherubim,

Souls, Angels from Him came Who is a glorious bright and living Flame,

That on all things doth shine,

And makes their face divine. And Holy, Holy, Holy is His Name : He is the means both of Himself and all, Whom we the Fountain, Means, and End do call

Love

O NECTAR ! O delicious stream ! O ravishing and only pleasure ! Where Shall such another theme Inspire my tongue with joys or please mine ear ! Abridgement of delights !

And Queen of sights ! O mine of rarities ! O Kingdom wide ! O more ! O cause of all ! O glorious Bride ! OGod! O Bride of God! O King ! O soul and crown of everything !

Did not I covet to behold Some endless monarch, that did always live

In palaces of gold,

Willing all kingdoms, realms, and crowns to give Unto my soul ! Whose love A spring might prove

THOMAS TRAHERNE 81

Of endless glories, honours, friendships, pleasures, Joys, praises, beauties and celestial treasures !

Lo, now I see there 's such a King,

The fountain-head of everything !

Did my ambition ever dream Of such a Lord, of such a love ! Did I

Expect so sweet a stream As this at any time ! Could any eye Believe it ? Why all power

Is used here ;

Joys down from Heaven on my head do shower, And Jove beyond the fiction doth appear Once more in golden rain to come To Danae's pleasing fruitful womb.

His Ganymede ! His life ! His joy ! Or He comes down to me, or takes me up

That I might be His boy,

And fill, and taste, and give, and drink the cup. But those (tho' great) are all

Too short and small, Too weak and feeble pictures to express The true mysterious depths of Blessedness. I am His image, and His friend, His son, bride, glory, temple, end.

An Hymn upon St. Bartholomew s Day

WHAT powerful Spirit lives within ! What active Angel doth inhabit here ! What heavenly light inspires my skin, Which doth so like a Deity appear !

82 THOMAS TRAHERNE

A living Temple of all ages, I

Within me see A Temple of Eternity ! All Kingdoms I descry In me.

An inward Omnipresence here Mysteriously like His within me stands, Whose knowledge is a Sacred Sphere That in itself at once includes all lands. There is some Angel that within me can

Both talk and move, And walk and fly and see and love, A man on earth, a man Above.

Dull walls of clay my Spirit leaves, And in a foreign Kingdom doth appear,

This great Apostle it receives, Admires His works and sees them, standing here. Within myself from East to West I move

As if I were

At once a Cherubim and Sphere, Or was at once above And here.

The Soul 's a messenger whereby Within our inward Temple we may be

Even like the very Deity In all the parts of His Eternity. O live within and leave unwieldy dross !

Flesh is but clay ! O fly my Soul and haste away To Jesus' Throne or Cross! Obey!

ISAAC WATTS

1674-1748

The Incomprehensible

FAR in the Heavens my God retires : My God, the mark of my desires, And hides his lovely face ; When he descends within my view, He charms my reason to pursue, But leaves it tir'd and fainting in thj unequal chase.

Or if I reach unusual height

Till near his presence brought, There floods of glory check my flight, Cramp the bold pinions of my wit,

And all untune my thought ; Plunged in a sea of light I roll, Where wisdom, justice, mercy, shines ; Infinite rays in crossing lines Beat thick confusion oil my sight, and overwhelm my

soul. . . .

Great God ! behold my reason lies Adoring : yet my love would rise

On pinions not her own : Faith shall direct her humble flight, Through all the trackless seas of light, To Thee, th' Eternal Fair, the infinite Unknown.

84

ALEXANDER POPE

1688-1744

From ' An Essay on Man '

A^L are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul ; That, changed through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame, Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent : , Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part ; As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns As the rapt Seraphim, that sings and burns : To him no high, no low, no great, no small — He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. . . . All nature is but art, unknown to thee : All chance, direction, which thou canst not see : All discord, harmony not understood ; All partial evil, universal good.

JOHN BYROM

1691-1763

A Poetical Version of a Letter from Jacob Behmen

TIS Man's own Nature, which in its own Life, Or Centre, stands in Enmity and Strife, And anxious, selfish, doing what it lists, (Without God's Love) that tempts him, and resists ; The Devil also shoots his fiery Dart, From Grace and Love to turn away the Heart.

JOHN BYROM 85

This is the greatest Trial ; 'tis the Fight Which Christ, with His internal Love and Light, Maintains within Man's Nature, to dispel God's Anger, Satan, Sin, and Death, and Hell ; The human Self, or Serpent, to devour, And raise an Angel from it by His Pow'r.

Now if God's Love in Christ did not subdue In some Degree this Selfishness in you, You would have no such Combat to endure ; The Serpent, then, triumphantly secure, Would unoppos'd exert its native Right, And no such Conflict in your Soul excite.

For all the huge Temptation and Distress Rises in Nature, tho' God seeks to bless ; The Serpent feeling its tormenting State, (Which of itself is a mere anxious Hate,) When God's amazing Love comes in, to fill And change the selfish to a God-like Will.

Here Christ, the Serpent-bruiser, stands in Man, Storming the Devil's hellish, self-built Plan ; And hence the Strife within the human Soul, — Satan's to kill, and Christ's to make it whole ; As by Experience, in so great Degree, God in His Goodness causes you to see. . . .

The next Temptation, which befalls of Course From Satan and from Nature's selfish Force, Is, when the Soul has tasted of the Love And been illuminated from above ; Still in its Self -hood it would seek to shine, And as its own possess the Light Divine.

86 JOHN BYROM

That is, the soulish Nature, — take it right, As much a Serpent, if without God's Light, As Lucifer, — this Nature still would claim For own Propriety the Heav'nly Flame, And elevate its Fire to a Degree Above the Light's Good Pow'r, which cannot be.

This domineering Self, this Nature- Fire, Must be transmuted to a Love-Desire. Now, when this Change is to be undergone, It looks for some own Pow'r, and, finding none, Begins to doubt of Grace, unwilling quite To yield up its self-willing Nature's Right.

It never quakes for Fear, and will not die In Light Divine, tho' to be blest thereby : The Light of -Grace it thinks to be Deceit, Because it worketh gently without Heat ; Mov'd too by outward Reason, which is blind, And of itself sees nothing of this Kind.

Who knows, it thinketh, whether it be true That God is in thee, and enlightens too ? Is it not Fancy ? For thou dost not see Like other People, who as well as thee Hope for Salvation by the Grace of God, Without such Fear and Trembling at his Rod. . .

The own Self-will must die away, and shine, Rising thro' Death, in Saving Will Divine ; And from the Opposition which it tries Against God's Will such great Temptations rise ; The Devil too is loth to lose his Prey, And see his Fort cast down, if it obey.

JOHN BYROM 87

For, if the Life of Christ within arise, Self-Lust and false Imagination dies,— Wholly, it cannot in this present Life, But by the Flesh maintains the daily Strife, — Dies, and yet lives ; as they alone can tell In whom Christ fights against the Pow'rs of Hell.

The third Temptation is in Mind and Will, And Flesh and Blood, if Satan enter still ; Where the false Centres lie in Man, the Springs Of Pride and Lust, and Love of earthly Things, And all the Curses wish'd by other Men, Which are occasion'd by this Devil's Den.

These in the Astral Spirit make a Fort, Which all the Sins concentre to support ; And human Will, esteeming for its Joy What Christ, to save it, combats to destroy, WTill not resign the Pride-erected Tow'r, Nor live obedient to the Saviour's Pow'r. . . .

Let go all earthly Will, and be resign'd Wholly to Him with all your Heart and Mind ! Be Joy or Sorrow, Comfort or Distress, Receiv'd alike, for He alike can bless, To gain the Victory of Christian Faith Over the World and all Satanic Wrath !

WILLIAM COWPER

1731-1800

From ' The Task '

THE Lord of all, himself through all diffus'd, Sustains, and is the life of all that lives. Nature is but a name for an effect, Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire

88 WILLIAM COWPER

By which the mighty process is maintain'd,

Who sleeps not, is not weary ; in whose sight

Slow circling ages are as transient days ;

Whose work is without labour ; whose designs

No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts ;

And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.

Him blind antiquity profan'd, not serv'd,

With self-taught rites, and under various names,

Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan,

And Flora, and Vertumnus ; peopling earth

With tutelary goddesses and gods

That were not ; and commending, as they would,

To each some province, garden, field, or grove.

But all are under one. One spirit — His

Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows —

Rules universal nature. Not a flow'r

But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain,

Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires

Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,

And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,

In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,

The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.

Happy who walks with him ! whom what he finds

Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flow'r,

Or what he views of beautiful or grand

In nature, from the broad majestic oak

To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,

Prompts with remembrance of a present God !

89

WILLIAM BLAKE

1757-1827

The Divine Image

HPO Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

JL All pray in their distress ; And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is God, our Father dear, And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is man, His child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime, That prays in his distress, Prays to the human form divine, Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form, In heathen, Turk, or Jew ; Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too.

9o

WILLIAM BLAKE

Ntght

' I 'HE sun descending in the west,

1 The evening star does shine ; The birds are silent in their nest, And I must seek for mine. The moon, like a flower, In heaven's high bower, With silent delight Sits and smiles on the night.

Farewell, green fields and happy groves, Where flocks have took delight. Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves The feet of angels bright ; Unseen they pour blessing, And joy without ceasing, On each bud and blossom, And each sleeping bosom.

They look in every thoughtless nest, Where birds are cover'd warm ; They visit caves of every beast, To keep them all from harm. If they see any weeping * That should have been sleeping, They pour sleep on their head, And sit down by their bed.

When wolves and tigers howl for prey, They pitying stand and weep ; Seeking to drive their thirst away, And keep them from the sheep.

WILLIAM BLAKE 91

But if they rush dreadful, The angels, most heedful, Receive each mild spirit, New worlds to inherit.

And there the lion's ruddy eyes Shall flow with tears of gold, And pitying the tender cries, And walking round the fold, Saying : ' Wrath, by His meekness. And, by His health, sickness Is driven away From our immortal day.

' And now beside thee, bleating lamb,

I can lie down and sleep ;

Or think on Him who bore thy name,

Graze after thee and weep.

For, wash'd in life's river,

My bright mane for ever

Shall shine like the gold

As I guard o'er the fold.'

Broken Love

MY Spectre around me night and day Like a wild beast guards my way ; My Emanation far within Weeps incessantly for my sin.

1 A fathomless and boundless deep, There we wander, there we weep ; On the hungry craving wind My Spectre follows thee behind.

92 WILLIAM BLAKE

' He scents thy footsteps in the snow Wheresoever thou dost go, Thro' the wintry hail and rain. When wilt thou return again ?

' Dost thou not in pride and scorn Fill with tempests all my morn, And with jealousies and fears Fill my pleasant nights with tears ?

' Seven of my sweet loves thy knife Has bereaved of their life. Their marble tombs I built with tears; And with cold and shuddering fears.

1 Seven more loves weep night and day Round the tombs where my loves lay, And seven more loves attend each night Around my couch with torches bright.

' And seven more loves in my bed Crown with wine my mournful head, Pitying and forgiving all Thy transgressions great and small.

* When wilt thou return and view My loves, and them to life renew ? When wilt thou return and live ? When wilt thou pity as I forgive ? '

( O'er my sins thou sit and moan : Hast thou no sins of thy own ? O'er my sins thou sit and weep, And lull thy own sins fast asleep.

WILLIAM BLAKE 93

' What transgressions I commit Are for thy transgressions fit. They thy harlots, thou their slave ; And my bed becomes their grave.

' Never, never, I return : Still for victory I burn. Living, thee alone I'll have ; And when dead I'll be thy grave.

' Thro' the Heaven and Earth and Hell Thou shalt never, never quell : I will fly and thou pursue : Night and morn the flight renew.'

4 Poor, pale, pitiable form That I follow in a storm ; Iron tears and gr6ans of lead Bind around my aching head.

' Till I turn from Female love And root up the Infernal Grove, I shall never worthy be To step into Eternity.

* And, to end thy cruel mocks, Annihilate thee on the rocks, And another form create To be subservient to my fate.

' Let us agree to give up love, And root up the Infernal Grove ; Then shall we return and see The worlds of happy Eternity.

94 WILLIAM BLAKE

4 And throughout all Eternity

I forgive you, you forgive me.

As our dear Redeemer said :

" This the Wine, and this the Bread." '

The Everlasting Gospel

'T'HE Vision of Christ that thou dost see

JL Is my vision's greatest enemy. Thine has a great hook nose like thine ; Mine has a snub nose like to mine. Thine is the Friend of all Mankind ; Mine speaks in parables to the blind. Thine loves the same world that mine hates ; Thy heaven doors are my hell gates. Socrates taught what Meletus Loath'd as a nation's bitterest curse, And Caiaphas was in his own mind A benefactor to mankind. Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read'st black where I read white.

Was Jesus gentle, or did He Give any marks of gentility ? When twelve years old He ran away, And left His parents in dismay. When after three days' sorrow found, Loud as Sinai's trumpet-sound : ' No earthly parents I confess — My Heavenly Father's business ! Ye understand not what I say, And, angry, force Me to obey. Obedience is a duty then, And favour gains with God and men.'

WILLIAM BLAKE 95

John from the wilderness loud cried ;

Satan gloried in his pride.

' Come,' said Satan, ' come away,

I'll soon see if you'll obey !

John for disobedience bled,

But you can turn the stones to bread.

God's high king and God's high priest

Shall plant their glories in your breast,

If Caiaphas you will obey,

If Herod you with bloody prey

Feed with the sacrifice, and be

Obedient, fall down, worship me.'

Thunders and lightnings broke around,

And Jesus' voice in thunders' sound :

4 Thus I seize the spiritual prey.

Ye smiters with disease, make way.

I come your King and God to seize,

Is God a smiter with disease ? '

The God of this world rag'd in vain :

He bound old Satan in His chain,

And, bursting forth, His furious ire

Became a chariot of fire.

Throughout the land He took His course,

And trac'd diseases to their source.

He curs'd the Scribe and Pharisee,

Trampling down hypocrisy.

Where'er His chariot took its way,

There Gates of Death let in the Day,

Broke down from every chain and bar ;

And Satan in His spiritual war

Dragg'd at His chariot-wheels : loud howl'd

The God of this world : louder roll'd

The chariot-wheels, and louder still

His voice was heard from Zion's Hill,

96 WILLIAM BLAKE

And in His hand the scourge shone bright ;

He scourg'd the merchant Canaanite

From out the Temple of His Mind,

And in his body tight does bind

Satan and all his hellish crew ;

And thus with wrath He did subdue

The serpent bulk of Nature's dross,

Till He had nail'd it to the Cross.

He took on sin in the Virgin's womb

And put it off on the Cross and tomb

To be worshipp'd by the Church of Rome.

Was Jesus humble ? or did He

Give any proofs of humility ?

Boast of high things with humble tone,

And give with charity a stone ?

When but a child He ran away,

And left His parents in dismay.

When they had wander'd three days long

These were the words upon His tongue :

' No earthly parents I confess :

I am doing My Father's business.'

When the rich learned Pharisee

Came to consult Him secretly,

Upon his heart with iron pen

He wrote ' Ye must be born again.'

He was too proud to take a bribe ;

He spoke with authority, not like a Scribe.

He says with most consummate art

' Follow Me, I am meek and lowly of heart,

As that is the only way to escape

The miser's net and the glutton's trap.'

What can be done with such desperate fools

Who follow after the heathen schools ?

WILLIAM BLAKE 97

I was standing by when Jesus died ; What I call'd humility, they call'd pride. He who loves his enemies betrays his friends. This surely is not what Jesus intends ; But the sneaking pride of heroic schools, And the Scribes' and Pharisees' virtuous rules ; For He acts with honest, triumphant pride, And this is the cause that Jesus died. He did not die with Christian ease, Asking pardon of His enemies : If He had, Caiaphas would forgive ; Sneaking submission can always live. He had only to say that God was the Devil, And the Devil was God, like a Christian civil ; Mild Christian regrets to the Devil confess For affronting him thrice in the wilderness ; He had soon been bloody Caesar's elf, And at last he would have been Caesar himself, Like Dr. Priestly and Bacon and Newton — Poor spiritual knowledge is not worth a button ! For thus the Gospel Sir Isaac confutes : ' God can only be known by His attributes ; And as for the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, Or of Christ and His Father, it's all a boast And pride, and vanity of the imagination, That disdains to follow this world's fashion.' To teach doubt and experiment Certainly was not what Christ meant. What was He doing all that time, From twelve years old to manly prime ? Was He then, idle, or the less About His Father's business ? Or was His wisdom held in scorn Before His wrath began to burn MYST. E

WILLIAM BLAKE

In miracles throughout the land,

That quite unnerv'd the Seraph band ?

If He had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus,

He'd have done anything to please us ;

Gone sneaking into synagogues,

And not us'd the Elders and Priests like dogs ;

But humble as a lamb or ass

Obey'd Himself to Caiaphas.

God wants not man to humble himself :

That is the trick of the Ancient Elf.

This is the race that Jesus ran :

Humble to God, haughty to man,

Cursing the Rulers before the people

Even to the Temple's highest steeple,

And when He humbled Himself to God

Then descended the cruel rod.

' If Thou Humblest Thyself, Thou humblest Me.

Thou also dwell'st in Eternity.

Thou art a Man : God is no more :

Thy own Humanity learn to adore,

For that is My spirit of life.

Awake, arise to spiritual strife,

And Thy revenge abroad display

In terrors at the last Judgement Day.

God's mercy and long suffering

Is but the sinner to judgement to bring.

Thou on the Cross for them shalt pray —

And take revenge at the Last Day.'

Jesus replied, and thunders hurl'd :

' I never will pray for the world.

Once I did so when I pray'd in the Garden ;

I wish'd to take with Me a bodily pardon.'

Can that which was of woman born,

In the absence of the morn,

WILLIAM BLAKE

When the Soul fell into sleep,

And Archangels round it weep,

Shooting out against the light

Fibres of a deadly night,

Reasoning upon its own dark fiction,

In doubt which is self-contradiction ?

Humility is only doubt,

And does the sun and moon blot out,

Rooting over with thorns and stems

The buried soul and all its gems.

This life's five windows of the soul

Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole,

And leads you to believe a lie

When you see with, not thro', the eye

That was born in a night, to perish in a night,

When the soul slept in the beams of light.

Did Jesus teach doubt ? or did He Give any lessons of philosophy, Charge Visionaries with deceiving, Or call men wise for not believing ? . . .

Was Jesus born of a Virgin pure With narrow soul and looks demure ? If He intended to take on sin The Mother should an harlot been, Just such a one as Magdalen, With seven devils in her pen. Or were Jew virgins still more curs'd, And more sucking devils nurs'd ? Or what was it which He took on That He might bring salvation ? A body subject to be tempted, From neither pain nor grief exempted ; Or such a body as might not feel The passions that with sinners deal ?

99

ioo WILLIAM BLAKE

Yes, but they say He never fell.

Ask Caiaphas ; for he can tell. —

' He mock'd the Sabbath, and He mock'd

The Sabbath's God, and He unlock'd

The evil spirits from their shrines,

And turn'd fishermen to divines ;

O'erturn'd the tent of secret sins,

And its golden cords and pins,

In the bloody shrine of war

Pour'd around from star to star, —

Halls of justice, hating vice,

Where the Devil combs his lice.

He turn'd the devils into swine

That He might tempt the Jews to dine ;

Since which, a pig has got a look

That for a Jew may be mistook.

" Obey your parents." — What says He ?

" Woman, what have I to do with thee ?

No earthly parents I confess :

I am doing my Father's business."

He scorn'd Earth's parents, scorn'd Earth's God,

And mock'd the one and the other's rod ;

His seventy Disciples sent

Against Religion and Government —

They by the sword of Justice fell,

And Him their cruel murderer tell.

He left His father's trade to roam,

A wand'ring vagrant without home ;

And thus He others' labour stole,

That He might live above control.

The publicans and harlots He

Selected for His company,

And from the adulteress turn'd away

God's righteous law, that lost its prey.'

WILLIAM BLAKE 101

Was Jesus chaste ? or did He

Give any lessons of chastity ?

The Morning blushed fiery red :

Mary was found in adulterous bed ;

Earth groan'd beneath, and Heaven above

Trembled at discovery of Love.

Jesus was sitting in Moses' chair.

They brought the trembling woman there.

Moses commands she be ston'd to death.

What was the sound of Jesus' breath ?

He laid His hand on Moses' law ;

The ancient Heavens, in silent awe,

Writ with curses from pole to pole,

All away began to roll.

The Earth trembling and naked lay

In secret bed of mortal clay ;

On Sinai felt the Hand Divine

Pulling back the bloody shrine ;

And she heard the breath of God,

As she heard by Eden's flood :

' Good and Evil are no more !

Sinai's trumpets cease to roar !

Cease, finger of God, to write-!

The Heavens are not clean in Thy sight.

Thou art good, and Thou alone ;

Nor may the sinner cast one stone.

To be good only, is to be

A God or else a Pharisee.

Thou Angel of the Presence Divine,

That didst create this Body of Mine,

Wherefore hast thou writ these laws

And created Hell's dark jaws ?

My Presence I will take from thee :

A cold leper thou shalt be.

102 WILLIAM BLAKE

Tho' thou wast so pure and bright That Heaven was impure in thy sight, Tho' thy oath turn'd Heaven pale, Tho' thy covenant built Hell's jail, Tho' thou didst all to chaos roll With the Serpent for its soul, Still the breath Divine does move, And the breath Divine is Love. Mary, fear not ! Let me see The seven devils that torment thee. Hide not from My sight thy sin, That forgiveness thou may'st win. Has no man condemned thee ? ' ' No man, Lord.' ' Then what is he Who shall accuse thee ? Come ye forth, Fallen fiends of heavenly birth, That have forgot your ancient love, And driven away my trembling Dove. You shall bow before her feet ; You shall lick the dust for meat ; And tho' you cannot love, but hate, Shall be beggars at Love's gate. What was thy love ? Let Me see it ; Was it love or dark deceit ? ' * Love too long from me has fled ; 'Twas dark deceit, to earn my bread ; 'Twas covet, or 'twas custom, or Some trifle not worth caring for ; That they may call a shame and sin Love's temple that God dwelleth in, And hide in secret hidden shrine The naked Human Form Divine, And render that a lawless thing On which the Soul expands its wing.

WILLIAM BLAKE 103

But this, O Lord, this was my sin,

When first I let these devils in,

In dark pretence to chastity

Blaspheming Love, blaspheming Thee,

Thence rose secret adulteries,

And thence did covet also rise.

My sin Thou hast forgiven me ;

Canst Thou forgive my blasphemy ?

Canst Thou return to this dark hell,

And in my burning bosom dwell ?

And canst Thou die that I may live ?

And canst Thou pity and forgive ? '

Then roll'd the shadowy Man away

From the limbs of Jesus, to make them His prey,

An ever devouring appetite,

Glittering with festering venoms bright ;

Crying ' Crucify this cause of distress,

Who don't keep the secrets of holiness !

The mental powers by diseases we bind ;

But He heals the deaf, the dumb, and the blind.

Whom God has afflicted for secret ends,

He comforts and heals and calls them friends.'

But, when Jesus was crucified,

Then was perfected His galling pride.

In three nights He devour'd His prey,

And still He devours the body of clay ;

For dust and clay is the Serpent's meat,

Which never was made for Man to eat.

Seeing this False Christ, in fury and passion I made my voice heard all over the nation. What are those. . .

I am sure this Jesus will not do, Either for Englishman or Jew.

104 WILLIAM BLAKE

The Crystal Cabinet

THE Maiden caught me in the wild, Where I was dancing merrily ; She put me into her Cabinet, And lock'd me up with a golden key.

This Cabinet is form'd of gold And pearl and crystal shining bright, And within it opens into a world And a little lovely moony night.

Another England there I saw, Another London with its Tower, Another Thames and other hills, And another pleasant Surrey bower,

Another Maiden like herself, Translucent, lovely, shining clear, Threefold each in the other clos'd — O, what a pleasant trembling fear !

O, what a smile ! a threefold smile Fill'd me, that like a flame I burn'd ; I bent to kiss the lovely Maid, And found a threefold kiss return'd.

I strove to seize the inmost form With ardour fierce and hands of flame, But burst the Crystal Cabinet, And like a weeping Babe became —

A weeping Babe upon the wild, And weeping Woman pale reclin'd, And in the outward air again I filPd with woes the passing wind.

WILLIAM BLAKE 105

Auguries of Innocence

TO see a World in a grain of sand, And a Heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour. . . .

The bat that flits at close of eve Has left the brain that won't believe. The owl that calls upon the night Speaks the unbeliever's fright. . . .

Joy and woe are woven fine, A clothing for the soul divine ; Under every grief and pine Runs a joy with silken twine. . . .

Every tear from every eye Becomes a babe in Eternity. . . .

The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar

Are waves that beat on Heaven's shore. . . .

He who doubts from what he sees Will ne'er believe, do what you please. If the Sun and Moon should doubt, They'd immediately go out. . . .

God appears, and God is Light,

To those poor souls who dwell in Night ;

But does a Human Form display

To those who dwell in realms of Day.

io6 WILLIAM BLAKE

To Thomas Butts

TO my friend Butts I write My first vision of light, On the yellow sands sitting. The sun was emitting His glorious beams From Heaven's high streams. Over sea, over land, My eyes did expand Into regions of air, Away from all care ; Into regions of fire, • Remote from desire ; The light of the morning Heaven's mountains adorning : In particles bright, The jewels of light Distinct shone and clear. Amaz'd and in fear I each particle gazed, Astonish'd, amazed ; For each was a Man Human-form'd. Swift I ran, For they beckon'd to me, Remote by the sea, Saying : * Each grain of sand, Every stone on the land, Each rock and each hill, Each fountain and rill, Each herb and each tree, Mountain, hill, earth, and sea, Cloud, meteor, and star, Are men seen afar.'

WILLIAM BLAKE 107

I stood in the streams Of Heaven's bright beams, And saw Felpham sweet Beneath my bright feet, In soft Female charms ; And in her fair arms My Shadow I knew, And my wife's Shadow too, And my sister, and friend. We like infants descend In our Shadows on earth, Like a weak mortal birth. My eyes, more and more, Like a sea without shore, Continue expanding, The Heavens commanding ; Till the jewels of light, Heavenly men beaming bright, Appear'd as One Man, Who complacent began My limbs to enfold In His beams of bright gold ; Like dross purg'd away All my mire and my clay. Soft consum'd in delight, In His bosom sun-bright I remain'd. Soft He smil'd, And I heard His voice mild, Saying : ' This is My fold, O thou ram horn'd with gold, Who awakest from sleep On the sides of the deep. On the mountains around The roarings resound

io8 WILLIAM BLAKE

Of the lion and wolf,

The loud sea, and deep gulf.

These are guards of My fold,

0 thou ram horn'd with gold ! And the voice faded mild ;

1 remain'd as a child ; All I ever had known Before me bright shone : I saw you and your wife By the fountains of life. Such the vision to me Appear'd on the sea.

From ''Milton '

A~WD did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green ? And was the holy Lamb of God

On England's pleasant pastures seen ?

And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills ?

And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic Mills ?

Bring me my bow of burning gold !

Bring me my arrows of desire ! Bring me my spear ! O clouds, unfold !

Bring me my chariot of fire !

I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

WILLIAM BLAKE 109

From ''Jerusalem '

To the Christians

I GIVE you the end of a golden string ; Only wind it into a ball, It will lead you in at Heaven's gate, Built in Jerusalem's wall. . . .

England ! awake ! awake ! awake !

Jerusalem thy sister calls ! Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death,

And close her from thy ancient walls ?

Thy hills and valleys felt her feet

Gently upon their bosoms move : Thy gates beheld sweet Zion's ways ;

Then was a time of joy and love.

And now the time returns again :

Our souls exult, and London's towers

Receive the Lamb of God to dwell

In England's green and pleasant bowers.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

1770-1850 From ' The Excursion '

SUCH was the Boy — but for the growing Youth What soul was his, when, from the naked top Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun Rise up, and bathe the world in light 1 He looked — Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay

i io WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Beneath him : — Far and wide the clouds were touched,

And in their silent faces could he read

Unutterable love. Sound needed none,

Nor any voice of joy ; his spirit drank

The spectacle : sensation, soul, and form,

All melted into him ; they swallowed up

His animal being ; in them did he live,

And by them did he live ; they were his life.

In such access of mind, in such high hour

Of visitation from the living God,

Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired.

No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ;

Rapt into still communion that transcends

The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,

His mind was a thanksgiving to the power

That made him ; it was blessedness and love !

Thou, who didst wrap the cloud Of infancy around us, that thyself, Therein, with our simplicity awhile Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed ; Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep, Or from its death-like void, with punctual care, And touch as gentle as the morning light, Restor'st us, daily, to the powers of sense And reason's steadfast rule — thou, thou alone Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits, Which thou includest, as the sea her waves : For adoration thou endur'st ; endure For consciousness the motions of thy will ; For apprehension those transcendent truths Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws (Submission constituting strength and power)

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH in

Even to thy Being's infinite majesty !

This universe shall pass away — a work

Glorious ! because the shadow of thy might,

A step, or link, for intercourse with thee.

Ah ! if the time must come, in which my feet

No more shall stray where meditation leads,

By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild,

Loved haunts like these ; the unimprisoned Mind

May yet have scope to range among her own,

Her thoughts, her images, her high desires.

If the dear faculty of sight should fail,

Still, it may be allowed me to remember

What visionary powers of eye and soul

In youth were mine ; when, stationed on the top

Of some huge hill, expectant, I beheld

The sun rise up, from distant climes returned

Darkness to chase, and sleep ; and bring the day

His bounteous gift ! or saw him toward the deep

Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds

Attended ; then, my spirit was entranced

With joy exalted to beatitude ;

The measure of my soul was filled with bliss,

And holiest love ; as earth, sea, air, with light,

With pomp, with glory, with magnificence !

in

I have seen

A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell ; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely ; and his countenance soon Brightened with joy ; for from within were heard Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed

112

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Mysterious union with its native sea. Even such a shell the universe itself Is to the ear of Faith ; and there are times, I doubt not, when to you it doth impart Authentic tidings of invisible things ; Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power ; And central peace, subsisting at the heart Of endless agitation.

IV

To every Form of being is assigned

An active Principle : — howe'er removed

From sense and observation, it subsists

In all things, in all natures ; in the stars

Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds,

In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone

That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,

The moving waters, and the invisible air.

Whate'er exists hath properties that spread »

Beyond itself, communicating good,

A simple blessing, or with evil mixed ;

Spirit that knows no insulated spot,

No chasm, no solitude ; from link to link

It circulates, the Soul of all the worlds.

This is the freedom of the universe ;

Unfolded still the more, more visible,

The more we know ; and yet is reverenced least,

And least respected in the human Mind,

Its most apparent home.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 113

From 'On the Power of Sound'

BY one pervading spirit Of tones and numbers all things are controlled, As sages taught, where faith was found to merit Initiation in that mystery old. The heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still As they themselves appear to be, Innumerable voices fill With everlasting harmony ; The towering headlands, crowned with mist, Their feet among the billows, know That Ocean is a mighty harmonist ; Thy pinions, universal Air, Ever waving to and fro, Are delegates of harmony, and bear Strains that support the Seasons in their round ; Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.

Break forth into thanksgiving,

Ye banded instruments of wind and chords ;

Unite, to magnify the Ever-living,

Your inarticulate notes with the voice of words !

Nor hushed be service from the lowing mead,

Nor mute the forest hum of noon ;

Thou too be heard, lone eagle ! freed

From snowy peak and cloud, attune

Thy hungry barkings to the hymn

Of joy, that from her utmost walls

The six-days' Work by naming Seraphim

Transmits to Heaven ! As Deep to Deep

Shouting through one valley calls,

All worlds, all natures, mood and measure keep

For praise and ceaseless gratulation, poured

ii4 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Into the ear of God, their Lord !

A Voice to Light gave Being ;

To Time, and Man his earth-born chronicler ;

A Voice shall finish doubt and dim foreseeing,

And sweep away life's visionary stir ;

The trumpet (we, intoxicate with pride,

Arm at its blast for deadly wars)

To archangelic lips applied,

The grave shall open, quench the stars.

O Silence ! are Man's noisy years

No more than moments of thy life ?

Is Harmony, blest. queen of smiles and tears,

With her smooth tones and discords just,

Tempered into rapturous strife,

Thy destined bond-slave ? No ! though earth be dust

And vanish, though the heavens dissolve, her stay

Is in the WORD, that shall not pass away.

Ode : Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

PHERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, A The earth, and every common sight;

To me did seem - Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore ; — Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose, The Moon doth with delight

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 115

Look round her when the heavens are bare, Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair ; The sunshine is a glorious birth ; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief : A timely utterance gave that thought relief,

And I again am strong :

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep ; No more shall grief of mine the season wrong ; I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng, The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay ;

Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every Beast keep holiday ; —

Thou Child of Joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy !

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call

Ye to each other make ; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel — I feel it all. Oh evil day ! if I were sullen While Earth herself is adorning,

ii6 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

This sweet May-morning,

And the Children are culling On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers ; while the sun shines warm, And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm : —

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear !

— But there 's a Tree, of many, one, A single Field which I have looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone :

The Pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat : Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? Where is it now, the glory and the dream ?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar :

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home : Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy, But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy ; The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended ; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 117

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ;

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,

And, even with something of a Mother's mind, And no unworthy aim, The homely Nurse doth all she can

To make her Foster-child., her Inmate Man, Forget the glories he hath known,

And that imperial palace whence he came.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years' Darling of a pigmy size ! See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, With light upon him from his father's eyes ! See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learned art ;

A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral ; And this hath now his heart,

And unto this he frames his song :

Then will he fit his tongue To dialogues of business, love, or strife ;

But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride The little Actor cons another part ; Filling from time to time his * humorous stage ' With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, That Life brings with her in her equipage ;

As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy Soul's immensity ;

ii8 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, —

Mighty Prophet ! Seer blest !

On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ; Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, A Presence which is not to be put by ; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life !

O.joy ! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,

That nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive !

The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction : not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest ; Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast : —

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise ; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things,

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 119

Fallings from us, vanishings ; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised : But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing ;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence : truths that wake,

To perish never : Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy !

Hence in a season of calm weather

Though inland far we be, Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song !

And let the young Lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound ! We in thought will join your throng,

Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts to-day

Feel the gladness of the May ! What though the radiance which was once so bright

izo WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower ;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind ;

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be ;

In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of human suffering ;

In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves !

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might ;

I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they ;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

Is lovely yet ;

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 121

From ^L.ines composed a few miles above Tintern

FOR I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains ; and of all that we behold From this green earth ; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear, — both what they half create, And what perceive ; well pleased to recognize In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The. guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.

From ' The Prelude'

PHUS while the days flew by, and years passed on, J. From Nature and her overflowing soul I had received so much, that all my thoughts Were steeped in feeling ; I was only then

122 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Contented, when with bliss ineffable

I felt the sentiment of Being spread

O'er all that moves and all that seemeth still ;

O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought

And human knowledge, to the human eye

Invisible, yet liveth to the heart ;

O'er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings,

Or beats the gladsome air ; o'er all that glides

Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself,

And mighty depth of waters.' Wonder not

If high the transport, great the joy I felt

Communing in this sort through earth and heaven

With every form of creature, as it looked

Towards the Uncreated with a countenance

Of adoration, with an eye of love.

One song they sang, and it was audible,

Most audible, then, when the fleshly ear,

O'ercome by humblest prelude of that strain,

Forgot her functions, and slept undisturbed.

— Of that external scene which round me lay, Little, in this abstraction, did I see ; Remembered less ; but I had inward hopes And swellings of the spirit, was rapt and soothed, Conversed with promises, had glimmering views How life pervades the undecaying mind ; How the immortal soul with God-like power Informs, creates, and thaws the deepest sleep That time can lay upon her ; how on earth, Man, if he do but live within the light Of high endeavours, daily spreads abroad His being armed with strength that cannot fail.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 123

in

Visionary power

Attends the motions of the viewless winds, Embodied in the mystery of words : There, darkness makes abode, and all the host Of shadowy things work endless changes, — there, As in a mansion like their proper home, Even forms and substances are circumfused By that transparent veil with light divine, And, through the turnings intricate of verse, Present themselves as objects recognized, In flashes, and with glory not their own.

IV

Imagination — here the Power so called Through sad incompetence of human speech, That awful Power rose from the mind's abyss Like an unfathered vapour that enwraps, At once, some lonely traveller. I was lost ; Halted without an effort to break through ; But to my conscious soul I now can say — 4 I recognize thy glory ' : in such strength Of usurpation, when the light of sense Goes out, but with a flash that has revealed The invisible world, doth greatness make abode, There harbours ; whether we be young or old, Our destiny, our being's heart and home, Is with infinitude, and only there ; With hope it is, hope that can never die, Effort, and expectation, and desire, And something evermore about to be. Under such banners militant, the soul Seeks for no trophies, struggles for no spoils That may attest her prowess, blest in thoughts

124 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

That are their own perfection and reward, Strong in herself and in beatitude That hides her, like the mighty flood of Nile Poured from his fount of Abyssinian clouds To fertilize the whole Egyptian plain.

v

The brook and road 1

Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy strait, And with them did we journey several hours At a slow pace. The immeasurable height Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, The stationary blasts of waterfalls, And in the narrow rent at every turn Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn, The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky, The rocks that muttered close upon our ears, Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side As if a voice were in them, the sick sight And giddy prospect of the raving stream, The unfettered clouds and region of the Heavens, Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light — Were all like workings of one mind, the features Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree ; Characters of the great Apocalypse, The types and symbols of Eternity, Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.

VI

In some green bower

Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there The One who is thy choice of all the world : There linger, listening, gazing, with delight

1 The passage refers to the Simplon Pass.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 125

Impassioned, but delight how pitiable !

Unless this love by a still higher love

Be hallowed, love that breathes not without awe ;

Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer,

By heaven inspired ; that frees from chains the soul,

Lifted, in union with the purest, best,

Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise

Bearing a tribute to the Almighty's Throne.

VII

This spiritual Love acts not .nor can exist

Without Imagination, which, in truth,

Is but another name for absolute power

And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,

And Reason in her most exalted mood.

This faculty hath been the feeding source

Of our long labour -1 : we have traced the stream

From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard

Its natal murmur ; followed it to light

And open day ; accompanied its course

Among the ways of Nature, for a time

Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed ;

Then given it greeting as it rose once more

In strength, reflecting from its placid breast

The works of man and face of human life ;

And lastly, from its progress have we drawn

Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought

Of human Being, Eternity, and God.

1 The labour shared between the writer and the reader of the Prelude.

126

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

1772-1834 From ' Religious Musings '

i

THERE is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind, Omnific. His most holy name is Love. Truth of subliming import ! with the which Who feeds and saturates his constant soul, He from his small particular orbit flies With blest outstarting ! From himself he flies, Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze Views all creation ; and he loves it all, And blesses it, and calls it very good ! This is indeed to dwell with the Most High ! Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim Can press no nearer to the Almighty's throne. But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts Unfeeling of our universal Sire, And that in His vast family no Cain Injures uninjured (in her best-aimed blow Victorious Murder a blind Suicide) Haply for this some younger Angel now Looks down on Human Nature : and, behold ! A sea of blood bestrewed with wrecks, where mad Embattling Interests on each other rush With unhelmed rage !

'Tis the sublime of man, Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole ! This fraternizes man, this constitutes Our charities and bearings. But 'tis God Diffused through all, that doth make all one whole ; This the worst superstition, him except Aught to desire, Supreme Reality ! The plenitude and permanence of bliss !

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 127

Toy-bewitched,

Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul, No common centre Man, no common sire Knoweth ! A sordid solitary thing, Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart Through courts and cities the smooth savage roams Feeling himself, his own low self the whole ; When he by sacred sympathy might make The whole one Self ! Self, that no alien knows ! Self, far diffused as Fancy's wing can travel ! Self, spreading still ! Oblivious of its own, Yet all of all possessing ! This is Faith ! This the Messiah's destined victory !

M

From * 'Dejection: an Ode'

Y genial spirits fail ; And what can these1 avail To lift the smothering weight from off my breast ? It were a vain endeavour, Though I should gaze for ever On that green light that lingers in the west : I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

0 Lady ! we receive but what we give, And in our life alone does Nature live :

Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud !

And would we aught behold, of higher worth, Than that inanimate cold world allowed To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,

Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud

1 The clouds, the stars, and the moon, at which the poet was gazing.

128

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Enveloping the Earth — And from the soul itself must there be sent

A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element !

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

1792-1822

THE awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen among us, — visiting ' This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, — Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance ; Like hues and harmonies of evening, —

Like clouds in starlight widely spread, — Like memory of music fled, — Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

ii Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate

With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, — where art thou gone ? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom, — why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope ?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 129

in

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever To sage or poet these responses given — Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells — whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone — like mist o'er mountains driven, Or music by the night-wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

iv *

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent. Man were immortal, and omnipotent, Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies, That wax and wane in lovers' eyes — Thou — that to human thought art nourishment, Like darkness to a dying flame ! Depart not as thy shadow came, Depart not — lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality.

v

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped

Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing

Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.

I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed ;

MYST. p

1 3o

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

I was not heard — I saw them not —

When musing deeply on the lot Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing

All vital things that wake to bring

News of birds and blossoming, —

Sudden, thy shadow fell on me ; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy !

VI

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers

To thee and thine — have I not kept the vow ? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave : they have in visioned bowers

Of studious zeal or love's delight

Outwatched with me the envious night — They know that never joy illumed my brow

Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free

This world from its dark slavery,

That thou — O awful LOVELINESS, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.

VII

The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past — there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been !

Thus let thy power, which like the truth

Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply

Its calm — to one who worships thee,

And every form containing thee,

Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 131

From ''Adonais '

HE is made one with Nature : there is heard His voice in all her music, from the moan Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird ; He is a presence to be felt and known In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, Spreading itself where'er that Power may move Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; Which wields the world with never-wearied love, Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.

He is a portion of the loveliness Which once he made more lovely : he doth bear His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there, All new successions to the forms they wear ; Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; And bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light.

The splendours of the firmament of time May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not ; Like stars to their appointed height they climb And death is a low mist which cannot blot The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, And love and life contend in it, for what Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.

The One remains, the many change and pass ; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly ; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity,

132 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! Follow where all is fled ! — Rome's azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.

Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart ? Thy hopes are gone before : from all things here They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ! A light is passed from the revolving year, And man, and woman ; and what still is dear Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. The soft sky smiles, — the low wind whispers near : 'Tis Adonais calls ! oh, hasten thither, No more let Life divide what Death can join together.

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, That Beauty in which all things work and move, That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love Which through the web of being blindly wove By man and beast and earth and air and sea, Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of The fire for which all thirst ; now beams on me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven, Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar ; Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

133

JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN

1801-1890 Mekhizedek

Without father, without mother, without descent ; having neither beginning of days, nor end of life.

THRICE bless'd are they, who feel their loneliness : To whom nor voice of friends nor pleasant scene

Brings that on which the sadden'd heart can lean ; Yea, the rich earth, garb'd in her daintiest dress Of light and joy, doth but the more oppress,

Claiming responsive smiles and rapture high ;

Till, sick at heart, beyond the veil they fly, Seeking His Presence, who alone can bless. Such, in strange days, the weapons of Heaven's grace ; When, passing o'er the high-born Hebrew line, He forms the vessel of His vast design ; Fatherless, homeless, reft of age and place, Sever'd from earth, and careless of its wreck, Born through long woe His rare Mekhizedek.

From ' The Dream of Gerontius '

Choir of Angelicals.

A DOUBLE debt he has to pay— The forfeit of his sins : The chill of death is past, and now The penance-fire begins.

Glory to Him, who evermore

By truth and justice reigns ; Who tears the soul from out its case,

And burns away its stains !

134 JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN

Angel

They sing of thy approaching agony, Which thou so eagerly didst question of : It is the face of the Incarnate God Shall smite thee with that keen and subtle pain ; And yet the memory which it leaves will be A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound ; And yet withal it will the wound provoke, And aggravate and widen it the more.

Soul

Thou speakest mysteries : still methinks I know To disengage the tangle of thy words : Yet rather would I hear thy angel voice, Than for myself be thy interpreter.

Angel

When then — if such thy lot — thou seest thy Judge, The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts. Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for Him, And feel as though thou couldst but pity Him, That one so sweet should e'er have placed Himself At disadvantage such, as to be used So vilely by a being so vile as thee. There is a pleading in His pensive eyes Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee. And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself ; for, though Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinn'd, As never thou didst feel ; and wilt desire To slink away, and hide thee from His sight : And yet wilt have a longing ay to dwell Within the beauty of His countenance.

JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN 135

And these two pains, so counter and so keen, — The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not ; The shame of self at thought of seeing Him, — Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.

The Pillar of the Cloud

EAD, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,

Lead Thou me on ! The night is dark, and I am far from home —

Lead Thou me on !

Keep Thou my feet : I do not ask to see The distant scene, — one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that Thou

Shouldst lead me on. I loved to choose and see my path ; but now

Lead Thou me on !

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will : remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still

Will lead me on, O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till

The night is gone ;

And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

136

1803-1849

JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN

S. Pa t rick's Hymn before Tarn (FROM THE IRISH)

/CHRIST, as a light,

\^>i Illumine and guide me ! Christ, as a shield, o'ershadow and cover me I Christ be under me ! Christ be over me !

Christ be beside me

On left hand and right ! Christ be before me, behind me, about me ! Christ this day be within and without me !

Christ, the lowly and meek,

Christ, the All-powerful, be In the heart of each to whom I speak, In the mouth of each who speaks to me ! In all who draw near me, Or see me or hear me !

At Tara to-day, in this awful hour,

I call on the Holy Trinity ! Glory to Him who reigneth in power, The God of the Elements, Father, and Son, And Paraclete Spirit, which Three are the One,

The ever-existing Divinity !

Salvation dwells with the Lord,

With Christ, the Omnipotent Word.

From generation to generation

Grant us, O Lord, Thy grace and salvation !

137

i RALPH WALDO EMERSON

1803-1882 The Problem

I LIKE a church ; I like a cowl ; I love a prophet of the soul ; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles ; Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowled churchman be.

Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure ?

Not from a vain or shallow thought

His awful Jove young Phidias brought ;

Never from lips of cunning fell

The thrilling Delphic oracle ;

Out from the heart of nature rolled

The burdens of the Bible old ;

The litanies of nations came,

Like the volcano's tongue of flame,

Up from the burning core below, —

The canticles of love and woe ;

The hand that rounded Peter's dome,

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity ;

Himself from God he could not free ;

He builded better than he knew ; —

The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest Of leaves, and feathers from her breast ? Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, Painting with morn each annual cell ? F3

138 RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Or how the sacred pine-tree adds To her old leaves new myriads ? Such and so grew these holy piles, Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, As the best gem upon her zone ; And Morning opes with haste her lids, To gaze upon the Pyramids ; O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, As on its friends, with kindred eye ; For, out of Thought's interior sphere, These wonders rose to upper air ; And Nature gladly gave them place, Adopted them into her race, And granted them an equal date With Andes and with Ararat.

These temples grew as grows the grass ;

Art might obey, but not surpass.

The passive Master lent his hand

To the vast soul that o'er him planned ;

And the same power that reared the shrine,

Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.

Ever the fiery Pentecost

Girds with one flame the countless host,

Trances the heart through chanting choirs,

And through the priest the mind inspires.

The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tables yet unbroken ; The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind. One accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world hath never lost.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON 139

I know what say the fathers wise, — The Book itself before me lies, Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, And he who blent both in his line, The younger Golden Lips or mines, Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines. His words are music in my ear, I see his cowled portrait dear ; And yet, for all his faith could see, I would not the good bishop be.

Ode to Beauty

WHO gave thee, O Beauty, The keys of this breast,— Too credulous lover Of blest and unblest ? Say, when in lapsed ages Thee knew I of old ? Or what was the service For which I was sold ? When first my eyes saw thee, I found me thy thrall, By magical drawings, Sweet tyrant of all ! I drank at thy fountain False waters of thirst ; Thou intimate stranger, Thou latest and first ! Thy dangerous glances Make women of men ; New-born, we are melting Into nature again.

140 RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Lavish, lavish pro miser, Nigh persuading gods to err ! Guest of million painted forms, Which in turn thy glory warms ! The frailest leaf, the mossy bark, The acorn's cup, the raindrop's arc, The swinging spider's silver line, The ruby of the drop of wine, The shining pebble of the pond, Thou inscribest with a bond, In thy momentary play, Would bankrupt nature to repay.

Ah, what avails it

To hide or to shun

Whom the Infinite One

Hath granted His throne ?

The heaven high over

Is the deep's lover ;

The sun and sea,

Informed by thee,

Before me run,

And draw me on,

Yet fly me still,

As Fate refuses

To me the heart Fate for me chooses.

Is it that my opulent soul

Was mingled from the generous whole ;

Sea-valleys and the deep of skies

Furnished several supplies ;

And the sands whereof I'm made

Draw me to them, self-betrayed ?

I turn the proud portfolios

Which hold the grand designs

RALPH WALDO EMERSON 141

Of Salvator, of Guercino,

And Piranesi's lines.

I hear the lofty paeans

Of the masters of the shell,

Who heard the starry music

And recount the numbers well ;

Olympian bards who sung

Divine Ideas below,

Which always find us young,

And always keep us so.

Oft, in streets or humblest places,

I detect far-wandered graces,

Which, from Eden wide astray,

In lonely homes have lost their way.

Thee gliding through the sea of form, Like the lightning through the storm, Somewhat not to be possessed, Somewhat not to be caressed. No feet so fleet could ever find, No perfect form could ever bind. Thou eternal fugitive, Hovering over all that live, Quick and skilful to inspire Sweet, extravagant desire, Starry space and lily-bell Filling with thy roseate smell, Wilt not give the lips to taste Of the nectar which thou hast.

All that 's good and great with thee Works in close conspiracy ; Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely To report thy features only,

142 RALPH WALDO EMERSON

And the cold and purple morning Itself with thoughts of thee adorning ; The leafy dell, the city mart, Equal trophies of thine art ; E'en the flowing azure air Thou hast touched for my despair ; And, if I languish into dreams, Again I meet the ardent beams. Queen of things ! I dare not die In Being's deeps past ear and eye ; Lest there I find the same deceiver, And be the sport of Fate for ever. Dread Power, but dear ! if God thou be, Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me !

Brahma

IF the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near ;

Shadow and sunlight are the same ; The vanished gods to me appear ;

And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out ;

When me they fly, I am the wings ; I am the doubter and the doubt,

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode, And pine in vain the sacred Seven ;

But thou, meek lover of the good !

Find me and turn thy back on heaven.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON 143

Worship

'""PHIS is he, who, felled by foes,

J. Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows ! He to captivity was sold, But him no prison-bars would hold : Though they sealed him in a rock, Mountain chains he can unlock : Thrown to lions for their meat, The crouching lion kissed his feet : Bound to the stake, no flames appalled, But arched o'er him an honouring vault. This is he men miscall Fate, Threading dark ways, arriving late, But ever coming in time to crown The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down. He is the oldest, and best known, More near than aught thou call'st thy own, Yet, greeted in another's eyes, Disconcerts with glad surprise. This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers, Floods with blessings unawares. Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line Severing rightly his from thine, Which is human, which divine.

ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER

1803-1875 Aifhah Shechmah •

A SHAPE, like folded light, embodied air, Yet wreathed with flesh, and warm : All that of heaven is feminine and fair, Moulded in visible form,

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ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER

She stood, the Lady Shechinah of earth,

A chancel for the sky : Where woke, to breath and beauty, God's own Birth,

For men to see Him by.

Round her, too pure to mingle with the day,

Light, that was life, abode ; Folded within her fibres meekly lay

The link of boundless God.

So linked, so blent, that when, with pulse fulfilled,

Moved but that Infant Hand, Far, far away, His conscious Godhead thrilled,

And stars might understand.

Lo ! where they pause, with inter-gathering rest,

The Threefold, and the One ; And lo, He binds them to her orient breast,

His manhood girded on.

The zone, where two glad worlds for ever meet,

Beneath that bosom ran : Deep in that womb the conquering Paraclete

Smote Godhead on to man.

Sole scene among the stars, where, yearning, glide

The Threefold and the One ; Her God upon her lap, the Virgin Bride,

Her awful Child, her Son !

ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER 145

From ' The Quest of the Sangraal '

T^HEN came Sir Joseph, hight, of Arimathee,

J. Bearing that awful vase, the Sangraal ! The vessel of the Pasch, Shere Thursday night : The selfsame Cup, wherein the faithful Wine Heard God, and was obedient unto Blood ! Therewith he knelt, and gathered blessed drops From his dear Master's Side that sadly fell, The ruddy dews from the great Tree of Life : Sweet Lord ! what treasures ! like the priceless gems, Hid in the tawny casket of a king — A ransom for an army, one by one. That wealth he cherished long ; his very soul Around his ark ; bent, as before a shrine ! He dwelt in orient Syria : God's own land : The ladder-foot of heaven — where shadowy shapes In white apparel glided up and down ! His home was like a garner, full of corn And wine and oil : a granary of God ! Young men, that no one knew, went in and out, With a far look in their eternal eyes ! All things were strange and rare : the Sangraal As though it clung to some etherial chain, Brought down high heaven to earth at Arimathee. He lived long centuries ! and prophesied. A girded pilgrim ever and anon : Cross-staff in hand, and folded at his side, The mystic marvel of the feast of blood ! Once in old time he stood in this dear land, Enthralled : — for lo ! a sign ! his grounded staff Took root, and branched, and bloomed, like Aaron's rod ; Thence came the shrine, the cell : therefore he dwelt, The vassal of the vase, at Avalon !

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ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

1806-1861 Chorus of Eden Spirits

(Chanting from Paradise, while Adam and Eve fly across the Sword- glare)

HEARKEN, oh hearken ! let your souls behind you Turn, gently moved ! Our voices feel along the Dread to find you,

O lost, beloved ! Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels,

They press