England's Antiphon

THE THANKSGIVING

 
  Oh King of grief! a title strange yet true,
    To thee of all kings only due!
  Oh King of wounds! how shall I grieve for thee,
    Who in all grief preventest me? goest before me.
  Shall I weep blood? Why, thou hast wept such store,
    That all thy body was one gore.
  Shall I be scourgéd, flouted, boxéd, sold?
    'Tis but to tell the tale is told.
  My God, my God, why dost thou part from me?
    Was such a grief as cannot be.
  Shall I then sing, skipping thy doleful story,
    And side with thy triumphant glory?
  Shall thy strokes be my stroking? thorns my flower?
    Thy rod, my posy?¹⁰¹ cross, my bower?
  But how then shall I imitate thee, and
    Copy thy fair, though bloody hand?
  Surely I will revenge me on thy love,
    And try who shall victorious prove.
  If thou dost give me wealth, I will restore
    All back unto thee by the poor.
  If thou dost give me honour, men shall see
    The honour doth belong to thee.
  I will not marry; or if she be mine,
    She and her children shall be thine.
  My bosom-friend, if he blaspheme thy name,
    I will tear thence his love and fame.
  One half of me being gone, the rest I give
    Unto some chapel—die or live.
  As for my Passion¹⁰²—But of that anon,
      When with the other I have done.
  For thy Predestination, I'll contrive
      That, three years hence, if I survive,¹⁰³
  I'll build a spital, or mend common ways,
      But mend my own without delays.
  Then I will use the works of thy creation,
      As if I used them but for fashion.
  The world and I will quarrel; and the year
      Shall not perceive that I am here.
  My music shall find thee, and every string
      Shall have his attribute to sing, its.
  That all together may accord in thee,
      And prove one God, one harmony.
  If thou shall give me wit, it shall appear;
      If thou hast given it me, 'tis here.
  Nay, I will read thy book,¹⁰⁴ and never move
      Till I have found therein thy love—
  Thy art of love, which I'll turn back on thee:
      O my dear Saviour, Victory!
  Then for my Passion—I will do for that—
      Alas, my God! I know not what.
 

With the preceding must be taken the following, which comes immediately after it.

THE REPRISAL

 
  I have considered it, and find
  There is no dealing with thy mighty Passion;
  For though I die for thee, I am behind:
      My sins deserve the condemnation.
 
 
    O make me innocent, that I
  May give a disentangled state and free;
  And yet thy wounds still my attempts defy,
    For by thy death I die for thee.
 
 
    Ah! was it not enough that thou
  By thy eternal glory didst outgo me?
  Couldst thou not grief's sad conquest me allow,
    But in all victories overthrow me?
 
 
    Yet by confession will I come
  Into the conquest: though I can do nought
  Against thee, in thee I will overcome
    The man who once against thee fought.
 

Even embracing the feet of Jesus, Mary Magdalene or George Herbert must rise and go forth to do his will.

It will be observed how much George Herbert goes beyond all that have preceded him, in the expression of feeling as it flows from individual conditions, in the analysis of his own moods, in the logic of worship, if I may say so. His utterance is not merely of personal love and grief, but of the peculiar love and grief in the heart of George Herbert. There may be disease in such a mind; but, if there be, it is a disease that will burn itself out. Such disease is, for men constituted like him, the only path to health. By health I mean that simple regard to the truth, to the will of God, which will turn away a man's eyes from his own conditions, and leave God free to work his perfection in him—free, that is, of the interference of the man's self-consciousness and anxiety. To this perfection St. Paul had come when he no longer cried out against the body of his death, no more judged his own self, but left all to the Father, caring only to do his will. It was enough to him then that God should judge him, for his will is the one good thing securing all good things. Amongst the keener delights of the life which is at the door, I look for the face of George Herbert, with whom to talk humbly would be in bliss a higher bliss.

CHAPTER XIV

JOHN MILTON.

John Milton, born in 1608, was twenty-four years of age when George Herbert died. Hardly might two good men present a greater contrast than these. In power and size, Milton greatly excels. If George Herbert's utterance is like the sword-play of one skilful with the rapier, that of Milton is like the sword-play of an old knight, flashing his huge but keen-cutting blade in lightnings about his head. Compared with Herbert, Milton was a man in health. He never shows, at least, any diseased regard of himself. His eye is fixed on the truth, and he knows of no ill-faring. While a man looks thitherward, all the movements of his spirit reveal themselves only in peace.

Everything conspired, or, should I not rather say? everything was freely given, to make Milton a great poet. Leaving the original seed of melody, the primordial song in the soul which all his life was an effort to utter, let us regard for a moment the circumstances that favoured its development.

From childhood he had listened to the sounds of the organ; doubtless himself often gave breath to the soundboard with his hands on the lever of the bellows, while his father's   volant touch,

 
  Instinct through all proportions low and high,
  Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue;
 

and the father's organ-harmony we yet hear in the son's verse as in none but his. Those organ-sounds he has taken for the very breath of his speech, and articulated them. He had education and leisure, freedom to think, to travel, to observe: he was more than thirty before he had to earn a mouthful of bread by his own labour. Rushing at length into freedom's battle, he stood in its storm with his hand on the wheel of the nation's rudder, shouting many a bold word for God and the Truth, until, fulfilled of experience as of knowledge, God set up before him a canvas of utter darkness: he had to fill it with creatures of radiance. God blinded him with his hand, that, like the nightingale, he might "sing darkling." Beyond all, his life was pure from his childhood, without which such poetry as his could never have come to the birth. It is the pure in heart who shall see God at length; the pure in heart who now hear his harmonies. More than all yet, he devoted himself from the first to the will of God, and his prayer that he might write a great poem was heard.

The unity of his being is the strength of Milton. He is harmony, sweet and bold, throughout. Not Philip Sidney, not George Herbert loved words and their melodies more than he; while in their use he is more serious than either, and harder to please, uttering a music they have rarely approached. Yet even when speaking with "most miraculous organ," with a grandeur never heard till then, he overflows in speech more like that of other men than theirs—he utters himself more simply, straightforwardly, dignifiedly, than they. His modes are larger and more human, more near to the forms of primary thought. Faithful and obedient to his art, he spends his power in no diversions. Like Shakspere, he can be silent, never hesitating to sweep away the finest lines should they mar the intent, progress, and flow of his poem. Even while he sings most abandonedly, it is ever with a care of his speech, it is ever with ordered words: not one shall dull the clarity of his verse by unlicensed, that is, needless presence. But let not my reader fancy that this implies laborious utterance and strained endeavour. It is weakness only which by the agony of visible effort enhances the magnitude of victory. The trained athlete will move with the grace of a child, for he has not to seek how to effect that which he means to perform. Milton has only to take good heed, and with no greater effort than it costs the ordinary man to avoid talking like a fool, he sings like an archangel.

But I must not enlarge my remarks, for of his verse even I can find room for only a few lyrics. In them, however, we shall still find the simplest truth, the absolute of life, the poet's aim. He is ever soaring towards the region beyond perturbation, the true condition of soul; that is, wherein a man shall see things even as God would have him see them. He has no time to droop his pinions, and sit moody even on the highest pine: the sun is above him; he must fly upwards.

The youth who at three-and-twenty could write the following sonnet, might well at five-and-forty be capable of writing the one that follows:

 
  How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
  Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
  My hasting days fly on with full career,
  But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
  Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
  That I to manhood am arrived so near;
  And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
  That some more timely happy spirits endu'th.
  Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
  It shall be still in strictest measure even
  To that same lot, however mean or high,
  Toward which time leads me and the will of heaven:
  All is—if I have grace to use it so
  As ever in my great Task-master's eye.
 

The It which is the subject of the last six lines is his Ripeness: it will keep pace with his approaching lot; when it arrives he will be ready for it, whatever it may be. The will of heaven is his happy fate. Even at three-and-twenty, "he that believeth shall not make haste." Calm and open-eyed, he works to be ripe, and waits for the work that shall follow.

At forty-five, then, he writes thus concerning his blindness:

 
  When I consider how my life is spent
  Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
  And that one talent, which is death to hide,
  Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
  To serve therewith my Maker, and present
  My true account, lest he, returning, chide—
  "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
  I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent foolishly.
  That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
  Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
  Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
  Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
  And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
  They also serve who only stand and wait."
 

That is, "stand and wait, ready to go when they are called." Everybody knows the sonnet, but how could I omit it? Both sonnets will grow more and more luminous as they are regarded.

The following I incline to think the finest of his short poems, certainly the grandest of them. It is a little ode, written to be set on a clock-case.

ON TIME

 
  Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race.
  Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
  Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace,
  And glut thyself with what thy womb devours—
  Which is no more than what is false and vain,
  And merely mortal dross:
  So little is our loss!
  So little is thy gain!
  For whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed,
  And last of all thy greedy self consumed,
  Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
  With an individual kiss; that cannot be divided—
  And joy shall overtake us as a flood; [eternal.
  When everything that is sincerely good,
  And perfectly divine
  With truth and peace and love, shall ever shine
  About the supreme throne
  Of him to whose happy-making sight alone
  When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,
  Then, all this earthy grossness quit,
  Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit
  Triumphing over Death and Chance and thee, O Time.
 

The next I give is likewise an ode—a more beautiful one. Observe in both the fine effect of the short lines, essential to the nature of the ode, being that which gives its solemnity the character yet of a song, or rather, perhaps, of a chant.

In this he calls upon Voice and Verse to rouse and raise our imagination until we hear the choral song of heaven, and hearing become able to sing in tuneful response.

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC

 
  Blest pair of sirens, pledges of heaven's joy
  Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
  Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ—
  Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce—
  And to our high-raised phantasy present
  That undisturbed song of pure concent¹⁰⁵
  Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne
  To him that sits thereon,
  With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee;
  Where the bright seraphim, in burning row,
  Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow;
  And the cherubic host in thousand choirs,
  Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
  With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,
  Hymns devout and holy psalms
  Singing everlastingly;
  That we on earth, with undiscording voice,
  May rightly answer that melodious noise—
  As once we did, till disproportioned¹⁰⁶ Sin
  Jarred against Nature's chime, and with harsh din
  Broke the fair music that all creatures made
  To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed
  In perfect diapason,¹⁰⁷ whilst they stood
  In first obedience and their state of good.
  O may we soon again renew that song,
  And keep in tune with heaven, till God ere long
  To his celestial consort¹⁰⁸ us unite,
  To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light!
 

Music was the symbol of all Truth to Milton. He would count it falsehood to write an unmusical verse. I allow that some of his blank lines may appear unrhythmical; but Experience, especially if she bring with her a knowledge of Dante, will elucidate all their movements. I exhort my younger friends to read Milton aloud when they are alone, and thus learn the worth of word-sounds. They will find him even in this an educating force. The last ode ought to be thus read for the magnificent dance-march of its motion, as well as for its melody.

Show me one who delights in the Hymn on the Nativity, and I will show you one who may never indeed be a singer in this world, but who is already a listener to the best. But how different it is from anything of George Herbert's! It sets forth no feeling peculiar to Milton; it is an outburst of the gladness of the company of believers. Every one has at least read the glorious poem; but were I to leave it out I should have lost, not the sapphire of aspiration, not the topaz of praise, not the emerald of holiness, but the carbuncle of delight from the high priest's breast-plate. And I must give the introduction too: it is the cloudy grove of an overture, whence rushes the torrent of song.

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY

 
    This is the month, and this the happy morn,
      Wherein the son of heaven's eternal king,
    Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
      Our great redemption from above did bring;
      For so the holy sages once did sing,
    That he our deadly forfeit should release,
  And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.
 
 
    That glorious form, that light insufferable,
      And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
    Wherewith he wont¹⁰⁹ at heaven's high council-table
      To sit the midst of trinal unity,
      He laid aside, and here with us to be,
    Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
  And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
 
 
    Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
      Afford a present to the infant God?
    Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain
      To welcome him to this his new abode,
      Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod,
    Hath took no print of the approaching light,
  And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?
 
 
    See how, from far upon the eastern road,
      The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet!
    O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
      And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
      Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet;
    And join thy voice unto the angel choir,
  From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.
 

THE HYMN

 
        It was the winter wild
        While the heaven-born child
    All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
        Nature, in awe to him,
        Had doffed her gaudy trim,
    With her great master so to sympathize:
      It was no season then for her
  To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.
 
 
        Only with speeches fair
        She woos the gentle air
    To hide her guilty front with innocent snow;
        And on her naked shame,
        Pollute with sinful blame,
    The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;
      Confounded that her maker's eyes
  Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
 
 
        But he, her fears to cease,
        Sent down the meek-eyed Peace.
    She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding
        Down through the turning sphere,
        His ready harbinger,
    With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;
      And waving wide her myrtle wand,
  She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.
 
 
        No war, or battle's sound,
        Was heard the world around;
    The idle spear and shield were high uphung;
        The hookéd chariot stood
        Unstained with hostile blood;
    The trumpet spake not to the arméd throng;
        And kings sat still with awful eye, awe-filled.
  As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by.
 
 
        But peaceful was the night
        Wherein the Prince of Light
    His reign of peace upon the earth began;
        The winds, with wonder whist, silent.
        Smoothly the water kissed,
    Whispering new joys to the mild Oceän,
      Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
  While birds of calm¹¹⁰ sit brooding on the charméd wave.
 
 
        The stars with deep amaze
        Stand fixed in stedfast gaze,
    Bending one way their precious influence;
        And will not take their flight
        For all the morning light,
    Or Lucifer,¹¹¹ that often warned them thence;
      But in their glimmering orbs did glow
  Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
 
 
        And though the shady gloom
        Had given day her room,
    The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,
        And hid his head for shame,
        As his inferior flame
    The new enlightened world no more should need:
      He saw a greater sun appear
  Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree could bear.
 
 
        The shepherds on the lawn,
        Or e'er the point of dawn, ere ever.
    Sat simply chatting in a rustic row:
        Full little thought they than then.
        That the mighty Pan¹¹²
    Was kindly come to live with them below;
      Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
  Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.
 
 
        When such music sweet
        Their hearts and ears did greet
    As never was by mortal finger strook—
        Divinely warbled voice
        Answering the stringéd noise,
    As all their souls in blissful rapture took:
      The air, such pleasure loath to lose,
  With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.
 
 
        Nature, that heard such sound,
        Beneath the hollow round
    Of Cynthia's seat¹¹³ the airy region thrilling,
        Now was almost won
        To think her part was done,
    And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:
      She knew such harmony alone
  Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union.
 
 
        At last surrounds their sight
        A globe of circular light,
    That with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed;
        The helméd cherubim
        And sworded seraphim
     Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,
      Harping in loud and solemn choir,
  With unexpressive¹¹⁴ notes to heaven's new-born heir.
 
 
        Such music, as 'tis said,
        Before was never made,
    But when of old the sons of morning sung,
        While the Creator great
        His constellations set,
    And the well-balanced world on hinges hung,¹¹⁵
      And cast the dark foundations deep,
  And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.
 
 
        Ring out, ye crystal spheres;
        Once bless our human ears—
    If ye have power to touch our senses so;¹¹⁶
        And let your silver chime
        Move in melodious time;
    And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow;
      And, with your ninefold harmony,
  Make up full consort¹¹⁷ to the angelic symphony.¹¹⁸
 
 
        For if such holy song
        Enwrap our fancy long,
    Time will run back and fetch the age of gold;
        And speckled vanity
        Will sicken soon and die;¹¹⁹
    And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould;
      And hell itself will pass away,
  And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.
 
 
        Yea, truth and justice then
        Will down return to men,
    Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
        Mercy will sit between,
        Throned in celestial sheen,
    With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
      And heaven, as at some festival,
  Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.
 
 
        But wisest Fate says "No;
        This must not yet be so."
    The babe lies yet in smiling infancy,
        That on the bitter cross
        Must redeem our loss,
    So both himself and us to glorify.
      Yet first, to those y-chained in sleep,
  The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,
 
 
        With such a horrid clang
        As on Mount Sinai rang,
    While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:
        The agéd earth, aghast
        With terror of that blast,
    Shall from the surface to the centre shake,
      When, at the world's last sessiön,
  The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
 
 
        And then at last our bliss
        Full and perfect is:
    But now begins; for from this happy day,
        The old dragon, under ground
        In straiter limits bound,
    Not half so far casts his usurped sway;
      And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,
  Swinges¹²⁰ the scaly horror of his folded tail.¹²¹
 
 
        The oracles are dumb:¹²²
        No voice or hideous hum
    Runs through the archéd roof in words deceiving;
        Apollo from his shrine
        Can no more divine,
    With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving;
      No nightly trance, or breathed spell,
  Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
 
 
        The lonely mountains o'er,
        And the resounding shore,
    A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;
        From haunted spring and dale,
        Edged with poplar pale,
    The parting genius¹²³ is with sighing sent;
      With flower-inwoven tresses torn,
  The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
 
 
        In consecrated earth,
        And on the holy hearth,
    The Lars and Lemures¹²⁴ moan with midnight plaint;
        In urns and altars round,
        A drear and dying sound
    Affrights the flamens¹²⁵ at their service quaint;
      And the chill marble seems to sweat,
  While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat.
 
 
        Peor and Baälim
        Forsake their temples dim,
    With that twice-battered god of Palestine;
        And moonéd Ashtaroth, the Assyrian Venus.
        Heaven's queen and mother both,
    Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;
      The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn;¹²⁶
  In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz¹²⁷ mourn.
 
 
        And sullen Moloch, fled,
        Hath left in shadows dread
    His burning idol, all of blackest hue:
        In vain with cymbals' ring
        They call the grisly¹²⁸ king,
    In dismal dance about the furnace blue.
      The brutish gods of Nile as fast—
  Isis and Orus and the dog Anubis—haste.
 
 
        Nor is Osiris¹²⁹ seen
        In Memphian grove or green,
    Trampling the unshowered¹³⁰ grass with lowings loud;
        Nor can he be at rest
        Within his sacred chest;
    Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud;
      In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark,
  The sable-stoléd sorcerers bear his worshipped ark:
 
 
        He feels, from Judah's land,
        The dreaded infant's hand;
    The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn.
        Nor all the gods beside
        Longer dare abide—
    Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine:
      Our babe, to show his Godhead true,
  Can in his swaddling bands control the damnéd crew.
 
 
        So, when the sun in bed,
        Curtained with cloudy red,
    Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
        The flocking shadows pale
        Troop to the infernal jail—
    Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave;
      And the yellow-skirted fays
  Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.
 
 
        But see, the Virgin blest
        Hath laid her babe to rest:
    Time is our tedious song should here have ending;
        Heaven's youngest-teemed star¹³¹
        Hath fixed her polished car,
    Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
      And all about the courtly stable
  Bright-harnessed¹³² angels sit, in order serviceable.¹³³
 

If my reader should think some of the rhymes bad, and some of the words oddly used, I would remind him that both pronunciations and meanings have altered since: the probability is, that the older forms in both are the better. Milton will not use a wrong word or a bad rhyme. With regard to the form of the poem, let him observe the variety of length of line in the stanza, and how skilfully the varied lines are associated—two of six syllables and one of ten; then the same repeated; then one of eight and one of twelve—no two, except of the shortest, coming together of the same length. Its stanza is its own: I do not know another poem written in the same; and its music is exquisite. The probability is that, if the reader note any fact in the poem, however trifling it might seem to the careless eye, it will repay him by unfolding both individual and related beauty. Then let him ponder the pictures given: the sudden arraying of the shame-faced night in long beams; the amazed kings silent on their thrones; the birds brooding on the sea: he will find many such. Let him consider the clear-cut epithets, so full of meaning. A true poet may be at once known by the justice and force of the adjectives he uses, especially when he compounds them,—that is, makes one out of two. Here are some examples: meek-eyed Peace; pale-eyed priest; speckled vanity; smouldering clouds; hideous hum; dismal dance; dusky eyne: there are many such, each almost a poem in itself. The whole is a succession of pictures set in the loveliest music for the utterance of grandest thoughts.

No doubt there are in the poem instances of such faults in style as were common in the age in which his verse was rooted: for my own part, I never liked the first two stanzas of the hymn. But such instances are few; while for a right feeling of the marvel of this poem and of the two preceding it, we must remember that Milton was only twenty-one when he wrote them.

Apparently to make one of a set with the Nativity, he began to write an ode on the Passion, but, finding the subject "above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished." The fragment is full of unworthy, though skilful, and, for such, powerful conceits, but is especially interesting as showing how even Milton, trying to write about what he felt, but without yet having generated thoughts enow concerning the subject itself, could only fall back on conventionalities. Happy the young poet the wisdom of whose earliest years was such that he recognized his mistake almost at the outset, and dropped the attempt! Amongst the stanzas there is, however, one of exceeding loveliness:

 
  He, sovereign priest, stooping his regal head,
  That dropped with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
  Poor fleshly tabernacle enteréd,
  His starry front low-roofed beneath the skies.
  Oh what a masque was there! what a disguise!
  Yet more! the stroke of death he must abide;
  Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethren's side.
 

In this it will be seen that he has left the jubilant measure of the Hymn, and returned to the more stately and solemn rhyme-royal of its overture, as more suited to his subject. Milton could not be wrong in his music, even when he found the quarry of his thought too hard to work.