England's Antiphon, George MacDonald [ready to read books TXT] 📗

streams,
Tears and terrors are our themes,
Reciting;

But when once from hence we fly,
More and more approaching nigh
Unto young eternity,
Uniting;

In that whiter island, where
Things are evermore sincere;
Candour here and lustre there,
Delighting:

There no monstrous fancies shall
Out of hell an horror call,
To create, or cause at all,
Affrighting.

There, in calm and cooling sleep
We our eyes shall never steep,
But eternal watch shall keep,
Attending

Pleasures such as shall pursue
Me immortalized and you;
And fresh joys, as never too
Have ending.


TO DEATH.

Thou bid'st me come away;
And I'll no longer stay
Than for to shed some tears
For faults of former years;
And to repent some crimes
Done in the present times;
And next, to take a bit
Of bread, and wine with it;
To don my robes of love,
Fit for the place above;
To gird my loins about
With charity throughout,
And so to travel hence
With feet of innocence:
These done, I'll only cry,
"God, mercy!" and so die.


ETERNITY.

O years and age, farewell!
Behold I go
Where I do know
Infinity to dwell.

And these mine eyes shall see
All times, how they
Are lost i' th' sea
Of vast eternity,

Where never moon shall sway
The stars; but she
And night shall be
Drowned in one endless day.


THE GOODNESS OF HIS GOD.

When winds and seas do rage,
And threaten to undo me,
Thou dost their wrath assuage,
If I but call unto thee.

A mighty storm last night
Did seek my soul to swallow;
But by the peep of light
A gentle calm did follow.

What need I then despair
Though ills stand round about me;
Since mischiefs neither dare
To bark or bite without thee?


TO GOD.

Lord, I am like to mistletoe,
Which has no root, and cannot grow
Or prosper, but by that same tree
It clings about: so I by thee.
What need I then to fear at all
So long as I about thee crawl?
But if that tree should fall and die,
Tumble shall heaven, and down will I.

Here are now a few chosen from many that-to borrow a term from Crashaw-might be called


DIVINE EPIGRAMS.

God, when he's angry here with any one,
His wrath is free from perturbation;
And when we think his looks are sour and grim,
The alteration is in us, not him.

* * * * *

God can't be wrathful; but we may conclude
Wrathful he may be by similitude:
God's wrathful said to be when he doth do
That without wrath, which wrath doth force us to.

* * * * *

'Tis hard to find God; but to comprehend
Him as he is, is labour without end.

* * * * *

God's rod doth watch while men do sleep, and then
The rod doth sleep while vigilant are men.

* * * * *

A man's trangression God does then remit,
When man he makes a penitent for it.

* * * * *

God, when he takes my goods and chattels hence,
Gives me a portion, giving patience:
What is in God is God: if so it be
He patience gives, he gives himself to me.

* * * * *

Humble we must be, if to heaven we go;
High is the roof there, but the gate is low.

* * * * *

God who's in heaven, will hear from thence,
If not to the sound, yet to the sense.

* * * * *

The same who crowns the conqueror, will be
A coadjutor in the agony.

* * * * *

God is so potent, as his power can that.
Draw out of bad a sovereign good to man.

* * * * *

Paradise is, as from the learn'd I gather,
A choir of blest souls circling in the Father.

* * * * *

Heaven is not given for our good works here;
Yet it is given to the labourer.

* * * * *

One more for the sake of Martha, smiled at by so many because they are incapable either of her blame or her sister's praise.

The repetition of the name, made known
No other than Christ's full affection.

And so farewell to the very lovable Robert Herrick.

Francis Quarles was born in 1592. I have not much to say about him, popular as he was in his own day, for a large portion of his writing takes the shape of satire, which I consider only an active form of negation. I doubt much if mere opposition to the false is of any benefit. Convince a man by argument that the thing he has been taught is false, and you leave his house empty, swept, and garnished; but the expulsion of the falsehood is no protection against its re-entrance in another mask, with seven worse than itself in its company. The right effort of the teacher is to give the positive-to present, as he may, the vision of reality, for the perception of which, and not for the discovery of falsehood, is man created. This will not only cast out the demon, but so people the house that he will not dare return. If a man might disprove all the untruths in creation, he would hardly be a hair's breadth nearer the end of his own making. It is better to hold honestly one fragment of truth in the midst of immeasurable error, than to sit alone, if that were possible, in the midst of an absolute vision, clear as the hyaline, but only repellent of falsehood, not receptive of truth. It is the positive by which a man shall live. Truth is his life. The refusal of the false is not the reception of the true. A man may deny himself into a spiritual lethargy, without denying one truth, simply by spending his strength for that which is not bread, until he has none left wherewith to search for the truth, which alone can feed him. Only when subjected to the positive does the negative find its true vocation.

I am jealous of the living force cast into the slough of satire. No doubt, either indignant or loving rebuke has its end and does its work, but I fear that wit, while rousing the admiration of the spiteful or the like witty, comes in only to destroy its dignity. At the same time, I am not sure whether there might not be such a judicious combination of the elements as to render my remarks inapplicable.

At all events, poetry favours the positive, and from the Emblems named of Quarles I shall choose one in which it fully predominates. There is something in it remarkably fine.


PHOSPHOR, BRING THE DAY.

Will't ne'er be morning? Will that promised light
Ne'er break, and clear those clouds of night?
Sweet Phosphor, bring the day,
Whose conquering ray
May chase these fogs: sweet Phosphor, bring the day.

How long, how long shall these benighted eyes
Languish in shades, like feeble flies
Expecting spring? How long shall darkness soil
The face of earth, and thus beguile
Our souls of sprightful action? When, when will day
Begin to dawn, whose new-born ray
May gild the weathercocks of our devotion,
And give our unsouled souls new motion?
Sweet Phosphor, bring the day:
The light will fray
These horrid mists: sweet Phosphor, bring the day.