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

with him a very different origin from the vulgar fancy that to talk about death is religious. It was refuge from the fear of death he sought, and that is the part of every man who would not be a slave. The door of death of which he so often speaks is to him a door out of the fear of death.

The poem from which the following excerpt is made was evidently written in view of some imminent suffering for conscience-sake, probably when the Act of Uniformity was passed: twenty years after, he was imprisoned at the age of sixty-seven, and lay nearly a year and a half.-I omit many verses.


THE RESOLUTION.

It's no great matter what men deem,
Whether they count me good or bad:
In their applause and best esteem,
There's no contentment to be had.
Thy steps, Lord, in this dirt I see;
And lest my soul from God should stray,
I'll bear my cross and follow thee:
Let others choose the fairer way.
My face is meeter for the spit;
I am more suitable to shame,
And to the taunts of scornful wit:
It's no great matter for my name.

My Lord hath taught me how to want
A place wherein to put my head:
While he is mine, I'll be content
To beg or lack my daily bread.
Must I forsake the soil and air
Where first I drew my vital breath?
That way may be as near and fair:
Thence I may come to thee by death.
All countries are my Father's lands;
Thy sun, thy love, doth shine on all;
We may in all lift up pure hands,
And with acceptance on thee call.

What if in prison I must dwell?
May I not there converse with thee?
Save me from sin, thy wrath, and hell,
Call me thy child, and I am free.
No walls or bars can keep thee out;
None can confine a holy soul;
The streets of heaven it walks about;
None can its liberty control.
This flesh hath drawn my soul to sin:
If it must smart, thy will be done!
O fill me with thy joys within,
And then I'll let it grieve alone.

Frail, sinful flesh is loath to die;
Sense to the unseen world is strange;
The doubting soul dreads the Most High,
And trembleth at so great a change.
O let me not be strange at home,
Strange to the sun and life of souls,
Choosing this low and darkened room,
Familiar with worms and moles!
Am I the first that go this way?
How many saints are gone before!
How many enter every day
Into thy kingdom by this door!
Christ was once dead, and in a grave;
Yet conquered death, and rose again;
And by this method he will save
His servants that with him shall reign.
The strangeness will be quickly over,
When once the heaven-born soul is there:
One sight of God will it recover
From all this backwardness and fear.
To us, Christ's lowest parts, his feet,
Union and faith must yet suffice
To guide and comfort us: it's meet
We trust our head who hath our eyes.

We see here that faith in the Lord leads Richard Baxter to the same conclusions immediately to which his faithful philosophy led Henry More.

There is much in Baxter's poems that I would gladly quote, but must leave with regret. Here is a curious, skilful, and, in a homely way, poetic ballad, embodying a good parable. I give only a few of the stanzas.


THE RETURN.

Who was it that I left behind
When I went last from home,
That now I all disordered find
When to myself I come?

I left it light, but now all's dark,
And I am fain to grope:
Were it not for one little spark
I should be out of hope.

My Gospel-book I open left,
Where I the promise saw;
But now I doubt it's lost by theft:
I find none but the Law.

The stormy rain an entrance hath
Through the uncovered top:
How should I rest when showers of wrath
Upon my conscience drop?

I locked my jewel in my chest;
I'll search lest that be gone:-
If this one guest had quit my breast,
I had been quite undone.

My treacherous Flesh had played its part,
And opened Sin the door;
And they have spoiled and robbed my heart,
And left it sad and poor.

Yet have I one great trusty friend
That will procure my peace,
And all this loss and ruin mend,
And purchase my release.

The bellows I'll yet take in hand,
Till this small spark shall flame:
Love shall my heart and tongue command
To praise God's holy name.

I'll mend the roof; I'll watch the door,
And better keep the key;
I'll trust my treacherous flesh no more,
But force it to obey.

What have I said? That I'll do this
That am so false and weak,
And have so often done amiss,
And did my covenants break?

I mean, Lord-all this shall be done
If thou my heart wilt raise;
And as the work must be thine own,
So also shall the praise.

The allegory is so good that one is absolutely sorry when it breaks down, and the poem says in plain words that which is the subject of the figures, bringing truths unmasked into the midst of the maskers who represent truths-thus interrupting the pleasure of the artistic sense in the transparent illusion.

The command of metrical form in Baxter is somewhat remarkable. He has not much melody, but he keeps good time in a variety of measures.


CHAPTER XVII.

CRASHAW AND MARVELL.


I come now to one of the loveliest of our angel-birds, Richard Crashaw. Indeed he was like a bird in more senses than one; for he belongs to that class of men who seem hardly ever to get foot-hold of this world, but are ever floating in the upper air of it.

What I said of a peculiar Æolian word-music in William Drummond applies with equal truth to Crashaw; while of our own poets, somehow or other, he reminds me of Shelley, in the silvery shine and bell-like melody both of his verse and his imagery; and in one of his poems, Music's Duel , the fineness of his phrase reminds me of Keats. But I must not forget that it is only with his sacred, his best poems too, that I am now concerned.

The date of his birth is not known with certainty, but it is judged about 1616, the year of Shakspere's death. He was the son of a Protestant clergyman zealous even to controversy. By a not unnatural reaction Crashaw, by that time, it is said, a popular preacher, when expelled from Oxford in 1644 by the Puritan Parliament because of his refusal to sign their Covenant, became a Roman Catholic. He died about the age of thirty-four, a canon of the Church of Loretto. There is much in his verses of that sentimentalism which, I have already said in speaking of Southwell, is rife in modern Catholic poetry. I will give from Crashaw a specimen of the kind of it. Avoiding a more sacred object, one stanza from a poem of thirty-one, most musical, and full of lovely speech concerning the tears of Mary Magdalen, will suit my purpose.

Hail, sister springs,
Parents of silver-footed rills!
Ever-bubbling things!
Thawing crystal! Snowy hills,
Still spending, never spent!-I mean
Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene!

The poem is called The Weeper , and is radiant of delicate fancy. But surely such tones are not worthy of flitting moth-like about the holy sorrow of a repentant woman! Fantastically beautiful, they but play with her grief. Sorrow herself would put her shoes off her feet in approaching the weeping Magdalene. They make much of her indeed, but they show her little reverence. There is in them, notwithstanding their fervour of amorous words, a coldness like that which dwells in the ghostly beauty of icicles shining in the moon.

But I almost reproach myself for introducing Crashaw thus. I had to point out the fact, and now having done with it, I could heartily wish I had room to expatiate on his loveliness even in such poems as The Weeper .

His Divine Epigrams are not the most beautiful, but they are to me the most valuable of his verses, inasmuch as they make us feel afresh the truth which he sets forth anew. In them some of the facts of our Lord's life and teaching look out upon us as from clear windows of the past. As epigrams, too, they are excellent-pointed as a lance.


Upon the Sepulchre of our Lord.

Here, where our Lord once laid his head,
Now the grave lies buriëd.


The Widow's Mites.

Two mites, two drops, yet all her house and land,
Fall from a steady heart, though trembling hand;
The other's wanton wealth foams high and brave:
The other cast away-she only gave.


On the Prodigal.

Tell me, bright boy! tell me, my golden lad!
Whither away so frolic? Why so glad?

What! all thy wealth in council? all thy state?
Are husks so dear? Troth, 'tis a mighty rate!

I value the following as a lovely parable. Mary is not contented: to see the place is little comfort. The church itself, with all its memories of the Lord, the gospel-story, and all theory