The Visions of England Part 11

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--Sudden, the mist gathers up like a curtain, the theatre clear; Stage of unequal conflict, and triumph purchased too dear!

Half our boot treasures of gallanthood there, with axe and with glaive, One against ten,--what of that?--We are ready for glory or grave!

There, Spain and her thousands nearing, with lightning-tongued weapons of war;-- Ebro's swarthy sons, and the bands from Epirus afar; Crescia, Gonzaga, del Vasto,--world-famous names of affright, Veterans of iron and blood, insatiate engines of fight:-- But ours were Norris and Ess.e.x and Stanley and Willoughby grim, And the waning Dudley star, and the star that will never be dim, Star of Philip the peerless,--and now at height of his noon, Astrophel!--not for thyself but for England extinguish'd too soon!

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Red walls of Zutphen behind; before them, Spain in her might:-- O! 'tis not war, but a game of heroic boyish delight!

For on, like a bolt-head of steel, go the fifty, dividing their way, Through and over the brown mail-s.h.i.+rts,--Farnese's choicest array; Over and through, and the curtel-axe flashes, the plumes in their pride Sink like the larch to the hewer, a death-mown avenue wide: While the foe in his stubbornness flanks them and bars them, with merciless aim Shooting from musket and saker a scornful death-tongue of flame.

As in an autumn afar, the Six Hundred in Chersonese hew'd Their road through a host, for their England and honour's sake wasting their blood, Foolishness wiser than wisdom!--So these, since Azincourt morn, First showing the world the calm open-eyed rashness of Englishmen born!

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Foes ere the cloud went up, black Norris and Stanley in one Pledge iron hands and kiss swords, each his mate's, in the face of the sun, Warm with the generous wine of the battle; and Willoughby's might To the turf bore Crescia, and lifted again,--knight honouring knight; All in the hurry and turmoil:--where North, half-booted and rough, Launch'd on the struggle, and Sidney struck onward, his cuisses thrown off, Rash over-courage of poet and youth!--while the memories, how At the joust long syne She look'd on, as he triumph'd, were hot on his brow, 'Stella! mine own, my own star!'--and he sigh'd:--and towards him a flame Shot its red signal; a shriek!--and the viewless messenger came; Found the unguarded gap, the approach left bare to the prey, Where through the limb to the life the death-stroke shatter'd a way.

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--Astrophel! England's pride!

O stroke that, when he died, Smote through the realm,--our best, our fairest ta'en!

For now the wound accurst Lights up death's fury-thirst;-- Yet the allaying cup, in all that pain, Untouch'd, untasted he gives o'er To one who lay, and watch'd with eyes that craved it more:--

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'Take it,' he said, ''tis thine; Thy need is more than mine';-- And smiled as one who looks through death to life: --Then pa.s.s'd, true heart and brave, Leal from birth to grave:-- For that curse-laden roar of mortal strife, With G.o.d's own peace ineffable fill'd,-- In that eternal Love all earthly pa.s.sion still'd.

In 1585 Elizabeth, who was then aiding the United Provinces in their resistance to Spain, sent Sir Philip Sidney (born 1554) as governor of the fortress of Flus.h.i.+ng in Zealand. The Earl of Leicester, chosen by the Queen's unhappy partiality to command the English force, named Sidney (his nephew) General of the horse. He marched thence to Zutphen in Guelderland, a town besieged by the Spaniards, in hopes of destroying a strong reinforcement which they were bringing in aid of the besiegers.

The details of the rash and heroic charge which followed may be read in Motley's _History of the United Netherlands_, ch. ix.

St. 1 _Guelderland_; in this province the Rhine divides before entering the sea: 'gliding through a vast plain.'--_South-Fen_; Zutphen, on the Yssel (Rhine).

St. 3 _The bands from Epirus_; Crescia, the Epirote chief, commanded a body of Albanian cavalry.--_The waning Dudley star_; Leicester, who was near the end of his miserable career.--_Astrophel_; Sidney celebrated his love for Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich, in the series of Sonnets and Lyrics named _Astrophel and Stella_:--posthumously published in 1591.--After, or with Shakespeare's Sonnets, this series seems to me to offer the most powerful picture of the pa.s.sion of love in the whole range of our poetry.

St. 4 _Saker_; early name for field-piece.--_The Six Hundred_; The Crimea in ancient days was named _Chersonesus Taurica_.

St. 5 _Black Norris_; had been at variance with Sir W. Stanley before the engagement. Morris was one of twelve gallant brothers, whose complexion followed that of their mother, named by Elizabeth 'her own crow.'--_North_; was lying bedrid from a wound in the leg, but could not resist volunteering at Zutphen, and rode up 'with one boot on and one boot off.'--_Cuisses_;

I saw young Harry, with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs: (_Henry IV_, Part I: A. iv: S. i):--

Sidney flung off his 'in a fit of chivalrous extravagance.'--_At the joust_; In Sonnets 41 and 53 of _Astrophel and Stella_ Sidney describes how the sudden sight of his lady-love dazzled him as he rode in certain tournaments. In Son. 69 he cries:

I, I, O, I, may say that she is mine.

ELIZABETH AT TILBURY

September: 1588

Let them come, come never so proudly, O'er the green waves as giants ride; Silver clarions menacing loudly, 'All the Spains' on their banners wide; High on deck of the gilded galleys Our light sailers they scorn below:-- We will scatter them, plague, and shatter them, Till their flag hauls down to their foe!

For our oath we swear By the name we bear, By England's Queen, and England free and fair,-- Her's ever and her's still, come life, come death:-- G.o.d save Elizabeth!

Sidonia, Recalde, and Leyva Watch from their Castles in swarthy scorn, Lords and Princes by Philip's favour;-- We by birthright are n.o.ble born!

Freemen born of the blood of freemen, Sons of Crecy and Flodden are we!

We shall sunder them, fire, and plunder them,-- English boats on an English sea!

And our oath we swear, By the name we bear, By England's Queen, and England free and fair,-- Her's ever and her's still, come life, come death!

G.o.d save Elizabeth!

Drake and Frobisher, Hawkins, and Howard, Raleigh, Cavendish, Cecil, and Brooke, Hang like wasps by the flags.h.i.+ps tower'd, Sting their way through the thrice-piled oak:-- Let them range their seven-mile crescent, Giant galleons, canvas wide!

Ours will harry them, board, and carry them, Plucking the plumes of the Spanish pride.

For our oath we swear By the name we bear, By England's Queen, and England free and fair,-- Her's ever and her's still, come life, come death!

G.o.d save Elizabeth!

--Hath G.o.d risen in wrath and scatter'd?

Have His tempests smote them in scorn?

Past the Orcades, dumb and tatter'd, 'Mong sea-beasts do they drift forlorn?

We were as lions hungry for battle; G.o.d has made our battle His own!

G.o.d has scatter'd them, sunk, and shatter'd them: Give the glory to Him alone!

While our oath we swear, By the name we bear, By England's Queen, and England free and fair,-- Her's ever and her's still, come life, come death!

G.o.d save Elizabeth!

AT BEMERTON

1630-1633

Sick with the strife of tongues, the bl.u.s.tering hate Of frantic Party raving o'er the realm, Sonorous insincerities of debate, And jealous factions s.n.a.t.c.hing at the helm, And Out o'er-bidding In with graceless strife, Selling the State for votes:--O happy fields, I cried, where Herbert, by the world misprized, Found in his day the life That no unrest or disappointment yields, Vergilian vision here best realized!

His memory is Peace: and peace is here;-- The eternal lullaby of the level brook, With bird-like chirpings mingled, gla.s.sy-clear; The narrow pathway to the yew-clipp'd nook; Trim lawn, familiar to the pensive feet; The long gray walls he raised:--A household nest Where Hope and firm-eyed Faith and heavenly Love Made human love more sweet; While,--earth's rare visitant from the choirs above,-- Urania's holy steps the cottage blest.

Peace there:--and peace upon the house of G.o.d, The little road-side church that room-like stands Crouching entrench'd in slopes of daisy sod, And duly deck'd by Herbert-honouring hands:-- Cell of detachment! Shrine to which the heart Withdraws, and all the roar of life is still; Then sinks into herself, and finds a shrine Within the shrine apart: Alone with G.o.d, as on the Arabian hill Man knelt in vision to the All-divine!

--Thrice happy they,--and know their happiness,-- Who read the soul's star-orbit Heaven-ward clear; Not roving comet-like through doubt and guess, But 'neath their feet tread nescient pride and fear; Scan the unseen with sober certainty, G.o.d's hill above Himalah;--Love green earth With deeper, truer love, because the blue Of Heaven around they see;-- Who in the death-gasp hail man's second birth, And yield their loved ones with a brief adieu!

--Thee, too, esteem I happy in thy death, Poet! while yet peace was, and thou might'st live Unvex'd in thy sweet reasonable faith, The gracious creed that knows how to forgive:-- Not narrowing G.o.d to self,--the common bane Of sects, each man his own small oracle; Not losing innerness in external rite; A wors.h.i.+p pure and plain, Yet liberal to man's heaven-imbreathed delight In all that sound can hint, or beauty tell.

A golden moderation!--which the wise Then highest rate, when fury-factions roar, And folly's choicest fools the most despise:-- --O happy Poet! laid in peace before Rival intolerants each 'gainst other flamed, And flames were slaked in blood, and all the grace Of life before that sad illiterate gloom Puritan, fled ashamed: While, as the red moon lifts her turbid face, t.i.tanic features on the horizon loom!

George Herbert's brief career as a parish priest was pa.s.sed at Bemerton, a pretty village near Salisbury in the vale of the Avon. His parsonage, with its garden running down to the stream, and the little church across the road in which he lies buried, remain comparatively unchanged (March 26, 1880) since he lived and mused and wrote his Poems within these precincts. The justly-famous _Temple_ was published shortly after his death by his friend Nicholas Ferrar.

_Arabian hill_; Mount Sinai.

_t.i.tanic features_; See _A Churchyard in Oxfords.h.i.+re_, st. iii.

PRINCESS ANNE