England's Antiphon Part 25

And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould; And h.e.l.l itself will pa.s.s 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 aged earth, aghast With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake, When, at the world's last session, 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, Swinges[120] the scaly horror of his folded tail.[121]

The oracles are dumb:[122]

No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched 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 sh.o.r.e, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale, Edged with poplar pale, The parting genius[123] 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 Lemures[124] moan with midnight plaint; In urns and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the flamens[125] at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baalim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-battered G.o.d of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, _the a.s.syrian Venus_.

Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy s.h.i.+ne; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn;[126]

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz[127] 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 grisly[128] king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue.

The brutish G.o.ds of Nile as fast-- Isis and Orus and the dog Anubis--haste.

Nor is Osiris[129] seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshowered[130] gra.s.s with lowings loud; Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest; Nought but profoundest h.e.l.l can be his shroud; In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark, The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his wors.h.i.+pped ark:

He feels, from Judah's land, The dreaded infant's hand; The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn.

Nor all the G.o.ds beside Longer dare abide-- Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine: Our babe, to show his G.o.dhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control the d.a.m.ned 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 star[131]

Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed[132] 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 p.r.o.nunciations 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 a.s.sociated--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 _Pa.s.sion_, 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 entered, 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.

CHAPTER XV.

EDMUND WALLER, THOMAS BROWN, AND JEREMY TAYLOR.

Edmund Waller, born in 1605, was three years older than Milton; but I had a fancy for not dividing Herbert and Milton. As a poet he had a high reputation for many years, gained chiefly, I think, by a regard to literary proprieties, combined with wit. He is graceful sometimes; but what in his writings would with many pa.s.s for grace, is only smoothness and the absence of faults. His horses were not difficult to drive. He dares little and succeeds in proportion--occasionally, however, flas.h.i.+ng out into true song. In politics he had no character--let us hope from weakness rather than from selfishness; yet, towards the close of his life, he wrote some poems which reveal a man not unaccustomed to ponder sacred things, and able to express his thoughts concerning them with force and justice. From a poem called _Of Divine Love_, I gather the following very remarkable pa.s.sages: I wish they had been enforced by greater n.o.bility of character. Still they are in themselves true. Even where we have no proof of repentance, we may see plentiful signs of a growth towards it. We cannot tell how long the truth may of necessity require to interpenetrate the ramifications of a man's nature. By slow degrees he discovers that here it is not, and there it is not. Again and again, and yet again, a man finds that he must be born with a new birth.

The fear of h.e.l.l, or aiming to be blest, Savours too much of private interest: This moved not Moses, nor the zealous Paul, Who for their friends abandoned soul and all; A greater yet from heaven to h.e.l.l descends, To save and make his enemies his friends.

That early love of creatures yet unmade, To frame the world the Almighty did persuade.

For love it was that first created light, Moved on the waters, chased away the night From the rude chaos; and bestowed new grace On things disposed of to their proper place-- Some to rest here, and some to s.h.i.+ne above: Earth, sea, and heaven, were all the effects of love.

Not willing terror should his image move, He gives a pattern of eternal love: His son descends, to treat a peace with those Which were, and must have ever been, his foes.

Poor he became, and left his glorious seat, To make us humble, and to make us great; His business here was happiness to give To those whose malice could not let him live.

He to proud potentates would not be known: Of those that loved him, he was hid from none.

Till love appear, we live in anxious doubt; But smoke will vanish when that flame breaks out: This is the fire that would consume our dross, Refine, and make us richer by the loss.

Who for himself no miracle would make, Dispensed with[134] several for the people's sake.

He that, long-fasting, would no wonder show, Made loaves and fishes, as they eat them, grow.

Of all his power, which boundless was above, Here he used none but to express his love; And such a love would make our joy exceed, Not when our own, but others' mouths we feed.

Love as he loved! A love so unconfined With arms extended would embrace mankind.

Self-love would cease, or be dilated, when We should behold as many selfs as men; All of one family, in blood allied, His precious blood that for our ransom died.

Amazed at once and comforted, to find A boundless power so infinitely kind, The soul contending to that light to fly From her dark cell, we practise how to die, Employing thus the poet's winged art To reach this love, and grave it in our heart.

Joy so complete, so solid, and severe, Would leave no place for meaner pleasures there: Pale they would look, as stars that must be gone When from the east the rising sun comes on.

To that and some other poems he adds the following--a kind of epilogue.

ON THE FOREGOING DIVINE POEMS.

When we for age could neither read nor write, The subject made us able to indite: The soul with n.o.bler resolutions decked, The body stooping, does herself erect: No mortal parts are requisite to raise Her that unbodied can her Maker praise.

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er: So calm are we when pa.s.sions are no more; For then we know how vain it was to boast Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.