England's Antiphon Part 38

The war of swords and spears, Melted by dewy tears, Exhales on high; The sun is freed from fears, And with soft grateful tears, Ascends the sky.

The following is full of truth most quaintly expressed, with a homeliness of phrase quite delicious. It is one of the _Songs of Innocence_, published, as we learn from Gilchrist's Life of Blake, in the year 1789.

They were engraved on copper with ill.u.s.trations by Blake, and printed and bound by his wife. When we consider them in respect of the time when they were produced, we find them marvellous for their originality and simplicity.

ON ANOTHER'S SORROW.

Can I see another's woe, And not be in sorrow too?

Can I see another's grief, And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear, And not feel my sorrow's share?

Can a father see his child Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

Can a mother sit and hear An infant groan, an infant fear?

No, no; never can it be!

Never, never can it be!

And can he, who smiles on all, Hear the wren, with sorrows small-- Hear the small bird's grief and care, Hear the woes that infants bear,

And not sit beside the nest, Pouring pity in their breast?

And not sit the cradle near, Weeping tear on infant's tear?

And not sit both night and day, Wiping all our tears away?

Oh, no! never can it be!

Never, never can it be!

He doth give his joy to all; He becomes an infant small; He becomes a man of woe; He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh, And thy Maker is not by; Think not thou canst weep a tear, And thy Maker is not near.

Oh! he gives to us his joy, That our grief he may destroy: Till our grief is fled and gone, He doth sit by us and moan.

There is our mystic yet again leading the way.

A supreme regard for science, and the wors.h.i.+p of power, go hand in hand: that knowledge is power has been esteemed the grandest incitement to study. Yet the antidote to the disproportionate cultivation of science, is simply power in its crude form--breaking out, that is, as brute force.

When science, isolated and glorified, has produced a contempt, not only for vulgar errors, but for the truths which are incapable of scientific proof, then, as we see in the French Revolution, the wild beast in man breaks from its den, and chaos returns. But all the n.o.blest minds in Europe looked for grand things in the aurora of this uprising of the people. To the terrible disappointment that followed, we are indebted for the training of Wordsworth to the priesthood of nature's temple. So was he possessed with the hope of a coming deliverance for the nations, that he spent many months in France during the Revolution. At length he was forced to seek safety at home. Dejected even to hopelessness for a time, he believed in nothing. How could there be a G.o.d that ruled in the earth when such a rising sun of promise was permitted to set in such a sea!

But for man to wors.h.i.+p himself is a far more terrible thing than that blood should flow like water: the righteous plague of G.o.d allowed things to go as they would for a time. But the power of G.o.d came upon Wordsworth--I cannot say as it had never come before, but with an added insight which made him recognize in the fresh gift all that he had known and felt of such in the past. To him, as to Cowper, the benignities of nature restored peace and calmness and hope--sufficient to enable him to look back and gather wisdom. He was first troubled, then quieted, and then taught. Such presence of the Father has been an infinitely more active power in the redemption of men than men have yet become capable of perceiving. The divine expressions of Nature, that is, the face of the Father therein visible, began to heal the plague which the wors.h.i.+p of knowledge had bred. And the power of her teaching grew from comfort to prayer, as will be seen in the poem I shall give. Higher than all that Nature can do in the way of direct lessoning, is the production of such holy moods as result in hope, conscience of duty, and supplication. Those who have never felt it have to be told there is in her such a power--yielding to which, the meek inherit the earth.

NINTH EVENING VOLUNTARY.

_Composed upon an evening of extraordinary splendour and beauty._

I.

Had this effulgence disappeared With flying haste, I might have sent Among the speechless clouds a look Of blank astonishment; But 'tis endued with power to stay, And sanctify one closing day, That frail Mortality may see-- What is?--ah no, but what _can_ be!

Time was when field and watery cove With modulated echoes rang, While choirs of fervent angels sang Their vespers in the grove; Or, crowning, star-like, each some sovereign height, Warbled, for heaven above and earth below, Strains suitable to both.--Such holy rite, Methinks, if audibly repeated now From hill or valley could not move Sublimer transport, purer love, Than doth this silent spectacle--the gleam-- The shadow--and the peace supreme!

II.

No sound is uttered,--but a deep And solemn harmony pervades The hollow vale from steep to steep, And penetrates the glades.

Far distant images draw nigh, Called forth by wondrous potency Of beamy radiance, that imbues Whate'er it strikes with gem-like hues.

In vision exquisitely clear, Herds range along the mountain side, And glistening antlers are descried, And gilded flocks appear.

Thine is the tranquil hour, purpureal Eve!

But long as G.o.dlike wish or hope divine Informs my spirit, ne'er can I believe That this magnificence is wholly thine!

From worlds nor quickened by the sun A portion of the gift is won; An intermingling of heaven's pomp is spread On ground which British shepherds tread!

III.

And if there be whom broken ties Afflict, or injuries a.s.sail, Yon hazy ridges to their eyes Present a glorious scale[162]

Climbing suffused with sunny air, To stop--no record hath told where; And tempting Fancy to ascend, And with immortal spirits blend!

--Wings at my shoulders seem to play!

But, rooted here, I stand and gaze On those bright steps that heavenward raise Their practicable way.

Come forth, ye drooping old men, look abroad, And see to what fair countries ye are bound!

And if some traveller, weary of his road, Hath slept since noontide on the gra.s.sy ground, Ye genii, to his covert speed, And wake him with such gentle heed As may attune his soul to meet the dower Bestowed on this transcendent hour.

IV.

Such hues from their celestial urn Were wont to stream before mine eye Where'er it wandered in the morn Of blissful infancy.

This glimpse of glory, why renewed?

Nay, rather speak with grat.i.tude; For, if a vestige of those gleams Survived, 'twas only in my dreams.

Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve No less than nature's threatening voice, If aught unworthy be my choice, From THEE if I would swerve; Oh, let thy grace remind me of the light Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored; Which, at this moment, on my waking sight Appears to s.h.i.+ne, by miracle restored: My soul, though yet confined to earth, Rejoices in a second birth!

--'Tis past; the visionary splendour fades; And night approaches with her shades.

Although I have mentioned Wordsworth before Coleridge because he was two years older, yet Coleridge had much to do with the opening of Wordsworth's eyes to such visions; as, indeed, more than any man in our times, he has opened the eyes of the English people to see wonderful things. There is little of a directly religious kind in his poetry; yet we find in him what we miss in Wordsworth, an inclined plane from the revelation in nature to the culminating revelation in the Son of Man.

Somehow, I say, perhaps because we find it in his prose, we feel more of this in Coleridge's verse.

Coleridge is a sage, and Wordsworth is a seer; yet when the sage sees, that is, when, like the son of Beor, he falls into a trance having his eyes open, or, when feeling and sight are one and philosophy is in abeyance, the ecstasy is even loftier in Coleridge than in Wordsworth. In their highest moods they seem almost to change places--Wordsworth to become sage, and Coleridge seer. Perhaps the grandest hymn of praise which man, the mouth-piece of Nature, utters for her, is the hymn of Mont Blanc.

HYMN

_Before sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni._

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star In his steep course--so long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc?

The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!

Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon ma.s.s: methinks thou piercest it As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer I wors.h.i.+pped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy; Till the dilating soul, enwrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision pa.s.sing--there As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!

Awake, my soul! Not only pa.s.sive praise Thou owest! Not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!

Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole sovran[163] of the Vale!

O struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars,[164]

Or when they climb the sky or when they sink!

Companion of the morning-star at dawn, Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn[165]