England's Antiphon Part 9

G.o.d early aids and ever guides: Who can this city take?

When nations go against her bent, And kings with siege her walls enround; The void of air his voice doth rent, Earth fails their feet with melting ground.

To strength and keep us sound, The G.o.d of armies arms; Our rock on Jacob's G.o.d we found, Above the reach of harms.

O come with me, O come, and view The trophies of Jehovah's hand!

What wrecks from him our foes pursue!

How clearly he hath purged our land!

By him wars silent stand: He brake the archer's bow, Made chariot's wheel a fiery brand, And spear to s.h.i.+vers go.

Be still, saith he; know, G.o.d am I; Know I will be with conquest crowned Above all nations--raised high, High raised above this earthly round.

To strength and keep us sound, The G.o.d of armies arms; Our rock on Jacob's G.o.d we found, Above the reach of harms.

"The G.o.d of armies arms" is a grand line.

Now let us have a hymn of Nature--a far finer, I think, than either of the preceding: _Praise waiteth for thee._

PSALM LXV.

Sion it is where thou art praised, Sion, O G.o.d, where vows they pay thee: There all men's prayers to thee raised, Return possessed of what they pray thee.

There thou my sins, prevailing to my shame, Dost turn to smoke of sacrificing flame.

Oh! he of bliss is not deceived, _disappointed._ Whom chosen thou unto thee takest; And whom into thy court received, Thou of thy checkrole[65] number makest: The dainty viands of thy sacred store Shall feed him so he shall not hunger more.

From thence it is thy threat'ning thunder-- Lest we by wrong should be disgraced-- Doth strike our foes with fear and wonder, O thou on whom their hopes are placed, Whom either earth doth stedfastly sustain, Or cradle rocks the restless wavy plain.

Thy virtue stays the mighty mountains, _power._ Girded with power, with strength abounding.

The roaring dam of watery fountains _the "dam of fountains"

Thy beck doth make surcease her sounding. [is the ocean._ When stormy uproars toss the people's brain, That civil sea to calm thou bring'st again. _political, as opposed [to natural._

Where earth doth end with endless ending, All such as dwell, thy signs affright them; And in thy praise their voices spending, Both houses of the sun delight them--- Both whence he comes, when early he awakes, And where he goes, when evening rest he takes.

Thy eye from heaven this land beholdeth, Such fruitful dews down on it raining, That storehouse-like her lap enfoldeth a.s.sured hope of ploughman's gaining: Thy flowing streams her drought doth temper so, That buried seed through yielding grave doth grow.

Drunk is each ridge of thy cup drinking; Each clod relenteth at thy dressing; _groweth soft._ Thy cloud-borne waters inly sinking, Fair spring sprouts forth, blest with thy blessing.

The fertile year is with thy bounty crowned; And where thou go'st, thy goings fat the ground.

Plenty bedews the desert places; A hedge of mirth the hills encloseth; The fields with flocks have hid their faces; A robe of corn the valleys clotheth.

Deserts, and hills, and fields, and valleys all, Rejoice, shout, sing, and on thy name do call.

The first stanza seems to me very fine, especially the verse, "Return possessed of what they pray thee." The third stanza might have been written after the Spanish Philip's Armada, but both King David and Sir Philip Sidney were dead before G.o.d brake that archer's bow.[66] The fourth line of the next stanza is a noteworthy instance of the sense gathering to itself the sound, and is in lovely contrast with the closing line of the same stanza.

One of the most remarkable specimens I know of the play with words of which I have already spoken as common even in the serious writings of this century, is to be found in the next line: "Where earth doth end with endless ending." David, regarding the world as a flat disc, speaks of the _ends_ of the earth: Sidney, knowing it to be a globe, uses the word of the Psalmist, but re-moulds and changes the form of it, with a power fantastic, almost capricious in its wilfulness, yet causing it to express the fact with a marvel of precision. We _see_ that the earth ends; we cannot reach the end we see; therefore the "earth doth end with endless ending." It is a case of that contradiction in the form of the words used, which brings out a truth in another plane as it were;--a paradox in words, not in meaning, for the words can bear no meaning but the one which reveals its own reality.

The following little psalm, _The Lord reigneth_, is a thunderous organ-blast of praise. The repet.i.tion of words in the beginning of the second stanza produces a remarkably fine effect.

PSALM XCIII.

Clothed with state, and girt with might, Monarch-like Jehovah reigns; He who earth's foundation pight-- _pitched._ Pight at first, and yet sustains; He whose stable throne disdains Motion's shock and age's flight; He who endless one remains One, the same, in changeless plight.

Rivers--yea, though rivers roar, Roaring though sea-billows rise, Vex the deep, and break the sh.o.r.e-- Stronger art thou, Lord of skies!

Firm and true thy promise lies Now and still as heretofore: Holy wors.h.i.+p never dies In thy house where we adore.

I close my selections from Sidney with one which I consider the best of all: it is the first half of _Lord, thou hast searched me._

PSALM Cx.x.xIX.

O Lord, in me there lieth nought But to thy search revealed lies; For when I sit Thou markest it; No less thou notest when I rise: Yea, closest closet of my thought Hath open windows to thine eyes.

Thou walkest with me when I walk When to my bed for rest I go, I find thee there, And every where: Not youngest thought in me doth grow, No, not one word I cast to talk But, yet unuttered, thou dost know.

If forth I march, thou goest before; If back I turn, thou com'st behind: So forth nor back Thy guard I lack; Nay, on me too thy hand I find.

Well I thy wisdom may adore, But never reach with earthy mind.

To shun thy notice, leave thine eye, O whither might I take my way?

To starry sphere?

Thy throne is there.

To dead men's undelightsome stay?

There is thy walk, and there to lie Unknown, in vain I should a.s.say.

O sun, whom light nor flight can match!

Suppose thy lightful flightful wings Thou lend to me, And I could flee As far as thee the evening brings: Ev'n led to west he would me catch, Nor should I lurk with western things.

Do thou thy best, O secret night, In sable veil to cover me: Thy sable veil Shall vainly fail: With day unmasked my night shall be; For night is day, and darkness light, O father of all lights, to thee.

Note the most musical play with the words _light_ and _flight_ in the fifth stanza. There is hardly a line that is not delightful.

They were a wonderful family those Sidneys. Mary, for whom Philip wrote his chief work, thence called "The Countess of Pembroke's _Arcadia,_" was a woman of rare gifts. The chief poem known to be hers is called _Our Saviour's Pa.s.sion_. It is full of the faults of the age. Sir Philip's sport with words is so graceful and ordered as to subserve the utterance of the thought: his sister's fanciful convolutions appear to be there for their own sake--certainly are there to the obscuration of the sense. The difficulty of the poem arises in part, I believe, from corruption, but chiefly from a certain fantastic way of dealing with thought as well as word of which I shall have occasion to say more when we descend a little further. It is, in the main, a lamentation over our Saviour's sufferings, in which the countess is largely guilty of the very feminine fault of seeking to convey the intensity of her emotions by forcing words, acc.u.mulating forms, and exaggerating descriptions. This may indeed convince as to the presence of feeling, but cannot communicate the feeling itself. _The_ right word will at once generate a sympathy of which all agonies of utterance will only render the willing mind more and more incapable.

The poem is likewise very diffuse--again a common fault with women of power; for indeed the faculty of compressing thought into crystalline form is one of the rarest gifts of artistic genius. It consists of a hundred and ten stanzas, from which I shall gather and arrange a few.

He placed all rest, and had no resting place; He healed each pain, yet lived in sore distress; Deserved all good, yet lived in great disgrace; Gave all hearts joy, himself in heaviness; Suffered them live, by whom himself was slain: Lord, who can live to see such love again?

Whose mansion heaven, yet lay within a manger; Who gave all food, yet sucked a virgin's breast; Who could have killed, yet fled a threatening danger; Who sought all quiet by his own unrest; Who died for them that highly did offend him, And lives for them that cannot comprehend him.

Who came no further than his Father sent him, And did fulfil but what he did command him; Who prayed for them that proudly did torment him For telling truly of what they did demand him; Who did all good that humbly did intreat him, And bare their blows, that did unkindly beat him.

Had I but seen him as his servants did, At sea, at land, in city, or in field, Though in himself he had his glory hid, That in his grace the light of glory held, Then might my sorrow somewhat be appeased, That once my soul had in his sight been pleased.

No! I have run the way of wickedness, Forgetting what my faith should follow most; I did not think upon thy holiness, Nor by my sins what sweetness I have lost.

Oh sin! for sin hath compa.s.sed me about, That, Lord, I know not where to find thee out.

Where he that sits on the supernal throne, In majesty most glorious to behold, And holds the sceptre of the world alone, Hath not his garments of imbroidered gold, But he is clothed with truth and righteousness, Where angels all do sing with joyfulness,

Where heavenly love is cause of holy life, And holy life increaseth heavenly love; Where peace established without fear or strife, Doth prove the blessing of the soul's behove;[67]

Where thirst nor hunger, grief nor sorrow dwelleth, But peace in joy, and joy in peace excelleth.