• =

THIS BOOK

IS FROM THE LIBRARY OF

Rev. James Leach

Jo hit-

Ac. " / Cj I

THE PILGRIMS' WAY

ANOTHER EDITION of this book is issued on thin paper and bound in leather Price 5*. nett.

THE

PILGRIMS' WAY

A Little Scrip of Good Counsel for Travellers

CHOSEN BY A. T. QUILLER -COUCH

SECOND EDITION

LONDON SEELEY & CO LIMITED

38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET 1906

Edinburgh : T and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty

PREFACE

IT is a disease of us English, and I think a reproach to that reformed religion which most of us profess, that we no longer go on pilgrimages. We travel more furiously than ever, and our propensity for it has passed into a by-word among the nations : but we travel among phenomena, and either in that rage for sight-seeing which Matthew Arnold summarised once for all, or in pursuit of bodily, not of spiritual, health. Yet we were once a great people for pilgrimages for our spiritual health ; and the roads along which we tear in motors or on bicycles intersect and sometimes follow for miles the tracks whereby the Englishman used to ride or trudge — once in his lifetime, perhaps, but for his soul's great benefit — to Canterbury, Walsingham, St. Michael's Mount. For most of us the frequented stretches of these old roads have had their significance rubbed out of them : it is where the track diverges — where the rider on his way home from the hunt crosses a ribbon of short turf winding over the downs — that the lesson is more likely to be read : and this is a pity, for it effaces by a foolish antiquarian interest what should be a present practical one. If the new road lead us better to Walsingham than the old, by all means let the old be superseded. But does the new lead to Walsingham ?

I want to urge here a reason or two why this good custom of our fathers, of going on pilgrimages, should not be discontinued.

In the first place, a man ought, at least once in his

PREFACE

life, to commit himself to some great undertaking such as a pilgrimage; for a man has only one life to live. Also it will help to make him an agreeable fellow. He will derive an astonishing amount of amusement from planning the cost, poring over maps, and discussing the adventure beforehand with his wife ; and afterwards he can tell his neighbours about it.

Next, although a holiday is good, a pilgrimage is better ; for it proceeds from those impulses which, though he repress them by daily work, still intrude and whisper that he was born for higher things. Almost every man feels that his fate holds him down to a rut ; that, though he love his wife and children, he has missed for their. sake to do God (whatever his God may be) some service which had been within his free capacity. Therefore his release upon pilgrimage offers him something which is more than a holiday, and at the same time something which is better, being less. It has not the dissoluteness of a holiday, which so often disappoints because the holiday-maker has cut himself off from his interests, and changed them for

Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realised,

whereas the pilgrim is one who has made an appoint ment with his higher self, to meet at some distant date and place. As Donne says —

Meet me in London then

Twenty dayes hence, and thou shall see

Me fresher and more fat, by being with men,

Than if I had staid still with her and thee.

' By ^ being with men ' — that is another gain of the pilgrim's. He not only, like Ulysses, visits cities and foreigners, and learns their minds : he makes acquaintance, among his fellow-travellers, with men at once « prac tical,' taking the day as it comes, and congregationally

PREFACE

bent on bettering their souls. Their sociability (you may note this in Chaucer's pilgrims) does not hide their serious common purpose, but rather takes it for granted, and so makes it more real.

Again, the pilgrim is doing what the race has done constantly for many thousands of years ; and to any i one with a catholic mind (no matter what his creed) ^this ought to be a tremendous argument.

Lastly, he is putting into drama and acting for him self that parable which — so true is it — has in one way and another inspired the very best books in the world — among them the Odyssey, the JEneid, the Divine Comedy, Don Quixote. All these are but different versions of the Pilgrim's Progress : and if this little book dares to follow the parable, it is because a truth so universal covers the small equally with the great.

We are all on pilgrimage here : and though to beguile the road I have sung a song or two, and told perhaps too many stories, there has also been time to make a notebook of a few good thoughts I met on the way and pondered and sometimes took to rest with me. Perhaps the best of all, for all weathers and for every business, is the following of Fenelon's, which I have kept for my preface: —

' Do everything without excitement, simply in the spirit of grace. So soon as you perceive natural activity gliding in, recall yourself quietly into the presence of God. . . . You 'will Jind yourself infinitely more quiet, your 'words will le fewer and more effectual, and, while doing less, what you do will be more profitable. It is not a question of a hopeless mental activity, but a question of acquiring a quietude and peace in 'which you readily advise 'with your beloved as to all you have to do.'

A. T. QUILLER-COUCH.

NOTE

NOTE

I MUST here thank those who have helped me by per mitting the use of copyright poems and prose passages :— Canon H. C. Beeching, Mr. Laurence Binyon, Mr. Robert Bridges, Mr. William Canton, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. George Meredith, Mr. Herbert Trench, Mr. William Watson, Mr. Israel Zangwill ; Lady Seeley and Mrs. Coventry Patmore ; Mr. Lloyd Osbourne for three pieces by Robert Louis Stevenson ; Mr. Bertram Dobell for extracts from Traherne and James Thomson ; Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. for sundry poems of Browning's and a prose passage from Thackeray; Mr. Alfred Nutt for two lyrics by W. E. Henley, and Mr. John Lane for one by William Brighty Rands j Messrs. Macmillan for two by T. E. Brown and two stanzas by Frederick Tennyson j Mr. Alfred Sutro for permission to use his translation of M. Maurice Maeterlinck, and Mr. George Allen for con firming that permission and for a poem by William (Johnson) Cory. Of other translators I have gone for Epictetus to the late Mr. George Long (Messrs. G. Bell and Sons) ; for Marcus Aurelius to Long and to Casaubon ; for Cervantes to Mr. H. E. Watts (Messrs. A. and C. Black) ; for Pascal to Mr. W. F. Trotter, who made the excellent rendering for Messrs. J. M. Dent and Co.'s 'Temple Classics'; for two passages from Fenelon to the anony mous editor of some selections from the Lettres Spirituelles published by the H. M. Caldwell Co. of New York and Boston. For other translations I am responsible : while for the text of many of the poems included I have relied upon redactions made by me for the Oxford Book of English Verse, published by the Clarendon Press.

A. T. Q.-C.

CONTENTS

CHILDHOOD

A Boy's Song

A Child ....

The Retreat . .

First-Fruits ...

Ode on Intimations of Immor tality from Recollections of Early Childhood

The Nurse's Song .

Morning School . .

The Thought

The Sister ....

To His Saviour, a Child : a Present by a Child

A Child's Grace .

The Toys ....

James Hogg John Earle . Henry Vaughan . Thomas Traherne .

YOUTH

Invocation to Youth From 'Saul'

Prayers .... Founder's Day. A Secular

Ode on the Ninth Jubilee

of Eton College Wotton at Winchester . Pater Filio . To H. F.B. Hey nonny no ! A

Laurence Binyon Robert Broiuning H. C. Bceching

Robert Bridges feaak Walton Robert Bridges . Robert Louis Stevenson Anonymous .

23

24

25

26

William Words-worth .	. 28
William Blake . William Canton . William Brighty Rands William Wordsivorth .	• 36 • 36 • 38 • 39
Robert Herrick . Robert Herrick .	. 40
Coventry Patmore	41

47 5°

CONTENTS

The Bargain

Crabbed Age and Youth

Collige Rosas

S/> Philip Sidney . William Shakespeare . William Ernest Henley

THE FORE-RUNNERS

God's Chosen

The Story of Cleobis and

Biton ... The Predestined . The Old Margate Hoy . To Sir Lucius Carey: of his

friend Sir H. Morison . The Soldier . . Fore-runners

Wisdom of Solomon

Herodotus . Maurice Maeterlinck Charles Lamb

Ben Jonson . Roumanian Peasant Song Ralph Waldo Emerson .

DIVINE LOVE

Divine Love . ...

Quia Amore Langueo . The Invitation

Christ Crucified . . . The Man with Three Friends

The Way, the Light, the Life

St. Agnes' Eve . . . Love . .

The Song of Songs Anonymous . John Lydgate Richard Crashaiu Dora Greenivell , Francis Quarles , Lord Tennyson George Herbert

HUMANE LOVE

The Invocation . Wooing Song . . . Silvia . .

To Anthea, who may com mand him Anything . Mary Morison • . . The Indian Serenade . . In a Gondola '.' . . The Ecstasy. .. The Triumph ..-.'!. The Vine ... . 2

Robert Browning . Giles Fletcher William Shakespeare

Robert Herrick Robert Burns . Percy Bysshe Shelley Robert Broivning . John Donne . . Ben Jonson . . James Thomson

PAGE

54 54

55

$9

60 61 62

63 64 65

69 7* 75

76

76

Si

85 86

90 9J 92 93 94

CONTENTS

MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN

		PAGE
Praise of Women .	Robert Mannyng of BJ unne	• 97
Epithalamion	. Edmund Spenser .	• 97
Marriage	Jeremy Taylor	I 12
When Love meets Love	. T. E. Brown	• IX3
The Husband	Jeremy Taylor	. 114
Cradle Song .	. William Blake .	. 114
HOUSE	AND GARDEN
Wishes	Robert Louis Stevenson .	. 119
The Wine of Life	James Bosiuell	. 119
To Mr. Lawrence	. John Milton	. 120
To Cyriack Skinner	. John Milton	121
The Holy Tide .	Frederick Tennyson	. 121
Of Gardens .	Francis Bacon	. 122
Thoughts in a Garden .	Andrew Marvell	• 123

WORK AND THE DAILY ROUND

Waking .... Jeremy Taylor . . .129

To the Comtesse de Gramont Fe'nelon . . . .129 Our Daily Bread . . . William Makepeace Thackeray 130

Sleep ..... Sir Thomas Broiune . . 131

DIVINITY IN MAN

If Children, then Heirs . Epictetus . . . 135

Valedictory to the River

Dud don .... William Wordsworth . . 135

The Universal in Man . . Ralph Waldo Emerson . .136

A Compendium . . . Sir John Da-vies . . .138 Christianity : Pride and

Humility .... B/aise Pascal . . .138

NATURE

Wood-notes. . . . Ralph Waldo Emerson . -143

Joy ..... Samuel Taylor Coleridge . 144

The Brutes .... Walt Whitman . . . 145

CONTENTS

Melampus . . . • On the Wye above Tintern Abbey . .- . * . Love Universal . Vita Nuova . .

George Meredith .

William Wordsworth Alexander Smith . William Watson .

THE STARS

The Stars . . . .-. Lorenzo and Jessica . , . Midnight on St. Thomas's Eve Night— and Carlyle Dying . On the Beach at Night . The King on the Tower Johannes Agricola in Medi tation ....

PAGE 146

157 I58

Alphonse Daudet . . .161

William Shakespeare . . 164

Thomas Hardy . . .165

Walt Whitman . . . 166

Walt Whitman . . .167 William Makepeace Thackeray 169

Robert Browning , . .170

THE STRENGTH OF MANHOOD

Virtue . . . . :' , True Knighthood . . . .; . Man his own Master Ulysses and the Siren Positive and Negative Virtue Positive and Negative Virtue Henry at Agincourt . • . Clive before Plassey A Charge . Invictus ,

Cheer . . . . Trust Thyself . . Respice Finem . •"";"-

John Milton	• 175
Stephen Halves	• 17S
Jeremy Taylor	• 175
Samuel Daniel	. 176
James Anthony Frbude .	• »79
Robert Louis Stevenson .	. 180
William Shakespeare	. 181
Lord Macaulay .	. 183
Herbert Trench	. 184
William Ernest Henley .	. 185
Arthur Hugh Clough .	. 186
Ralph Waldo Emerson .	. 186
John Milton	. 188

THE GRACE OF MANHOOD

Domine, Quis Habitabit ? Integer Vitae • '. . . To the Lady Margaret, Coun tess of Cumberland . 4

Psalm x-v . • . Thomas Campion .

Samuel Daniel

191 191

192

CONTENTS

PAGE

A Quiet Soul . . . John Oldham . . .197

The True Gentleman Denned Cardinal Newman . .198

Manners .... Coventry Patmore . . , 200

Virtue . . . George Herbert . . . 2O2

THE FREEMAN

Freedom .... John Barbour . . . 205 The Character of a Happy

Life .... Sir Henry Wotton . . 206

Instans Tyrannus . . . Robert Browning . . . 207

The Remedy against Ire . Geoffrey Chaucer . . . 209

THE CITIZEN

Citizenship .... Edmund Burke . . .213 Don Quixote gives Counsel to

Sancho Panza . . . Cervantes . . . .214 Compromise . . . Anne Robert Jacques Turgot . 217

Compromise . . . Abraham Lincoln . . .217

Compromise . . . Cardinal Newman . .217

Refreshment . . . Marcus Aurelim Antoninus . 218

Self-Reliance . . . Ralph Waldo Emerson . .218

CONTENT

The Means to attain Happy Life ..... Earl of Surrey Sweet Content . . . Thomas Dekker	. 221 . 222
The Angler's Rest The Valley of Humiliation Of Ambitions Peterkin's Pudding	. Izaak Walton . John Bunyan . Blaise Pascal I. Zangiuill	. 222 • 225 . 227 . 227
	WISDOM
The Praise of Wisdom . Quis est iste . The Answer . The Beatitudes	. Eccleiiasticus . Book of Job . . Esdras St. Matthew	. 23I • 233 . 238 . 210

CONTENTS

PRAYER AND PRAISE

		PAGE
	Jeremy Taylor	• 243
	t/ •/ Geortre Meredith .	• 243
To Our Lady . ,	& , Speculum Christian!	. 244
Discipline in Prayer « • •	, Fe'nelon	• 244
Prayer and Praise .	Sir W. Davenant	. 246
Sursum Corda	Epictetus	. 246
Laudate Dominum	Psalm cxfoiii . ' ^ i' ~	. 247
CHARITY
Against Bitterness of Zeal	Jeremy Taylor	. 251
How Charity 'Begins at
Home* ....	Fe'nelon	. 252
Abou Ben Adhem	Leigh Hunt .	• 253
Magdalen ....	Henry Kingsley	• 254
The Gentle Man .	Thomas Campion .	• 255
Man's Service	Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke	• 255
The Least of These	'£>.' .	. 256
The Invisible Goodness	Maurice Maeterlinck	• 257
The Signs of Goodness .	Francis Bacon	• '57
SOME	EXEMPLARS
The Death of the Bruce	Froissart . . .	. 26l
The Good Priest .	Ecclesiasticus . . '» .	. 264
The Death of Bede	Cuthbert . »	. 265
The Good Knight	Sir Thomas Malory ^	. 266
Character of the Happy
Warrior ....	William Words-worth .	267

Incident of the Battle of Sala manca .... Sir William Napiet

Washington says Farewell to

his Army .... Ramsey . . .-

Nelson's Departure from

Portsmouth . . , Robert Southey

The Good Sea Captain . . Thomas Fuller 6

270 271

272 273

CONTENTS

On the Death of Mr. Robert		PAGE
Levet, a Practiser in Physic	Samuel Johnson	2/4
Two Good Anglers	laaak Walton	276
BEREAVEMENT	AND CONSOLATION
Departed ....	Henry Faugkan .	283
Rose Aylmer	Walter Savage Landor ,	284
Requiescat ....	Mattheiv Arnold .	285
Heraclitus ....	William Cory	286
The Old Familiar Faces	Charles Lamb	286
Exequy on his Wife	Henry King	287
The Wife a-lost .	William Barnes .	29:
Beyond ....	John Gibson Lockhart	292
Easter .....	Sir J. R. Seeley .	293
The Fountain of Tears .	Arthur William Edgar
	0' Shaughnessy . . .	294
Despair ....	William Shakespeare	296
Consolation ....	John Milton . . .	297
The New Jerusalem	Anonymous ....	298
	AGE
On Time ....	John Milton	303
Old Age ....	Edmund Waller .	3°4
A Farewell to Arms	George Peele . . .	3°4
Cadmus and Harmonia .	Mattheiv Arnold . . .	305
The Gate ....	John Greenleaf Whittier	306
Rabbi Ben Ezra .	Robert Broivning .	3°7
Peace	Henry Vaughan .	316
DEATH
Death	Marcus Aurelius Antoninus .	321
Death	Sir Walter Raleigh	321
Death	John Donne ....	322
Last Lines ....	Emily Bronte	322
Dominus Illuminatio Mea	R.B. .....	324
My Own Country	Henry Montagu^ Earl of
	Manchester	324
	7

CONTENTS

Valiant-for-Truth crosses the PAGE

River . ... John Bunyan . .4 . . 325

Up-Hill ..,.'• . Christina Rossetti . -. . 326

The Rapture . . . Henry Montagu, Earl of

Manchester . . .327

O Come Quickly ! . . Thomas Campion . . .329

The Pilgrim's Way . . Sir Walter Raleigh . . 329

TITLES OF VERSE

PAGE PAGE
Abou Ben Adhem	253	Fore-runners	65
		Founder's Day .	47
Bargain, The .	54	Fountain of Tears, The	2 94
Beatitudes, The	239	Freedom ....	205
Beyond ....	292
Boy's Song, A .	23	Gate, The	706
Brutes, The	H5	Gentle Man, The	y+\» 255
		God's Chosen .	to
Cadmus and Harmonia	3°5	Good Priest, The	J s 264
Cheer ....	186
Character of a Happy Life, The .... Character of the Happy Warrior Charge, A ...	206 267 184	Henry at Agincourt Heraclitus Hey nonny no ! Holy Tide, The	181 286 53 121
Child's Grace, A Christ Crucified Collige Rosas . Compendium, A Consolation Crabbed Age and Youth Cradle Song	4i 76 55 138 297 54 114	In a Gondola . Indian Serenade, The Instans Tyrannus Integer Vitae . Invictus .... Invitation, The Invocation, The	91 90 207 I9I I85 75 85
Departed	283	Invocation to Youth	45
Despair .... Divine Love	296 69	Johannes Agricola in Medi
Domine, Quis Habitabit ? .	191	tation ....	170
Dominus Illuminatio Mea .	324	J°y	144
Easter . . . .	293	King on the Tower, The .	169
Ecstasy, The . Kff ' ,	92
Epithalamion	97	Last Lines	322
Exequy on his Wife .	287	Laudate Dominum .	247
		Least of These, The .	256
Farewell to Arms, A	304	Lorenzo and Jessica .	164

TITLES OF VERSE

PAGE PAGE
Love . . • •	81	St. Agnes' Eve .	80
Love Universal .	»57	Saul . • Silvia . ; . .	45
Magdalen	254	Sister, The	39
Man's Service . Man with Three Friends,	255	Sleep . Soldier, The .	IJ
The . . .	76	Sweet Content	222
Mary Morison . . .	89
Means to attain Happy Life,		The Way, the Light, the
The ....	221	Life ....	78
Melampus	I46	Thought, The .	38
New Jerusalem, The . Nurse's Song, The .	298 36	Thoughls in a Garden To Anlhea, who may com mand him Anything	I23 88
O Come Quickly	329	To Cyriack Skinner . To H. F. B.	121 52
Ode on Intimations of Im		To His Saviour, a Child : a
mortality Old Age . Old Familiar Faces, The . On the Beach at Night On the Death of Mr. Robert	28 304 286 I67	Present by a Child To Mr. Lawrence To Our Lady . To Sir Lucius Carey . To the Lady Margaret,	40 120 244 63
Level .... On the Wye above Tintern Abbey .... On Time	274 I52 3°3	Countess of Cumberland Toys, The . Triumph, The . . - * True Knighthood	I92 41 93 »75
Pater Filio	51	Two Good Anglers . .	276
Peace .... Pilgrim's Way, The . Praise of Wisdom, The	316 329 231	Ulysses and the Siren Up-Hill . . . .	176 326
Praise of Women	97
Prayer and Praise	246	Valedictory to the River
Prayers ....	46	Duddon Vine, The . , .	135 94
Quia Amore Langueo	71	Virtue .	"75
Quiet Soul, A . Quis est iste	197 233	Virtue . • . Vita Nuova	202 IS8
Rabbi Ben Ezra	307	When Love meets Love	113
Requiescat Respice Finem	285 188	Wife a-lost, The Wishes '*	291 119
Retreat, The .	25	Wood-notes . . .	143
Rose Aylmer ' . . .	284	Wooing Song . -. " -.	86
10

FIRST LINES OF VERSE

PAGE

A ! Fredome is a noble thing ! . . . . 205

A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! . . 118

A servant with this clause . . . .128

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase) . . 253

Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint . . . 287

Ah, what avails the sceptred race ! . . 284

All I can . . . . . . 260

All is best, though we oft doubt . . .188

All thoughts, all passions, all delights . . 84

Alway be merry if thou may . . . .118

And let the counsel of thine own heart stand . 174

And sometimes I remember days of old . . 302

Animula, vagula, blandula ! 320

Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers ? . 222

As ye came from the holy land . . . 84

Awake, my Soul, and with the sun . . .128

Behold, within the leafy shade . . . • 39

Bid me to live, and I will live . . .88

Blessed are the poor in spirit .... 239 Brave lads in olden musical centuries . . . 52

But though the righteous be prevented with death . 59

Christ and His Mother, heavenly maid . . 47

Come then, as ever, like the wind at morning . 45

Come unto these yellow sands .... 22

Come, worthy Greek ! Ulysses, come . . • . 176

Condemn'd to Hope's delusive mine . . 274

Crabbed Age and Youth . . . . 54

Cyriack, whose Grandsire on the Royal Bench . . 121

Days when the ball of our vision ... 44

Deep on the convent roof the snows ... 80

Does the road wind up-hill all the way ? . . 326

E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle . . .160

FIRST LINES OF VERSE

PAGE

Far, far from here

Far off, and faint as echoes of a dream . 300

Fly envious time, till thou run out thy race . . 303

For knighthood is not in the feats of warre . . 175

Give me my scallop-shell of quiet -. 329

Glad sight wherever new with old . . • 9°

Go little book, and wish to all .119 Go, pretty child, and bear this flower .

God who created me . , « .46

Grow old along with me . • . • 3°7

Happy those early days, when I . . • . 25

He that of such a height hath built his mind . . 192

Here a little child I stand ; . 41

Hey nonny no ! . . . . .'. . 53

Hierusalem, my happy home . " . 298

High-spirited friend ... . 282

His golden locks Time hath to silver turned . . • 304

How happy is he born and taught . ' . 206

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank . 164

How vainly men themselves amaze . . .123

I arise from dreams of thee ... 90

I have had playmates, I have had companions . . 286

I know my soul hath power to know all things . 137

I saw Eternity the other night . . . . 160

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife . 302

I think I could turn and live with animals . . 145

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide . . 135

I watch'd him sleep by the furrow . .«. * 64

If thou hast squander' d years to grave a gem . . 184

If you go over desert and mountain -". ' . :i- . 294

In a valley of this restles mind . . .- . 71

In the hour of death, after this life's whim . . 324

Into the skies, one summer's day . 1 '• . . 38

It is not growing like a tree ; . . ". 63

It was a lover and his lass , . ; . . 84

L'amor che move il sole e 1'altre stelle . . . : 84

Lawrence of vertuous Father vertuous Son ; . 120

Let me live harmlessly; and near the brink . '.-. 277

Long I follow'd happy guides . ... .65

Lord, in thy Courts . .**•'."'. . 256

Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle . . 191

12

FIRST LINES OF VERSE

PAGE

Love bade me welcome ; yet my soul drew back . 81

Love is the blossom where there blows . . 86

Magdalen at Michael's gate .... 254 Many are the sayings of the wise . . . 297

Martial, the things that do attain . . . 221

Mary mother, well thou be ! . . . 244

Mortals that would follow me . . . .175

My beloved spake and said unto me ... 69

My blood so red . . . . .68

My little son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes . 41

My soul, there is a country . . . .316

My true love hath my heart, and I have his . . 54

Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore . 329

No coward soul is mine .... 322

No thyng ys to man so dere .... 97

Nous n'irons plus aux bois .... 22

Now you will not swell the rout . . . 58

O ancient streams, O far-descended woods . . 158

O gather me the rose, the rose . . . 55

O Lady ! we receive but what we give . . . 144

O lyric love, half angel and half bird . . . 85

O Mary, at thy window be . . . 89

O mortal folk, you may behold and see . . 320

O that we now had here . . . .181

Of the million or two, more or less . . . 207

Oh, the wild joys of living 1 the leaping from rock up

to rock ...... 45

On the beach, at night ..... 167

Out of the night that covers me . .185

Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds . . 246

Praise ye the Lord . . . . . 247

Say not, the struggle naught availeth . . .186

See the Chariot at hand here of Love ... 93

Sense with keenest edge unused . . . 51

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm 68

Simon the high priest, the son of Onias . . 264

Since I noo mwore do zee your feace . . .291

Sleep, sleep, beauty bright . . . .114

Strew on her roses, roses . . . .285

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright ! . . 202

FIRST LINES OF VERSE

PAGE

Tary no longer ; toward thyn heritage . • • 75

The beauty of heaven, the glory of the stars . : ; 160

The earth may open, and the sea o'erwhelm . . 20

The chief use then in man of that he knows . . 255

The cold grey hills they bind me around ~ .' •.' 169

The days are sad, it is the Holy tide . , : . 121

The fierce exulting worlds, the motes in rays . . 157

The goodly gate swung oft with many gods . •. 84

The man of life upright ''* '.' . .'• . 191

The moth's kiss, first! . . . s. ' . ': 91

The night is come, like to the day . . • 131

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er . ^ ,~ 304

The wine of Love is music .1 . .« . 94

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream . - 28

There's heaven above, and night by night ' . .. 170

These beauteous forms . . . ». ~ . 152

They are all gone into the world of light . . 283

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead 286

This day dame Nature seem'd in love . 'V . 276

This ring, so worn as you behold . . .96

Thy restless feet now cannot go ... 76

Thy soul within such silent pomp did keep . , 197

To one full sound and quietly . . . '. 76

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow . . 296

Weary of myself, and sick of asking . . .160

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sole . . 20

What avails that winter die . i . . 293

When love meets love, breast urged to breast . . 113

When the voices of children are heard on the green „ 36

When youthful faith hath fled . . : . . t 292

Where, like a pillow on a bed . . ','•'. 02

Where the pools are bright and deep . . 23

Who is Silvia? What is she? . . . - , . 87

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he "; ( ". 267

Who is this that darkeneth counsel . ',--' . . 233

Who overcomes by force . . 204

Whoso walks in solitude . '''."' j^.

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face ? O why 78

Wisdom exalteth her children . . . -.231

Wise men patience never want . 2CC

With love exceeding a simple love of the things I. 146

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call . 22

Ye learned sisters, which have oftentimes . . 97 H

AUTHORS' NAMES

ANONYMOUS : Hey nonny no ! 53 ; 68 ; Quia Amore Langueo,

71 ; 260 ; The New Jerusalem, 298. ARISTOTLE : 212. ARNOLD, MATTHEW: 160; Requiescat, 285; Cadmus and

Harmonia, 305.

BACON, FRANCIS: 965 Of Gardens, 122; iThe Signs of Good ness, 257.

BARBOUR, JOHN : Freedom, 205.

BARNES, WILLIAM : The Wife a-lost, 291.

BEDDOES, THOMAS : 20.

BEECHING, H. C. : Prayers, 46.

BINYON, LAURENCE : Invocation to Youth, 45.

BLAKE, WILLIAM : The Nurse's Song, 36 ; Cradle Song, 114.

BOSWELL, JAMES : The Wine of Life, 119.

BRIDGES, ROBERT : Founder's Day. A Secular Ode on the Ninth Jubilee of Eton College, 47 ; Pater Filio, 51.

BRONTE, EMILY : Last Lines, 322.

BROWN, T. E. : When Love meets Love, 113 ; 118.

BROWNE, SIR THOMAS : Sleep, 131 ; 190; 282; 320.

BROWNING, ROBERT : From * Saul,' 45 ; The Invocation, 85 ; In a Gondola, 91 ; Johannes Agricola in Meditation, 170 5 Instans Tyrannus, 207 ; Rabbi Ben Ezra, 307.

BUNYAN, JOHN : 20 ; 212 ; The Valley of Humiliation, 225 ; Valiant-for-Truth crosses the River, 325.

BURKE, EDMUND : Citizenship, 213.

BURNS, ROBERT : Mary Morison, 89.

B., R. : Dominus Illuminatio Mea, 324.

CAMPION, THOMAS : Integer Vitae, 191 ; The Gentle Man, 255 ;

O Come Quickly, 329. CANTON, WILLIAM : Morning School, 36. CERVANTES, MIGUEL: Don Quixote gives Counsel to Sancho

Panza, 214.

'5

AUTHORS' NAMES

CHAUCER, GEOFFREY : 20 ; The Remedy against Ire, 209.

CLOUGH, ARTHUR HUGH : Cheer, 186.

COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR: 84; Joy, 144.

CONFUCIUS : 230.

CORY, WILLIAM : Heraclitus, 286.

CRABBE, GEORGE : 96.

CRASHAW, RICHARD : Christ Crucified, 76.

CUTHBERT : The Death of Bede, 265.

DANIEL, SAMUEL: Ulysses and the Siren, 176; To the Lady

Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, 192. DANTE : 84 ; 160.

DAUDET, ALPHONSE : The Stars, 161. DAVENANT, SIR W. : Prayer and Praise, 246. DAVIES, SIR JOHN: A Compendium, 138. DEKKER, THOMAS : Sweet Content, 222. DOBELL : 84. DONNE, JOHN : The Ecstasy, 92 ; Death, 322.

EARLE, JOHN : A Child, 24.

ECCLESIASTICUS : 96; 174; 230; The Praise of Wisdom, 231:

260 ; The Good Priest, 264. EMERSON, RALPH WALDO : Fore-runners, 65 ; The Universal in

Man, 136; Wood-notes, 143; Trust Thyself, 186 : Self-

Reliance, 218. EPICTETUS: 118 ; If Children, then Heirs, 135 • 212- 220-

Sursum Corda, 246. ESDRAS : The Answer, 238.

FENELON

LON: To the Comtesse de Gramont, 129; 242; Discipline

Lpa244 charity ' Begin° at Hom"' ^ * ***-

FLETCHER, GILES : Wooing Song, 86. FROISSART : The Death of the Bruce, 261

OUDE,^ JAMES ANTHONY: Positive and Negative Virtue, 179.

FULLER, THOMAS : The Good Sea Captain, 273. GOLDSMITH, OLIVER : 230.

GREENWELL DORA : The Man with Three Friends 76 GREVILLE, FULKE, LORD BROOKE : Man's Service, 255

: 302

. HADRIAN « The Emperor Hadrian to his Soul, 320.

AUTHORS' NAMES

HARDY, THOMAS : Midnight on St. Thomas's Eve, 165.

HAWES, STEPHEN : True Knighthood, 175 ; 320.

HEINE: 134.

HENLEY, WILLIAM ERNEST : Collige Rosas, 55 ; Invictus, 185.

HERBERT, GEORGE : Love, 815 128 ; Virtue, 202.

HERODOTUS : The Story of Cleobis and Biton, 60.

HERRICK, ROBERT : To His Saviour, a Child : a Present by a

Child, 40 ; A Child's Grace, 41 ; To Anthea, who may

command him Anything, 88. HOGG, JAMES: A Boy's Song, 23. HOMER : 96. HOUSMAN, A. E. : 58. HUNT, LEIGH : Abou Ben Adhem, 253.

IBSEN, HENRICK : 174. ISAIAH : 260.

JOB, THE BOOK OF: Quis est iste, 233.

JOHNSON, SAMUEL: 96; 174; On the Death of Mr. Robert

Levet, a Practiser in Physic, 274. JONSON, BEN : To Sir Lucius Carey : of his friend Sir H.

Morison, 63 ; The Triumph, 93 ; 282.

KEN, BISHOP : 128.

KING, HENRY : Exequy on his Wife, 287.

KINGSLEY, HENRY : Magdalen, 254.

LAMB, CHARLES : The Old Margate Hoy, 62 ; The Old Familiar

Faces, 286.

LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE : Rose Aylmer, 284 ; 302. LINCOLN, ABRAHAM : 217. LOCKHART, JOHN GIBSON : Beyond, 292. LYDGATE, JOHN : The Invitation, 75.

MACAULAY, LORD : Clive before Plassey, 183.

MAETERLINCK, MAURICE : The Predestined, 61 5 The Invisible

Goodness, 257.

MALORY, SIR THOMAS : The Good Knight, z66. MANNYNG OF BRUNNE, ROBERT : Praise of Women, 97. MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS: 134; 142; 204; Refreshment,

218 ; 242 ; 302 ; Death, 321. MARVELL, ANDREW : Thoughts in a Garden, 123. MEREDITH, GEORGE : 44 ; Melampus, 146 5 Prayer, 243.

B ,7

. AUTHORS' NAMES

MILTON, JOHN : To Mr. Lawrence, 120 ; To Cyriack Skinner, 121 ; Virtue, 175 ; Respice Finem, 188 5 204 ; Consolation, 297 ; On Time, 303.

MONTAGU, HENRY, EARL OF MANCHESTER : 134; 320; My Own Country, 324 ; The Rapture, 327.

NAPIER, SIR WILLIAM : Incident of the Battle of Salamanca, 270. NEWMAN, CARDINAL : The True Gentleman Defined, 198 ; 212 ; Compromise, 217.

OLDHAM, JOHN : A Quiet Soul, 197.

O'SHAUGHNESSY, ARTHUR : The Fountain of Tears, 294.

PASCAL, BLAISE : Christianity : Pride and Humility, 138 ; 204 ;

204 ; Of Ambitions, 227.

PATMORE, COVENTRY: The Toys, 41 ; Manners, 200. PEELE, GEORGE : A Farewell to Arms, 304. FERICLES : 212.

POWELL, FREDERICK YORK : 174. PSALM xv. : Domine, Quis Habitabit, 191. PSALM CXLVHI : Laudate Dominum, 247.

•Q* : The Least of These, 256.

£)UARLES, FRANCIS : The Way, the Light, the Life, 78.

RALEIGH, SIR WALTER : Death, 321 ; The Pilgrim's Way, 329. RAMSEY : Washington says Farewell to his Army, 271. RANDS, WILLIAM BRIGHTY : The Thought, 38. ROCHEFOUCAULD, LA: 190. ROSSETTI, CHRISTINA : 302 ; Up-Hill, 326.

ST. MATTHEW : The Beatitudes, 239.

ST. PAUL : 44 ; 250.

SEELEY, SIR J. R. : Easter, 293.

SENECA : 134.

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM : 22 -, Crabbed Age and Youth, 54 5 84 ;

Silvia, 87; Lorenzo and Jessica, 164; Henry at Agincourt,

181 ; Despair, 296.

SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE : The Indian Serenade, 90. SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP : The Bargain, 54. SMITH, ALEXANDER : Love Universal, 157. SOLOMON, WISDOM OF: God's Chosen, 59; 118. SONG or SONGS : 68 ; Divine Love, 69.

AUTHORS' NAMES

SOUTHEY, ROBERT : Nelson's Departure from Portsmouth, 272. SPENSER, EDMUND : Epithalamion, 97. SPINOZA: 250.

STEVENSON, ROBERT Louis : To H.F. B., 525 Wishes, 1195 Posi tive and Negative Virtue, 180. SURREY, EARL OF : The Means to attain Happy Life, 221.

TAYLOR, JEREMY : Marriage, 112 5 The Husband, 114 ; Waking, 129 ; Man his own Master, 175 ; Prayer, 243 ; 250 5 Against Bitterness of Zeal, 251.

TENNYSON, ALFRED : St Agnes' Eve, 80.

TENNYSON, FREDERICK: The Holy Tide, 121.

THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE: Our Daily Bread, 130; The King on the Tower, 169.

THOMSON, JAMES : The Vine, 94.

THREE HOLY CHILDREN, SONG OF THE : 242.

TOCQJJEVILLE : 174 ; 204.

TRAHERNE, THOMAS : First-Fruits, 26 ; 190.

TRENCH, HERBERT : A Charge, 184.

TURGOT : Compromise, 217.

VAUGHAN, HENRY : The Retreat, 25 ; Departed, 283 ; Peace, 316.

WALLER, EDMUND : Old Age, 304.

WALTON, IZAAK : Wotton at Winchester, 50 ; 220 ; The Angler's

Rest, 222 ; Two Good Anglers, 276. WATSON, WILLIAM : Vita Nuova, 158. • WHITMAN, WALT : 142 ; The Brutes, 145 ; Night — and Carlyle

Dying, 166 ; On the Beach at Night, 167 ; 174. WHITTIER : The Gate, 306. WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM : 190. WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM : 22 ; Ode on Intimations of Immortality

from Recollections of Early Childhood, 28 ; The Sister, 39 ;

96; Valedictory to the River Duddon, 135; On the Wye

above Tintern Abbey, 152 ; Character of the Happy Warrior,

267. WOTTON, SIR HENRY : The Character of a Happy Life, 206.

ZANGWILL, I. : Peterkin's Pudding, 227.

WHAN that Aprille with his shoures sote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour ; Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, And smale fowle's maken melodye That slepen at the night with open eye — So priketh hem Nature in his corages — Then longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.

CHAUCER

THE earth may open, and the sea o'erwhelm — Many the ways, the little home is one }

Thither the courser leads, thither the helm, And at one gate we meet when all is done.

BEDDOES

Now as they came up to these places, behold the Gardener stood in the way : to whom the Pilgrims said, Whose goodly vineyards and gardens are these ? He answered, They are the King's, and are planted here for his own delights, and also for the solace of pilgrims.

BUNYAN

CHILDHOOD

COME unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands : Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd, —

The wild waves whist, — Foot it featly here and there ;

And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.

SHAKESPEARE

YE blessed Creatures, I have heard the call

Ye to each other make 5 I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee.

WORDSWORTH

Nous n'irons plus aux bois, Les lauriers sont coupes . .

A Boys Song

TT7HERE the pools are bright and deep, ^* Where the grey trout lies asleep, Up the river and over the lea, That's the way for Billy and me.

Where the blackbird sings the latest, Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest, Where the nestlings chirp and flee, That 's the way for Billy and me.

Where the mowers mow the cleanest, Where the hay lies thick and greenest, There to track the homeward bee, That 's the way for Billy and me.

Where the hazel bank is steepest, Where the shadow falls the deepest, Where the clustering nuts fall free, That 's the way for Billy and me.

Why the boys should drive away Little sweet maidens from the play, Or love to banter and fight so well, That's the thing I never could tell.

23

A CHILD

But this I know, I love to play Through the meadows, among the hay; Up the water and over the lea, That's the way for Billy and me.

JAMES HOGG

A Child

T TE is nature's fresh picture newly drawn in oil, •*• •*• which time, and much handling, dims and de faces. His soul is yet a white paper unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith at length it be comes a blurred note - book. He is purely happy because he knows no evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils to come by foreseeing them. He kisses and loves all, and, when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. . . .

We laugh at his. foolish ports, but his game is our earnest ; and his drums, rattles, and hobby-horses but the emblems and mocking of man's business. His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot remem ber, and sighs to see what innocence he hath outlived.

He is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse; the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got eternity without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another.

JOHN EARLE 24

THE RETREAT

The Retreat

T TAPPY those early days, when I •*• •*• Shined in my Angel-infancy ! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy aught But a white celestial thought ; When yet I had not walk'd above A mile or two from my first Love, And looking back — at that short space — Could see a glimpse of His bright face : When on some gilded cloud, or flow'r, My gazing soul would dwell an hour, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity : Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, Or had the black art to dispense A several sin to ev'ry sense ; But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness.

O how I long to travel back, And tread again that ancient track ! That I might once more reach that plain Where first I left my glorious train; From whence th' enlighten'd Spirit sees That shady City of Palm-trees.

25

FIRST-FRUITS

But ah ! my soul with too much stay Is drunk, and staggers in the way ! Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move ; And when this dust falls to the urn, Into that state I came, return.

HENRY VAUGHAN

First-Fruits

rT"*HOSE pure and virgin apprehensions I had in •*• my infancy, and that divine light wherewith I was born, are the best unto this day wherein I can see the universe. By the gift of God they attended me into the world, and by His special favour I re member them till now. Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world than I when I was a child.

All appeared new and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. I seemed as one brought into the estate of innocence. All things were spotless and pure and glorious ; yea and infinitely mine, and joyful and precious. I knew not that there were any sins, or com plaints, or laws. I dreamed not of poverties, contentions, or vices. All tears and quarrels were 26

FIRST-FRUITS

hidden from mine eyes. Everything was at rest, free and immortal. I knew nothing of sickness or death or exaction. In the absence of these I was entertained like an angel with the works of God ; I saw all in the peace of Eden ; heaven and earth did sing my Creator's praises, and could not make more melody to Adam than to me. All time was Eternity and a perpetual Sabbath. Is it not strange that an infant should be heir of the whole world, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold ?

The corn was orient and immortal wheat which never should be reaped nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold: the gates were at first the end of the world. The green trees when I saw them first through one of the gates transported and ravished me ; their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap, and almost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and wonderful things. The Men ! O what venerable and reverent creatures did the aged seem ! Immortal Cherubims ! And young men glittering and sparkling angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty ! Boys and girls tumbling in the street were moving jewels ; I knew not that they were born or should die. But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places. Eternity was manifest in the Light of the

27

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

Day, and something infinite behind everything ap peared, which talked with my expectation and moved my desire. The City seemed to stand in Eden, or to be built in Heaven. The streets were mine, the temple was mine, the people were mine, their clothes and gold and silver were mine, as much as their sparkling eyes, fair skins, and ruddy faces. The skies were mine, and so were the sun and moon and stars, and all the world was mine ; and I the only spectator and enjoyer of it. I knew no churlish proprieties,1 nor bounds nor divisions ; but all pro prieties and divisions were mine, all treasures and the possessors of them. So that with much ado I was corrupted, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world, which now I unlearn and become, as it were, a little child again, that I may enter into the King dom of God. THOMAS TRAHERNE

Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

The Child is father of the Man ; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

PHERE was a time when meadow, grove, and ••• stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem ApparelPd in celestial light, 1 Properties

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore; — Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the rose ;

The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare;

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair ; The sunshine is a glorious birth ; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief: A timely utterance gave that thought relief,

And I again am strong :

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; No more shall grief of mine the season wrong ; I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay ;

Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity,

And with the heart of May Doth every beast keep holiday ; —

29

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

Thou Child of Joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy !

Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call

Ye to each other make ; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fullness of your bliss, I feel — I feel it all.

0 evil day ! if I were sullen While Earth herself is adorning,

This sweet May-morning, And the children are culling

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm : —

1 hear, I hear, with joy I hear ! — But there's a tree, of many, one,

A single field which I have look'd upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone :

The pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat : Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar:

30

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home : Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows

He sees it in his joy ;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a mother's mind, And no unworthy aim,

The homely nurse doth all she can To make her foster-child, her inmate Man,

Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years' darling of a pigmy size ! See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, With light upon him from his father's eyes !

3'

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learned art ; A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral ;

And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song :

Then will he fit his tongue To dialogues of business, love, or strife ;

But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride The little actor cons another part ; Filling from time to time his ' humorous stage ' With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, That Life brings with her in her equipage;

As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

Thy soul's immensity ; Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, —

Mighty prophet ! Seer blest !

On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ; Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the Day, a master o'er a slave, 32

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

A presence which is not to be put by ;

To whom the grave Is but a lonely bed without the sense of sight

Of day or the warm light, A place of thought where we in waiting lie ; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life !

O joy ! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive !

The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction : not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest — Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings ; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realised,

c 33

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised : But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing ; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence : truths that wake,

To perish never : Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather

Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song ! And let the young lambs bound As to the tabor's sound ! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May !

What though the radiance which was once so bright 34

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind ;

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be ;

In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of human suffering ;

In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves !

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might ;

I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they ;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

Is lovely yet; The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

35

w

THE NURSE'S SONG

The Nurse's Song

HEN the voices of children are heard on the

green,

And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast,

And everything else is still. « Then come home, my children, the sun is gone

down,

And the dews of night arise ; Come, come, leave off play, and let us away, Till the morning appears in the skies.'

1 No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,

And we cannot go to sleep ; Besides in the sky the little birds fly,

And the hills are all cover'd with sheep.' 'Well, well, go and play till the night fades away,

And then go home to bed.' — The little ones Jeap'd, and shouted, and laugh'd,

And all the hills echoed.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Morning School

ALL over the world — and all under it, too, when •**• their time comes — the children are trooping to school. The great globe swings round out of the dark into the sun ; there is always morning some where ; and for ever in this shifting region of the morning-light the good Altegans sees the little ones 36

MORNING SCHOOL

afoot — shining companies and groups, couples, and bright solitary figures; for they all seem to have a soft heavenly light about them !

He sees them in country lanes and rustic villages ; on lonely moorlands, where narrow brown foot-tracks thread the expanse of green waste, and occasionally a hawk hovers overhead, or a mountain-ash hangs its scarlet berries above the huge fallen stones set up by the Druids in the old days ; he sees them on the hillsides ('trails of little feet darkening the grass all hoary with dew,' he observes), in the woods, on the stepping-stones that cross the brook in the glen, along the sea-cliffs and on the wet ribbed sands ; tres passing on the railway lines, making short cuts through the corn, sitting in ferry-boats ; he sees them in the crowded streets of murky cities, in small rocky islands, in places far inland where the sea is known only as a strange tradition.

The morning-side of the planet is alive with them ; one hears their pattering footsteps everywhere. And as the vast continents sweep * eastering out of the high shadow which reaches beyond the moon,' and as new nations, with their cities and villages, their fields, woods, mountains, and sea-shores, rise up into the morning-side, lo ! fresh troops, and still fresh troops of * these small school-going people of the dawn ' ! . . .

What are weather and season to this incessant pano rama of childhood ? The pigmy people trudge through the snow on moor and hillside ; wade down flooded roads ; are not to be daunted by wind or rain, frost or the white smother of * millers and bakers at fisti-

37

THE THOUGHT

cuffs.' Most beautiful picture of all, he sees them travelling schoolward by that late moonlight which now and again in the winter months precedes the early dawn.

WILLIAM CANTON

The Thought

TNTO the skies, one summer's day, •*• I sent a little Thought away ; Up to where, in the blue round, The sun sat shining without sound.

Then my Thought came back to me. —

Little Thought, what did you see

In the regions whence you come ?

And when I spoke, my Thought was dumb.

But she breathed of what was there, In the pure bright upper air ; And, because my Thought so shone, I knew she had been shone upon.

Next, by night a Thought I sent Up into the firmament; When the eager stars were out, And the still moon shone about.

And my Thought went past the moon In between the stars, but soon Held her breath and durst not stir, For the fear that covered her ; Then she thought, in this demur : 38

THE SISTER

'Dare I look beneath the shade, Into where the worlds are made ; Where the suns and stars are wrought ? Shall I meet another Thought?

' Will that other Thought have wings ? Shall I meet strange, heavenly things ? Thought of Thoughts, and Light of Lights, Breath of Breaths, and Night of Nights ? '

Then my Thought began to hark

In the illuminated dark,

Till the silence, over, under,

Made her heart beat more than thunder.

And my Thought came trembling back, But with something on her track, And with something at her side ; Nor till she has lived and died, Lived and died, and lived again, Will that awful thing seem plain.

WILLIAM BRIGHTY RANDS

The Sister

T) EH OLD, within the leafy shade

•*-* Those bright blue eggs together laid !

On me the chance-discover'd sight

Gleam'd like a vision of delight.

I started — seeming to espy

The home and shelter'd bed,

39

TO HIS SAVIOUR

The sparrow's dwelling, which hard by My father's house in wet or dry My sister Emmeline and I Together visited.

She look'd at it and seem'd to fear it; Dreading, tho' wishing, to be near it ; Such heart was in her, being then A little Prattler among men. The Blessing of my later years Was with me when a boy ; She gave me eyes, she gave me ears, And humble cares, and delicate fears, A heart, the fountain of sweet tears, And love, and thought, and joy.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

To His Saviour, a Child: a Present by a Child

GO, pretty Child, and bear this flower Unto thy little Saviour ; And tell Him, by that bud now blown, He is the Rose of Sharon known. When thou hast said so, stick it there Upon His bib or stomacher ; And tell Him, for good handsel too, That thou hast brought a whistle new, Made of a clean straight oaten reed, To charm His cries at time of need. 40

THE TOYS

Tell Him for coral, thou hast none, But if thou hadst, He should have one ; And poor thou art, and known to be Ever as moneyless as He.

ROBERT HERRICK

A Child's Grace

TT ERE a little child I stand -*• •*• Heaving up my either hand ; Cold as paddocks though they be Here 1 lift them up to Thee, For a benison to fall On our meat and on us all. Amen.

ROBERT HERRICK

The Toys

MY little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, I struck him, and dismiss'd With hard words and unkiss'd, — His Mother, who was patient, being dead. Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, I visited his bed, But found him slumbering deep, With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet From his late sobbing wet.

THE TOYS

And I, with moan,

Kissing away his tears, left others of my own ;

For, on a table drawn beside his head,

He had put, within his reach,

A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone,

A piece of glass abraded by the beach,

And six or seven shells,

A bottle with bluebells,

And two French copper coins, ranged there with

careful art,

To comfort his sad heart. So, when that night I pray'd To God, I wept, and said : Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less

Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou 'It leave Thy wrath, and say, *I will be sorry for their childishness.'

COVENTRY PATMORE

YOUTH

DAYS, when the ball of our vision Had eagles that flew unabash'd to sun; When the grasp on the bow was decision, And arrow and hand and eye were one !

GEORGE MEREDITH

REMEMBER now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.

Ecclesiastes

WHAT ? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own ? For ye are bought with a price : therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

SAINT PAUL

Invocation to Toutb

then, as ever, like the wind at morning! Joyous, O Youth, in the ag£d world renew Freshness to feel the eternities around it,

Rain, stars and clouds, light and the sacred dew. The strong sun shines above thee : That strength, that radiance bring ! If Winter come to Winter, When shall men hope for Spring?

LAURENCE BINYON

From 'Saul'

, the wild joys of living ! the leaping from rock up to rock, The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the

cool silver shock Of the plunge in the pool's living water, the hunt of

the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is couch'd in his

lair. And the meal, the rich dates yellow' d over with gold

dust divine,

And the locust flesh steep'd in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,

45

PRAYERS

And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bul rushes tell

That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.

How good is man's life, the mere living ! how fit to employ

All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in

j°7!

ROBERT BROWNING

Prayers

GOD who created me Nimble and light of limb, In three elements free,

To run, to ride, to swim : Not when the sense is dim,

But now from the heart of joy, I would remember Him : Take the thanks of a boy.

Jesu, King and Lord,

Whose are my foes to fight, Gird me with Thy sword,

Swift and sharp and bright. Thee would I serve if I might;

And conquer if I can, From day-dawn till night

Take the strength of a man. 46

FOUNDER'S DAY

Spirit of Love and Truth,

Breathing in grosser clay, The light and flame of youth,

Delight of men in the fray, Wisdom in strength's decay ;

From pain, strife, wrong to be free, This best gift I pray,

Take my spirit to Thee.

H. C. BEECHING

Founder's Day. A Secular Ode on the Ninth Jubilee of Eton College

/CHRIST and His Mother, heavenly maid, ^-^ Mary, in whose fair name was laid Eton's corner, bless our youth With truth, and purity, mother of truth !

O ye, 'neath breezy skies of June, By silver Thames's lulling tune, In shade of willow or oak, who try The golden gates of poesy ;

Or on the tabled sward all day Match your strength in England's play, Scholars of Henry, giving grace To toil and force in game or race ;

47

FOUNDER'S DAY

Exceed the prayer and keep the fame Of him, the sorrowful king, who came Here in his realm a realm to found, Where he might stand for ever crown'd.

Or whether with naked bodies flashing Ye plunge in the lashing weir; or dashing The oars of cedar skiffs, ye strain Round the rushes and home again ; —

Or what pursuit soe'er it be That makes your mingled presence free, When by the schoolgate 'neath the limes Ye muster waiting the lazy chimes ;

May Peace, that conquereth sin and death, Temper for you her sword of faith ; Crown with honour the loving eyes, And touch with mirth the mouth of the wise.

Here is eternal spring: for you The very stars of heaven are new ; And aged Fame again is born, Fresh as a peeping flower of morn.

For you shall Shakespeare's scene unroll, Mozart shall steal your ravish'd soul, Homer his bardic hymn rehearse, Virgil recite his maiden verse.

Now learn, love, have, do, be the best : Each in one thing excel the rest:

FOUNDER'S DAY

Strive ; and hold fast this truth of heaven — To him that hath shall more be given.

Slow on your dial the shadows creep, So many hours for food and sleep, So many hours till study tire, So many hours for heart's desire.

These suns and moons shall memory save, Mirrors bright for her magic cave ; Wherein may steadfast eyes behold A self that never groweth old.

O in such prime enjoy your lot, And when ye leave regret it not ; With wishing gifts in festal state Pass ye the angel-sworded gate.

Then to the world let shine your light, Children in play be lions in fight, And match with red immortal deeds The victory that made ring the meads :

Or by firm wisdom save your land From giddy head and grasping hand : IMPROVE THE BEST; so shall your sons Better what ye have better'd once.

Send them here to the court of grace Bearing your name to fill your place : Ye in their time shall live again The happy dream of Henry's reign. D 49

WOTTON AT WINCHESTER

And on his day your steps be bent Where, saint and king, crown'd with content, He biddeth a prayer to bless his youth With truth, and purity, mother of truth.

ROBERT BRIDGES

Wotton at Winchester

TTE yearly went also to Oxford. But the summer •*• •*• before his death he changed that for a journey to Winchester College, to which School he was first removed from Bocton [where he was born and spent his childhood]. And as he returned from Winchester towards Eton College, said to a friend, his companion in that journey : * How useful was that advice of a holy Monk, who persuaded his friend to perform his customary devotions in a constant place, because in that place we usually meet with those very thoughts which possessed us at our last being there ! And I find it thus far experimentally true, that at my now being in that School, and seeing the very place where I sat when I was a boy, occasioned me to remember those very thoughts of my youth which then possessed me : sweet thoughts indeed, that promised my grow ing years numerous pleasures, without mixtures of cares : and those to be enjoyed when time — which I therefore thought slow-paced — had changed my youth into man hood. But age and experience have taught me that those were but empty hopes ; for I have always found it true, as my Saviour did foretell, " Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." Nevertheless I saw there a 5°

PATER FILIO

succession of boys using the same recreations, and, ques tionless, possessed with the same thoughts that then possessed me. Thus one generation succeeds another, both in their lives, recreations, hopes, fears, and death.'

IZAAK WALTON

Life of Sir Henry Wotton

Pater Filio

OENSE with keenest edge unused, ^ Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire ; Lovely feet as yet unbruise"d

On the ways of dark desire ; Sweetest hope that lookest smiling O'er the wilderness defiling?

Why such beauty, to be blighted By the swarm of foul destruction ?

Why such innocence delighted,

When sin stalks to thy seduction ?

All the litanies e'er chaunted

Shall not keep thy faith undaunted.

I have pray'd the sainted Morning To unclasp her hands to hold thee ;

From resignful Eve's adorning

Stol'n a robe of peace to enfold thee;

With all charms of man's contriving

Arm'd thee for thy lonely striving.

51

TO H. F. B.

Me too once unthinking Nature

— Whence Love's timeless mockery took me- Fashion'd so divine a creature,

Yea, and like a beast forsook me. I forgave, but tell the measure Of her crime in thee, my treasure.

ROBERT BRIDGES

To H. F. B.

BRAVE lads in olden musical centuries Sang, night by night, adorable choruses, Sat late by alehouse doors in April Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising :

Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises, Flush-faced they played with old polysyllables ; Spring scents inspired, old wine diluted, Love and Apollo were there to chorus.

Now these, the songs, remain to eternity, Those, only those, the bountiful choristers Gone — those are gone, those unremember'd Sleep and are silent in earth for ever.

So man himself appears and evanishes, So smiles and goes ; as wanderers halting at Some green-embower'd house, play their music, Play and are gone on the windy highway ; 52

HEY NONNY NO !

Yet dwells the strain enshrined in the memory

Long after they departed eternally,

Forth-faring tow'rd far mountain summits, Cities of men on the sounding Ocean.

Youth sang the song in years immemorial ;

Brave chanticleer, he sang and was beautiful ; Bird-haunted green tree-tops in springtime Heard and were pleased by the voice of singing

Youth goes and leaves behind him a prodigy — Songs sent by thee afar from Venetian Sea-grey lagunes, sea-paven highways, Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Hey nonny no !

HEY nonny no ! Men are fools that wish to die ! Is't not fine to dance and sing When the bells of death do ring ? Is 't not fine to swim in wine, And turn upon the toe, And sing hey nonny no ! When the winds blow and the seas flow ? Hey nonny no !

ANONYMOUS

53

THE BARGAIN 'The Bargain

MY true love hath my heart, and I have his, By just exchange one for another given : I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, There never was a better bargain driven :

My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

His heart in me keeps him and me in one,

My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides :

He loves my heart, for once it was his own, I cherish his because in me it bides :

My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Grabbed Age and Youth

Age and Youth ^•^ Cannot live together : Youth is full of pleasance, Age is full of care ; Youth like summer morn, Age like winter weather ; Youth like summer brave, Age like winter bare. Youth is full of sport, Age's breath is short ; Youth is nimble, Age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, Age is weak and cold ; Youth is wild, and Age is tame. 54

COLLIGE ROSAS

Age, I do abhor thee ;

Youth, I do adore thee;

O, my Love, my Love is young!

Age, I do defy thee :

O, sweet shepherd, hie thee !

For methinks thou stay'st too long.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Collige Rosas

GATHER me the rose, the rose,

While yet in flower we find it, For summer smiles, but summer goes, And winter waits behind it.

For with the dream foregone, foregone,

The deed forborne for ever, The worm Regret will canker on,

And Time will turn him never.

So well it were to love, my lore,

And cheat of any laughter The fate beneath us and above,

The dark before and after.

The myrtle and the rose, the rose, The sunshine and the swallow,

The dream that comes, the wish that goes, The memories that follow !

WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

55

THE FORE-RUNNERS

Manibus date lilla plenis. THOSE whom the Gods love die young.

Now you will not swell the rout Of lads who wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran, And the name died before the man.

A. E. HOUSMAN

God's Chosen

T) UT though the righteous be prevented with death,

•*-* yet shall he be in rest.

For honourable age is not that which standeth in

length of time,

Nor that is measured by number of years : But wisdom is the gray hair unto men, And an unspotted life is old age.

He pleased God, and was beloved of Him : So that living among sinners he was translated. Yea speedily was he taken away, lest that wicked ness should alter his understanding, Or deceit beguile his soul.

He, being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a

long time :

For his soul pleased the Lord . . . This the people saw, and understood it not, Neither laid they up this in their minds, That His grace and mercy is with His saints, And that He hath respect unto His chosen.

Wisdom of Solomon

59

THE STORY OF CLEOBIS AND BITON

The Story of Cleobis and Elton

TN the kingdom of Argos there lived two brothers, •^ Cleobis and Biton — young men, well to do, and withal of great strength of body, so that each had been a victor in the public games. Now once, when the Argives were keeping a festival of the goddess Hera, their mother had need to be drawn to the temple in a chariot, but the oxen did not come from the field in time. The young men, therefore, seeing that the hour was late, put the yoke on their own necks and drew the car in which their mother sat, and brought her to the temple, which was forty-five stades away. This they did in the sight of the assembled people ; and the men commended their strength, while the women called her blessed to be the mother of such sons. But she, overjoyed at the deed and its renown, entered the temple and standing before the image of Hera, prayed the goddess to grant to Cleobis and Biton, her two sons, the greatest boon which could fall to man. After she had prayed, and they had sacrificed and eaten of the feast, the young men sat down in the temple and fell asleep, and never awoke again, but so made an end with life. In this manner the blessing came to them ; and the men of Argos caused statues of them to be made and dedi cated at Delphi, for a memorial of their piety.

HERODOTUS

THE PREDESTINED

The Predestined

are strange. As children, life seems nearer to them than to other children ; they appear to suspect nothing, and yet is there in their eyes so pro found a certainty that we feel they must know all, that there must have been evenings when they found time to tell, themselves their secret. At the moment when their brothers are still groping their way blindly in the mysterious land between birth and life, they have already understood ; they are erect, ready with hand and soul. In all haste, but wisely and with minute care, do they prepare themselves to live ; and this very haste is a sign upon which mothers, the dis creet unsuspected confidants of all that cannot be told, can scarce bring themselves to look.

Their stay among us is often so short that we are unconscious of their presence ; they go away without saying a word, and are for ever unknown to us. But others there are who linger for a moment, who look at us with an eager smile, and seem to be on the point of confessing that they know all ; and then, towards their twentieth year, they leave us, hurriedly, muffling their footsteps, as though they had just discovered that they had chosen the wrong dwelling-place, and had been about to pass their lives among men whom they did not know. . . .

I have known many whom the same death was leading by the hand, and when my memory dwells upon them I see a band of children, of youths and

61

THE OLD MARGATE HOY

maidens, who seem to be all coming forth from the same house. A strange fraternity unites them : it may be that they recognise each other by birthmarks we cannot discover, that they furtively exchange solemn signals of silence. They are the eager children of pre cocious death. At school we were vaguely conscious of them. They seemed to be at the same time seeking and avoiding each other, like people who are afflicted with the same infirmity. They were to be seen to gether, in remote corners of the garden, under the trees. Their mysterious smile flew fitfully across their lips, and there lurked a gravity beneath, a curious fear lest a secret should escape. Silence would almost always fall upon them when those who were to live drew near. Were they already speaking of the event, or did they know that the event was speaking through them, and in their despite ? Were they forming a circle round it, and trying to keep it hidden from indifferent eyes ?

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

The Old Margate Hoy

ALL this time sat upon the edge of the deck quite •**• a different character. It was a lad, apparently very poor, very infirm, and very patient. His eye was ever on the sea, with a smile : and if he caught now and then some snatches of these wild legends, it was by accident, and they seemed not to concern him. The waves to him whispered more pleasant stories. He was as one, being with us, but not of us. He heard 62

TO SIR LUCIUS CAREY

the bell of dinner ring without stirring ; and when some of us pulled out our private stores — our cold meat and our salads — he produced none and seemed to want none. Only a solitary biscuit he had laid in ; pro vision for the one or two days and nights to which these vessels then were oftentimes obliged to prolong their voyage. Upon a nearer acquaintance with him, which he seemed neither to court nor decline, we heard that he was going to Margate with the hope of being admitted into the Infirmary there for sea-bathing. His disease was a scrofula, which appeared to have eaten all over him. He expressed great hopes of a cure ; and when we asked him whether he had any friends where he was going, he replied, ' he had no friends.'

CHARLES LAMB

To Sir Lucius Carey : of bis friend Sir H. Morison

TT is not growing like a tree •*• In bulk, doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere : A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night;

It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see ; And in short measure life may perfect be.

BEN JONSON

63

THE SOLDIER The Soldier

IWATCH'D him sleep by the furrow— The first that fell in the fight: His grave they would dig to-morrow : The battle call'd them to-night.

They bore him back to the trees there, By his undigg'd grave, content

To lie at his cool dead ease there, And list how the battle went.

The battle went by the village,

And back through the night were borne Sharp cries of murder and pillage,

And fire in the standing corn.

But when they came on the morrow They talk'd not over their task,

While he listen'd there by the furrow, And his dead lips could not ask —

Hotv ivent the battle, my brothers ?

But that he will never know : For his mouth the red earth smothers,

And they shoulder their spades to go.

And he cannot sleep thereunder, And ever must toss and turn : Hoiv ivent the battle, I wonder ? — But that he will never learn.

Roumanian Peasant Song 64

FORE-RUNNERS

Fore-runners

ONG I follow'd happy guides, ^-^ I could never reach their sides ; Their step is forth and ere the day Breaks up their leaguer and away. Keen my sense, my heart was young, Right good will my sinews strung, But no speed of mine avail1 To hunt upon their shining trails. On and away, their hasting feet Make the morning proud and sweet ; Flowers they strew, — I catch the scent ; Or tone of silver instrument Leaves on the wind melodious trace ; Yet I could never see their face. On eastern hills I see their smokes, Mix'd with mist by distant lochs. I met many travellers, Who the road had surely kept ; They saw not my fine revellers, — These had cross'd them while they slept. Some had heard their fair report, In the country or the court. Fleetest couriers alive Never yet could once arrive, As they went or they return'd, At the house where these sojourn'd. Sometimes their strong speed they slacken, Though they are not overtaken ; E 65

FORE-RUNNERS

In sleep their jubilant troop is near — I tuneful voices overhear, It may be in wood or waste — At unawares 'tis come and past. Their near camp my spirit knows By signs gracious as rainbows. I thenceforward and long after Listen for their harp-like laughter, And carry in my heart, for days, Peace that hallows rudest ways.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

DIVINE LOVE

SJET me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm :

For love is strong as death ;

Jealousy is cruel as the grave :

The flashes thereof are flashes of fire,

A very flame of the Lord.

Many waters cannot quench love,

Neither can the flood drown it ;

If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,

He would utterly be contemned.

The Song of Songs (Revised Version)

MY blood so red

For thee was shed,

Come home again, come home again !

My own sweet heart, come home again !

You've gone astray

Out of your way —

Come home again, come home again !

ANONYMOUS

Divine Love

TVyTY beloved spake and said unto me,

-*-*^ Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come

away.

For lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone ; The flowers appear on the earth ; The time of the singing of birds is come, And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land : The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, And the vines with the tender grape give a good

smell.

Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, In the secret places of the stairs, Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice ; For sweet is thy voice and thy countenance is comely. Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines ; For our vines have tender grapes. My beloved is mine, and I am his : He feedeth among the lilies. Until the day break and the shadows flee away, Turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young

hart Upon the mountains of Bether.

69

DIVINE LOVE

I sleep, but my heart waketh :

It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying,

Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my un-

defiled:

For my head is filled with dew, And my locks with the drops of the night. I have put off my coat ; how shall I put it on ? I have washed my feet ; how shall I defile them ? My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the

door,

And my bowels were moved for him. I rose up to open to my beloved ; And my hands dropped with myrrh, And my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh Upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved;

But my love had withdrawn himself and was gone. My soul had failed me when he spake : I sought him, but I could not find him ; I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchman that went about the city found me, They smote me, they wounded me; The keepers of the walls took away my veil from

me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find

my beloved, That ye tell him, that I am sick of love.

The Song of Songs

QUIA AMORE LANGUEO

Quia Amore Langueo

TN a valley of this resiles mind

I sought in mountain and in mead, Trusting a true love for to find. Upon an hill then took I heed; A voice I heard (and near I yede1) In great dolour complaining tho : See, dear soul, how my sides bleed Quia amore langueo.

Upon this hill I found a tree,

Under a tree a man sitting;

From head to foot wounded was he ;

His hearte blood I saw bleeding :

A seemly man to be a king,

A gracious face to look unto.

I asked why he had paining:

[]He said! Quia amore langueo.

I am true love that false was never ; My sister, man's soul, I loved her thus. Because we would in no wise dissever I left my kingdom glorious. I purvey 'd her a palace full precious ; She fled, I follow'd, I loved her so That I suffered this pain piteous Quia amore langueo.

1 Went

7*

QUIA AMORE LANGUEO

My fair love and my spouse bright! I saved her from beating, and she hath me bet l ; I clothed her in grace and heavenly light; This bloody shirt she hath on me set; For longing of love yet would I not let ; Sweete strokes are these: lo ! I have loved her ever as I her het,2 Quia amore langueo.

I crown'd her with bliss, and she me with thorn ; I led her to chamber, and she me to die ; I brought her to worship, and she me to scorn ; I did her reverence, and she me villany. To love that loveth is no maistry ; Her hate made never my love her foe : Ask me then no question why — Quia amore langueo.

Look unto mine hande's, man ! These gloves were given me when I her sought ; They be not white, but red and wan ; Embroider'd with blood my spouse them brought. They will not off: I loose hem nought; I woo her with hem wherever she go. These hands for her so friendly fought Quia amore langueo.

Marvel not, man, though I sit still, See, love hath shod me wonder strait :

1 Beaten 2 Promised

72

QUIA AMORE LANGUEO

Buckled my feet, as was her will, With sharpe nails (well thou may'st wait!). In my love was never desait ; All my membres I have open'd her to ; My body I made her herte's bait1 Quia amore langueo.

In my side I have made her nest ; Look in, how weet2 a wound is here! This is her chamber, here shall she rest That she and I may sleep in fere.3 Here may she wash, if any filth were, Here is seat for all her wo ; Come when she will, she shall have cheer Quia amore langueo.

I will abide till she be ready, I will her sue if she say nay ; If she be retchless, I will be greedy; If she be dangerous, I will her pray ; If she weep, then bide I ne may : Mine arms ben spread to clip her me to. Cry once, I come : now soul, assay ! Quia amore langueo.

Fair love, let us go play :

Apples ben ripe in my gardyne.

I shall thee clothe in a new array,

Thy meat shall be milk honey and wine.

Resting-place 2 Wet 3 Together

73

QUIA AMORE LANGUEO

Fair love, let us go dine : Thy sustenance is in my crippe,1 lo ! Tarry thou not, my fair spouse mine, Quia amore langueo.

If thou be foul, I shall thee make clean ; If thou be sick, I shall thee heal ; If thou mourn aught, I shall thee mene ; 2 Why wilt thou not, fair love, with me deal ? Foundest thou ever love so leal ? What wilt thou, soul, that I shall do? I may not unkindly thee appeal, Quia amore langueo.

What shall I do now with my spouse, But abide her of my gentleness, Till that she look out of her house Of fleshly affection ? Love mine she is ; Her bed is made, her bolster is bliss, Her chamber is chosen ; is there none mo. Look out on me at the window of kindeness, Quia amore langueo.

My love is in her chamber : hold your peace !

Make ye no noise but let her sleep.

My babe I would not were in disease,

I would not hear my dear child weep.

With my pap I shall her keep ;

Ne marvel ye not though I tend her to :

This wound in my side had ne'er be so deep

But Quia amore langueo. 1 Scrip, wallet 2 Cure for

74

THE INVITATION

Long thou for love never so high, My love is more than thine may be. Thou weepest, thou gladdest, I sit thee by : Yet wouldest thou once, love, look unto me ! Should I always feede thee With children meat ? Nay, love, not so ! I will prove thy love with adversite" Quia amore langueo.

Wax not weary, mine own wif > ! What mede * is aye to live in comfort ? In tribulation I reign more rife, Ofter times than in disport. In weal and in woe I am aye to support : Mine own wife, go not me fro ! Thy mead is marked, when thou are mort : Quia amore langueo.

ANONYMOUS ( 1 5th Cent.)

The Invitation

rTHARY no longer ; toward thyn heritage

-*• Haste on thy way, and be of right good chere. Go ech day onward on thy pilgrimage,

Thynk how short time thou shalt abyde here. Thy place is bigg'd 2 above the sterres clere,

None erthly paleys wrought in so statly wyse. Come on, my frend, my brother most entere, —

For thee I offred my blood in sacryfice.

JOHN LYDGATE

1 Profit 2 Built

75

CHRIST CRUCIFIED Christ Crucified

IHY restless feet now cannot go For us and our eternal good, As they were ever wont. What though They swim, alas ! in their own flood :

T

Thy hands to give Thou canst not lift, Yet will Thy hand still giving be ;

It gives, but O, itself 's the gift!

It gives tho' bound, tho' bound 'tis free!

RICHARD CRASHAW

The Man with Three Friends

A Story told in the l Gesta Romanorum '

one full sound and quietly That slept, there came a heavy cry,

' Awake ! arise ! for thou hast slain

A man.'

' Yea, have I to mine own pain,'

He answered ; * but of ill intent

And malice am I, that naught forecast,

As is the babe innocent.

' From sudden anger our strife grew.

I hated not, in times past, Him whom unwittingly I slew.'

76

THE MAN WITH THREE FRIENDS

'If it be thus indeed, thy case

Is hard,' they said ; ' for thou must die,

Unless with the Judge thou canst find grace.

Hast thou, in thine extremity, Friends soothfast, for thee to plead ? '

Then said he, * I have friends three : One1 whom in word, and will, and deed, From my youth I have served and loved before

Mine own soul, and for him striven ;

To him was all I got given ; And the longer I lived, I have loved him more.

'And another2 have I, whom, sooth to tell,

I love as I love mine own heart well,

And the third,3 I cannot now call

To mind that ever loved at all

He hath been of me, or in aught served ;

And yet, maybe, he hath well deserved

That I should love him with the rest.

* Now will I first to the one loved best.' . . .

— Said the first, * And art thou so sore bestead ? See, I have gain'd of cloth good store, So will I give thee three ells and more

(If more thou needest) when thou art dead, To wrap thee. Now hie away from my door ;

I have friends many, and little room.'

1 The world a Wife and children 3 Christ

77

THE WAY, THE LIGHT, THE LIFE

And the next made answer weeping sore,

« We will go with thee to the place of doom :

There must we leave thee evermore.'

« Alack/ said the man, ' and well-a-day ! ' But the third only answer'd, ' Yea ' :

And while the man spake, all to start soon,

Knelt down and buckled on his shoon,

And said, * By thee in the Judgment Hall

I will stand and hear what the Judge decree ;

And if it be death, I will die with thee, Or for thee, as it may befall.'

DORA GREENWELL

The Way, the Light, the Life

"\ T7HY dost thou shade thy lovely face ? O why

* * Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny The sunshine of the Sun's enlivening eye ?

Without thy light, what light remains in me ? Thou art my life ; my way, my light 's in thee ; I live, I move, and by thy beams I see.

Thou art my life — if thou but turn away,

My life 's a thousand deaths. Thou art my way —

Without thee, Love, I travel not but stray.

My light thou art — without thy glorious sight My eyes are darken'd with eternal night. My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light. 78

THE WAY, THE LIGHT, THE LIFE

Thou art my way ; I wander if thou fly. Thou art my light ; if hid, how blind am I ! Thou art my life ; if thou withdraw'st, I die.

My eyes are dark and blind, I cannot see : To whom or whither should my darkness flee, But to that light ? — and who 's that light but thee ?

If I have lost my path, dear Lover, say, Shall I still wander in a doubtful way ? Love, shall a lamb of Israel's sheepfold stray ?

My path is lost, my wandering steps do stray ;

I cannot go, nor can I safely stay.

Whom should I seek but thee, my path, my way?

And yet thou turn'st thy face away and fly'st me ! And yet I sue for grace and thou deny'st me ! Speak — art thou angry, Love, or only try'st me?

Thou art the pilgrim's path, the blind man's eye, The dead man's life. On thee my hopes rely: If I but them remove, I surely die.

Dissolve thy sunbeams, close thy wings and stay ! See, see how I am blind, and dead, and stray ! — O thou that art my life, my light, my way !

Then work thy will ! If passion bid me flee, My reason shall obey, my wings shall be Stretch'd out no farther than from me to thee !

FRANCIS QUARLES 79

ST. AGNES' EVE

St. Agnes Eve

DEEP on the convent-roof the snows Are sparkling to the moon : My breath to heaven like vapour goes :

May my soul follow soon ! The shadows of the convent-towers

Slant down the snowy sward, Still creeping with the creeping hours

That lead me to my Lord : Make Thou my spirit pure and clear

As are the frosty skies, Or this first snowdrop of the year

That in my bosom lies.

As these white robes are soil'd and dark,

To yonder shining ground ; As this pale taper's earthly spark,

To yonder argent round ; So shows my soul before the Lamb,

My spirit before Thee; So in mine earthly house I am,

To that I hope to be. Break up the heavens, O Lord ! and far,

Thro' all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star,

In raiment white and clean.

He lifts me to the golden doors ;

The flashes come and go ; 80

LOVE

All heaven bursts her starry floors,

And strows her lights below, And deepens on and up ! the gates

Roll back, and far within For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits,

To make me pure of sin. The sabbaths of Eternity,

One sabbath deep and wide — A light upon the shining sea —

The Bridegroom with his bride !

LORD TENNYSON

Love

LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lack'd anything.

'A guest/ I answered, 'worthy to be here.'

Love said, * You shall be he.' ' I, the unkind, ungrateful ? Ah, my dear,

I cannot look on Thee.' Love took my hand and smiling did reply,

' Who made the eyes but I ? '

F 81

LOVE

* Truth, Lord ; but I have marr'd them : let my

shame

Go where it doth deserve.' ' And know you not,' says Love, * who bore the

blame ? '

* My dear, then I will serve.'

' You must sit down,' says Love, « and taste my meat.' So I did sit and eat.

GEORGE HERBERT

HUMANE LOVE

L'AMOR che move il sole e 1'altre stelle.

DANTE

As ye came from the holy land

Of Walsinghame, Met you not with my true love

By the way as you came ?

Old Ballad

THE goodly gate swung oft with many gods Going and coming, and the spice-winds blew Music and murmurings, and paradise Well'd over and enrich'd the outer wild.

DOBELL

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love And feed his sacred flame.

COLERIDGE

IT was a lover and his lass,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino.

SHAKESPEARE

The Invocation

LYRIC Love, half angel and half bird And all a wonder and a wild desire, — Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, Took sanctuary within the holiest blue, And sang a kindred soul out to his*face, — Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart— When the first summons from the darkling earth Reach'd thee amid thy chambers, blanch'd their blue, And bared them of the glory — to drop down, To toil for man, to suffer or to die, — This is the same voice : can thy soul know change ? Hail them, and hearken from the realms of help ! Never may I commence my song, my due To God who best taught song by gift of thee, Except with bent head and beseeching hand — That still, despite the distance and the dark, What was, again may be ; some interchange Of grace, some splendour once thy very thought, Some benediction anciently thy smile : — Never conclude, but raising hand and head Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn For all hope, all sustainment, all reward, Their utmost up and on, — so blessing back In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home, Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud, Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall !

ROBERT BROWNING 85

WOOING SONG

Wooing Song

OVE is the blossom where there blows •*— ' Every thing that lives or grows : Love doth make the Heav'ns to move, And the Sun doth burn in love : Love the .strong and weak doth yoke, And makes the ivy climb the oak, Under whose shadows lions wild, Soften'd by love, grow tame and mild : Love no med'cine can appease, He burns the fishes in the seas : Not all the skill his wounds can stench, Not all the sea his fire can quench. Love did make the bloody spear Once a leavy coat to wear, While in his leaves there shrouded lay Sweet birds, for love that sing and play. And of all love's joyful flame I the bud and blossom am.

Only bend thy knee to me,

Thy wooing shall thy winning be!

See, see the flowers that below Now as fresh as morning blow ; And of all the virgin rose That as bright Aurora shows ; How they all unleavM die, Losing their virginity! 86

SILVIA

Like unto a summer shade, But now born, and now they fade. Every thing doth pass away ; There is danger in delay : Come, come, gather then the rose, Gather it, or it you lose ! All the sand of Tagus' shore Into my bosom casts his ore : All the valleys' swimming corn To my house is yearly borne : Every grape of every vine Is gladly bruised to make me wine : While ten thousand kings, as proud, To carry up my train have bow'd, And a world of ladies send me In my chambers to attend me: All the stars in Heav'n that shine, And ten thousand more, are mine : . Only bend thy knee to me,

Thy wooing shall thy winning be !

GILES FLETCHER

Silvia

is Silvia? What is she? That all our swains commend her ? Holy, fair, and wise is she;

The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired be.

8?

TO ANTHEA

Is she kind as she is fair ?

For beauty lives with kindness: Love doth to her eyes repair,

To help him of his blindness ; And, being help'd, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,

That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing

Upon the dull earth dwelling: To her let us garlands bring.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

'To Anthea^ 'who may command him Anything

me to live, and I will live Thy Protestant to be; Or bid me love, and I will give A loving heart to thee.

A heart as soft, a heart as kind,

A heart as sound and free As in the whole world thou canst find,

That heart I '11 give to thee.

Bid that heart stay, and it will stay

To honour thy decree : Or bid it languish quite away,

And't shall do so for thee.

MARY MORISON

Bid me to weep, and I will weep

While I have eyes to see : And, having none, yet will I keep

A heart to weep for thee.

Bid me despair, and I '11 despair

Under that cypress-tree : Or bid me die, and I will dare

E'en death to die for thee.

Thou art my life, my love, my heart,

The very eyes of me : And hast command of every part

To live and die for thee.

ROBERT HERRICK

Mary Morison

MARY, at thy window be,

It is the wish'd, the trysted hour ! Those smiles and glances let me see,

That make the miser's treasure poor : How blythely wad I bide the stour,1

A weary slave frae sun to sun, Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison !

Yestreen, when to the trembling string

The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha', To thee my fancy took its wing, I sat, but neither heard nor saw : 1 Dust, turmoil

89

THE INDIAN SERENADE

Tho' this was fair, and that was braw, And yon the toast of a' the town,

I sigh'd, and said amang them a', 'Ye arena Mary Morison.'

O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,

Wha for thy sake wad gladly die ? Or canst thou break that heart of his,

Whase only faut is loving thee ? If love for love thou wiltna gie,

At least be pity to me shown ; A thought ungentle canna be

The thought o' Mary Morison.

ROBERT BURNS

The Indian Serenade

T ARISE from dreams of thee

-•• In the first sweet sleep of night,

When the winds are breathing low,

And the stars are shining bright. I arise from dreams of thee,

And a spirit in my feet Hath led me — who knows how ?

To thy chamber window, Sweet !

The wandering airs they faint

On the dark, the silent stream — And the Champak's odours pine

Like sweet thoughts in a dream ; 90

IN A GONDOLA

The nightingale's complaint, It dies upon her heart,

As I must on thine, O beloved as thou art !

O lift me from the grass !

I die ! I faint ! I fail ! Let thy love in kisses rain

On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas !

My heart beats loud and fast : O press it to thine own again,

Where it will break at last!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

In a Gondola

HPHE moth's kiss, first!

•"• Kiss me as if you made believe You were not sure, this eve, How my face, your flower, had pursed Its petals up ; so, here and there You brush it, till I grow aware Who wants me, and wide ope I burst.

The bee's kiss, now !

Kiss me as if you enter'd gay

My heart at some noonday,

91

THE ECSTASY

A bud that dares not disallow The claim, so all is rendered up, And passively its shattered cup Over your head to sleep I bow.

ROBERT BROWNING

The Ecstasy

VK7HERE, like a pillow on a bed,

A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest The violet's reclining head,

Sat we two, one another's best.

Our hands were firmly cemented

By a fast balm which thence did spring ; Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread

Our eyes upon one double string.

So to engraft our hands, as yet

Was all the means to make us one ;

And pictures in our eyes to get Was all our propagation.

As 'twixt two equal armies Fate

Suspends uncertain victory, Our souls — which to advance our state

Were gone out — hung 'twixt her and me. 92

THE TRIUMPH

And whilst our souls negotiate there, We like sepulchral statues lay;

All day the same our postures were, And we said nothing, all the day.

JOHN DONNE

The 'Triumph

OEE the Chariot at hand here of Love, ^ Wherein my Lady rideth ! Each that draws is a swan or a dove,

And well the car Love guideth. As she goes, all hearts do duty

Unto her beauty; And enamour'd do wish, so they might

But enjoy such a sight, That they still were to run by her side, Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light

All that Love's world compriseth ! Do but look on her hair, it is bright

As Love's star when it riseth ! Do but mark, her forehead's smoother

Than words that soothe her ; And from her arch'd brows such a grace Sheds itself through the face, As alone there triumphs to the life All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife.

93

THE VINE

Have you seen but a bright lily grow Before rude hands have touch'd it ?

Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow Before the soil hath smutch'd it ?

Have you felt the wool of beaver, Or swan's down ever ?

Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier, Or the nard in the fire?

Or have tasted the bag of the bee ?

O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she !

BEN JONSON

Vine

* I "VHE wine of Love is music,

•*• And the feast of Love is song : And when Love sits down to the banquet, Love sits long :

Sits long and arises drunken,

But not with the feast and the wine ; He reeleth with lj.ifi,_.QW.n --heart,

That great, rich Vine.

JAMES THOMSON

MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN

A FRIEND and companion never meet amiss : but above both is wife with her husband.

Ecclesiasticus

Ov ptv yap rou ye Kpeiaffov Kal apeiov T) tiff b[j,o(ppov£ovTe vo'fjiJMffiv olxov

MARRIAGE has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

JOHNSON, Rassel

as

THIS ring, so worn as you behold, So thin, so pale, is yet of gold : The passion such it was to prove — Worn with life's care, love yet was love.

GEORGE CRABBE

CHILDREN sweeten labours ; but they make Misfortunes more bitter. They increase the Cares of Life 5 but they mitigate the Remembrance of Death.

BACON

GLAD sight wherever new with old

Is join'd through some dear homeborn tie !

The life of all that we behold Depends upon that mystery.

WORDSWORTH

Praise of Women

1VTO thyng ys to man so dere

•*• ^ As wommanys love in good manere.

A gode womman is mannys blys,

There her love right and stedfast ys.

There ys no solas under hevene

Of alle that a man may nevene

That shulde a man so moche glew

As a gode womman that loveth true.

Ne derer is none in Goddis hurde

Than a chaste womman with lovely worde.

ROBERT MANNYNG OF BRUNNE

Epitbalamion

learned sisters, which have oftentimes Beene to me ayding, others to adorne, Whom ye thought worthy of your gracefull rymes, That even the greatest did not greatly scorne To heare theyr names sung in your simple layes, But joyM in theyr praise ;

And when ye list your owne mishaps to mourne, Which death, or love, or fortunes wreck did rayse, Your string could soone to sadder tenor turne, And teach the woods and waters to lament Your dolefull dreriment :

G 97

EPITHALAMION

Now lay those sorrowfull complaints aside ;

And, having all your heads with girlands crownd,

Helpe me mine owne loves prayses to resound ;

Ne let the same of any be envide :

So Orpheus did for his owne bride !

So I unto my selfe alone will sing ;

The woods shall to me answer, and my Eccho ring.

Early, before the worlds light-giving lampe

His golden beame upon the hils doth spred,

Having disperst the nights unchearefull dampe,

Doe ye awake ; and, with fresh lusty-hed,

Go to the bowre of my beloved love,

My truest turtle dove ;

Bid her awake ; for Hymen is awake,

And long since ready forth his maske to move,

With his bright Tead l that flames with many a flake,

And many a bachelor to waite on him,

In theyr fresh garments trim.

Bid her awake therefore, and soone her dight,

For lo! the wished day is come at last,

That shall, for all the paynes and sorrowes past,

Pay to her usury of long delight :

And, whylest she doth her dight,

Doe ye to her of joy and solace sing,

That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

Bring with you all the Nymphes that you can heare Both of the rivers and the forrests greene,

1 Torch 98

EPITHALAMION

And of the sea that neighbours to her neare :

Al with gay girlands goodly well beseene.

And let them also with them bring in hand

Another gay girland

For my fayre love, of lillyes and of roses,

Bound truelove wize, with a blew silke riband.

And let them make great store of bridale poses,

And let them eeke bring store of other flowers,

To deck the bridale bowers.

And let the ground whereas her foot shall tread,

For feare the stones her tender foot should wrong,

Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along,

And diapred lyke the discolored mead.

Which done, doe at her chamber dore awayt,

For she will waken strayt :

The whiles doe ye this song unto her sing,

The woods shall to you answer, and your Eccho ring.

Ye Nymphes of Mulla, which with carefull heed

The silver scaly trouts doe tend full well,

And greedy pikes which use therein to feed ;

(Those trouts and pikes all others doo excell;)

And ye likewise, which keepe the rushy lake,

Where none doo fishes take ;

Bynd up the locks the which hang scatterd light,

And in his waters, which your mirror make,

Behold your faces as the christall bright,

That when you come whereas my love doth lie,

No blemish she may spie.

And eke, ye lightfoot mayds, which keepe the deere,

That on the hoary mountayne used to towre ;

99

EPITHALAMION

And the wylde wolves, which seeke them to devoure,

With "your steele darts doo chace from comming near ;

Be also present heere,

To helpe to decke her, and to help to sing,

That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

Wake now, my love, awake ! for it is time ;

The RosyiMorne long since left Tithones bed,

All ready to her silver coche to clyme ;

And Phoebus gins to shew his glorious hed.

Hark ! how the cheerefull birds do chaunt theyr laies

And carroll of Loves praise.

The merry Larke hir mattins sings aloft ;

The Thrush replyes ; the Mavis descant playes ;

The Ouzell shrills ; the Ruddock 1 warbles soft ;

So goodly all agree, with sweet consent,

To this dayes merriment.

Ah ! my deere love, why doe ye sleepe thus long ?

When meeter were that ye should now awake,

T* awayt the comming of your joyous make,

And hearken to the birds love-learned song,

The deawy leaves among !

Nor they of joy and pleasance to you sing,

That all the woods them answer, and theyr eccho ring.

My love is now awake out of her dreames, And her fayre eyes, like stars that dimmed were With darksome cloud, now shew theyr goodly beams More bright then Hesperus his head doth rere.

1 Redbreast 100

EPITHALAMION

Come now, ye damzels, daughters of delight, Helpe quickly her to dight :

But first come ye fayre houres, which were begot In Joves sweet paradice of Day and Night ; Which doe the seasons of the yeare allot, And al, that ever in this world is fayre, Doe make and still repayre :

And ye three handmayds of the Cyprian Queene, The which doe still adorne her beauties pride, Helpe to addonne my beautifullest bride : And, as ye her array, still throw betweene Some graces to be scene ; And, as ye use to Venus, to her sing, The whiles the woods shal answer, and your eccho ring.

Now is my love all ready forth to come :

Let all the virgins therefore well awayt :

And ye fresh boyes, that tend upon her groome,

Prepare your selves ; for he is comming strayt.

Set all your things in seemely good aray,

Fit for so joy full day :

The joyfulst day that ever sunne did see.

Faire Sun ! shew forth thy favourable ray,

And let thy lifull heat not fervent be,

For feare of burning her sunshyny face,

Her beauty to disgrace.

O fayrest Phoebus ! father of the Muse !

If ever I did honour thee aright,

Or sing the thing that mote thy mind delight,

Doe not thy servants simple boone refuse ;

EPITHALAMION

But let this day, let this one day, be myne ;

Let all the rest be thine.

Then I thy soverayne prayses loud wil sing,

That all the woods shal answer, and theyr eccho ring.

Harke ! how the Minstrils gin to shrill aloud

Their meny Musick that resounds from far,

The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling Croud,1

That well agree withouten breach or jar.

But, most of all, the Damzels doe delite

When they their tymbrels smyte,

And thereunto doe daunce and carrol sweet,

That all the sences they doe ravish quite;

The whyles the boyes run up and downe the street,

Crying aloud with strong confused noyce,

As if it were one voyce,

Hymen, io Hymen, Hymen, they do shout ;

That even to the heavens theyr shouting shrill

Doth reach, and all the firmament doth fill ;

To which the people standing all about,

As in approvance, doe thereto applaud,

And loud advaunce her laud;

And evermore they Hymen, Hymen sing,

That al the woods them answer, and theyr eccho ring.

Loe! where she comes along with portly pace, Lyke Phoebe, from her chamber of the East, Arysing forth to run her mighty race, Clad all in white, that seemes a virgin best. So well it her beseemes, that ye would weene 1 Violin

EPITHALAMION

Some angell she had beene.

Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre,

Sprinckled with perle, and perling flowres atweene,

Doe lyke a golden mantle her attyre ;

And, being crowned with a girland greene,

Seeme lyke some mayden Queene.

Her modest eyes, abashed to behold

So many gazers as on her do stare,

Upon the lowly ground affixed are ;

Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold,

But blush to heare her prayses sung so loud,

So farre from being proud.

Nathlesse doe ye still loud her prayses sing,

That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

Tell me, ye merchants daughters, did ye see

So fayre a creature in your towne before;

So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she,

Adornd with beautyes grace and vertues store ?

Her goodly eyes lyke Saphyres shining bright,

Her forehead yvory white,

Her cheekes lyke apples which the sun hath rudded,

Her lips lyke cherryes charming men to byte,

Her brest like to a bowle of creame uncrudded,

Her paps lyke lyllies budded,

Her snowie necke lyke to a marble towre ;

And all her body like a pallace fayre,

Ascending up, with many a stately stayre,

To honors seat and chastities sweet bowre.

Why stand ye still ye virgins in amaze,

Upon her so to gaze,

103

EPITHALAMION

Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing,

To which the woods did answer, and your eccho ring ?

But if ye saw that which no eyes can see,

The inward beauty of her lively spright,

Garnisht with heavenly guifts of high degree,

Much more then would ye wonder at that sight,

And stand astonisht lyke to those which red

Medusaes mazeful hed.

There dwels sweet love, and constant chastity,

Unspotted fayth, and comely womanhood,

Regard of honour, and mild modesty ;

There vertue raynes as Queene in royal throne,

And giveth lawes alone,

The which the base affections doe obay,

And yeeld theyr services unto her will ;

Ne thought of thing uncomely ever may

Thereto approch to tempt her mind to ill.

Had ye once scene these her celestial threasures,

And unrevealed pleasures,

Then would ye wonder, and her prayses sing,

That al the woods should answer, and your eccho ring.

Open the temple gates unto my love, Open them wide that she may enter in, And all the postes adorne as doth behove, And all the pillours deck with girlands trim, For to receyve this Saynt with honour dew, That commeth in to you. With trembling steps, and humble reverence, She commeth in, before th' Almighties view ; 104

EPITHALAMION

Of her ye virgins learne obedience,

When so ye come into those holy places,

To humble your proud faces :

Bring her up to thj high altar, that she may

The sacred ceremonies there partake,

The which do endlesse matrimony make ;

And let the roring Organs loudly play

The praises of the Lord in lively notes ;

The whiles, with hollow throates,

The Choristers the joyous Antheme sing,

That al the woods may answere, and their eccho ring.

Beholde, whiles she before the altar stands, Hearing the holy priest that to her speakes, And blesseth her with his two happy hands, How the red roses flush up in her cheekes, And the pure snow, with goodly vermill stayne Like crimsin dyde in grayne : That even th' Angels, which continually About the sacred Altare doe remaine, Forget their service and about her fly, Ofte peeping in her face, that seems more fayre, The more they on it stare. But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground, Are governed with goodly modesty, That suffers not one looke to glaunce awry, Which may let in a little thought unsownd. Why blush ye, love, to give to me your hand, The pledge of all our band ! Sing, ye sweet Angels, Alleluya sing, That all the woods may answere, and your eccho ring.

105

EPITHALAMION

Now al is done: bring home the bride againe ;

Bring home the triumph of our victory :

Bring home with you the glory of her gaine ;

With joyance bring her and with jollity.

Never had man more joyfull day then this,

Whom heaven would heape with blis,

Make feast therefore now all this live-long day;

This day for ever to me holy is.

Poure out the wine without restraint or stay,

Poure not by cups, but by the belly full,

Poure out to all that wull,

And sprinkle all the postes and wals with wine,

That they may sweat, and drunken be withall.

Crowne ye God Bacchus with a coronall,

And Hymen also crowne with wreathes of vine ;

And let the Graces daunce unto the rest,

For they can doo it best:

The whiles the maydens doe theyr carroll sing,

To which the woods shall answer, and their eccho ring.

Ring ye the bels, ye yong men of the towne, And leave your wonted labors for this day : This day is holy ; doe ye write it downe, That ye for ever it remember may. This day the sunne is in his chiefest hight, With Barnaby the bright, From whence declining daily by degrees, He somewhat loseth of his heat and light, When once the Crab behind his back he sees. But for this time it ill ordained was, To chose the longest day in all the yeare, 106

EPITHALAMION

And shortest night, when longest fitter weare :

Yet never day so long, but late would passe.

Ring ye the bels, to make it weare away,

And bonefiers make all day ;

And daunce about them, and about them sing,

That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

Ah ! when will this long weary day have end,

And lende me leave to come unto my love ?

How slowly do the houres theyr numbers spend ?

How slowly does sad Time his feathers move ?

Haste thee, O fayrest Planet, to thy home,

Within the Westerne fome :

Thy tyr£d steedes long since have need of rest.

Long though it be, at last I see it gloome,

And the bright evening-star with golden creast

Appeare out of the East.

Fayre childe of beauty ! glorious lampe of love !

That all the host of heaven in rankes doost lead,

And guydest lovers through the nights sad dread,

How chearefully thou lookest from above,

And seemst to laugh atweene thy twinkling light,

As joying in the sight

Of these glad many, which for joy doe sing,

That all the woods them answer, and their eccho ring !

Now ceasse, ye damsels, your delights fore-past; Enough it is that all the day was youres : Now day is doen, and night is nighing fast, Now bring the Bryde into the brydall boures.

107

EPITHALAMION

The night is come, now soon her disaray,

And in her bed her lay ;

Lay her in lillies and in violets,

And silken courteins over her display,

And odourd sheetes, and Arras coverlets.

Behold how goodly my faire love does ly,

In proud humility !

Like unto Maia, when as Jove her took

In Tempe, lying on the flowry gras,

Twixt sleepe and wake, after she weary was,

With bathing in the Acidalian brooke.

Now it is night, ye damsels may be gon,

And leave my love alone,

And leave likewise your former lay to sing :

The woods no more shall answere, nor your eccho ring.

Now welcome, night ! thou night so long expected, That long daies labour doest at last defray, And all my cares, which cruell Love collected, Hast sumd in one, and cancelled for aye : Spread thy broad wing over my love and me, That no man may us see ; And in thy sable mantle us enwrap, From feare of perrill and foule horror free. Let no false treason seeke us to entrap, Nor any dread disquiet once annoy The safety of our joy ; But let the night be calme, and quietsome, Without tempestuous storms or sad afray : Lyke as when Jove with fayre Alcmena lay, When he begot the great Tirynthian groome : 108

EPITHALAMION

Or lyke as when he with thy selfe did Jie

And begot Majesty.

And let the mayds and yong men cease to sing ;

Ne let the woods them answer nor theyr eccho ring.

Let no lamenting cryes, nor dolefull teares, Be heard all night within, nor yet without : Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden feares, Breake gentle sleepe with misconceived dout. Let no deluding dreames, nor dreadfull sights, Make sudden sad affrights ;

Ne let house- fy res, nor lightnings helpelesse harmes, Ne let the Pouke, nor other evill sprights, Ne let mischivous witches with theyr charmes, Ne let hob Goblins, names whose sence we see not, Fray us with things that be not : Let not the shriech Oule or the Storke be heard, Nor the night Raven, that still deadly yels ; 'Nor damned ghosts, cald up with mighty spels, Nor griesly vultures, make us once affeard : Ne let th' unpleasant Quyre of Frogs still croking Make us to wish theyr choking. Let none of these theyr drery accents sing ; Ne let the woods them answer, nor theyr eccho ring.

But let stil Silence trew night-watches keepe, That sacred Peace may in assurance rayne, And tymely Sleep, when it is tyme to sleepe, May poure his limbs forth on your pleasant playne ; The whiles an hundred little winged loves, Like divers-fethered doves,

109

EPITHALAMION

Shall fly and flutter round about your bed, And in the secret darke, that none reproves, Their prety stealthes shal worke, and snares shal

spread

To filch away sweet snatches of delight, Conceald through covert night. Ye sonnes of Venus, play your sports at will ! For greedy pleasure, carelesse of your toyes, Thinks more upon her paradise of joyes, Then what ye do, albe it good or ill. All night therefore attend your merry play, For it will soone be day : Now none doth hinder you, that say or sing ; Ne will the woods now answer, nor your Eccho ring.

Who is the same, which at my window peepes ?

Or whose is that faire face that shines so bright ?

Is it not Cinthia, she that never sleepes,

But walkes about high heaven al the night ?

O ! fayrest goddesse, do thou not envy

My love with me to spy :

For thou likewise didst love, though now unthought,

And for a fleece of wooll, which privily

The Latmian shepherd once unto thee brought,

His pleasures with thee wrought.

Therefore to us be favorable now ;

And sith of wemens labours thou hast charge,

And generation goodly dost enlarge,

Encline thy will t' effect our wishfull vow,

And the chast wombe informe with timely seed,

That may our comfort breed :

EPITHALAMION

Till which we cease our hopefull hap to sing ; Ne let the woods us answere, nor our Eccho ring.

And thou, great Juno ! which with awful might

The lawes of wedlock still dost patronize ;

And the religion of the faith first plight

With sacred rites hast taught to solemnize ;

And eeke for comfort often callM art

Of women in their smart ;

Eternally bind thou this lovely band,

And all thy blessings unto us impart.

And thou, glad Genius ! in whose gentle hand

The bridale bowre and geniall bed remaine,

Without blemish or staine ;

And the sweet pleasures of theyr loves delight

With secret ayde doest succour and supply,

Till they bring forth the fruitfull progeny ;

Send us the timely fruit of this same night.

And thou, fayre Hebe ! and thou, Hymen free !

Grant that it may so be.

Til which we cease your further prayse to sing;

Ne any woods shall answer, nor your Eccho ring.

And ye high heavens, the temple of the gods,

In which a thousand torches flaming bright

Doe burne, that to us wretched earthly clods

In dreadful darknesse lend desired light ;

And all ye powers which in the same remayne,

More then we men can fayne !

Poure out your blessing on us plentiously,

MARRIAGE

And happy influence upon us raine,

That we may raise a large posterity,

Which from the earth, which they may long possesse

With lasting happinesse,

Up to your haughty pallaces may mount ;

And, for the guerdon of theyr glorious merit,

May heavenly tabernacles there inherit,

Of blessed Saints for to increase the count.

So let us rest, sweet love, in hope of this,

And cease till then our tymely joyes to sing :

The woods no more us answer, nor our eccho ring !

Song ! made in lieu of many ornaments,

With 'which my love should duly have been dect,

Which cutting off through hasty accidents,

Te 'would not stay your deiv time to expect,

But promist both to recompens ;

Be unto her a goodly ornament,

And for short time an endlesse moniment.

EDMUND SPENSER

Marriage

TV /TARRIAGE is a school and exercise of virtue ; -L * A and though marriage hath cares, yet the single life hath desires, which are more troublesome and more dangerous, and often end in sin ; while the cares are but instances of duty and exercises of piety ; and there fore if single life hath more privacy of devotion, yet marriage hath more necessities and more variety of it, and is an exercise of more graces.

112

WHEN LOVE MEETS LOVE

Marriage is the proper sense of piety and patience, of the duty of parents and the charity of relations ; here kindness is spread abroad, and love is united and made firm as a centre ; marriage is the nursery of Heaven. . . .

Marriage is the mother of the world, and possesses kingdoms, and fills cities and churches and Heaven itself. Celibate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness ; but sits alone, and is confined, and dies in singularity ; but marriage, like the useful bee, builds a house and gathers sweetness from every flower, and labours and unites into societies and republics, and sends out colonies, and feeds the world with delicacies, and obeys their king, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest of mankind, and is that state of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world.

JEREMY TAYLOR

When Love meets Love

love meets love, breast urged to breast, God interposes An unacknowledged guest, And leaves a little child among our roses. We love, God makes : in our sweet mirth God spies occasion for a birth. Then is it His, or is it ours ? I know not — He is fond of flowers.

T. E. BROWN H 113

THE HUSBAND <The Husband

'"T^HERE is nothing can please a man without love ; •*• and if a man be weary of the wise discourses of the apostles, and of the innocency of an even and private fortune, or hates peace or a fruitful year, he hath reaped thorns and thistles from the choicest flowers of paradise ; for nothing can sweeten felicity itself but love. No man can tell but he that loves his children how many delicious accents makes a man's heart dance in the pretty conversations of those dear pledges ; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society ; but he that loves not his wife and children feeds a lioness at home, and broods a nest of sorrows ; and blessing itself cannot make him happy : so that all the commandments of God enjoining a man to love his wife are nothing but so many neces sities and capacities of joy. She that is loved is safe, and he that loves is joyful.

JEREMY TAYLOR

Cradle Song

OLEEP, sleep, beauty bright, ^ Dreaming in the joys of night; Sleep, sleep ; in thy sleep Little sorrows sit and weep. 114

CRADLE SONG

Sweet babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles.

As thy softest limbs I feel, Smiles as of the morning steal O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast Where thy little heart doth rest.

O the cunning wiles that creep In thy little heart asleep ! When thy little heart doth wake, Then the dreadful night shall break.

WILLIAM BLAKE

HOUSE AND GARDEN

Do not hang your house round with tablets and pictures, but with the beauty of temperance.

EPICTETUS

IN banquets remember that you entertain two guests, body and soul.

EPICTETUS

A MERRY heart doeth good like a medicine : but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

Proverbs of Solomon

ALWAY be merry if thbu may, But waste not thy good alway : Have hat of flowers fresh as May, Chapelet of roses of Whitsonday, For sich array ne costneth but lyte.

Romaunt of the Rose

A GARDEN is a lovesome thing, God wot !

Rose plot,

Fringed pool, Ferned grot —

The veriest school

Of peace ; and yet the fool Contends that God is not — Not God ! in gardens ! when the eve is cool ?

Nay, but I have a sign :

'Tis very sure God walks in mine.

T. E. BROWN

i iS

Wishes

/"""I O little book, and wish to all

^-^ Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall, A bin of wine, a spice of wit, A house with lawns enclosing it, A living river by the door, A nightingale in the sycamore.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The Wine of Life

T HAVE often thought that, as longevity is gener- •*- ally desired, and I believe generally expected, it would be wise to be continually adding to the num ber of our friends, that the loss of some may be supplied by others. Friendship, * the wine of life,' should like a well-stocked cellar be thus continually renewed ; and it is consolatory to think that although we can seldom add what will equal the generous fast-growths of our youth, yet friendship becomes insensibly old in much less time than is commonly imagined, and not many years are required to make it very mellow and pleasant. Warmth will, no doubt,

119

TO MR. LAWRENCE

make a considerable difference. Men of affectionate temper and bright fancy will coalesce a great deal sooner than those who are cold and dull.

The proposition which I have now endeavoured to illustrate was, at a subsequent period of his life, the opinion of Johnson himself. He said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, « If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair?

JAMES BOSWELL

To Mr. Lawrence

T AWRENCE of vertuous Father vertuous Son,

-*— ' Now that the Fields are dank, and ways are

mire,

Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire Help wast a sullen day ; what may be won

From the hard Season gaining: time will run On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire The frozen earth ; and cloth in fresh attire The Lillie and Rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.

What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attick tast, with Wine, whence we may rise To hear the Lute well toucht, or artfull voice

Warble immortal Notes and Tuskan Ayre ?

He who of those delights can judge, and spare To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

JOHN MILTON 120

THE HOLY TIDE

To Cyriack Skinner

/^YRIACK, whose Grandsire on the Royal Bench

^^ Of Brittish Themis, with no mean applause Pronounc't and in his volumes taught our Lawes, Which others at their Barr so often wrench :

To day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth, that after no repenting drawes ; Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intend, and what the French

To measure life, learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good what leads the nearest way ; For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains,

And disapproves that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.

JOHN MILTON

The Holy Tide

E days are sad, it is the Holy tide: The Winter morn is short, the Night is long; So let the lifeless Hours be glorified

With deathless thoughts and echo'd in sweet song: And through the sunset -of this purple cup

They will resume the roses of their prime, And the old Dead will hear us and wake up,

Pass with dim smiles and make our hearts sublime!

OF GARDENS

The days are sad, it is the Holy tide :

Be dusky mistletoes and Hollies strown, Sharp as the spear that pierced His sacred side,

Red as the drops upon His thorny crown; No haggard Passion and no lawless Mirth

Fright off the solemn Muse, — tell sweet old tales, Sing songs as we sit brooding o'er the hearth,

Till the lamp flickers, and the memory fails.

FREDERICK TENNYSON

Of Gardens

A ND because the Breath of Flowers is farre Sweeter •**• in the Aire (where it conies and goes like the Warbling of Musick) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the Flowers and Plants that doe best perfume the Aire. Roses Damask and Red are fast Flowers of their Smells, so that you may walke by a whole Row of them and find Nothing of their Sweetnesse ; yea, though it be in a Morning's Dew. Bayes likewise yeeld no Smell as they grow ; Rosemary little ; nor Sweet-Marjoram. That which above all Others yeelds the Sweetest Smell in the Aire is the Violet ; specially the White-double Violet, which comes twice a Yeare, about the middle of Aprill, and about Bartholomew-tide. Next to that is the Muske-Rose; then the Strawberry-Leaves dying, with a most Excellent Cordiall Smell. Then the Flower of the Vines ; it is a little dust, like the dust of a Bent, which growes upon the Cluster in the first

THOUGHTS IN A GARDEN

comming forth. Then Sweet Briar. Then Wall- Flowers, which are very Delightfull, to be set under a Parler or Lower Chamber Window. Then Pincks and Gilly-Flowers, specially the Matted Pinck and Clove Gilly-Flower. Then the Flowers of the Lime tree. Then the Honey-suckles, so they be somewhat a-farre off. Of Beane Flowers I speake not, because they are Field Flowers. But those which perfume the Aire most delightfully, not passed by PS the rest, but being Trodden upon and Crushed, are Three : that is, Burnet, Wild-Time, and Water-Mints. Therefore you are to set whole Allies of them, to have the Pleasure when you walke or tread.

FRANCIS BACON

'Thoughts in a Garden

T TOW vainly men themselves amaze •*•••• To win the palm, the oak, or bays, And their incessant labours see Crown'd from some single herb or tree, Whose short and narrow-verged shade Does prudently their toils upbraid ; While all the flowers and trees do close To weave the garlands of repose !

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, And Innocence thy sister dear ? Mistaken long, I sought you then In busy companies of men :

123

THOUGHTS IN A GARDEN

Your sacred plants, if here below, Only among the plants will grow: Society is all but rude To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen

So amorous as this lovely green.

Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,

Cut in these trees their mistress' name :

Little, alas! they know or heed

How far these beauties hers exceed !

Fair trees ! wheresVer your barks I wound,

No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passions' heat, Love hither makes his best retreat: The gods, that mortal beauty chase, Still in a tree did end their race ; Apollo hunted Daphne so Only that she might laurel grow; And Pan did after Syrinx speed Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life is this I lead ! Ripe apples drop about my head; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine ; The nectarine and curious peach Into my hands themselves do reach ; Stumbling on melons, as I pass, Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass. 124

THOUGHTS IN A GARDEN

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less

Withdraws into its happiness ;

The mind, that ocean where each kind

Does straight its own resemblance find ;

Yet it creates, transcending these,

Far other worlds, and other seas ;

Annihilating all that 's made

To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain's sliding foot, Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, Casting the body's vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide ; There, like a bird, it sits and sings, Then whets and combs its silver wings, And, till prepared for longer flight, Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy Garden-state While man there walk'd without a mate: After a place so pure and sweet, What other help could yet be meet ! But 'twas beyond a mortal's share To wander solitary there : Two paradises 'twere in one, To live in Paradise alone.

How well the skilful gard'ner drew Of flowers and herbs this dial new ! Where, from above, the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run :

125

THOUGHTS IN A GARDEN

And, as it works, th' industrious bee Computes its time as well as we. How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckon'd, but with herbs and flowers!

ANDREW MARVELL

126

WORK AND THE DAILY ROUND

AWAKE, my Soul, and with the sun Thy daily stage of duty run ; Shake off dull sloth and joyful rise, To pay thy morning sacrifice.

BISHOP KEN

A SERVANT with this clause

Makes drudgery divine ;

Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,

Makes that, and the action, fine.

GEORGE HERBERT

GIVE us this day our daily bread

128

Waking

IN the morning, when you awake, accustom yourself to think first upon God, or something in order to His service ; and at night also let Him close thine eyes : and let your sleep be necessary and healthful, not idle and expensive of time beyond the needs and con veniences of nature ; and sometimes be curious to see the preparation which the sun makes, when he is coming forth from his chambers of the east.

JEREMY TAYLOR

Ti? the Comtesse de Gramont

I THINK you should try, without any painful effort, to dwell upon God as often as a longing for re collection, and regret that you cannot cultivate it more, comes over you. It will not do to wait for disengaged seasons, when you can close your door and be alone. The moment in which we crave after recollection is that in which to practise it ; turn your heart then and there to God simply familiarly and trustfully. The most interrupted seasons may be used thus ; not merely when you are out driving, but when you are dressing, having your hair arranged — even when you are eating and when others are talking. ... A passing thought of God during mealtimes (especially when they are long, and i 129

OUR DAILY BREAD

with considerable intervals) will be very profitable in helping you to resist self-indulgence and your exceeding fastidiousness. Besides, in the first hungry beginning of a meal there is often not much conversation, and then you can turn your thoughts to God. But all this should be done naturally as the inclination arises, and not con strainedly.

F£NELON

Our Daily Bread

T HOPE, friend, you and I are not too proud to ••• ask for our daily bread, and to be grateful for getting it? Mr. Philip had to work for his, in care and trouble, like other children of men : — to work for it, and I hope to pray for it too. It is a thought to me awful and beautiful, that of the daily prayer, and of the myriads of fellow-men uttering it, in care and in sickness, in doubt and in poverty, in health and in wealth. Panem nostrum da noils hodle. Philip whispers it by the bedside where wife and child lie sleeping, and goes to his early labour with a stouter heart: as he creeps to his rest when the day's labour is over, and the quotidian bread is earned, and breathes his hushed thanks to the bountiful Giver of the meal. All over this world what an endless chorus is singing of love,

(and thanks, and prayer. Day tells to day the wondrous story, and night recounts it unto night. — How do I come to think of a sunrise which I saw near twenty years ago on the Nile, when the river and sky flushed 130

SLEEP

with the dawning light and, as the luminary appeared, the boatman knelt on the rosy deck and adored Allah ? So, as thy sun rises, friend, over the humble housetops round about your home, shall you wake many and many a day to duty and labour. May the task have been honestly done when the night comes ; and the steward deal kindly with the labourer.

W. M. THACKERAY

Sleep

OLEEP is that death by which we may be literally ^ said to die daily ; a death which Adam died before his mortality ; a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point between life and death ;

in fine, .so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers and an half adieu unto the World, and take ' my farewell in a Colloquy with God.

The night is come, like to the day, Depart not Thou, great God, away. Let not my sins, black as the night. Eclipse the lustre of Thy light : Keep still in my Horizon; for to me The Sun makes not the day, but Thee. Thou, whose nature cannot sleep, On my temples Sentry keep ; Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes Whose eyes are open while mine close ; Let no dreams my head infest But such as Jacob's temples blest.

131

SLEEP

While I do rest, my Soul advance ; Make my sleep a holy trance ; That I may, my rest being wrought, ->j / Awake into some holy thought ; And with as active vigour run My course as doth the nimble Sun. Sleep is a death : <Ojmake mejry, By sleeping, what it is to die ; And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed. Howe'er I rest, great God, let me Awake again at last with Thee; And thus assur'd, behold I lie Securely, or to awake or die. These are my drowsie days ; in vain I do now wake to sleep again ; O come that hour, when I shall never Sleep again, but wake for ever !

This is the Dormitive I take to bedward ; I need no other Laudanum than this to make me sleep ; after which I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the Sun, and sleep unto the Resurrection.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE

I32

DIVINITY IN MAN

THE Kingdom of God is within you.

TOT circa unum caput tumultuantes Deos . . . Quid aliud est anima quam Deus in corpore humano hospitans ?

SENECA

LOOK within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

MARCUS AURELIUS

LET me ever worship the great God of this little god, my soule.

HENRY MONTAGU, EARL OF MANCHESTER

You will never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars.

THOMAS TRAHERNE

GOD created Man in His image — and Man made haste to return the compliment.

HEINE

'34

If Children^ then Heirs

TF a man should be able to assent to this doctrine -*- as he ought, that we are all sprung from God in an especial manner, and that God is the father both of men and of gods, I suppose that he would never have any ignoble or mean thoughts about himself. If Caesar * should adopt you, no one could endure your arrogance. What, then, and if you know you are the son of God, will you not be elated ? Yet we do not* so ; but while these two things are mingled in the generation of man — body in common with the animals, and reason and intelligence in common with the gods — many incline to this kinship which is miserable and mortal, and some few to that which is divine and happy.

EPICTETUS

Valedictory to the River Duddon

THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide, •*• As being past away — vain sympathies !

For backward, Duddon, as I cast my eyes, I see what was, and is, and will abide ;

1 i.e. the Emperor.

135

THE UNIVERSAL IN MAN

Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;

The Form remains, the Function never dies ;

While we, the brave, the mighty and the wise, We Men, who in our morn of youth defied

The elements, must vanish ; — be it so ! Enough if something from our hand have power To live and act and serve the future hour ;

And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower

We feel that we are greater than we know.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The Universal in Man

f I ^HERE is one mind common to all individual men. •*• Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think ; what a saint has felt, he may feel ; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent. ... Of the universal mind each individual man is one more incarnation. All its properties consist in him. Every step in his private experience flashes a light on what great bodies of men have done, and the crises of his life refer to national crises. Every revolution was first a thought in one 136

THE UNIVERSAL IN MAN

man's mind ; and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is a key to that era. Every reform was once a private opinion ; and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age. . . .

It is remarkable that involuntarily we always read as superior beings. Universal history, the poets, th"e romancers, do not in their stateliest pictures — in the sacerdotal, the imperial palaces, in the triumphs of will or of genius — anywhere lose our ear, anywhere make us feel that we intrude, that this is for our betters ; but rather it is true that in their grandest strokes, there we feel most at home. All that Shakespeare says of a king, yonder slip of a boy that reads in a corner feels to be true of himself. We sympathise in the great moments of history, in the great discoveries, the great resistances, the great prosperities, of men ; because there law was enacted, the sea was searched, the land was found for us, as we ourselves in that place would have done or applauded. . . .

A wise and good soul, therefore, never needs look for allusions personal and laudatory in discourse. He hears the commendation, not of himself, but more sweet, of that character he seeks, in every word that is said concerning character; yea, further, in every fact that befalls, — in the running river and the rustling corn. Praise is looked, homage tendered, love flows from mute nature, from the mountains and the lights of the firmament.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

137

A COMPENDIUM

A Compendium

T KNOW my soul hath power to know all things, •^ Yet she is blind and ignorant in all : I know I 'm one of Nature's little kings, Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life's a pain and but a span;

I know my sense is mock'd in everything ; And, to conclude, I know myself a Man —

Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

SIR JOHN DAVIES

Christianity : Pride and Humility

O other religion has recognised that man is the most excellent creature. Some, which have quite recognised the reality of his excellence, have considered as mean and ungrateful the low opinions which men naturally have of themselves ; and others, which have thoroughly recognised how real is this vileness, have treated with proud ridicule those feelings of greatness which are equally natural to man.

' Lift up your eyes to God,' say the first ; * see Him whom you resemble, and who has created you to worship Him. You can make yourselves like unto Him ; wisdom will make you equal to Him, if you will follow it.' * Raise your heads, free men,' says Epictetus. And others say, * Bend your eyes to the

138

CHRISTIANITY: PRIDE AND HUMILITY

earth, wretched worm that you are, and consider the brutes, whose companion you are. . . .'

The Christian religion alone has been able to cure these two vices, not by expelling the one through means of the other according to the wisdom of the world, but by expelling both according to the simplicity of the Gospel. For it teaches the righteous that it raises them even to a participation in divinity itself; that in this lofty state they still carry the source of all cor ruption, which renders them during all their life subject to error, misery, death, and sin ; and it proclaims to the most ungodly that they are capable of the grace of their Redeemer. So making those tremble whom it justifies, and consoling those whom it condemns, religion so justly tempers fear with hope through that double capacity of grace and of sin, common to all, that it humbles infinitely more than reason alone can do, but without despair ; and it exalts infinitely more than natural pride, but without inflating : thus making it evident that above being exempt from error and vice, it alone fulfils the duty of instructing and correcting men.

BLAISE PASCAL

139

NATURE

EVERYTHING harmonises with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature : from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. The poet says, Dear city of Ce- crops 5 and wilt thou not say, Dear city of Zeus ?

MARCUS AURELJUS

(Long's translation)

Logic and sermons never convince ;

The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

WALT WHITMAN

Wood-notes

"TT7HOSO walks in solitude

And inhabiteth the wood, Choosing light, wave, rock and bird Before the money-loving herd, Into that forester shall pass, From these companions, power and grace. Clean shall he be, without, within. From the old adhering sin, All ill dissolving in the light Of his triumphant piercing sight : Not vain, sour, nor frivolous ; Nor mad, athirst nor garrulous ; Grave, chaste, contented, though retired, And of all other men desired. On him the light of star and moon Shall fall with pure radiance down ; All constellations of the sky Shall shed their virtue through his eye. Him Nature giveth for defence His formidable innocence; The mountain sap, the shells, the sea, All spheres, all stones, his helpers be ; He shall meet the speeding year Without wailing, without fear ;

JOY

He shall be happy in his love, Like to like shall joyful prove ; He shall be happy while he woos, Muse-born, a daughter of the Muse. But if with gold she bind her hair, And deck her breast with diamond, Take off thine eyes, thy heart f6rbear, Though thou lie alone on the ground.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

LADY! we receive but what we give,

And in our life alone does Nature live : Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud !

And would we aught behold, of higher worth Than that inanimate cold world allow'd To the poor loveless ever- anxious crowd,

Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud

Enveloping the Earth. And from the soul itself must there be sent

A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element !

O pure of heart ! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music of the soul may be ! What, and wherein it doth exist, This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, This beautiful and beauty-making power. 144

THE BRUTES

Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy .that ne'er was given Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, Life and life's effluence, cloud at once and shower, Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower,

A new Earth and new Heaven, Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud — Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud —

We in ourselves rejoice ! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,

All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colours a suffusion from that light.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

The Brutes

T THINK I could turn and live with animals, -*• they are so placid and self-contain'd ; I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition ; They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for

their sins ; They do not make me sick discussing their duty to

God; Not one is dissatisfied — not one is demented with the

mania of owning things ; Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived

thousands of years ago ; Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole

earth.

WALT WHITMAN K 145

MELAMPUS

Melampus

WITH love exceeding a simple love of the things That glide in grasses and rubble of woody

wreck ;

Or change their perch on a beat of quivering wings From branch to branch, only restful to pipe and

peck;

Or, bristled, curl at a touch their snouts in a ball ; Or cast their web between bramble and thorny

hook; The good physician Melampus, loving them all,

Among them walk'd, as a scholar who reads a book.

For him the woods were a home and gave him the

key Of knowledge, thirst for their treasures in herbs

and flowers.

The secrets held by the creatures nearer than we To earth he sought, and the link of their life with

ours : And where alike we are, unlike where, and the vein'd

Division, vein'd parallel, of a blood that flows In them, in us, from the source by man unattain'd Save marks he well what the mystical woods dis close : 146

MELAMPUS

in

And this he deem'd might be boon of love to a breast

Embracing tenderly each little motive shape, The prone, the flitting, who seek their food whither best

Their wits direct, whither best from their foes

escape. For closer drawn to our mother's natural milk,

As babes they learn where her motherly help is great: They know the juice for the honey, juice for the silk,

And need they medical antidotes, find them straight.

IV

Of earth and sun they are wise, they nourish their broods,

Weave, build, hive, burrow and battle, take joy and

pain Like swimmers varying billows : never in woods

Runs white insanity fleeing itself: all sane The woods revolve : as the tree its shadowing limns

To some resemblance in motion, the rooted life Restrains disorder : you hear the primitive hymns

Of earth in woods issue wild of the web of strife.

Now sleeping once on a day of marvellous fire,

A brood of snakes he had cherish'd in grave regret That death his people had dealt their dam and their sire, Through savage dread of them, crept to his neck, and set

K47

MELAMPUS

Their tongues to lick him : the swift affectionate

tongue

Of each ran licking the slumberer : then his ears A fork'd red tongue tickled shrewdly: sudden up- sprung, He heard a voice piping : Ay, for he has no fears !

VI

A bird said that, in the notes of birds, and the speech

Of men, it seem'd : and another renewed : He

moves To learn and not to pursue, he gathers to teach ;

He feeds his young as do we, and as we love loves. No fears have I of a man who goes with his head

To earth, chance looking aloft at us, kind of hand : I feel to him as to earth of whom we are fed;

I pipe him much for his good could he understand.

Melampus touch'd at his ears, laid finger on wrist :

He was not dreaming, he sensibly felt and heard. Above, through leaves, where the tree-twigs inter twist,

He spied the birds and the bill of the speaking bird. His cushion mosses in shades of various green,

The lump'd, the antler'd, he press'd, while the

sunny snake Slipp'd under : draughts he had drunk of clear Hippo-

crene,

It seem'd, and sat with a gift of the Gods awake. 148

MELAMPUS

VIII

Divinely thrill'd was the man, exultingly full,

As quick well-waters that come of the heart of

earth, Ere yet they dart in a brook are one bubble-pool

To light and sound, wedding both at the leap of

birth. The soul of light vivid shone, a stream within stream ;

The soul of sound from a musical shell outflew ; Where others hear but a hum and see but a beam,

The tongue and eye of the fountain of life he knew.

IX

He knew the Hours : they were round him, laden

with seed

Of hours bestrewn upon vapour, and one by one They wing'd as ripen'd in fruit the burden decreed For each to scatter; they flush'd like the buds in

sun, Bequeathing seed to successive similar rings,

Their sisters, bearers to men of what men have

earn'd : He knew them, talk'd with the yet unredden'd ; the

stings,

The sweets, they warm'd at their bosoms divined, discern'd.

x

Not unsolicited, sought by diligent feet,

By riddling fingers expanded, oft watch'd in growth

149

MELAMPUS

With brooding deep as the noon-ray's quickening

wheat, Ere touch'd, the pendulous flower of the plants of

sloth, The plants of rigidness, answer'd question and squeeze,

Revealing wherefore it bloom'd uninviting, bent, Yet making harmony breathe of life and disease, The deeper chord of a wonderful instrument.

XI

So pass'd he luminous-eyed for earth and the fates

We arm to bruise or caress us : .his ears were

charged With tones of love in a whirl of voluble hates,

With music wrought of distraction his heart enlarged. Celestial-shining, though mortal, singer, though mute,

He drew the Master of harmonies, voiced or still'd, To seek him ; heard at the silent medicine-root

A song, beheld in fulfilment the unfulfill'd.

XII

Him Phoebus, lending to darkness colour and form

Of light's excess, many lessons and counsels gave, Show'd Wisdom lord of the human intricate swarm,

And whence prophetic it looks on the hives that rave, And how acquired, of the zeal of love to acquire,

And where it stands, in the centre of life a sphere; And Measure, mood of the lyre, the rapturous lyre,

He said was Wisdom, and struck him the notes to

hear. 150

MELAMPUS

Sweet, sweet : 'twas glory of vision, honey, the breeze

In heat, the run of the river on root and stone, All senses joined, as the sister Pierides

Are one, uplifting their chorus, the Nine, his own. In stately order, evolved of sound into sight,

From sight to sound intershifting, the man descried The growths of earth, his adored, like day out of night,

Ascend in song, seeing nature and song allied.

XIV

And there vitality, there, there solely in song,

Resides, where earth and her uses to men, their

needs, Their forceful cravings, the theme are : there is it

strong,

The Master said : and the studious eye that reads, (Yea, even a.s earth to the crown of Gods on the

mount),

In links divine with the lyrical tongue is bound. Pursue thy craft : it is music drawn of a fount

To spring perennial ; well-spring is common ground.

xv

Melampus dwelt among men : physician and sage, He served them, loving them, healing them ; sick

or maim'd, Or them that frenzied in some delirious rage

Outran the measure, his juice of the woods re claim* d.

ON THE WYE ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY

He play'd on men, as his master, Phoebus, on strings Melodious : as the God did he drive and check,

Through love exceeding a simple love of the things That glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck.

GEORGE MEREDITH

On the Wye above Tintern Abbey

rT^HESE beauteous forms,

•*• Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye : But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities I have owed to them In hours of weariness sensations sweet, Felt in the blood and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration : feelings too Of unremember'd pleasure : such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremember'd acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect most sublime ; that blessM mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lighten'd : — that serene and blessed mood In which the affections gently lead us on, Until, the breath of this corporeal frame 152

ON THE WYE ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY

And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul : While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

If this

Be but a vain belief, yet oh ! how oft — In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight ; when the fretful stir - Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart — How oft in spirit have I turned to thee,

0 sylvan Wye ! Thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turn'd to thee!

And now with gleams of half-extinguish'd thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed no doubt from what I was when first

1 came among these hills ; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers and the lonely streams, Wherever Nature led : more like a man Flying from something that he dreads than one Who sought the thing he loved. For Nature then

ON THE WYE ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY

He play'd on men, as his master, Phoebus, on strings Melodious : as the God did he drive and check,

Through love exceeding a simple love of the things That glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck.

GEORGE MEREDITH

On the Wye above ^Tintern Abbey

npHESE beauteous forms,

•*• Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye : But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities I have owed to them In hours of weariness sensations sweet, Felt in the blood and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration : feelings too Of unremember'd pleasure : such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremember'd acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect most sublime ; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lighten'd : — that serene and blessed mood In which the affections gently lead us on, Until, the breath of this corporeal frame 152

ON THE WYE ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY

And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul : While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

If this

Be but a vain belief, yet oh ! how oft — In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight ; when the fretful stir - Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart — How oft in spirit have I turned to thee,

0 sylvan Wye ! Thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turn'd to thee!

And now with gleams of half-extinguish'd thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed no doubt from what I was when first

1 came among these hills ; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers and the lonely streams, Wherever Nature led : more like a man Flying from something that he dreads than one Who sought the thing he loved. For Nature then

ON THE WYE ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ;

And let the misty mountain winds be free

To blow against thee : and, in after years,

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure ; when thy mind

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies : Oh, then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations ! Nor perchance,

If I should be where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these

gleams

Of past existence — wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together : and that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service; rather say With warmer love — oh ! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs And this green pastoral landscape were to me, More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake !

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I56

LOVE UNIVERSAL Love Universal

E fierce exulting worlds, the motes in rays, The churlish thistles, scented briers, The wind-swept bluebells on the sunny braes, Down to the central fires,

Exist alike in Love. Love is a sea

Filling all the abysses dim Of lornest space, in whose deeps regally

Suns and their bright broods swim.

This mighty sea of Love, with wondrous tides,

Is sternly just to sun and grain ; 'Tis laving at this moment Saturn's sides,

'Tis in my blood and brain.

All things have something more than barren use ;

There is a scent upon the brier, A tremulous splendour in the autumn dews,

Cold morns are fringed with fire.

The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breath'd flowers ;

In music dies poor human speech, And into beauty blow those hearts of ours

When Love is born in each.

Daisies are white upon the churchyard sod, Sweet tears the clouds lean down and give.

The world is very lovely. O my God, I thank Thee that I live!

ALEXANDER SMITH 157

VITA NUOVA

Vita Nuova

O ANCIENT streams, O far-descended woods Full of the fluttering of melodious souls ;

0 hills and valleys that adorn yourselves In solemn jubilation ; winds and clouds, Ocean and land in stormy nuptials clasp'd, And all exuberant creatures that acclaim The Earth's divine renewal: lo, I too

With yours would mingle somewhat of glad song.

1 too have come through wintry terrors — yea Through tempest and through cataclysm of soul Have come, and am deliver'd. Me the Spring, Me also dimly with new life hath touched, And with regenerate hope, the salt of life ; And I would dedicate these thankful tears

To whatsoever power beneficent,

Veil'd though his countenance, undivulged his thought,

Hath led me from the haunted darkness forth

Into the gracious air and vernal morn,

And suffers me to know my spirit a note

Of this great chorus, one with bird and stream

And voiceful mountain.

WILLIAM WATSON

158

THE STARS

E OJJINDI uscimmo a riveder le stelle.

DANTK

I SAW Eternity the other night, Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright.

VAUGHAN

WEARY of myself, and sick of asking What I am, and what I ought to be, At the vessel's prow I stand which bears me Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.

And a look of passionate desire

O'er the sea and to the stars I send :

' Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me,

Calm me, ah, compose me to the end.'

MATTHEW ARNOLD

THE beauty of heaven, the glory of the stars, An ornament giving light in the highest places of

the Lord. At the command of the Holy One they will

stand in their order, And never faint in their watches.

Ecclesiasticus

160

The Stars

TV/TEANWHILE night was come indeed. On •*•*-*• the mountain-tops there lingered but. a powdery glow, and a bright haze along their western slopes. I desired our little lady to enter within the sheepfold and lie down to sleep. Having spread a fine new sheepskin on fresh straw, I wished her good-night, and went to sit and keep watch before the gate. . . . Never had the heavens seemed so deep to me, the stars so lustrous.

Suddenly the hatch of the sheepfold opened, and Stephanette appeared. She could not sleep. The sheep rustled the straw as they stirred, or bleated in their sleep. She would rather be out by the fire. Seeing this, I wrapped my goatskin over her shoulders, and made the fire brisker ; and we stayed there side by side without speaking. If you have ever passed the night under the stars, you know that, at the hour when men are sleeping, a mysterious world awakes in the solitude and the silence. Then the springs sing far clearer and the meres are lit up with little tongues of flame. All the spirits of the mountain fare abroad, going and coming as they list ; and in the air there are whispers, scarce perceptible noises, as if one were listening to the growth of the trees, the pushing of the green herb. Day is the lifetime of the breathing world, but night of the inanimate. When one is L 161

THE STARS

not used to it, this frightens ; and so our little lady was all a-tremble and drew closer to me at the slightest sound. Once a long melancholy cry broke out from the mere that glimmered far at our feet, and was borne up the hill towards us, swelling and sinking. At the same moment a lovely shooting star glided over our heads in the same direction, as if the cry we had just heard carried the light along with it.

1 What is that ? ' Stephanette whispered.

'That, mistress, is a soul entering Paradise.' I made the sign of the cross.

She too crossed herself, and remained a moment gazing upward very thoughtfully. Then she said, ' Is it true, then, shepherd, that you people are sorcerers ? '

' By no means, little lady. Only here we live nearer the stars, and know what is happening up yonder better than folks in the plain/

She was still staring upward, chin on hand, wrapped in her woolly skin like a small shepherdess straight from heaven.

'What numbers of them — and how beautiful! Never have I seen so many. Do you know their names, shepherd?'

4 Why yes, mistress. Look, straight above our heads. That is St. James's Road. It runs from France straight over Spain. It was St. James of Galicia who traced it there to show the brave Charle magne his way when he was making war upon the Saracens. Further on you have the Waggon of Souls with its four flashing wheels. The three stars that go before it are the Team ; and that quite little one, 162

THE STARS

close to the third, is the Waggoner. Do you see that shower of stars falling all around ? Those are the souls the good God will not accept, to dwell with Him. ... A little lower — that is the Rake or the Three Kings. It 's those we people tell the clock by. Only by glancing at them I know, this minute, that midnight is past. The blazing one, a little lower, still towards the south, is John of Mi/an, the torch of the stars. Listen to what the shepherds tell about him ! One night John of Milan^ with the Three Kings and La Pouciniere, were invited to the wedding of a star, one of their friends. La Pouciniere being most hurried, set out first, they say, and took the upper road. Look at her up there, deep in the heaven. The Three Kings took a short cut, lower down, and caught up with her, but that lazybones John of Milan overslept himself and was left behind, and in a fury he hurled his walking-stick after them, to stop them. That is why the Three Kings are also called John of Milan s Walking- -stick -. . . . But the most beautiful of all the stars, mistress, is our own Shepherd's Star, which gives us light as we lead forth our flocks in the dawn, and likewise in the evening when we bring them to the fold again. We call her also Maguelonne, lovely Maguelonne, who runs after Peter of Provence and is his bride every seven years.'

* What, shepherd ? Are there, then, marriages among the stars ? '

4 Why to be sure, mistress '

And while I was trying to explain what these

163

LORENZO AND JESSICA

marriages were, I felt something light and delicate drop softly upon my shoulder. It was her head, drooping with slumber, that rested against me, with a delicious rustle of ribbons, of lace, of waving curls. She remained thus, nor stirred till the stars grew pale in heaven, made faint by the climbing day. As for me, I sat and watched her ; a little troubled, deep down in my soul, but kept holy by the clear night which has never given me other than beautiful thoughts. Around us the stars continued their silent march, obedient as a mighty army ; and once or twice I fancied that one of these stars, the most deli cate, the most lustrous, had missed her way and had come to lean upon my shoulder and to sleep.

ALPHONSE DAUDET

Lorenzo and Jessica

T TOW sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

•*• •*• Here will we sit and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears : soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold !

There 's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ;

Such harmony is in immortal souls ;

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 164

MIDNIGHT ON ST. THOMAS'S EVE

Midnight on Sf. Thomas' s Eve

E sky was clear — remarkably clear — and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of our body, timed by a common pulse. The North Star was directly in the wind's eye, and since evening the Bear had swung round it outwardly to the east, till he was now at a right angle with the meridian. A difference of colour in the stars — oftener read of than seen in England — was really per ceptible here. The kingly brilliancy of Sirius pierced the eye with a steely glitter, the star called Capella was yellow, Aldebaran and Betelgueux shone with a fiery red.

To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement. The sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past earthly objects, which is perceptible in a few minutes of stillness, or by the better outlook upon space that a hill affords, or by the wind, or by the solitude; but whatever be its origin, the impression of riding along is vivid and abiding. The poetry of motion is a phrase much in use, and to enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night and, having first ex panded with a sense of difference from the mass of civilised mankind, who are horizontal and disregard- ful of all such proceedings at this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars.

165

NIGHT— AND CARLYLE DYING

After such a nocturnal reconnoitre among these astral clusters, aloft from the customary haunts of thought and vision, some men may feel raised to a capability for eternity at once. THOMAS HARDY

Night — and Carlyle Dying

TN the fine cold night, unusually clear (Feb. 5, •*• '81), as I walked some open grounds adjacent, the condition of Carlyle, and his approaching — per haps even the actual — death filled me with thoughts eluding statement and curiously blending with the scene. The planet Venus, an hour high in the west, with all her volume and lustre recover'd (she has been shorn and languid for nearly a year), including an additional sentiment I never noticed before — not merely voluptuous, Paphian, steeping, fascinating — now with calm commanding seriousness and hauteur — the Milo Venus now. Upward to the zenith Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon past her quarter, trail ing in procession, with the Pleiades following, and the constellation Taurus, and red Aldebaran. Not a cloud in heaven. Orion strode through the south east, with his glittering belt — and a trifle below hung the sun of the night, Sirius. Every star dilated, more vitreous, nearer than usual. Not as in some clear nights when the larger stars entirely outshine the rest. Every little star or cluster just as distinctly visible, and just as nigh. Berenice's hair showing every gem, and new ones. To the north-east and north the Sickle, the Goat and Kids, Cassiopeia, i65

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT

Castor and Pollux, and the two Dippers. While through the whole of this silent indescribable show, inclosing and bathing my whole receptivity, ran the thought of Carlyle dying. (To soothe and spiritualise and, as far as may be, solve the mysteries of death and genius, consider them under the stars at mid night.)

And now that he has gone hence, can it be that Thomas Carlyle, soon to chemically dissolve in ashes and by winds, remains an identity still ? In ways per haps eluding all the statements lore and speculations of ten thousand years — eluding all possible statements to mortal sense — does he yet exist, a definite vital being, a spirit, an individual — perhaps now wafted in spaces among those stellar systems ? I have no doubt of it. In silence of a fine night such questions are answer'd to the soul, the best answers that can be given. With me, too, when depressed by some specially sad event or teazing problem, I wait till I go out under the stars for the last voiceless satisfaction.

WALT WHITMAN

On the Beach at Night

the beach, at night, Stands a child with her father, Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness

While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,

167

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT

Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky, Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the

east,

Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter ; And nigh at hand, only a very little above, Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades.

From the beach the child, holding the hand of her

father, Those burial clouds that lower, victorious, soon to

devour all, Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,

Weep not, my darling,

With these kisses let me remove your tears ;

The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,

They shall not long possess the sky — shall devour the

stars only in apparition : Jupiter shall emerge — be patient — watch again another

night — the Pleiades shall emerge, They are immortal — all those stars, both silvery and

golden, shall shine out again, The great stars and the little ones shall shine out

again — they endure ; The vast immortal suns, and the long enduring moons,

shall again shine.

Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter ? Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars ? 168

THE KING ON THE TOWER

Something there is,

(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,

I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and

indirection,)

Something there is more immortal even than the stars, (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing

away,) Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous

Jupiter,

Longer than the sun or any revolving satellite, Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades.

WALT WHITMAN

King on the Tower

cold grey hills they bind me around, The darksome valleys lie sleeping below, But the winds, as they pass all o'er this ground, Bring me never a sound of woe.

Oh ! for all I have sufter'd and striven, Care has embitter'd my cup and my feast ;

But here is the night and the dark blue heaven, And my soul shall be at rest.

O golden legends writ in the skies !

I turn toward you with longing soul, And list to the awful harmonies

Of the Spheres as on they roll.

169

JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION

My hair is grey and my sight nigh gone ;

My sword it rusteth upon the wall ; Right have I spoken, right have I done —

When shall I rest me once for all ?

O blessed rest! O royal night!

Wherefore seemeth the time so long Till I see yon stars in their fullest light,

And list to their loudest song ?

w. M. THACKERAY: from Uhland

Johannes Agricola in Meditation

rT"*HERE'S heaven above, and night by night

-*• I look right through its gorgeous roof ; No suns and moons though e'er so bright

Avail to stop me ; splendour-proof

I keep the broods of stars aloof: For I intend to get to God,

For 'tis to God I speed so fast, For in God's breast, my own abode,

Those shoals of dazzling glory pass'd

I lay my spirit down at last. I lie where I have always lain,

God smiles as he has always smiled : Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,

Ere stars were thunder-girt, or piled

The heavens, God thought on me his child; Ordain' d a life for me, array'd

Its circumstances every one 170

JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION

To the minutest ; ay, God said

This head this hand should rest upon Thus, ere he fashion'd star or sun.

And having thus created me,

Thus rooted me, he bade me grow,

Guiltless for ever, like a tree

That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know The law by which it prospers so :

But sure that thought and word and deed All go to swell his love for me,

Me, made because that love had need Of something irreversibly Pledged solely its content to be.

Yes, yes, a tree which must ascend

— No poison-gourd foredoom'd to stoop !

I have God ! warrant, could I blend All hideous sins, as in a cup, To drink the mingled venoms up :

Secure my nature will convert

The draught to blossoming gladness fast :

While sweet dews turn to the gourd's hurt, And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast, As from the first its lot was cast.

For as I lie, smiled on, full fed By unexhausted power to bless,

I gaze below on hell's fierce bed

And those its waves of flame oppress, Swarming in ghastly wretchedness :

Whose life on earth aspired to be One altar-smoke, so pure — to win

If not love like God's love for me,

171

JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION

At least to keep his anger in ; And all their striving turn'd to sin. Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white

With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, The martyr, the wan acolyte,

The incense-swinging child, — undone

Before God fashion'd star or sun ! God, whom I praise ; how could I praise,

If such as I might understand, Make out and reckon on his ways,

And bargain for his love, and stand,

Paying a price, at his right hand ?

ROBERT BROWNING

172

THE STRENGTH OF MANHOOD

LIFE is neither a pleasure nor a pain, but a serious business entrusted to us to be conducted and termi nated honourably.

TOCQJJEVILLE

WE cannot steer our drifting raft, nor stem the resist less current ; but we 'have it in our power to behave decently, to share the meagre stock of victuals fairly as long as they last, to take the good and evil as it comes, and even to hope, if we choose to do so, for a fair haven.

FREDERICK YORK POWELL

To man is permitted the contemplation of the skies, but the practice of virtue is commanded.

JOHNSON (Rasselas)

AND let the counsel of thine own heart stand : for there is no man more faithful unto thee than it. For a man's mind is sometimes wont to tell him more than seven watchmen, that sit above in a high tower.

Ecclesiasticus

THE strongest man upon earth is he who stands