England's Antiphon by George MacDonald (best way to read e books TXT) 📖

and proceed to call up one who was a poet indeed, although little known as such, being a Roman Catholic, a Jesuit even, and therefore, in Elizabeth's reign, a traitor, and subject to the penalties according. Robert Southwell, "thirteen times most cruelly tortured," could "not be induced to confess anything, not even the colour of the horse whereon on a certain day he rode, lest from such indication his adversaries might conjecture in what house, or in company of what Catholics, he that day was." I quote these words of Lord Burleigh, lest any of my readers, discovering weakness in his verse, should attribute weakness to the man himself.

It was no doubt on political grounds that these tortures, and the death that followed them, were inflicted. But it was for the truth as he saw it , that is, for the sake of duty, that Southwell thus endured. We must not impute all the evils of a system to every individual who holds by it. It may be found that a man has, for the sole sake of self-abnegation, yielded homage, where, if his object had been personal aggrandizement, he might have wielded authority. Southwell, if that which comes from within a man may be taken as the test of his character, was a devout and humble Christian. In the choir of our singers we only ask: "Dost thou lift up thine heart?" Southwell's song answers for him: "I lift it up unto the Lord."

His chief poem is called St. Peter's Complaint . It is of considerable length-a hundred and thirty-two stanzas. It reminds us of the Countess of Pembroke's poem, but is far more articulate and far superior in versification. Perhaps its chief fault is that the pauses are so measured with the lines as to make every line almost a sentence, the effect of which is a considerable degree of monotony. Like all writers of the time, he is, of course, fond of antithesis, and abounds in conceits and fancies; whence he attributes a multitude of expressions to St. Peter of which never possibly could the substantial ideas have entered the Apostle's mind, or probably any other than Southwell's own. There is also a good deal of sentimentalism in the poem, a fault from which I fear modern Catholic verse is rarely free. Probably the Italian poetry with which he must have been familiar in his youth, during his residence in Rome, accustomed him to such irreverences of expression as this sentimentalism gives occasion to, and which are very far from indicating a correspondent state of feeling. Sentiment is a poor ape of love; but the love is true notwithstanding. Here are a few stanzas from St. Peter's Complaint :

Titles I make untruths: am I a rock,
That with so soft a gale was overthrown?
Am I fit pastor for the faithful flock
To guide their souls that murdered thus mine own?
A rock of ruin, not a rest to stay;
A pastor,-not to feed, but to betray.

Parting from Christ my fainting force declined;
With lingering foot I followed him aloof;
Base fear out of my heart his love unshrined,
Huge in high words, but impotent in proof.
My vaunts did seem hatched under Samson's locks,
Yet woman's words did give me murdering knocks

* * * * *

At Sorrow's door I knocked: they craved my name
I answered, "One unworthy to be known."
"What one?" say they. "One worthiest of blame."
"But who?" "A wretch not God's, nor yet his own."
"A man?" "Oh, no!" "A beast?" "Much worse." "What creature?"
"A rock." "How called?" "The rock of scandal, Peter."

* * * * *

Christ! health of fevered soul, heaven of the mind,
Force of the feeble, nurse of infant loves,
Guide to the wandering foot, light to the blind,
Whom weeping wins, repentant sorrow moves!
Father in care, mother in tender heart,
Revive and save me, slain with sinful dart!

If King Manasseh, sunk in depth of sin,
With plaints and tears recovered grace and crown,
A worthless worm some mild regard may win,
And lowly creep where flying threw it down.
A poor desire I have to mend my ill;
I should, I would, I dare not say I will.

I dare not say I will, but wish I may;
My pride is checked: high words the speaker spilt.
My good, O Lord, thy gift-thy strength, my stay-
Give what thou bidst, and then bid what thou wilt.
Work with me what of me thou dost request;
Then will I dare the worst and love the best.

Here, from another poem, are two little stanzas worth preserving:

Yet God's must I remain,
By death, by wrong, by shame;
I cannot blot out of my heart
That grace wrought in his name.

I cannot set at nought,
Whom I have held so dear;
I cannot make Him seem afar
That is indeed so near.

The following poem, in style almost as simple as a ballad, is at once of the quaintest and truest. Common minds, which must always associate a certain conventional respectability with the forms of religion, will think it irreverent. I judge its reverence profound, and such none the less that it is pervaded by a sweet and delicate tone of holy humour. The very title has a glimmer of the glowing heart of Christianity:


NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP.

Behold a silly,[69] tender babe,
In freezing winter night,
In homely manger trembling lies;
Alas! a piteous sight.

The inns are full; no man will yield
This little pilgrim bed;
But forced he is with silly beasts
In crib to shroud his head.

Despise him not for lying there;
First what he is inquire:
An orient pearl is often found
In depth of dirty mire.

Weigh not his crib, his wooden dish,
Nor beasts that by him feed;
Weigh not his mother's poor attire,
Nor Joseph's simple weed.

This stable is a prince's court,
The crib his chair of state;
The beasts are parcel of his pomp,
The wooden dish his plate.

The persons in that poor attire
His royal liveries wear;
The Prince himself is come from heaven:
This pomp is praised there.

With joy approach, O Christian wight;
Do homage to thy King;
And highly praise this humble pomp,
Which he from heaven doth bring.

Another, on the same subject, he calls New Heaven, New War . It is fantastic to a degree. One stanza, however, I like much:

This little babe, so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan's fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak, unarmed wise,
The gates of hell he will surprise.

There is profoundest truth in the symbolism of this. Here is the latter half of a poem called St. Peters Remorse :

Did mercy spin the thread
To weave injustice' loom?
Wert then a father to conclude
With dreadful judge's doom?

It is a small relief
To say I was thy child,
If, as an ill-deserving foe,
From grace I am exiled.

I was, I had, I could-
All words importing want;
They are but dust of dead supplies,
Where needful helps are scant.

Once to have been in bliss
That hardly can return,
Doth but bewray from whence I fell,
And wherefore now I mourn.

All thoughts of passed hopes
Increase my present cross;
Like ruins of decayed joys,
They still upbraid my loss.

O mild and mighty Lord!
Amend that is amiss;
My sin my sore, thy love my salve,
Thy cure my comfort is.

Confirm thy former deed;
Reform that is defiled;
I was, I am, I will remain
Thy charge, thy choice, thy child.

Here are some neat stanzas from a poem he calls


CONTENT AND RICH.

My conscience is my crown,
Contented thoughts my rest;
My heart is happy in itself,
My bliss is in my breast.

My wishes are but few,
All easy to fulfil;
I make the limits of my power
The bounds unto my will.

Sith sails of largest size
The storm doth soonest tear,
I bear so small and low a sail
As freeth me from fear.

And taught with often proof,
A tempered calm I find
To be most solace to itself,
Best cure for angry mind.

No chance of Fortune's calms
Can cast my comforts down;
When Fortune smiles I smile to think
How quickly she will frown.

And when in froward mood
She proves an angry foe:
Small gain I found to let her come,
Less loss to let her go.

There is just one stanza in a poem of Daniel, who belongs by birth to this group, which I should like to print by itself, if it were only for the love Coleridge had to the last two lines of it. It needs little stretch of scheme to let it show itself amongst religious poems. It occurs in a fine epistle to the Countess of Cumberland. Daniel's writing is full of