England's Antiphon Part 29

Hail, sister springs, Parents of silver-footed rills!

Ever-bubbling things!

Thawing crystal! Snowy hills, Still spending, never spent!--I mean Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene!

The poem is called _The Weeper_, and is radiant of delicate fancy. But surely such tones are not worthy of flitting moth-like about the holy sorrow of a repentant woman! Fantastically beautiful, they but play with her grief. Sorrow herself would put her shoes off her feet in approaching the weeping Magdalene. They make much of her indeed, but they show her little reverence. There is in them, notwithstanding their fervour of amorous words, a coldness like that which dwells in the ghostly beauty of icicles s.h.i.+ning in the moon.

But I almost reproach myself for introducing Crashaw thus. I had to point out the fact, and now having done with it, I could heartily wish I had room to expatiate on his loveliness even in such poems as _The Weeper_.

His _Divine Epigrams_ are not the most beautiful, but they are to me the most valuable of his verses, inasmuch as they make us feel afresh the truth which he sets forth anew. In them some of the facts of our Lord's life and teaching look out upon us as from clear windows of the past. As epigrams, too, they are excellent--pointed as a lance.

_Upon the Sepulchre of our Lord._

Here, where our Lord once laid his head, Now the grave lies buried.

_The Widow's Mites._

Two mites, two drops, yet all her house and land, Fall from a steady heart, though trembling hand; The other's wanton wealth foams high and brave: The other cast away--she only gave.

_On the Prodigal._

Tell me, bright boy! tell me, my golden lad!

Whither away so frolic? Why so glad?

What! _all_ thy wealth in council? _all_ thy state?

Are husks so dear? Troth, 'tis a mighty rate!

I value the following as a lovely parable. Mary is not contented: to see the place is little comfort. The church itself, with all its memories of the Lord, the gospel-story, and all theory about him, is but his tomb until we find himself.

_Come, see the place-where the Lord lay._

Show me himself, himself, bright sir! Oh show Which way my poor tears to himself may go.

Were it enough to show the place, and say, "Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay;"

Then could I show these arms of mine, and say, "Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay."

From one of eight lines, on the Mother Mary looking on her child in her lap, I take the last two, complete in themselves, and I think best alone.

This new guest to her eyes new laws hath given: 'Twas once _look up_, 'tis now _look down to heaven_.

And here is perhaps his best.

_Two went up into the Temple to pray_.

Two went to pray? Oh rather say, One went to brag, the other to pray.

One stands up close, and treads on high, Where the other dares not lend his eye.

One nearer to G.o.d's altar trod; The other to the altar's G.o.d.

This appears to me perfect. Here is the true relation between the forms and the end of religion. The priesthood, the altar and all its ceremonies, must vanish from between the sinner and his G.o.d. When the priest forgets his mediation of a servant, his duty of a door-keeper to the temple of truth, and takes upon him the office of an intercessor, he stands between man and G.o.d, and is a Satan, an adversary. Artistically considered, the poem could hardly be improved.

Here is another containing a similar lesson.

_I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof._

Thy G.o.d was making haste into thy roof; Thy humble faith and fear keeps him aloof.

He'll be thy guest: because he may not be, He'll come--into thy house? No; into thee.

The following is a world-wide intercession for them that know not what they do. Of those that reject the truth, who can be said ever to have _truly_ seen it? A man must be good to see truth. It is a thought suggested by our Lord's words, not an irreverent opposition to the truth of _them_.

_But now they have seen and hated._

_Seen?_ and yet _hated thee?_ They did not see-- They saw thee not, that saw and hated thee!

No, no; they saw thee not, O Life! O Love!

Who saw aught in thee that their hate could move.

We must not be too ready to quarrel with every oddity: an oddity will sometimes just give the start to an outbreak of song. The strangeness of the following hymn rises almost into grandeur.

EASTER DAY.

Rise, heir of fresh eternity, From thy virgin-tomb; Rise, mighty man of wonders, and thy world with thee; Thy tomb, the universal East-- Nature's new womb; Thy tomb--fair Immortality's perfumed nest.

Of all the glories[139] make noon gay This is the morn; This rock buds forth the fountain of the streams of day; In joy's white annals lives this hour, When life was born, No cloud-scowl on his radiant lids, no tempest-lower.

Life, by this light's nativity, All creatures have; Death only by this day's just doom is forced to die.

Nor is death forced; for, may he lie Throned in thy grave, Death will on this condition be content to die.

When we come, in the writings of one who has revealed masterdom, upon any pa.s.sage that seems commonplace, or any figure that suggests nothing true, the part of wisdom is to brood over that point; for the probability is that the barrenness lies in us, two factors being necessary for the result of sight--the thing to be seen and the eye to see it. No doubt the expression may be inadequate, but if we can compensate the deficiency by adding more vision, so much the better for us.

In the second stanza there is a strange combination of images: the rock buds; and buds a fountain; the fountain is light. But the images are so much one at the root, that they slide gracefully into each other, and there is no confusion or incongruity: the result is an inclined plane of development.

I now come to the most musical and most graceful, therefore most lyrical, of his poems. I have left out just three stanzas, because of the sentimentalism of which I have spoken: I would have left out more if I could have done so without spoiling the symmetry of the poem. My reader must be friendly enough to one who is so friendly to him, to let his peculiarities pa.s.s unquestioned--amongst the rest his conceits, as well as the trifling discord that the shepherds should be called, after the cla.s.sical fas.h.i.+on--ill agreeing, from its a.s.sociations, with Christian song--t.i.tyrus and Thyrsis.

A HYMN OF THE NATIVITY SUNG BY THE SHEPHERDS.

_Chorus_. Come, we shepherds, whose blest sight Hath met love's noon in nature's night; Come, lift we up our loftier song, And wake the sun that lies too long.

To all our world of well-stolen[140] joy He slept, and dreamed of no such thing, While we found out heaven's fairer eye, And kissed the cradle of our king: Tell him he rises now too late To show us aught worth looking at.

Tell him we now can show him more Than he e'er showed to mortal sight-- Than he himself e'er saw before, Which to be seen needs not his light: Tell him, t.i.tyrus, where thou hast been; Tell him, Thyrsis, what thou hast seen.