England's Antiphon Part 4

The poet, who is surely the father himself, cannot always keep up the allegory; his heart burns holes in it constantly; at one time he says _she_, at another _it_, and, between the girl and the pearl, the poem is bewildered. But the allegory helps him out with what he means notwithstanding; for although the highest aim of poetry is to say the deepest things in the simplest manner, humanity must turn from mode to mode, and try a thousand, ere it finds the best. The individual, in his new endeavour to make "the word cousin to the deed," must take up the forms his fathers have left him, and add to them, if he may, new forms of his own. In both the great revivals of literature, the very material of poetry was allegory.

The father falls asleep on his child's grave, and has a dream, or rather a vision, of a country where everything--after the childish imagination which invents differences instead of discovering harmonies--is super-naturally beautiful: rich rocks with a gleaming glory, crystal cliffs, woods with blue trunks and leaves of burnished silver, gravel of precious Orient pearls, form the landscape, in which are delicious fruits, and birds of flaming colours and sweet songs: its loveliness no man with a tongue is worthy to describe. He comes to the bank of a river:

Swinging sweet the water did sweep With a whispering speech flowing adown; (Wyth a rownande rourde raykande aryght)

and the stones at the bottom were s.h.i.+ning like stars. It is a noteworthy specimen of the mode in which the imagination works when invention is dissociated from observation and faith. But the sort of way in which some would improve the world now, if they might, is not so very far in advance of this would-be glorification of Nature. The barest heath and sky have lovelinesses infinitely beyond the most gorgeous of such phantasmagoric idealization of her beauties; and the most wretched condition of humanity struggling for existence contains elements of worth and future development inappreciable by the philanthropy that would elevate them by cultivating their self-love.

At the foot of a crystal cliff, on the opposite side of the river, which he cannot cross, he sees a maiden sitting, clothed and crowned with pearls, and wearing one pearl of surpa.s.sing wonder and spotlessness upon her breast. I now make the spelling and forms of the words as modern as I may, altering the text no further.

"O pearl," quoth I, "in perles pight, _pitched, dressed._ Art thou my pearl that I have plained? _mourned._ Regretted by myn one, on night? _by myself._ Much longing have I for thee layned _hidden._ Since into gra.s.s thou me a-glyghte; _didst glide from me._ Pensive, payred, I am for-pained,[25] _pined away._ And thou in a life of liking light _bright pleasure._ In Paradise-earth, of strife unstrained! _untortured with strife._ What wyrde hath hither my jewel vayned, _destiny: carried off._ And done me in this del and great danger? _sorrow._ Fro we in twain were towen and twayned, _since: pulled: divided._ I have been a joyless jeweller."

That jewel then in gemmes gente, _gracious._ Vered up her vyse with even gray, _turned: face._ Set on her crown of pearl orient, And soberly after then gan she say:

"Sir, ye have your tale myse-tente, _mistaken._ To say your pearl is all away, That is in coffer so comely clente _clenched._ As in this garden gracious gay, Herein to lenge for ever and play, _abide._ There mys nor mourning come never--here, _where: wrong._ Here was a forser for thee in faye, _strong-box: faith._ If thou wert a gentle jeweller.

"But jeweller gente, if thou shalt lose Thy joy for a gem that thee was lef, _had left thee._ Me thinks thee put in a mad purpose, And busiest thee about a reason bref. _poor object._ For that thou lostest was but a rose, That flowered and failed as kynd hit gef. _nature gave it._ Now through kind of the chest that it gan close, _nature._ To a pearl of price it is put in pref;[26]

And thou hast called thy wyrde a thef, _doom, fate: theft._ That ought of nought has made thee, clear! _something of nothing._ Thou blamest the bote of thy mischef: _remedy: hurt._ Thou art no kynde jeweller." _natural, reasonable._

When the father pours out his gladness at the sight of her, she rejoins in these words:

"I hold that jeweller little to praise That loves well that he sees with eye; And much to blame, and uncortoyse, _uncourteous._ That leves our Lord would make a lie, _believes._ That lelly hyghte your life to raise _who truly promised._ Though fortune did your flesh to die; _caused._ To set his words full westernays[27]

That love no thing but ye it syghe! _see._ And that is a point of surquedrie, _presumption._ That each good man may evil beseem, _ill become._ To leve no tale be true to tryghe, _trust in._ But that his one skill may deme."[28]

Much conversation follows, the glorified daughter rebuking and instructing her father. He prays for a sight of the heavenly city of which she has been speaking, and she tells him to walk along the bank until he comes to a hill. In recording what he saw from the hill, he follows the description of the New Jerusalem given in the Book of the Revelation. He sees the Lamb and all his company, and with them again his lost Pearl. But it was not his prince's pleasure that he should cross the stream; for when his eyes and ears were so filled with delight that he could no longer restrain the attempt, he awoke out of his dream.

My head upon that hill was laid There where my pearl to grounde strayed.

I wrestled and fell in great affray, _fear._ And sighing to myself I said, "Now all be to that prince's paye." _pleasure._

After this, he holds him to that prince's will, and yearns after no more than he grants him.

"As in water face is to face, so the heart of man."

Out of the far past comes the cry of bereavement mingled with the prayer for hope: we hear, and lo!

it is the cry and the prayer of a man like ourselves.

From the words of the greatest man of his age, let me now gather two rich blossoms of utterance, presenting an embodiment of religious duty and aspiration, after a very practical fas.h.i.+on. I refer to two short lyrics, little noted, although full of wisdom and truth. They must be accepted as the conclusions of as large a knowledge of life in diversified mode as ever fell to the lot of man.

GOOD COUNSEL OF CHAUCER.

Fly from the press, and dwell with soothfastness; _truthfulness._ Suffice[29] unto thy good, though it be small; For h.o.a.rd hath hate, and climbing tickleness;[30]

Praise hath envy, and weal is blent over all.[31]

Savour[32] no more than thee behove shall.

Rede well thyself that other folk shall rede; _counsel._ And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede. _there is no doubt._

Paine thee not each crooked to redress, _every crooked thing._ In trust of her that turneth as a ball: Fortune.

Great rest standeth in little busi-ness.

Beware also to spurn against a nail; _nail--to kick against Strive not as doth a crocke with a wall. [the p.r.i.c.ks._ Deme thyself that demest others' deed; _judge._ And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede.

That thee is sent receive in buxomness: _submission_ The wrestling of this world asketh a fall. _tempts destruction_ Here is no home, here is but wilderness: Forth, pilgrim, forth!--beast, out of thy stall!

Look up on high, and thanke G.o.d of[33] all.

Waive thy l.u.s.ts, and let thy ghost[34] thee lead, And truth thee shall deliver--it is no drede.

This needs no comment. Even the remark that every line is worth meditation may well appear superfluous. One little fact only with regard to the rhymes, common to this and the next poem, and usual enough in Norman verse, may be pointed out, namely, that every line in the stanza ends with the same rhyme-sound as the corresponding line in each of the other stanzas. A reference to either of the poems will at once show what I mean.

The second is superior, inasmuch as it carries one thought through the three stanzas. It is ent.i.tled _A Balade made by Chaucer, teaching what is gentilnesse, or whom is worthy to be called gentill._

The first stock-father of gentleness-- _ancestor of the race What man desireth gentle for to be [of the gentle._ Must follow his trace, and all his wittes dress _track, footsteps: Virtue to love and vices for to flee; [apply._ For unto virtue longeth dignity, _belongeth._ And not the reverse falsely dare I deem,[35]

All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem. _although he wear._

The first stock was full of righteousness; _the progenitor._ True of his word, sober, piteous, and free; Clean of his ghost, and loved busi-ness, _pure in his spirit._ Against the vice of sloth in honesty;

And but his heir love virtue as did he, _except._ He is not gentle, though he rich seem, All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem.

Vicesse may well be heir to old Richesse, _Vice: Riches._ But there may no man, as men may well see, Bequeath his heir his virtue's n.o.bleness; That is appropried unto no degree, _rank._ But to the first father in majesty, That maketh his heires them that him queme, _please him._ All wear he mitre, crown, or diadem.

I can come to no other conclusion than that by _the first stock-father_ Chaucer means our Lord Jesus.

CHAPTER III.

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

After the birth of a Chaucer, a Shakspere, or a Milton, it is long before the genial force of a nation can again culminate in such a triumph: time is required for the growth of the conditions. Between the birth of Chaucer and the birth of Shakspere, his sole equal, a period of more than two centuries had to elapse. It is but small compensation for this, that the more original, that is simple, natural, and true to his own nature a man is, the more certain is he to have a crowd of imitators. I do not say that such are of no use in the world. They do not indeed advance art, but they widen the sphere of its operation; for many will talk with the man who know nothing of the master. Too often intending but their own glory, they point the way to the source of it, and are straightway themselves forgotten.

Very little of the poetry of the fifteenth century is worthy of a different fate from that which has befallen it. Possibly the Wars of the Roses may in some measure account for the barrenness of the time; but I do not think they will explain it. In the midst of the commotions of the seventeenth century we find Milton, the only English poet of whom we are yet sure as worthy of being named with Chaucer and Shakspere.

It is in quality, however, and not in quant.i.ty that the period is deficient. It had a good many writers of poetry, some of them prolific.

John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, a great imitator of Chaucer, was the princ.i.p.al of these, and wrote an enormous quant.i.ty of verse. We shall find for our use enough as it were to keep us alive in pa.s.sing through this desert to the Paradise of the sixteenth century--a land indeed flowing with milk and honey. For even in the desert of the fifteenth are spots luxuriant with the rich gra.s.s of language, although they greet the eye with few flowers of individual thought or graphic speech.

Rather than give portions of several of Lydgate's poems, I will give one entire--the best I know. It is ent.i.tled, _Thonke G.o.d of alle_.[36]

THANK G.o.d FOR ALL.

By a way wandering as I went, Well sore I sorrowed, for sighing sad; Of hard haps that I had hent Mourning me made almost mad;[37]

Till a letter all one me lad[38], That well was written on a wall, A blissful word that on I rad[39], That alway said, 'Thank G.o.d for[40] all.'

And yet I read furthermore[41]-- Full good intent I took there till[42]: Christ may well your state restore; Nought is to strive against his will; _it is useless._ He may us spare and also spill: Think right well we be his thrall. _slaves._ What sorrow we suffer, loud or still, Alway thank G.o.d for all.

Though thou be both blind and lame, Or any sickness be on thee set, Thou think right well it is no shame-- _think thou._ The grace of G.o.d it hath thee gret[43].

In sorrow or care though ye be knit, _snared._ And worldes weal be from thee fall, _fallen._ I cannot say thou mayst do bet, _better._ But alway thank G.o.d for all.

Though thou wield this world's good, And royally lead thy life in rest, Well shaped of bone and blood, None the like by east nor west; Think G.o.d thee sent as him lest; _as it pleased him._ Riches turneth as a ball; In all manner it is the best _in every condition._ Alway to thank G.o.d for all.