England's Antiphon

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 shining 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 surpassing 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 perlés 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 grass 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 gemmés 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 kyndé 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 westernays27  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 groundé 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 fashion. 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.  Suffice29 unto thy good, though it be small;  For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness;30  Praise hath envy, and weal is blent over all.31  Savour32 no more than thee behové 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 crocké with a wall. [the pricks.  Demé 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 thanké God of33 all.  Waivé thy lusts, and let thy ghost34 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 entitled 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 wittés 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 nobleness;    That is appropried unto no degree, rank.    But to the first father in majesty,  That maketh his heirés 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-fatherChaucer 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 quantity 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 principal of these, and wrote an enormous quantity of verse. We shall find for our use enough as it were to keep us alive in passing 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 grass 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 entitled, Thonke God of alle.36

THANK GOD 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 lad38,  That well was written on a wall,    A blissful word that on I rad39,  That alway said, 'Thank God for40 all.'  And yet I read furthermore41—    Full good intent I took there till42:  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 God 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 God it hath thee gret43.    In sorrow or care though ye be knit, snared.  And worldés weal be from thee fall, fallen.    I cannot say thou mayst do bet, better.  But alway thank God 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 God 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 God for all.  If thy good beginneth to pass,    And thou wax a poor man,  Take good comfort and bear good face,    And think on him that all good wan; did win.    Christ himself forsooth began—  He may renew both bower and hall:    No better counsel I ne kan am capable of.  But alway thank God for all.  Think on Job that was so rich;    He waxed poor from day to day;  His beastés died in each ditch;    His cattle vanished all away;  He was put in poor array,    Neither in purple nor in pall,  But in simple weed, as clerkes say, clothes: learned men.    And alway he thanked God for all.  For Christés love so do we;44    He may both give and take;  In what mischief that we in be, whatever trouble we    He is mighty enough our sorrow to slake. [be in.  Full good amends he will us make,    And we to him cry or call: if.  What grief or woe that do thee thrall,45    Yet alway thank God for all.  Though thou be in prison cast,    Or any distress men do thee bede, offer.  For Christés love yet be steadfast,    And ever have mind on thy creed;  Think he faileth us never at need,    The dearworth duke that deem us shall;46  When thou art sorry, thereof take heed,47    And alway thank God for all.  Though thy friendes from thee fail,    And death by rene hend48 their life,  Why shouldest thou then weep or wail?    It is nought against God to strive: it is useless.  Himself maked both man and wife—  To his bliss he bring us all: may he bring.  However thou thole or thrive, suffer.  Alway thank God for all.  What diverse sonde49 that God thee send,  Here or in any other place,  Take it with good intent;  The sooner God will send his grace.  Though thy body be brought full base, low.  Let not thy heart adown fall,  But think that God is where he was,  And alway thank God for all.  Though thy neighbour have world at will,  And thou far'st not so well as he,  Be not so mad to think him ill, wish. (?)  For his wealth envious to be:  The king of heaven himself can see  Who takes his sonde,50 great or small;  Thus each man in his degree,  I rede thanké God for all. counsel.  For Cristés love, be not so wild,  But rule thee by reason within and without;  And take in good heart and mind  The sonde that God sent all about; the gospel. (?)  Then dare I say withouten doubt,  That in heaven is made thy stall. place, seat, room.  Rich and poor that low will lowte, bow.  Alway thank God for all.

I cannot say there is much poetry in this, but there is much truth and wisdom. There is the finest poetry, however, too, in the line—I give it now letter for letter:—

But think that God ys ther he was.

There is poetry too in the line, if I interpret it rightly as intending the gospel—

The sonde that God sent al abowte.

I shall now make a few extracts from poems of the same century whose authors are unknown.51 A good many such are extant. With regard to the similarity of those I choose, I would remark, that not only will the poems of the same period necessarily resemble each other, but, where the preservation of any has depended upon the choice and transcription of one person, these will in all probability resemble each other yet more. Here are a few verses from a hymn headed The Sweetness of Jesus:—

  If I for kindness should love my kin, for natural reasons.  Then me thinketh in my thought [Kind is nature,  By kindly skill I should begin by natural judgment.  At him that hath me made of nought;  His likeness he set my soul within,  And all this world for me hath wrought;  As father he fondid my love to win, set about.  For to heaven he hath me brought.  Our brother and sister he is by skill, reason.  For he so said, and lerid us that lore, taught.  That whoso wrought his Father's will,  Brethren and sisters to him they wore. were.  My kind also he took ther-tille; my nature also he took  Full truly trust I him therefore [for that purpose.  That he will never let me spill, perish.  But with his mercy salve my sore.  With lovely lore his works to fill, fulfil.  Well ought I, wretch, if I were kind— natural.  Night and day to work his will,  And ever have that Lord in mind.  But ghostly foes grieve me ill, spiritual.  And my frail flesh maketh me blind;  Therefore his mercy I take me till, betake me to.  For better bote can I none find. aid.

In my choice of stanzas I have to keep in view some measure of completeness in the result. These poems, however, are mostly very loose in structure. This, while it renders choice easy, renders closeness of unity impossible.

From a poem headed—again from the last line of each stanza—Be my comfort, Christ Jesus, I choose the following four, each possessing some remarkable flavour, tone, or single touch. Note the alliteration in the lovely line, beginning "Bairn y-born." The whole of the stanza in which we find it, sounds so strangely fresh in the midst of its antiquated tones, that we can hardly help asking whether it can be only the quaintness of the expression that makes the feeling appear more real, or whether in very truth men were not in those days nearer in heart, as well as in time, to the marvel of the Nativity.

In the next stanza, how oddly the writer forgets that Jesus himself was a Jew, when, embodying the detestation of Christian centuries in one line, he says, And tormented with many a Jew!

In the third stanza, I consider the middle quatrain, that is, the four lines beginning "Out of this world," perfectly grand.

The oddness of the last line but one of the fourth stanza is redeemed by the wonderful reality it gives to the faith of the speaker: "See my sorrow, and say Ho!" stopping it as one would call after a man and stop him.

  Jesus, thou art wisdom of wit, understanding.    Of thy Father full of might!  Man's soul—to save it,    In poor apparel thou wert pight. pitched, placed,  Jesus, thou wert in cradle knit, [dressed.    In weed wrapped both day and night; originally, dress of  In Bethlehem born, as the gospel writ, [any kind.    With angels' song, and heaven-light.  Bairn y-born of a beerde bright,52    Full courteous was thy comely cus: kiss.  Through virtue of that sweet light,    So be my comfort, Christ Jesus.  Jesus, that wert of yearis young,    Fair and fresh of hide and hue,  When thou wert in thraldom throng, driven.    And tormented with many a Jew,  When blood and water were out-wrung,    For beating was thy body blue;  As a clot of clay thou wert for-clong, shrunk.    So dead in trough then men thee threw. coffin.  But grace from thy grave grew:    Thou rose up quick comfort to us. living.  For her love that this counsel knew,    So be my comfort, Christ Jesus.  Jesus, soothfast God and man,    Two kinds knit in one person,  The wonder-work that thou began    Thou hast fulfilled in flesh and bone.  Out of this world wightly thou wan, thou didst win, or make    Lifting up thyself alone; [thy way, powerfully.  For mightily thou rose and ran    Straight unto thy Father on throne.  Now dare man make no more moan—    For man it is thou wroughtest thus,  And God with man is made at one;    So be my comfort, Christ Jesus.  Jesu, my sovereign Saviour,    Almighty God, there ben no mo: there are no more—thou  Christ, thou be my governor; [art all in all.(?)    Thy faith let me not fallen fro. from  Jesu, my joy and my succour,    In my body and soul also,  God, thou be my strongest food, the rhyme fails here.    And wisse thou me when me is woe. think on me.  Lord, thou makest friend of foe,    Let me not live in languor thus,  But see my sorrow, and say now "Ho,"    And be my comfort, Christ Jesus.

Of fourteen stanzas called Richard de Castre's Prayer to Jesus, I choose five from the latter half, where the prayer passes from his own spiritual necessities, very tenderly embodied, to those of others. It does our hearts good to see the clouded sun of prayer for oneself break forth in the gladness of blessed entreaty for all men, for them that make Him angry, for saints in trouble, for the country torn by war, for the whole body of Christ and its unity. After the stanza—

  Jesus, for the deadly tears    That thou sheddest for my guilt,  Hear and speed my prayérs    And spare me that I be not spilt;

the best that is in the suppliant shines out thus

  Jesu, for them I thee beseech    That wrathen thee in any wise;  Withhold from them thy hand of wreche, vengeance.    And let them live in thy service.  Jesu, most comfort for to see    Of thy saintis every one,  Comfort them that careful be,    And help them that be woe-begone.  Jesu, keep them that be good,    And amend them that have grieved thee;  And send them fruits of earthly food,    As each man needeth in his degree.  Jesu, that art, withouten lees, lies.    Almighty God in trinity,  Cease these wars, and send us peace,    With lasting love and charity.  Jesu, that art the ghostly stone spiritual.    Of all holy church in middle-erde, the world.  Bring thy folds and flocks in one,    And rule them rightly with one herd.

We now approach the second revival of literature, preceded in England by the arrival of the art of printing; after which we find ourselves walking in a morning twilight, knowing something of the authors as well as of their work.

I have little more to offer from this century. There are a few religious poems by John Skelton, who was tutor to Henry VIII. But such poetry, though he was a clergyman, was not much in Skelton's manner of mind. We have far better of a similar sort already.

A new sort of dramatic representation had by this time greatly encroached upon the old Miracle Plays. The fresh growth was called Morals or Moral Plays. In them we see the losing victory of invention over the imagination that works with given facts. No doubt in the Moral Plays there is more exercise of intellect as well as of ingenuity; for they consist of metaphysical facts turned into individual existences by personification, and their relations then dramatized by allegory. But their poetry is greatly inferior both in character and execution to that of the Miracles. They have a religious tendency, as everything moral must have, and sometimes they go even farther, as in one, for instance, called The Castle of Perseverance, in which we have all the cardinal virtues and all the cardinal sins contending for the possession of Humanum Genus, the Human Race being presented as a new-born child, who grows old and dies in the course of the play; but it was a great stride in art when human nature and human history began again to be exemplified after a simple human fashion, in the story, that is, of real men and women, instead of by allegorical personifications of the analysed and abstracted constituents of them. Allegory has her place, and a lofty one, in literature; but when her plants cover the garden and run to seed, Allegory herself is ashamed of her children: the loveliest among them are despised for the general obtrusiveness of the family. Imitation not only brings the thing imitated into disrepute, but tends to destroy what original faculty the imitator may have possessed.

CHAPTER IV

INTRODUCTION TO THE ELIZABETHAN ERA.

Poets now began to write more smoothly—not a great virtue, but indicative of a growing desire for finish, which, in any art, is a great virtue. No doubt smoothness is often confounded with, and mistaken for finish; but you might have a mirror-like polish on the surface of a statue, for instance, and yet the marble be full of inanity, or vagueness, or even vulgarity of result—irrespective altogether of its idea. The influence of Italian poetry reviving once more in the country, roused such men as Wyat and Surrey to polish the sound of their verses; but smoothness, I repeat, is not melody, and where the attention paid to the outside of the form results in flatness, and, still worse, in obscurity, as is the case with both of these poets, little is gained and much is lost.