England's Antiphon

CHAPTER XXIII

THE QUESTIONING FERVOUR.

And now I turn to the other class—that which, while the former has fled to tradition for refuge from doubt, sets its face towards the spiritual east, and in prayer and sorrow and hope looks for a dawn—the noble band of reverent doubters—as unlike those of the last century who scoffed, as those of the present who pass on the other side. They too would know; but they know enough already to know further, that it is from the hills and not from the mines their aid must come. They know that a perfect intellectual proof would leave them doubting all the same; that their high questions cannot be answered to the intellect alone, for their whole nature is the questioner; that the answers can only come as questioners and their questions grow towards them. Hence, growing hope, blossoming ever and anon into the white flower of confidence, is their answer as yet; their hope—the Beatific Vision—the happy-making sight, as Milton renders the word of the mystics.

It is strange how gentle a certain large class of the priesthood will be with those who, believing there is a God, find it hard to trust him, and how fierce with those who, unable, from the lack of harmony around and in them, to say they are sure there is a God, would yet, could they find him, trust him indeed. "Ah, but," answer such of the clergy and their followers, "you want a God of your own making." "Certainly," the doubters reply, "we do not want a God of your making: that would be to turn the universe into a hell, and you into its torturing demons. We want a God like that man whose name is so often on your lips, but whose spirit you understand so little—so like him that he shall be the bread of life to all our hunger—not that hunger only already satisfied in you, who take the limit of your present consciousness for that of the race, and say, 'This is all the world needs:' we know the bitterness of our own hearts, and your incapacity for intermeddling with its joy. We   have another mountain-range, from whence   Bursteth a sun unutterably bright;

nor for us only, but for you also, who will not have the truth except it come to you in a system authorized of man."

I have attributed a general utterance to these men, widely different from each other as I know they are.

Here is a voice from one of them, Arthur Hugh Clough, who died in 1861, well beloved. It follows upon two fine poems, called The Questioning Spirit, and Bethesda, in which is represented the condition of many of the finest minds of the present century. Let us receive it as spoken by one in the foremost ranks of these doubters, men reviled by their brethren who dare not doubt for fear of offending the God to whom they attribute their own jealousy. But God is assuredly pleased with those who will neither lie for him, quench their dim vision of himself, nor count that his mind which they would despise in a man of his making.

  Across the sea, along the shore,  In numbers more and ever more,  From lonely hut and busy town,  The valley through, the mountain down,  What was it ye went out to see,  Ye silly folk of Galilee?  The reed that in the wind doth shake?  The weed that washes in the lake?  The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?—  young man preaching in a boat.  What was it ye went out to hear  By sea and land, from far and near?  A teacher? Rather seek the feet  Of those who sit in Moses' seat.  Go humbly seek, and bow to them,  Far off in great Jerusalem.  From them that in her courts ye saw,  Her perfect doctors of the law,  What is it came ye here to note?—  A young man preaching in a boat  A prophet! Boys and women weak!    Declare, or cease to rave:  Whence is it he hath learned to speak?    Say, who his doctrine gave?  A prophet? Prophet wherefore he    Of all in Israel tribes?—  He teacheth with authority,    And not as do the Scribes.

Here is another from one who will not be offended if I class him with this school—the finest of critics as one of the most finished of poets—Matthew Arnold. Only my reader must remember that of none of my poets am I free to choose that which is most characteristic: I have the scope of my volume to restrain me.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH THE KID

  He saves the sheep; the goats he doth not save!  So rang Tertullian's sentence, on the side  Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried:  "Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave,  Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave!"  So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed,  The infant Church: of love she felt the tide  Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave.  And then she smiled, and in the Catacombs,  With eye suffused but heart inspired true,  On those walls subterranean, where she hid  Her head in ignominy, death, and tombs,  She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew;  And on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid.

Of these writers, Tennyson is the foremost: he has written the poem of the hoping doubters, the poem of our age, the grand minor organ-fugue of In Memoriam. It is the cry of the bereaved Psyche into the dark infinite after the vanished Love. His friend is nowhere in his sight, and God is silent. Death, God's final compulsion to prayer, in its dread, its gloom, its utter stillness, its apparent nothingness, urges the cry. Meanings over the dead are mingled with profoundest questionings of philosophy, the signs of nature, and the story of Jesus, while now and then the star of the morning, bright Phosphor, flashes a few rays through the shifting cloudy dark. And if the sun has not arisen on the close of the book, yet the Aurora of the coming dawn gives light enough to make the onward journey possible and hopeful: who dares say that he walks in the full light? that the counsels of God are to him not a matter of faith, but of vision?

Bewildered in the perplexities of nature's enigmas, and driven by an awful pain of need, Tennyson betakes himself to the God of nature, thus:

LIV

  The wish, that of the living whole    No life may fail beyond the grave;    Derives it not from what we have  The likest God within the soul?  Are God and Nature then at strife,    That Nature lends such evil dreams,    So careful of the type she seems,  So careless of the single life;  That I, considering everywhere    Her secret meaning in her deeds,    And finding that of fifty seeds  She often brings but one to bear;  I falter where I firmly trod,    And falling with my weight of cares    Upon the great world's altar-stairs  That slope thro' darkness up to God;  I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,    And gather dust and chaff, and call    To what I feel is Lord of all,  And faintly trust the larger hope.

Once more, this is how he uses the gospel-tale: Mary has returned home from the sepulchre, with Lazarus so late its prey, and her sister and Jesus:—

XXXII

  Her eyes are homes of silent prayer,    Nor other thought her mind admits    But, he was dead, and there he sits,  And he that brought him back is there.  Then one deep love doth supersede    All other, when her ardent gaze    Roves from the living brother's face,  And rests upon the Life indeed.  All subtle thought, all curious fears,    Borne down by gladness so complete,    She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet  With costly spikenard and with tears.  Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers,    Whose loves in higher love endure;    What souls possess themselves so pure,  Or is there blessedness like theirs?* * * * *

I have thus traced—how slightly!—the course of the religious poetry of England, from simple song, lovingly regardful of sacred story and legend, through the chant of philosophy, to the full-toned lyric of adoration. I have shown how the stream sinks in the sands of an evil taste generated by the worship of power and knowledge, and that a new growth of the love of nature—beauty counteracting not contradicting science—has led it by a fair channel back to the simplicities of faith in some, and to a holy questioning in others; the one class having for its faith, the other for its hope, that the heart of the Father is a heart like ours, a heart that will receive into its noon the song that ascends from the twilighted hearts of his children.

Gladly would I have prayed for the voices of many more of the singers of our country's psalms. Especially do I regret the arrival of the hour, because of the voices of living men and women. But the time is over and gone. The twilight has already embrowned the gray glooms of the cathedral arches, and is driving us forth to part at the door.

But the singers will yet sing on to him that hath ears to hear. When he returns to seek them, the shadowy door will open to his touch, the long-drawn aisles receding will guide his eye to the carven choir, and there they still stand, the sweet singers, content to repeat ancient psalm and new song to the prayer of the humblest whose heart would join in England's Antiphon.

THE END

1

The rhymes of the first and second and of the fourth and fifth lines throughout the stanzas, are all, I think, what the French call feminine rhymes, as in the words "sleeping," "weeping." This I think it better not to attempt retaining, because the final unaccented syllable is generally one of those e's which, having first become mute, have since been dropped from our spelling altogether.

2

For the grammatical interpretation of this line, I am indebted to Mr. Richard Morris. Shall is here used, as it often is, in the sense of must, and rede is a noun; the paraphrase of the whole being, "Son, what must be to me for counsel?" "What counsel must I follow?"

3

"Do not blame me, it is my nature."

4

Mon is used for man or woman: human being. It is so used in Lancashire still: they say mon to a woman.

5

"They weep quietly and becomingly." I think there must be in this word something of the sense of gently,-uncomplainingly.

6

"And are shrunken (clung with fear) like the clay." So here is the same as as. For this interpretation I am indebted to Mr. Morris.

7

"It is no wonder though it pleases me very ill."

8

I think the poet, wisely anxious to keep his last line just what it is, was perplexed for a rhyme, and fell on the odd device of saying, for "both day and night," "both day and the other."

9

"All as if it were not never, I wis."

10

"So that many men say—True it is, all goeth but God's will."

11

I conjecture "All that grain (me) groweth green."

12

Not is a contraction for ne wat, know not. "For I know not whither I must go, nor how long here I dwell." I think y is omitted by mistake before duelle.

13

This is very poor compared with the original.

14

I owe almost all my information on the history of these plays to Mr.Collier's well-known work on English Dramatic Poetry.

15

Able to suffer, deserving, subject to, obnoxious to, liable to death and vengeance.

16

The word harry is still used in Scotland, but only in regard to a bird's nest.

17

Do-well, Do-better, and Do-best.

18

Complexion.

19

Ruddiness—complexion.

20

Twig.

21

Life (?).—I think she should be he.

22

Field.

23

"Carry you beyond this region."

24

For the knowledge of this poem I am indebted to the Early English Text Society, now printing so many valuable manuscripts.

25

The for here is only an intensive.

26

Pref is proof. Put in pref seems to stand for something more than being tested. Might it not mean proved to be a pearl of price?

27

A word acknowledged to be obscure. Mr. Morris suggests on the left hand, as unbelieved.

28

"Except that which his sole wit may judge."

29

"Be equal to thy possessions:" "fit thy desires to thy means."

30

"Ambition has uncertainty." We use the word ticklish still.

31

"Is mingled everywhere."

32

To relish, to like. "Desire no more than is fitting for thee."

33

For.

34

"Let thy spiritual and not thine animal nature guide thee."

35

"And I dare not falsely judge the reverse."

36

A poem so like this that it may have been written immediately after reading it, is attributed to Robert Henryson, the Scotch poet. It has the same refrain to every verse as Lydgate's.

37

"Mourning for mishaps that I had caught made me almost mad."

38

"Led me all one:" "brought me back to peace, unity, harmony." (?)

39

"That I read on (it)."

40

Of in the original, as in the title.

41

Does this mean by contemplation on it?

42

"I paid good attention to it."

43

"Greeted thee"—in the very affliction.

44

"For Christ's love let us do the same."

45

"Whatever grief or woe enslaves thee." But thrall is a blunder, for the word ought to have rhymed with make.

46

"The precious leader that shall judge us."

47

"When thou art in sorry plight, think of this."

48

"And death, beyond renewal, lay hold upon their life."

49

Sending, message: "whatever varying decree God sends thee."

50

"Receives his message;" "accepts his will."

51

Recently published by the Early English Text Society. S.L. IV.

52

"Child born of a bright lady." Bird, berd, brid, burd, means lady originally: thence comes our bride.

53

In Chalmers' English Poets, from which I quote, it is selly-worme; but I think this must be a mistake. Silly would here mean weak.

54

The first poem he wrote, a very fine one, The Shepheard's Calender, is so full of old and provincial words, that the educated people of his own time required a glossary to assist them in the reading of it.

55

Eyas is a young hawk, whose wings are not fully fledged.

56

"What less than that is fitting?"

57

For, even in Collier's edition, but certainly a blunder.

58

Was, in the editions; clearly wrong.

59

"Of the same mould and hand as we."

60

There was no contempt in the use of this word then.

61

Simple-hearted, therefore blessed; like the German selig.

62

A shell plentiful on the coast of Palestine, and worn by pilgrims to show that they had visited that country.

63

Evil was pronounced almost as a monosyllable, and was at last contracted to ill.

64

"Come to find a place." The transitive verb stow means to put in a place: here it is used intransitively.

65

The list of servants then kept in large houses, the number of such being far greater than it is now.

66

There has been some blundering in the transcription of the last two lines of this stanza. In the former of the two I have substituted doth for dost, evidently wrong. In the latter, the word cradle is doubtful. I suggest cradled, but am not satisfied with it. The meaning is, however, plain enough.

67

"The very blessing the soul needed."

68

An old English game, still in use in Scotland and America, but vanishing before cricket.

69

Silly means innocent, and therefore blessed; ignorant of evil, and in so far helpless. It is easy to see how affection came to apply it to idiots. It is applied to the ox and ass in the next stanza, and is often an epithet of shepherds.

70

See Poems by Sir Henry Wotton and others. Edited by the Rev. John Hannah.

71

"Know thyself."

72

"And I have grown their map."

73

The guilt of Adam's first sin, supposed by the theologians of Dr. Donne's time to be imputed to Adam's descendants.

74

The past tense: ran.

75

Their door to enter into sin—by his example.

76

He was sent by James I. to assist an embassy to the Elector Palatine, who had married his daughter Elizabeth.

77

He had lately lost his wife, for whom he had a rare love.

78

"If they know us not by intuition, but by judging from circumstances and signs."

79

"With most willingness."

80

"Art proud."

81

A strange use of the word; but it evidently means recovered, and has some analogy with the French repasser.

82

To understood: to sweeten.

83

He plays upon the astrological terms, houses and schemes. The astrologers divided the heavens into twelve houses; and the diagrams by which they represented the relative positions of the heavenly bodies, they called schemes.

84

The tree of knowledge.

85

Dyce, following Seward, substitutes curse.

86

A glimmer of that Platonism of which, happily, we have so much more in the seventeenth century.

87

Should this be "in fees;" that is, in acknowledgment of his feudal sovereignty?

88

Warm is here elongated, almost treated as a dissyllable.

89

"He ought not to be forsaken: whoever weighs the matter rightly, will come to this conclusion."

90

The Eridan is the Po.—As regards classical allusions in connexion with sacred things, I would remind my reader of the great reverence our ancestors had for the classics, from the influence they had had in reviving the literature of the country.—I need hardly remind him of the commonly-received fancy that the swan does sing once—just as his death draws nigh. Does this come from the legend of Cycnus changed into a swan while lamenting the death of his friend Phaeton? or was that legend founded on the yet older fancy? The glorious bird looks as if he ought to sing.

91

The poet refers to the singing of the hymn before our Lord went to the garden by the brook Cedron.

92

The construction is obscure just from the insertion of the to before breathe, where it ought not to be after the verb hear. The poet does not mean that he delights to hear that voice more than to breathe gentle airs, but more than to hear gentle airs (to) breathe. To hear, understood, governs all the infinitives that follow; among the rest, the winds (to) chide.

93

Rut is used for the sound of the tide in Cheshire. (See Halliwell's Dictionary.) Does rutty mean roaring? or does it describe the deep, rugged shores of the Jordan?

94

A monosyllable, contracted afterwards into bloom.

95

Willows.

96

Groom originally means just a man. It was a word much used when pastoral poetry was the fashion. Spenser has herd-grooms in his Shepherd's Calendar. This last is what it means here: shepherds.

97

Obtain, save.

98

Equivalent to "What are those hands of yours for?"

99

He was but thirty-nine when he died.

100

To rhyme with pray in the second line.

101

Bunch of flowers. He was thinking of Aaron's rod, perhaps.

102

To correspond to that of Christ.

103

Again a touch of holy humour: to match his Master's predestination, he will contrive something three years beforehand, with an if.

104

The here in the preceding line means his book; hence the thy book is antithetical.

105

Concent is a singing together, or harmoniously.

106

Music depends all on proportions.

107

The diapason is the octave. Therefore "all notes true." See note 2, p. 205.

108

An intransitive verb: he was wont.

109

The birds called halcyons were said to build their nests on the water, and, while they were brooding, to keep it calm.

110

The morning star.

111

The God of shepherds especially, but the God of all nature—the All in all, for Pan means the All.

112

Milton here uses the old Ptolemaic theory of a succession of solid crystal concentric spheres, in which the heavenly bodies were fixed, and which revolving carried these with them. The lowest or innermost of these spheres was that of the moon. "The hollow round of Cynthia's seat" is, therefore, this sphere in which the moon sits.

113

That cannot be expressed or described.

114

By hinges he means the axis of the earth, on which it turns as on a hinge. The origin of hinge is hang. It is what anything hangs on.

115

This is an apostrophe to the nine spheres (see former note), which were believed by the ancients to send forth in their revolutions a grand harmony, too loud for mortals to hear. But no music of the lower region can make up full harmony without the bass of heaven's organ. The music of the spheres was to Milton the embodiment of the theory of the universe. He uses the symbol often.

116

Consort is the right word scientifically. It means the fitting together of sounds according to their nature. Concert, however, is not wrong. It is even more poetic than consort, for it means a striving together, which is the idea of all peace: the strife is together, and not of one against the other. All harmony is an ordered, a divine strife. In the contest of music, every tone restrains its foot and bows its head to the rest in holy dance.

117

Symphony is here used for chorus, and quite correctly; for symphony is a voicing together. To this symphony of the angels the spheres and the heavenly organ are the accompaniment.

118

Die of the music.

119

Not merely swings, but lashes about.

120

Full of folds or coils.

121

The legend concerning this cessation of the oracles associates it with the Crucifixion. Milton in The Nativity represents it as the consequence of the very presence of the infant Saviour. War and lying are banished together.

122

The genius is the local god, the god of the place as a place.

123

The Lars were the protecting spirits of the ancestors of the family; the Lemures were evil spirits, spectres, or bad ghosts. But the notions were somewhat indefinite.

124

Flamen was the word used for priest when the Romans spoke of the priest of any particular divinity. Hence the peculiar power in the last line of the stanza.

125

Jupiter Ammon, worshipped in Libya, in the north of Africa, under the form of a goat. "He draws in his horn."