England's Antiphon Part 13

He is represented by Dr. Johnson as one of the chief examples of that school of poets called by himself the _metaphysical_, an epithet which, as a definition, is almost false. True it is that Donne and his followers were always ready to deal with metaphysical subjects, but it was from their mode, and not their subjects, that Dr. Johnson cla.s.sed them. What this mode was we shall see presently, for I shall be justified in setting forth its strangeness, even absurdity, by the fact that Dr. Donne was the dear friend of George Herbert, and had much to do with the formation of his poetic habits. Just twenty years older than Herbert, and the valued and intimate friend of his mother, Donne was in precisely that relation of age and circ.u.mstance to influence the other in the highest degree.

The central thought of Dr. Donne is nearly sure to be just: the subordinate thoughts by means of which he unfolds it are often grotesque, and so wildly a.s.sociated as to remind one of the lawlessness of a dream, wherein mere suggestion without choice or fitness rules the sequence. As some of the writers of whom I have last spoken would play with words, Dr.

Donne would sport with ideas, and with the visual images or embodiments of them. Certainly in his case much knowledge reveals itself in the a.s.sociation of his ideas, and great facility in the management and utterance of them. True likewise, he says nothing unrelated to the main idea of the poem; but not the less certainly does the whole resemble the speech of a child of active imagination, to whom judgment as to the character of his suggestions is impossible, his taste being equally gratified with a lovely image and a brilliant absurdity: a b.u.t.terfly and a shining potsherd are to him similarly desirable. Whatever wild thing starts from the thicket of thought, all is worthy game to the hunting intellect of Dr. Donne, and is followed without question of tone, keeping, or harmony. In his play with words, Sir Philip Sidney kept good heed that even that should serve the end in view; in his play with ideas, Dr. John Donne, so far from serving the end, sometimes obscures it almost hopelessly: the hart escapes while he follows the squirrels and weasels and bats. It is not surprising that, their author being so inartistic with regard to their object, his verses themselves should be harsh and unmusical beyond the worst that one would imagine fit to be called verse.

He enjoys the unenviable distinction of having no rival in ruggedness of metric movement and a.s.sociated sounds. This is clearly the result of indifference; an indifference, however, which grows very strange to us when we find that he _can_ write a lovely verse and even an exquisite stanza.

Greatly for its own sake, partly for the sake of ill.u.s.tration, I quote a poem containing at once his best and his worst, the result being such an incongruity that we wonder whether it might not be called his best _and_ his worst, because we cannot determine which. He calls it _Hymn to G.o.d, my G.o.d, in my Sickness_. The first stanza is worthy of George Herbert in his best mood.

Since I am coming to that holy room, Where with the choir of saints for evermore I shall be made thy music, as I come I tune the instrument here at the door, And what I must do then, think here before.

To recognize its beauty, leaving aside the depth and truth of the phrase, "Where I shall be made thy music," we must recall the custom of those days to send out for "a noise of musicians." Hence he imagines that he has been summoned as one of a band already gone in to play before the king of "The High Countries:" he is now at the door, where he is listening to catch the tone, that he may have his instrument tuned and ready before he enters. But with what a jar the next stanza breaks on heart, mind, and ear!

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown Cosmographers, and I[72] their map, who lie Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown That this is my south-west discovery, _Per fretum febris_--by these straits to die;--

Here, in the midst of comparing himself to a map, and his physicians to cosmographers consulting the map, he changes without warning into a navigator whom they are trying to follow upon the map as he pa.s.ses through certain straits--namely, those of the fever--towards his south-west discovery, Death. Grotesque as this is, the absurdity deepens in the end of the next stanza by a return to the former idea. He is alternately a map and a man sailing on the map of himself. But the first half of the stanza is lovely: my reader must remember that the region of the West was at that time the Land of Promise to England.

I joy that in these straits I see my West; For though those currents yield return to none, What shall my West hurt me? As west and east In all flat maps (and I am one) are one, So death doth touch the resurrection.

It is hardly worth while, except for the strangeness of the phenomenon, to spend any time in elucidating this. Once more a map, he is that of the two hemispheres, in which the east of the one touches the west of the other. Could anything be much more unmusical than the line, "In all flat maps (and I am one) are one"? But the next stanza is worse.

Is the Pacific sea my home? Or are The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?

Anvan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar?

All straits, and none but straits are ways to them, Whether where j.a.phet dwelt, or Cham, or Sem.

The meaning of the stanza is this: there is no earthly home: all these places are only straits that lead home, just as they themselves cannot be reached but through straits.

Let my reader now forget all but the first stanza, and take it along with the following, the last two:

We think that Paradise and Calvary, Christ's cross and Adam's tree, stood in one place: Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me; As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face, May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace.

So, in his purple wrapped, receive me, Lord; By these his thorns give me his other crown; And as to others' souls I preached thy word, Be this my text, my sermon to mine own: _Therefore, that he may raise, the Lord throws down._

Surely these are very fine, especially the middle verse of the former and the first verse of the latter stanza. The three stanzas together make us lovingly regret that Dr. Donne should have ridden his Pegasus over quarry and housetop, instead of teaching him his paces.

The next I quote is artistic throughout. Perhaps the fact, of which we are informed by Izaak Walton, "that he caused it to be set to a grave and solemn tune, and to be often sung to the organ by the choristers of St.

Paul's church in his own hearing, especially at the evening service," may have something to do with its degree of perfection. There is no sign of his usual haste about it. It is even elaborately rhymed after Norman fashion, the rhymes in each stanza being consonant with the rhymes in every stanza.

A HYMN TO G.o.d THE FATHER.

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which was my sin, though it were done before?[73]

Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,[74]

And do run still, though still I do deplore?-- When thou hast done, thou hast not done; For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won Others to sin, and made my sins their door?[75]

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A year or two, but wallowed in a score?-- When thou hast done, thou hast not done; For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun My last thread, I shall perish on the sh.o.r.e; But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son Shall shine, as he shines now and heretofore; And having done that, thou hast done: I fear no more.

In those days even a pun might be a serious thing: witness the play in the last stanza on the words _son_ and _sun_--not a mere pun, for the Son of the Father is the Sun of Righteousness: he is Life _and_ Light.

What the Doctor himself says concerning the hymn, appears to me not only interesting but of practical value. He "did occasionally say to a friend, 'The words of this hymn have restored to me the same thoughts of joy that possessed my soul in my sickness, when I composed it.'" What a help it would be to many, if in their more gloomy times they would but recall the visions of truth they had, and were a.s.sured of, in better moments!

Here is a somewhat strange hymn, which yet possesses, rightly understood, a real grandeur:

A HYMN TO CHRIST

_At the Author's last going into Germany_.[76]

In what torn ship soever I embark, That ship shall be my emblem of thy ark; What sea soever swallow me, that flood Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood.

Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes, Which, though they turn away sometimes-- They never will despise.

I sacrifice this island unto thee, And all whom I love here and who love me: When I have put this flood 'twixt them and me, Put thou thy blood betwixt my sins and thee.

As the tree's sap doth seek the root below In winter, in my winter[77] now I go Where none but thee, the eternal root Of true love, I may know.

Nor thou, nor thy religion, dost control The amorousness of an harmonious soul; But thou wouldst have that love thyself: as thou Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now.

Thou lov'st not, till from loving more thou free My soul: who ever gives, takes liberty: Oh, if thou car'st not whom I love, Alas, thou lov'st not me!

Seal then this bill of my divorce to all On whom those fainter beams of love did fall; Marry those loves, which in youth scattered be On face, wit, hopes, (false mistresses), to thee.

Churches are best for prayer that have least light: To see G.o.d only, I go out of sight; And, to 'scape stormy days, I choose An everlasting night

To do justice to this poem, the reader must take some trouble to enter into the poet's mood.

It is in a measure distressing that, while I grant with all my heart the claim of his "Muse's white sincerity," the taste in--I do not say _of_--some of his best poems should be such that I will not present them.

Out of twenty-three _Holy Sonnets_, every one of which, I should almost say, possesses something remarkable, I choose three. Rhymed after the true Petrarchian fashion, their rhythm is often as bad as it can be to be called rhythm at all. Yet these are very fine.

Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?

Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste; I run to death, and death meets me as fast, And all my pleasures are like yesterday.

I dare not move my dim eyes any way, Despair behind, and death before doth cast Such terror; and my feeble flesh doth waste By sin in it, which it towards h.e.l.l doth weigh.

Only them art above, and when towards thee By thy leave I can look, I rise again; But our old subtle foe so tempteth me, That not one hour myself I can sustain: Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art, And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.

If faithful souls be alike glorified As angels, then my father's soul doth see, And adds this even to full felicity, That valiantly I h.e.l.l's wide mouth o'erstride: But if our minds to these souls be descried By circ.u.mstances and by signs that be Apparent in us--not immediately[78]-- How shall my mind's white truth by them be tried?

They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn, And, style blasphemous, conjurors to call On Jesu's name, and pharisaical Dissemblers feign devotion. Then turn, O pensive soul, to G.o.d; for he knows best Thy grief, for he put it into my breast.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow; And soonest[79] our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery!

Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st[80] thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.

In a poem called _The Cross_, full of fantastic conceits, we find the following remarkable lines, embodying the profoundest truth.

As perchance carvers do not faces make, But that away, which hid them there, do take: Let crosses so take what hid Christ in thee, And be his image, or not his, but he.

One more, and we shall take our leave of Dr. Donne. It is called a fragment; but it seems to me complete. It will serve as a specimen of his best and at the same time of his most characteristic mode of presenting fine thoughts grotesquely attired.

RESURRECTION.