Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 35

2 She is a spirit, yet not like air or wind; Nor like the spirits about the heart or brain; Nor like those spirits which alchymists do find, When they in everything seek gold in vain.

3 For she all natures under heaven doth pa.s.s, Being like those spirits, which G.o.d's bright face do see, Or like Himself, whose image once she was, Though now, alas! she scarce his shadow be.

4 For of all forms, she holds the first degree, That are to gross, material bodies knit; Yet she herself is bodiless and free; And, though confined, is almost infinite.

5 Were she a body,[1] how could she remain Within this body, which is less than she?

Or how could she the world's great shape contain, And in our narrow b.r.e.a.s.t.s contained be?

6 All bodies are confined within some place, But she all place within herself confines: All bodies have their measure and their s.p.a.ce; But who can draw the soul's dimensive lines?

7 No body can at once two forms admit, Except the one the other do deface; But in the soul ten thousand forms do fit, And none intrudes into her neighbour's place.

8 All bodies are with other bodies fill'd, But she receives both heaven and earth together: Nor are their forms by rash encounter spill'd, For there they stand, and neither toucheth either.

9 Nor can her wide embracements filled be; For they that most and greatest things embrace, Enlarge thereby their mind's capacity, As streams enlarged, enlarge the channel's s.p.a.ce.

10 All things received, do such proportion take, As those things have, wherein they are received: So little gla.s.ses little faces make, And narrow webs on narrow frames are weaved.

11 Then what vast body must we make the mind, Wherein are men, beasts, trees, towns, seas, and lands; And yet each thing a proper place doth find, And each thing in the true proportion stands?

12 Doubtless, this could not be, but that she turns Bodies to spirits, by sublimation strange; As fire converts to fire the things it burns: As we our meats into our nature change.

13 From their gross matter she abstracts the forms, And draws a kind of quintessence from things, Which to her proper nature she transforms, To bear them light on her celestial wings.

14 This doth she, when, from things particular, She doth abstract the universal kinds, Which bodiless and immaterial are, And can be only lodged within our minds.

15 And thus from divers accidents and acts, Which do within her observation fall, She G.o.ddesses and powers divine abstracts; As nature, fortune, and the virtues all.

16 Again; how can she several bodies know, If in herself a body's form she bear?

How can a mirror sundry faces show, If from all shapes and forms it be not clear?

17 Nor could we by our eyes all colours learn, Except our eyes were of all colours void; Nor sundry tastes can any tongue discern, Which is with gross and bitter humours cloy'd.

18 Nor can a man of pa.s.sions judge aright, Except his mind be from all pa.s.sions free: Nor can a judge his office well acquit, If he possess'd of either party be.

19 If, lastly, this quick power a body were, Were it as swift as in the wind or fire, Whose atoms do the one down sideways bear, And the other make in pyramids aspire;

20 Her nimble body yet in time must move, And not in instants through all places slide: But she is nigh and far, beneath, above, In point of time, which thought cannot divide;

21 She's sent as soon to China as to Spain; And thence returns as soon as she is sent: She measures with one time, and with one pain.

An ell of silk, and heaven's wide-spreading tent.

22 As then the soul a substance hath alone, Besides the body in which she's confined; So hath she not a body of her own, But is a spirit, and immaterial mind.

23 Since body and soul have such diversities, Well might we muse how first their match began; But that we learn, that He that spread the skies, And fix'd the earth, first form'd the soul in man.

24 This true Prometheus first made man of earth, And shed in him a beam of heavenly fire; Now in their mothers' wombs, before their birth, Doth in all sons of men their souls inspire.

25 And as Minerva is in fables said, From Jove, without a mother, to proceed; So our true Jove, without a mother's aid, Doth daily millions of Minervas breed.

[1] That it cannot be a body.

GILES FLETCHER.

Giles Fletcher was the younger brother of Phineas, and died twenty-three years before him. He was a cousin of Fletcher the dramatist, and the son of Dr Giles Fletcher, who was employed in many important missions in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and, among others, negotiated a commercial treaty with Russia greatly in the favour of his own country. Giles is supposed to have been born in 1588. He studied at Cambridge; published his n.o.ble poem, 'Christ's Victory and Triumph,' in 1610, when he was twenty- three years of age; was appointed to the living of Alderston, in Suffolk, where he died, in 1623, at the early age of thirty-five, 'equally loved,'

says old Wood, 'of the Muses and the Graces.'

The poem, in four cantos, ent.i.tled 'Christ's Victory and Triumph,' is one of almost Miltonic magnificence. With a wing as easy as it is strong, he soars to heaven, and fills the austere mouth of Justice and the golden lips of Mercy with language worthy of both. He then stoops down on the Wilderness of the Temptation, and paints the Saviour and Satan in colours admirably contrasted, and which in their brightness and blackness can never decay. Nor does he fear, in fine, to pierce the gloom of Calvary, and to mingle his note with the harps of angels, saluting the Redeemer, as He sprang from the grave, with the song, 'He is risen, He is risen--and shall die no more.' The style is steeped in Spenser--equally mellifluous, figurative, and majestic. In allegory the author of the 'Fairy Queen' is hardly superior, and in the enthusiasm of devotion Fletcher surpa.s.ses him far. From the great light, thus early kindled and early quenched, Milton did not disdain to draw with his 'golden urn.' 'Paradise Regained' owes much more than the suggestion of its subject to 'Christ's Victory;' and is it too much to say that, had Fletcher lived, he might have shone in the same constellation with the bard of the 'Paradise Lost?' The plan of our 'Specimens' permits only a few extracts. Let those who wish more, along with a lengthened and glowing tribute to the author's genius, consult _Blackwood_ for November 1835. The reading of a single sentence will convince them that the author of the paper was Christopher North.

THE NATIVITY.

I.

Who can forget, never to be forgot, The time, that all the world in slumber lies: When, like the stars, the singing angels shot To earth, and heaven awaked all his eyes, To see another sun at midnight rise On earth? was never sight of pareil fame: For G.o.d before, man like himself did frame, But G.o.d himself now like a mortal man became.

II.

A child he was, and had not learned to speak, That with his word the world before did make: His mother's arms him bore, he was so weak, That with one hand the vaults of heaven could shake.

See how small room my infant Lord doth take, Whom all the world is not enough to hold.

Who of his years, or of his age hath told?

Never such age so young, never a child so old.

III

And yet but newly he was infanted, And yet already he was sought to die; Yet scarcely born, already banished; Not able yet to go, and forced to fly: But scarcely fled away, when by and by, The tyrant's sword with blood is all denied, And Rachel, for her sons with fury wild, Cries, O thou cruel king, and O my sweetest child!

IV.

Egypt his nurse became, where Nilus springs, Who straight, to entertain the rising sun, The hasty harvest in his bosom brings; But now for drought the fields were all undone, And now with waters all is overrun: So fast the Cynthian mountains poured their snow, When once they felt the sun so near them glow, That Nilus Egypt lost, and to a sea did grow.

V.

The angels carolled loud their song of peace, The cursed oracles were stricken dumb, To see their shepherd, the poor shepherds press, To see their king, the kingly sophics come, And them to guide unto his Master's home, A star comes dancing up the orient, That springs for joy over the strawy tent, Where gold, to make their prince a crown, they all present.

VI.

Young John, glad child, before he could be born, Leapt in the womb, his joy to prophesy: Old Anna, though with age all spent and worn, Proclaims her Saviour to posterity: And Simeon fast his dying notes doth ply.

Oh, how the blessed souls about him trace!

It is the fire of heaven thou dost embrace: Sing, Simeon, sing; sing, Simeon, sing apace.

VII.

With that the mighty thunder dropt away From G.o.d's unwary arm, now milder grown, And melted into tears; as if to pray For pardon, and for pity, it had known, That should have been for sacred vengeance thrown: There too the armies angelic devowed Their former rage, and all to mercy bowed, Their broken weapons at her feet they gladly strowed.