England's Antiphon - George MacDonald

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ever thought the travel long?

            But eyes and ears, and every thought,

            Were with his sweet perfections caught.

      His Arcadia is a book full of wisdom and beauty. None of his writings were printed in his lifetime; but the Arcadia was for many years after his death one of the most popular books in the country. His prose, as prose, is not equal to his friend Raleigh's, being less condensed and stately. It is too full of fancy in thought and freak in rhetoric to find now-a-days more than a very limited number of readers; and a good deal of the verse that is set in it, is obscure and uninteresting, partly from some false notions of poetic composition which he and his friend Spenser entertained when young; but there is often an exquisite art in his other poems.

      The first I shall transcribe is a sonnet, to which the Latin words printed below it might be prefixed as a title: Splendidis longum valedico nugis.

      A LONG FAREWELL TO GLITTERING TRIFLES

        Leave me, O love, which reachest but to dust;

          And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things;

        Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:

          What ever fades but fading pleasure brings.

        Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might

          To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be;

        Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light

          That doth both shine and give us sight to see.

        Oh take fast hold; let that light be thy guide,

          In this small course which birth draws out to death;

        And think how evil63 becometh him to slide

          Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.

            Then farewell, world; thy uttermost I see:

            Eternal love, maintain thy life in me.

      Before turning to the treasury of his noblest verse, I shall give six lines from a poem in the Arcadia—chiefly for the sake of instancing what great questions those mighty men delighted in:

        What essence destiny hath; if fortune be or no;

        Whence our immortal souls to mortal earth do stow64:

        What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather,

        With outward maker's force, or like an inward father.

        Such thoughts, me thought, I thought, and strained my single mind,

        Then void of nearer cares, the depth of things to find.

      Lord Bacon was not the only one, in such an age, to think upon the mighty relations of physics and metaphysics, or, as Sidney would say, "of naturall and supernaturall philosophic." For a man to do his best, he must be upheld, even in his speculations, by those around him.

      In the specimen just given, we find that our religious poetry has gone down into the deeps. There are indications of such a tendency in the older times, but neither then were the questions so articulate, nor were the questioners so troubled for an answer. The alternative expressed in the middle couplet seems to me the most imperative of all questions—both for the individual and for the church: Is man fashioned by the hands of God, as a potter fashioneth his vessel; or do we indeed come forth from his heart? Is power or love the making might of the universe? He who answers this question aright possesses the key to all righteous questions.

      Sir Philip and his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, made between them a metrical translation of the Psalms of David. It cannot be determined which are hers and which are his; but if I may conclude anything from a poem by the sister, to which I shall by and by refer, I take those I now give for the brother's work.

      The souls of the following psalms have, in the version I present, transmigrated into fairer forms than I have found them occupy elsewhere. Here is a grand hymn for the whole world: Sing unto the Lord.

      PSALM XCVI

        Sing, and let your song be new,

          Unto him that never endeth;

        Sing all earth, and all in you—

        Sing to God, and bless his name.

          Of the help, the health he sendeth,

        Day by day new ditties frame.

        Make each country know his worth:

          Of his acts the wondered story

        Paint unto each people forth.

        For Jehovah great alone,

          All the gods, for awe and glory,

        Far above doth hold his throne.

        For but idols, what are they

          Whom besides mad earth adoreth?

        He the skies in frame did lay.

        Grace and honour are his guides;

          Majesty his temple storeth;

        Might in guard about him bides.

        Kindreds come! Jehovah give—

          O give Jehovah all together,

        Force and fame whereso you live.

        Give his name the glory fit:

          Take your off'rings, get you thither,

        Where he doth enshrined sit.

        Go, adore him in the place

          Where his pomp is most displayed.

        Earth, O go with quaking pace,

        Go proclaim Jehovah king:

          Stayless world shall now be stayed;

        Righteous doom his rule shall bring.

        Starry roof and earthy floor,

          Sea, and all thy wideness yieldeth,

        Now rejoice, and leap, and roar.

        Leafy infants of the wood,

          Fields, and all that on you feedeth,

        Dance, O dance, at such a good!

        For Jehovah cometh, lo!

          Lo to reign Jehovah cometh!

        Under whom you all shall go.

        He the world shall rightly guide—

          Truly, as a king becometh,

        For the people's weal provide.

      Attempting to give an ascending scale of excellence—I do not mean in subject but in execution—I now turn to the national hymn, God is our Refuge.

      PSALM XLIV

        God gives us strength, and keeps us sound—

          A present help when dangers call;

        Then fear not we, let quake the ground,

          And into seas let mountains fall;

          Yea so let seas withal

        In watery hills arise,

          As may the earthly hills appal

        With dread and dashing cries.

        For

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<p>63</p>

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

<p>64</p>

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