The Amaranth Or, religious poems; consisting of fables, visions, emblems, etc. Adorned with copper-plates from the best masters [by Walter Harte] |
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Religious Melancholy, AN EMBLEMATICAL ELEGY. |
 | The Amaranth |  |
Religious Melancholy, AN EMBLEMATICAL ELEGY.
“What more could Edom and proud Ashur do?”
Scourge after scourge, and blows succeeding blows?—
Lord, has thy hand no mercy, and our woes
No intermission? Gracious Being, please
To calm our fears, and give the body ease!
The poor man, and the slave of ev'ry kind,
'Midst pains and toils may gleams of comfort find;
But who can bear the sickness of the mind?
The Pow'r of Melancholy mounts the throne,
And makes the realms of wisdom half her own :
Not David's lyre, with David's voice conjoin'd,
Can drive th'oppressive phantom from the mind ?
The vernal blossoms, or the summer's breeze.
No longer Echo makes the dales rejoice
With sportive sounds, and pictures of a voice :
Th'aërial choir, which sung so soft and clear,
Now grates harsh music to the froward ear:
The gently murm'ring rills offend from far,
And emulate the clangour of a war:
Books have no wit, the liveliest wits have none;
And hope, the last of ev'ry friend, is gone!
Nor rest nor joy to Virtue's self are giv'n,
Till the disease is rectify'd by Heav'n.
And yet this Iliad of intestine woes
[So frail is man] from seeming nothings rose:
Th'obstruction of a tube as fine as hair;
Or spasm within a labyrinth of threads,
More subtile far than those the spider spreads .
Averse from joys, and enemy of mirth?
Wat'ry Arcturus in a luckless place
South'd , and portended tears to all our race:
With Him the weeping Pleiades conjoin,
And Mazzaroth made up the mournful trine :
Orion added noise to dumb despair,
And rent with hurricanes the driving air;
And last Absinthion his dire influence shed
Full on the heart, and fuller on the head.
A short parenthesis 'twixt pain and pain;
But, sick'ning at the chearfulness of light,
The soul has languish'd for th'approach of night:
Again, immerst in shades, we seem to say,
O day-spring ! gleam thy promise of a day .
On this side death th'Unhappy sure are curst,
Who sigh for change, and think the present worst:
Who weep unpity'd, groan without relief;
“There is no end nor measure of their grief!”
The Happy have waste twelve-months to bestow;
But Those can spare all time, who live in woe!
Whose food is wormwood, and whose drink is gall .
Banish their grief, or ease their irksome load;
Ephraim, at length, was favour'd by his God .
Proud of his knowledge, glorying in his birth;
Profane corrector of th'Almighty's laws,
Full of th'effect, forgetful of the cause!
Why boast of reason, and yet reason ill?
Why talk of choice, yet follow erring will?
Why vaunt our liberty, and prove the slave
Of all ambition wants, or follies crave?
This is the lot of him, sur-nam'd the wise,
Who lives mistaken, and mistaken dies!
For pains and maladies are God's reprieve:
Is th'interpos'd parenthesis of Heav'n!
Too often we complain—But flesh is weak;
Silence would waste us, and the heart would break.
Behold yon' rose, the poor despondent cries,
[Pain on his brow, and anguish in his eyes]
What healthy verdure paints its juicy shoots,
What equal circulation feeds the roots:
At morning-dawn it feels the dew-ting'd ray,
But opens all its bosom to the day.
No art assists it, and no toil it takes ,
Slumbers at ev'ning, and with morning wakes .
Immense my wish; yet tether'd to a span!
The slave, that groans beneath the toilsome oar,
“Obtains the sabbath of a welcome shore:”
Sweetens the memory of foreign toil.
“Alas my sorrows are not half so blest;”
My labours know no end, my pains no rest!
What heterogeneous mixtures form the man?
Pleasure and anguish, ignorance and skill;
Nature and Spirit, slav'ry and free-will;
Weakness and strength; old-age and youthful prime;
Error and truth; eternity and time!—
What contradictions have for ever ran
Betwixt the nether brute and upper man ?
The worm their brother;— brother elder-born!
Alike they flourish, and alike they fade.
The lab'ring steer sleeps less disturb'd at night,
And eats and drinks with keener appetite,—
Restrain'd by nature just t'enjoy his fill;
Useful, and yet incapable of ill.
Say, man, what vain pre-eminence is thine?
Each sense impair'd by gluttony and wine :
Thou art the beast, except thy soaring mind
Aspires to pleasures of immortal kind:
Else, boasted knowledge, hapless is thy curse,
T'approve the better, and embrace the worse!
So Annas owns the miracle, and then
(Wilfully blinded) persecutes agen .
A claim upon the patronage of Heav'n:
With hopes to live and die without annoy.]
In the first agonies of heart-struck grief,
Heav'n to our Parents typify'd relief .
Th'Almighty lent an ear to Hannah's pray'r ,
And bless'd her with each blessing, in an heir:
Whilst Hezekiah , earnest in his cause,
Gain'd a suspension of great Nature's laws,
And permanence to TIME;—For lo! the sun
Retrac'd the journey he had lately run.—
Rais'd pity in the Saviour of mankind .
He ask'd for peace; Heav'n gave him its own rest;
Demons were dumb, and Legion dispossest.
Thy strength, O manhood; and, O youth, thy bloom !
Syro-Phenicia's maiden re-enjoy'd
That equal mind, which Satan once destroy'd .
And, when the heav'nly Ephphatha was spoke,
The deaf-born heard, the dumb-born silence broke.
Th'ethereal fluid mov'd, the speech return'd;
No spasms were dreaded, no despondence mourn'd.
Its maxims, wisdom, joys and glory too;
The mighty ΕΥΡΗΚΑ appears in view.
In doleful cell, by osier-bars secur'd,
Laments her fate; till, flitting swiftly by,
Th'aerial prize attracts her eager eye:
Her aspect kindles fierce with keen desire;
She prunes her tatter'd plumes in conscious pride,
And bounds from perch to perch, and side to side:
Impatient of her jail, and long detain'd,
She breaks the bounds her liberty restrain'd:
Then, having gain'd the point by Heav'n design'd,
Soars 'midst the clouds, and proves her high-born kind.
He earn'd his hard-bought bread with sweating brow.—
Give us the labour, but suppress the woe!
Merit we boast not: But Christ's sacred side
Has pour'd for all its sacramental tide.
No sin, no guile, no blemishes had He;
A self-made slave to set the captive free!
Just are Heav'n's ways, and righteous is its doom.
Are bitter med'cines, kindly meant to save.
Thus let the rhet'ric of our suff'rings move;
The voice of grief is oft the voice of love !
The bed of sickness, [after cares and strife]
Is weak man's cradle for a second life;
Death's but a moment; and, before we die,
We touch the threshold of eternity!
Th'afflicted prophet in despondence pray'd:
“Oh, take the burthen of my life away,
“Dead are my sires; nor better I than they:”
At length a seraph cry'd, “arise and eat;
“Behold thy bev'rage, and behold thy meat:
“Heav'n's one repast shall future strength supply
“For forty days, till Horeb meets thy eye .”
Arm'd with the heav'nly panoply of saints.
The hint of this Emblem is taken from our venerable and religious Poet F. Quarles, L. III, Embl. 4. Mr. Dryden used to say, that Quarles exceeded him in the facility of Rhyming.
Quarles's Book, and the Emblematical Prints therein contained, are chiefly taken from the Pia Desideria of Hugo Hermannus. The engravings were originally designed by that celebrated artist C. Van Sichem.
Agreeably to this, is a lovely piece of imagery in the holy Scriptures:
“The earth mourneth and languisheth; Lebanon is ashamed, and hewn down; Sharon is like a wilderness; Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.” Isaiah Ch. xxxiii, v 9.
Job Ch. xxxviii, v 31, 32. According to Scripture-Astronomy these three were all watery Signs, and emblematical of grief. The fourth constellation, named Orion, threatened mankind with hurricanes and tempests. Sandys understood the passage in the same manner as I do. See his excellent Paraphrase on Job, Folio, page 49, London 1637. Mention is again made of the Seven Stars, (Pleiades) and of Orion, Amos Ch. v, v 8—and Job Ch. ix, v 9.
Job Ch. xxxviii, v 12. Luke Ch. I, v 78. Ανατολη εξ υψους This poetical word, day-spring, expressing the dawn of morning, has been never adopted by our poets, as far as we can recollect.
Deut. Ch. xxviii, v 66, 67. “And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have no assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! For the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes wherewith thou shalt see.” See also Job Ch. iii, v 8.
Ibid. Ch. xxxi, v 20. “Ephraim is my dear son;—for, since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord.”
Job Ch. xvii, v 14.—There is a remarkable passage in the Psalms upon this occasion, where the worm takes place of the monarch: “O praise the Lord, ye mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; WORMS and feathered fowls; KINGS of the earth and all people; Princes and Judges of the world.” Psalm cxlviii, v 10, Septuagint Version.
“If we pamper the flesh too much, we nourish an enemy; if we defraud it of lawful sustenance, we destroy a good citizen.” St. Gregor. Homil.
Mark Ch. v, v 3–9. And also “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me (saith Christ:) He sent me to heal the broken-hearted,” &c. Luke Ch. iv, v 18. Compare likewise Isaiah Ch. lxi, v 1.
See Dryden's Relig. Laici; and Prior's Ode entituled, What is Man? ΕΥΡΗΚΑ signifies Finding out the great Point desired.
| The Amaranth | |