From Chaucer to Tennyson
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equalled with me in fate,
I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides,[124]
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark,
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
[Footnote 123: The _gutta serena_, or cataract.]
[Footnote 124: Homer.]
SATAN.
[From _Paradise Lost_.]
He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous shield,
Etherial temper, massy, large and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist[125] views
At evening from the top of Fesole,[126]
Or in Valdamo, to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains on her spotty globe.
His spear (to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand)
He walked with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore beside, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called
His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High over-arched embower, or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed
Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcasses
And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrewn,
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
[Footnote 125: Galileo.]
[Footnote 126: A hill near Florence.]
ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT.[127]
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant,[128] that from these may grow
A hundred-fold, who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.[129]
[Footnote 127: This sonnet refers to the persecution instituted in 1655
by the Duke of Savoy against the Vaudois Protestants.]
[Footnote 128: The Pope, who wore the triple crown or tiara.]
[Footnote 129: The Papacy, with which the Protestant reformers identified
Babylon the Great, the "Scarlet Woman" of Revelation.]
SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
THE VANITY OF MONUMENTS.
[From _Urn Burial_]
There is no antidote against the opium of time, which temporally
considereth all things. Our fathers find their graves in our short
memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors.
Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while some
trees stand, and old families last not three oaks....The iniquity[130]
of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of
men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the
founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives, that burnt the temple of
Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of
Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our
felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal
durations and Thersites[131] is like to live as long as Agamemnon. Who
knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more
remarkable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in the known
account of time? Without the favor of the everlasting register, the
first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methusaleh's long life
had been his only chronicle.
Oblivion is not to be hired.[132] The greater part must be content to be
as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in
the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story, and the
reported names ever since contain not one living century. The number of
the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far
surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds
unto that current arithmetic which scarce stands one moment. And since
death must be the Lucina[133] of life, and even pagans could doubt
whether thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets at right
descensions and makes but winter arches, and, therefore, it cannot be
long before we lie down in darkness and have our light in ashes. Since
the brother[134] of death daily haunts us with dying mementoes, and time
that grows old in itself bids us hope no long duration; diuturnity is a
dream and folly of expectation....
There is nothing strictly immortal but immortality. Whatever hath no
beginning may be confident of no end. All others have a dependent being
and within the reach of destruction, which is the peculiar of that
necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of
omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted as not to suffer even from
the power of itself. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality
frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after
death makes a folly of posthumous memory. God, who can only[135] destroy
our souls, and hath assured our resurrection, either of our bodies or
names hath directly promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of
chance that the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustrations, and
to hold long subsistence seems but a scape[136] in oblivion. But man is
a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave, solemnizing
nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of
bravery[137] in the infamy of his nature.
[Footnote 130: Injustice.]
[Footnote 131: See Shakspere's _Troilus and Cressida_.]
[Footnote 132: That is, bribed, bought off.]
[Footnote 133: The goddess of childbirth. We must die to be born again.]
[Footnote 134: Sleep.]
[Footnote 135: That is, the only one who can.]
[Footnote 136: Freak.]
[Footnote 137: Ostentation.]
* * * * *
JOHN DRYDEN.
THE CHARACTER OF ZIMRI.[138]
[From _Absalom and Achitophel_.]
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand,
A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was every thing by turns, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking,
Blest madman, who could every hour employ
With something new to wish or to enjoy!
Railing and praising were his usual themes,
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes:
So over-violent or over-civil
That every man with him was God or Devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
Beggared by fools whom still he found[139] too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laughed himself from court; then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief:
For spite of him, the weight of business fell
To Absalom and wise Achitophel.[140]
Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.
[Footnote 138: This is a satirical
sketch of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.]
[Footnote 139: Found out, detected.]
[Footnote 140: The Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Shaftesbury.]
THE CHEATS OF HOPE.
[From _Aurengzebe_.]
When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat;
Yet, fooled with hope, men favor the deceit,
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay;
To-morrow's falser than the former day.
Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possessed.
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain,
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.
I'm tired of waiting for this chymic[141] gold
Which fools us young and beggars us when old.
[Footnote 141: The gold which the
alchemists tried to make from base metals.]
* * * * *
JONATHAN SWIFT.
THE EMPEROR OF LILLIPUT.
[From _Gulliver's Travels_.]
He is taller by almost the breadth of my nail than any of his court;
which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders. His features
are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip and arched nose, his
complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well
proportioned, all his motions graceful, and his deportment majestic. He
was then past his prime, being twenty-eight years and three quarters
old, of which he had reigned about seven in great felicity, and
generally victorious. For the better convenience of beholding him, I lay
on my side, so that my face was parallel to his, and he stood but three
yards off; however, I have had him since many times in my hand, and
therefore cannot be deceived in the description. His dress was very
plain and simple, and the fashion of it between the Asiatic and the
European; but he had on his head a light helmet of gold, adorned with
jewels and a plume on the crest. He held his sword drawn in his hand to
defend himself, if I should happen to break loose; it was almost three
inches long: the hilt and scabbard were gold enriched with diamonds. His
voice was shrill, but very clear and articulate, and I could distinctly
hear it, when I stood up.
THE STRULDBRUGS.
[From _Gulliver's Travels_.]
One day in much good company, I was asked by a person of quality whether
I had seen any of their _Struldbrugs_, or immortals? I said I had not,
and desired he would explain to me what he meant by such an appellation,
applied to a mortal creature. He told me that sometimes, though very
rarely, a child happened to be born in a family with a red circular spot
in the forehead, directly over the left eyebrow, which was an infallible
mark that it should never die....He said these births were so rare that
he did not believe there could be above eleven hundred _Struldbrugs_ of
both sexes in the whole kingdom; of which he computed about fifty in the
metropolis, and among the rest, a young girl born about three years ago;
that these productions were not peculiar to any family, but a mere
effect of chance; and the children of the _Struldbrugs_ themselves were
equally mortal with the rest of the people....After this preface, he
gave me a particular account of the _Struldbrugs_ among them. He said