FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126  
127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   >>   >|  
Herbert offers us measure pressed down and running over. But let me speak first of that which first in time or order of appearance we demand of a poet, namely music. For inasmuch as verse is for the ear, not for the eye, we demand a good hearing first. Let no one undervalue it. The heart of poetry is indeed truth, but its garments are music, and the garments come first in the process of revelation. The music of a poem is its meaning in sound as distinguished from word--its meaning in solution, as it were, uncrystallized by articulation. The music goes before the fuller revelation, preparing its way. The sound of a verse is the harbinger of the truth contained therein. If it be a right poem, this will be true. Herein Herbert excels. It will be found impossible to separate the music of his words from the music of the thought which takes shape in their sound. I got me flowers to strow thy way, I got me boughs off many a tree; But thou wast up by break of day, And brought'st thy sweets along with thee. And the gift it enwraps at once and reveals is, I have said, truth of the deepest. Hear this song of divine service. In every song he sings a spiritual fact will be found its fundamental life, although I may quote this or that merely to illustrate some peculiarity of mode. _The Elixir_ was an imagined liquid sought by the old physical investigators, in order that by its means they might turn every common metal into gold, a pursuit not quite so absurd as it has since appeared. They called this something, when regarded as a solid, _the Philosopher's Stone_. In the poem it is also called a _tincture_. THE ELIXIR. Teach me, my God and King, In all things thee to see; And what I do in anything, To do it as for thee; Not rudely, as a beast, To run into an action; But still to make thee prepossest, And give it his perfection. _its._ A man that looks on glass, On it may stay his eye; Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, And then the heaven spy. All may of thee partake: Nothing can be so mean, Which with his tincture--_for thy sake_-- _its._ Will not grow bright and clean. A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine: Who sweeps a room as for thy laws, Makes that and the action fine. This is the famous stone That turneth all to gold; For that which God doth touch and own Cannot for less b
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126  
127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
meaning
 

revelation

 

tincture

 

divine

 

garments

 
demand
 
Herbert
 

action

 
called
 

common


investigators

 

things

 
Philosopher
 

pursuit

 
appeared
 

absurd

 
regarded
 
ELIXIR
 

drudgery

 

clause


sweeps

 

servant

 

bright

 

Cannot

 

turneth

 

famous

 

perfection

 

prepossest

 

heaven

 

partake


Nothing

 
physical
 

pleaseth

 

rudely

 

solution

 
uncrystallized
 

articulation

 
distinguished
 

process

 
fuller

Herein
 

excels

 
preparing
 
harbinger
 

contained

 

poetry

 
running
 

offers

 
measure
 

pressed