he was,
like him, conscientious and consistent, suffering while Milton's cause
prospered, and advanced to one of the bishoprics hated of Milton's soul
when the scales of England's politics turned in the other direction. Such
men, however, are divided only by their intellects. When men say, "I must
or I must not, for it is right or it is not right," then are they in
reality so bound together, even should they not acknowledge it
themselves, that no opposing opinions, no conflicting theories concerning
what is or is not right, can really part them. It was not wonderful that
a mind like that of Jeremy Taylor, best fitted for worshipping the beauty
of holiness, should mourn over the disrupted order of his church, or that
a mind like Milton's, best fitted for the law of life, should demand that
every part of that order which had ceased to vibrate responsive to every
throb of the eternal heart of truth, should fall into the ruin which its
death had preceded. The church was hardly dealt with, but the rulers of
the church have to bear the blame.
Here are those I judge the best of the bishop's _Festival Hymns_, printed
as part of his _Golden Grove_, or _Gide to Devotion_. In the first there
is a little confusion of imagery; and in others of them will be found a
little obscurity. They bear marks of the careless impatience of rhythm
and rhyme of one who though ever bursting into a natural trill of song,
sometimes with more rhymes apparently than he intended, would yet rather
let his thoughts pour themselves out in that unmeasured chant, that
"poetry in solution," which is the natural speech of the prophet-orator.
He is like a full river that must flow, which rejoices in a flood, and
rebels against the constraint of mole or conduit. He exults in utterance
itself, caring little for the mode, which, however, the law of his
indwelling melody guides though never compels. Charmingly diffuse in his
prose, his verse ever sounds as if it would overflow the banks of its
self-imposed restraints.
THE SECOND HYMN FOR ADVENT; OR,
CHRIST'S COMING TO JERUSALEM IN TRIUMPH.
Lord, come away;
Why dost thou stay?
Thy road is ready; and thy paths made straight
With longing expectation wait
The consecration of thy beauteous feet.
Ride on triumphantly: behold we lay
Our lusts and proud wills in thy way.
Hosanna! welcome to our hearts! Lord, here
Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear
As that of Sion, and a
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