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EASTER HYMN.
Death and darkness, get you packing:
Nothing now to man is lacking.
All your triumphs now are ended,
And what Adam marred is mended.
Graves are beds now for the weary;
Death a nap, to wake more merry;
Youth now, full of pious duty,
Seeks in thee for perfect beauty;
The weak and aged, tired with length
Of days, from thee look for new strength;
And infants with thy pangs contest,
As pleasant as if with the breast.
Then unto him who thus hath thrown
Even to contempt thy kingdom down,
And by his blood did us advance
Unto his own inheritance--
To him be glory, power, praise,
From this unto the last of days!
We must now descend from this height of true utterance into the Valley of
Humiliation, and cannot do better than console ourselves by listening to
the boy in mean clothes, of the fresh and well-favoured countenance, whom
Christiana and her fellow-pilgrims hear singing in that valley.
He that is down, needs fear no fall;
He that is low, no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.
- I
- am content with what I have,
Little be it or much;
And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because thou savest[155] such.
Fulness to such a burden is
That go on pilgrimage;
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.
I could not have my book without one word in it of John Bunyan, the
tinker, probably the gipsy, who although born only and not made a poet,
like his great brother, John Milton, has uttered in prose a wealth of
poetic thought. He was born in 1628, twenty years after Milton. I must
not, however, remark on this noble Bohemian of literature and prophecy;
but leaving at length these flowery hills and meadows behind me, step on
my way across the desert.--England had now fallen under the influence of
France instead of Italy, and that influence has never been for good to
our literature, at least. Thence its chief aim grew to be a desirable
trimness of speech and logical arrangement of matter--good external
qualities purchased at a fearful price with the loss of all that makes
poetry precious. The poets of England, with John Dryden at their head,
ceased almost for a time to deal with the truths of humanity, and gave
themselves to the facts and relations of society. The nation which could
recall the family of the Stuarts must necessarily fall into such a decay
of spiritual life as should render its literature only respectable at the
best, and its religious utterances essentially vulgar. But the decay is
gradual.
Bishop Ken, born in 1637, is known chiefly by his hymns for the morning
and evening, deservedly popular. He has, however, written a great many
besides--too many, indeed, for variety or excellence. He seems to have
set himself to write them as acts of worship. They present many signs of
a perversion of taste which, though not in them so remarkable, rose to a
height before long. He annoys us besides by the constant recurrence of
certain phrases, one or two of which are not admirable, and by using, in
the midst of a simple style, odd Latin words. Here are portions of, I
think, one of his best, and good it is.
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