Yet have I one great trusty friend
That will procure my peace,
And all this loss and ruin mend,
And purchase my release.
The bellows I'll yet take in hand,
Till this small spark shall flame:
Love shall my heart and tongue command
To praise God's holy name.
I'll mend the roof; I'll watch the door,
And better keep the key;
I'll trust my treacherous flesh no more,
But force it to obey.
What have I said? That I'll do this
That am so false and weak,
And have so often done amiss,
And did my covenants break?
I mean, Lord—all this shall be done
If thou my heart wilt raise;
And as the work must be thine own,
So also shall the praise.
The allegory is so good that one is absolutely sorry when it breaks down, and the poem says in plain words that which is the subject of the figures, bringing truths unmasked into the midst of the maskers who represent truths—thus interrupting the pleasure of the artistic sense in the transparent illusion.
The command of metrical form in Baxter is somewhat remarkable. He has not much melody, but he keeps good time in a variety of measures.
CHAPTER XVII.
CRASHAW AND MARVELL.
I come now to one of the loveliest of our angel-birds, Richard Crashaw. Indeed he was like a bird in more senses than one; for he belongs to that class of men who seem hardly ever to get foot-hold of this world, but are ever floating in the upper air of it.