But it is a very different thing when the person of the only true God is to be introduced in a poem. A pigmy in poetry may trifle with the thunders of Jupiter; but a Hercules should beware how he handles the terrors of Jehovah. A rhymer may talk what nonsense he pleases of a mythology which consists of fiction and tinsel; but he should be afraid to touch upon a theme in which there is truth, and eternity, and power. It is for this reason that I can never read without disgust those passages of Tasso in which the divine agency is degraded to the level of the machinery of the poem.
When, however, the description falls into the hands of one who is able to do justice to it, see how the glories of the heathen mythology sink before the effulgence of the living God. Search the most celebrated descriptions of heathen writers; and where, in the brightest moments of inspiration, will you find a passage that can for a moment be compared with that of the Psalmist?
“The earth trembled and quaked; the very foundations of the hills shook, and were removed, because He was wrath. There went a smoke out in His presence, and a consuming fire out of His mouth, so that coals were kindled at it. He bowed the heavens also and came down, and it was dark under His feet. He rode upon the cherubims and did fly: He came flying upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; His pavilion round about Him with dark water, and thick clouds to cover Him. At[Pg 164] the brightness of his presence His clouds removed; hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered out of heaven, and the Highest gave His thunder; hailstones and coals of fire. He sent out His arrows and scattered them; He cast forth lightnings and destroyed them. The springs of waters were seen, and the foundations of the round world were discovered, at Thy chiding, Ο Lord, at the blasting of the breath of Thy displeasure.”
When I look at the famous nod of Jupiter—
Ἧ, καὶ κυανέησιν ἐπ’ ὀφρύσι νεῦσε Κρονίων,
Ἀμβρόσιαι δ’ ἄρα χαῖται ἐπεῥῤώσαντο ἄνακτος
Κρατὸς ἀπ’ ἀθανάτοιο· μέγαν δ’ ἐλέλιξεν Ὄλυμπον—
I have before me a distinct image of a handsome terrible-looking man, sitting on a throne, and shaking his head; but when I read the passage which I have quoted above, I find no clear image represented; I feel only a dark and undefinable sensation of awe—a consciousness of the presence of the Deity, visible, yet clothed with darkness as with a veil.
Look now at the terrible magnificence with which Ezekiel has overshadowed the Almighty. After a gorgeous description of the attendant ministers, he says—
“And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood and had let down their wings. And above the firmament that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone, and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man upon it. And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake.”
My quotations are running to a great length; nevertheless I cannot refrain from transcribing the splendid description[Pg 165] of the Messiah, in which our own Milton has united the above two passages:—
Forth rushed with whirlwind sound
The chariot of Paternal Deity,
Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel withdrawn
Itself instinct with spirit, but convoyed
By four cherubick shapes; four faces each
Had wondrous; as with stars their bodies all
And wings were set with eyes, with eyes the wheels
Of beryl, and careering fires between;
Over their heads a crystal firmament,
Whereon a sapphire throne inlaid with pure
Amber, and colours of the showery arch.
He in celestial panoply all armed
Of radiant Urim, work divinely wrought,
Ascended; at his right hand Victory
Sate eagle-winged; beside him hung his bow
And quiver, with three-bolted thunder stored;
And from about him fierce effusion rolled
Of smoke and bickering flame, and sparkles dire.
Attended with ten thousand thousand saints
He onward came; far off his coming shone;
And twenty thousand (I their number heard)
Chariots of God, half on each hand were seen.
He on the wings of cherub rode sublime,
On the crystalline sky in sapphire throned.