John Donne - Delphi Poets Series (98 page)

The King received this news with so much discontent and restlessness that he would not suffer the sun to set and leave him under this doubt; but sent for Dr. Donne, and required his answer to the accusation; which was so clear and satisfactory that the King said, “he was right glad he rested no longer under the suspicion.” When the King had said this, Dr. Donne kneeled down, and thanked his Majesty, and protested his answer was faithful, and free from all collusion, and therefore “desired that he might not rise till, as in like cases, he always had from God, so he might have from his Majesty, some assurance that he stood clear and fair in his opinion.” At which the King raised him from his knees with his own hands, and “protested he believed him; and that he knew he was an honest man, and doubted not but that he loved him truly.” And, having thus dismissed him, he called some Lords of his Council into his chamber, and said with much earnestness, “My Doctor is an honest man; and, my Lords, I was never better satisfied with an answer than he hath now made me; and I always rejoice when I think that by my means he became a Divine.”

He was made Dean in the fiftieth year of his age, and in his fifty-fourth year a dangerous sickness seized him, which inclined him to a consumption; but God, as Job thankfully acknowledged, preserved his spirit, and kept his intellectuals as clear and perfect as when that sickness first seized his body; but it continued long, and threatened him with death, which he dreaded not.

Within a few days his distempers abated; and as his strength increased so did his thankfulness to Almighty God, testified in his most excellent “Book of Devotions,” which he published at his recovery; in which the reader may see the most secret thoughts that then possessed his soul, paraphrased and made public: a book that may not unfitly be called a Sacred Picture of Spiritual Ecstasies, occasioned and applicable to the emergencies of that sickness; which book, being a composition of meditations, disquisitions, and prayers, he writ on his sick-bed; herein imitating the holy Patriarchs, who were wont to build their altars in that place where they had received their blessings.

This sickness brought him so near to the gates of death, and he saw the grave so ready to devour him, that he would often say his recovery was supernatural: but that God that then restored his health continued it to him till the fifty-ninth year of his life: and then, in August 1630, being with his eldest daughter, Mrs. Harvey, at Abury Hatch, in Essex, he there fell into a fever, which, with the help of his constant infirmity — vapours from the spleen — hastened him into so visible a consumption that his beholders might say, as St. Paul of himself, “He dies daily;” and he might say with Job, “My welfare passeth away as a cloud, the days of my affliction have taken hold of me, and weary nights are appointed for me.”

Reader, this sickness continued long, not only weakening, but wearying him so much, that my desire is he may now take some rest; and that before I speak of his death thou wilt not think it an impertinent digression to look back with me upon some observations of his life, which, whilst a gentle slumber gives rest to his spirits, may, I hope, not unfitly, exercise thy consideration.

His marriage was the remarkable error of his life; an error which, though he had a wit able and very apt to maintain paradoxes, yet he was very far from justifying it: and though his wife’s competent years, and other reasons, might be justly urged to moderate severe censures, yet he would occasionally condemn himself for it: and doubtless it had been attended with an heavy repentance, if God had not blessed them with so mutual and cordial affections, as in the midst of their sufferings made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly than the banquets of dull and low-spirited people.

The recreations of his youth were poetry, in which he was so happy as if nature and all her varieties had been made only to exercise his sharp wit and high fancy; and in those pieces which were facetiously composed and carelessly scattered, — most of them being written before the twentieth year of his age — it may appear by his choice metaphors that both nature and all the arts joined to assist him with their utmost skill.

It is a truth, that in his penitential years, viewing some of those pieces that had been loosely — God knows, too loosely — scattered in his youth, he wished they had been abortive, or so short-lived that his own eyes had witnessed their funerals; but, though he was no friend to them, he was not so fallen out with heavenly poetry, as to forsake that; no, not in his declining age; witnessed then by many divine sonnets, and other high, holy, and harmonious composures. Yea, even on his former sick-bed he wrote this heavenly hymn, expressing the great joy that then possessed his soul, in the assurance of God’s favour to him when he composed it: —

“AN HYMN

“TO GOD THE FATHER

“Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,

Which was my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run,

And do run still, though still I do deplore?

When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,

For I have more.

“Wilt Thou forgive that sin, which I have won

Others to sin, and made my sin their door?

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun

A year or two: — but wallow’d in a score?

When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,

For I have more.

“I have a sin of fear, that when I’ve spun

My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;

But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son

Shall shine as He shines now, and heretofore;

And having done that, Thou hast done,

I fear no more.”

I have the rather mentioned this hymn, for that he caused it to be set to a most grave and solemn tune, and to be often sung to the organ by the choiristers of St. Paul’s Church, in his own hearing; especially at the Evening Service; and at his return from his customary devotions in that place, did occasionally say to a friend, “the words of this hymn have restored to me the same thoughts of joy that possessed my soul in my sickness, when I composed it. And, O the power of church-music! that harmony added to this hymn has raised the affections of my heart, and quickened my graces of zeal and gratitude; and I observe that I always return from paying this public duty of prayer and praise to God, with an unexpressible tranquillity of mind, and a willingness to leave the world.”

After this manner did the disciples of our Saviour, and the best of Christians in those ages of the Church nearest to His time, offer their praises to Almighty God. And the reader of St. Augustine’s life may there find, that towards his dissolution he wept abundantly, that the enemies of Christianity had broke in upon them, and profaned and ruined their sanctuaries, and because their public hymns and lauds were lost out of their Churches. And after this manner have many devout souls lifted up their hands and offered acceptable sacrifices unto Almighty God, where Dr. Donne offered his, and now lies buried.

But now , Oh Lord! how is that place become desolate!

Before I proceed further, I think fit to inform the reader, that not long before his death he caused to be drawn a figure of the Body of Christ extended upon an anchor, like those which painters draw, when they would present us with the picture of Christ crucified on the cross: his varying no otherwise than to affix Him not to a cross, but to an anchor — the emblem of Hope; — this he caused to be drawn in little, and then many of those figures thus drawn to be engraven very small in Heliotropium stones, and set in gold; and of these he sent to many of his dearest friends, to be used as seals, or rings, and kept as memorials of him, and of his affection to them.

His dear friends and benefactors, Sir Henry Goodier and Sir Robert Drewry, could not be of that number; nor could the Lady Magdalen Herbert, the mother of George Herbert, for they had put off mortality, and taken possession of the grave before him; but Sir Henry Wotton, and Dr. Hall, the then — late deceased — Bishop of Norwich, were; and so were Dr. Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury, and Dr. Henry King, Bishop of Chichester — lately deceased — men, in whom there was such a commixture of general learning, of natural eloquence, and Christian humility, that they deserve a commemoration by a pen equal to their own, which none have exceeded.

And in this enumeration of his friends, though many must be omitted, yet that man of primitive piety, Mr. George Herbert, may not; I mean that George Herbert, who was the author of “The Temple, or Sacred Poems and Ejaculations.” A book, in which by declaring his own spiritual conflicts, he hath comforted and raised many a dejected and discomposed soul, and charmed them into sweet and quiet thoughts; a book, by the frequent reading whereof, and the assistance of that Spirit that seemed to inspire the author, the reader may attain habits of peace and piety, and all the gifts of the Holy Ghost and Heaven: and may, by still reading, still keep those sacred fires burning upon the altar of so pure a heart, as shall free it from the anxieties of this world, and keep it fixed upon things that are above. Betwixt this George Herbert and Dr. Donne, there was a long and dear friendship, made up by such a sympathy of inclinations that they coveted and joyed to be in each other’s company; and this happy friendship was still maintained by many sacred endearments; of which that which followeth may be some testimony.

“TO MR. GEORGE HERBERT;

“SENT HIM WITH ONE OF MY SEALS OF THE ANCHOR AND CHRIST.

“A Sheaf of Snakes used heretofore to be my Seal, which is the Crest of our poor family.”

“Qui prius assuetus serpentum falce tabellas

Signare, hæc nostræ symbola parva domus,

Adscitus domui Domini —  —

“Adopted in God’s family, and so

My old coat lost, into new Arms I go.

The Cross, my Seal in Baptism, spread below,

Does by that form into an Anchor grow.

Crosses grow Anchors, bear as thou shouldst do

Thy Cross, and that Cross grows an Anchor too.

But He that makes our Crosses Anchors thus,

Is Christ, who there is crucified for us.

Yet with this I may my first Serpents hold; —

God gives new blessings, and yet leaves the old —

The Serpent, may, as wise, my pattern be;

My poison, as he feeds on dust, that’s me.

And, as he rounds the earth to murder, sure

He is my death; but on the Cross, my cure,

Crucify nature then; and then implore

All grace from Him, crucified there before.

When all is Cross, and that Cross Anchor grown

This Seal’s a Catechism, not a Seal alone.

Under that little Seal great gifts I send,

Both works and pray’rs, pawns and fruits of a friend.

O! may that Saint that rides on our Great Seal,

To you that bear his name, large bounty deal.

“John Donne.”

“IN SACRAM ANCHORAM PISCATORIS

“GEORGE HERBERT.

“Quod Crux nequibat fixa clavique additi, —

Tenere Christum scilicet ne ascenderet,

Tuive Christum —

“Although the Cross could not here Christ detain,

When nail’d unto’t, but He ascends again;

Nor yet thy eloquence here keep Him still,

But only whilst thou speak’st — this Anchor will:

Nor canst thou be content, unless thou to

This certain Anchor add a Seal; and so

The water and the earth both unto thee

Do owe the symbol of their certainty.

Let the world reel, we and all ours stand sure,

This holy cable’s from all storms secure.

“George Herbert.”

I return to tell the reader, that, besides these verses to his dear Mr. Herbert, and that Hymn that I mentioned to be sung in the choir of St. Paul’s Church, he did also shorten and beguile many sad hours by composing other sacred ditties; and he writ an Hymn on his death-bed, which bears this title: —

“AN HYMN TO GOD, MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESS.

“
March 23, 1630.