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SPECIMENS

OF

SACRED AND SERIOUS

POETRY,

FROM

CHAUCER TO THE PRESENT DAY.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

THE origin of all poetry is religion; for its earliest effusions, if not the praises of the gods, are the applause of that heroic virtue which they inspire. This art, according to Bacon," has something divine in it, because it raises the mind and hurries it into sublimity, by conforming the shews of things to the desires of the soul, instead of subjecting the soul to external things, as reason and history do." But Christian communities have a still higher sanction for Sacred Poetry. The oracles of God were delivered to his chosen people by the lips of his prophets through this medium. The most ancient and the noblest strains of poetry are sacred hymns of thanksgiving and adoration, and songs of triumph for national deliverance. A very great portion of the Old Testament is filled with poetry arising from all the varying circumstances and affections which are known among mankind. Indeed, the weighty objections which are sometimes urged against Sacred Poetry, are not that it is improper, but inadequate to its mighty object as a sensible medium of intercourse between the human soul and its Maker.

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A vindication of Sacred Poetry is not, however, intended here; for there are few persons who will not acknowledge that poetry is never more worthily employed, than when it administers consolation to the sorrowful, or strengthens the faith of the wavering, or is devoted to the public service of the sanctuary :

Believe it not,

That poetry, in purer days the nurse,
Yea, parent oft of blissful piety,

Should silent keep from service of her God.

It is therefore more needful to explain the prin. ciple which has guided the selection of the following specimens, for which the title Sacred is assumed, than to expatiate on the uses and the high authority which Christians possess for Sacred Poetry.

There are many kinds of verse which are entitled to the name of religious, though differing considerably in their outward stamp. Besides those devotional lyrics, the spontaneous overflow of feelings touched by godly penitence, warmed by holy thankfulness, or animated and exalted by a strong and lively faith, there are several other species of composition, which, if not so directly the breathings of a pious spirit, are consecrated to the service of religion by high purposes and ennobling tendencies, and which are as influential with the bulk of mankind as the more unmixed effusions of devotional feeling. English literature abounds richly in the finest specimens of this important kind of

writing; and the selectors of sacred poetry act unwisely in gleaning so scantily from the ample treasures laid up in our best days. The critical acuteness and good taste of a few poets and scholars, have lately turned the attention of the lovers of literature upon the brightest and most fertile period of English poetry, the years which followed the Reformation, the reign of Elizabeth and her successors; but it still seems unknown that this age was quite as memorable for religious as for dramatic and descriptive poetry.

With the Reformation a spirit was diffused among the higher orders of society, which, if not strictly religious, was at least highly favourable to religion. In the reign of Henry VIII., Surrey and Wyatt, the most accomplished courtiers, and first poets of their age, employed their pens in translating the Psalms; and almost every man of eminence among the British poets, from the reign of Elizabeth till the Restoration, made some attempt, more or less successful, to render poetry the handmaid of religion; either in the gentle, courteous, and indirect spirit of Spenser; the lofty, austere, and authoritative tone of Milton; or with the fervid and pious earnestness of Crawshaw and Herbert. This holds alike of Protestant and Romanist, Puritan and Cavalier; for there were religious poets of all these denominations. To modern compilers of sacred poetry, the names of Drayton, Fletcher, Vaux, and Vaughan, seem unknown, if not those of Herbert and Crawshaw; while Spenser and Mil

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