THREE POEMS OF St. PAUL's Cathedral: VIZ. The RUINS. The REBUILDING. The CHOIRE.
Verum Haec tantum alias inter caput extulit
Urbis,
Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.
LONDON, Printed by Ben. Griffin for Sam. Keble, at the Turk's-Head, over against Fetter-lane, in Fleet-street, 1697.
[...]
The RUINS.
Writ in the Year,
1668.
IT was a Curious, tho' a mournful Thought,
Led me to visit that unsightly Place,
Where dismal Fate such a sad Change had wrought,
That none cou'd know the Object by the Face.
I who have seen thy beauties Pride, before,
Thou Queen of
England's Churches, I who here
Have heard thy charming Voice, view thee once more,
Tho' now nor Speech, nor Comliness appear.
Yet Speechless as thou art, were
Donne, and all
Those moving Preachers, here, that once were thine,
All they cou'd say were less Emphatical
Of Death, false Glory, and deceiful Time.
I did suppose 'em here, and they are here!
What Wonder's this? Those who before did Teach
Such Doctrines, now lie mute, and disappear,
And even these Stones assume their place, and Preach.
The parts so many in this Sermon are,
As there are places in this ruin'd Pile,
First see, where that wild Dunghill lies, just there
Beauty and Order sat enthroned e'rewhile.
Beauty! What art thou, posting thus away?
If
Pauls which stood this Island's Fame and Grace
Above a Thousand Years, fell in one Day,
How canst thou last one moment in a Face?
See in that place Confusions thick-sown Field,
With Limbs of Tombs: A Lady's Arm lies there
Of Aliblaster, in a Marble Sheild,
'Twixt half a Knight, and a Devote at Prayer.
A Casual heap of divers sorts of Stone,
In several Forms, all met from several Ways,
As if their meeting was design'd, alone,
A Monument of Discord, here, to raise.
Here's an imperfect Limb, and there lies more:
Thus, Poets say, when the Great Floud was gone,
Lookt
Pyrrha's Stones which did Mankind restore,
Their Humain shape scarce being half put on.
What Lead is that so bruis'd, and smear'd with Filth,
Lies on the Brink of those new open'd Graves,
Like a fresh Furrow turn'd up by the Tilth,
Or Wreck new cast ashoar by angry Waves?
See Letters too,
Hic jacet
Nicholaus Bacon miles quondam Custos magni Sigilli
Angliae sub
Elizabetha Regina, qui functus est Officio viginti annos. Ob. An. Dom.
1578. Cast on a leaden Coffin.
that say,
Bacon lies hereFirst Chancellor of that Name, who heretofore
Kept that unquiet Office twenty Year,
But cannot keep the peaceful Grave Fivescore.
This Lead in
Pauls might as a Wonder shew,
But that Humility is Ruin proof:
Safe and intire this lay i'th' Floor below,
While Flames did humble that above the Roof.
Ha! What is that peeps through yon' Grave and Shroud
With such a frighted, and a frightful look?
Gastly as Comets from behind a Cloud,
When they declare what's Writ in fates Black Book.
Gallants, what think ye, will this fashion do?
A Wig may well supply his loss of Hair:
His Nose is gone, that may be wanting too;
But here's no Eyes, ah! That is past repair.
Now wou'd you have an Object to invade
All that is Man within you, by the sight,
See there Death presence Chamber quite display'd:
Ha! this doth both the Eye, and Nose affright.
Yet mind how that bold Sexton there doth tread
Familiarly upon the Trunk half Clay,
And crams to it the Bones of several Dead:
Sure he's more Dead and Senceless than are they!
Look here, you Wantons, for like this must be
Your last soft Bed, and such your spacious Room;
Such Garb, such Mrith, and such gay Company,
And such an Odoriferous Perfume.
Where's the rich
Cenotaph, and richer
Shrine,
With all those pompous Words here lately read,
Which Princes made Majestick, Saints, Divine?
All sunk, and perisht all, as are their Dead.
Memorials need their Epitaphs! We might
(Cou'd we as truly point the where, and whom)
With some Coal of this ruin'd Fabrick, write
Here lies within this place that Great Man's Tomb.
False Guardians! You but ill discharge your Trust,
Thus from your silent Wards to fall away;
Mingling your Rubbish with their finer Dust:
While of your Dead you nothing shew, or say.
Scarcely their Names remain: Yet
Bishop
Braybrook supposed.
one of theseSlept in his Grave two hundred Years, intire.
Nor wonder; he who owns this House can please
To guard his Saints both from the Earth, and Fire.
Oh Revernd Man! If I mayn't call thee more
Than such, when to this prefect Shape of thine
Flames knew their distance, and Worms seem'd t'adore,
Thou wast thine own best Epitaph, and Shrine.
But how cou'd Tombs preserve their Dead, so small,
When
Pauls nor them, nor her own self cou'd save?
The greater Monument on the less did fall;
And what was once their Glory, is their Grave.
This ponderous Fall in its sad passage hath
Open'd a place that was both Roof and Floor:
A Reverend Vault sacred to
Holy Faith,
Which n'ere was violated thus before.
Now the Old Tower's t'ane down; and with good Cause,
Tho' spared by angry Flames; yet for the Head
Still to survive, is against Nature's Laws,
When all the Body, and its Limbs are dead.
See yet another Ruin; here were laid
Choice Authors by the Servants of the Muses:
And here to sacrilegious Flames betray'd:
To spare or Wit, or Temples, Fire refuses.
These half burnt Papers, lying here, needs must
Be for the Library of the Dead mistook:
And for a Scholar, fal'n himself to dust,
Ashes of Paper is a proper Book.
Cou'dst thou not,
Pauls, in all thy Vaults of Stone,
Preserve these Papers from the Tyrant Flame?
When thou by Paper, and by it alone,
Art still preserved to triumph o're the same.
Wer't not for Books, the Loss had double been:
But that thou art in
Dugdale's painful Story
And Beautious Illustrations, to be seen,
Thy Memory had perisht with thy Glory.
See the Reward of learned Pains! as he
Hath writ for
Pauls a Monument to Fame,
So the same
Pauls in gratitude will be
An Everlasting Honour to his Name.
The Rebuilding.
Writ in the Year,
1677.
WHat Infant Beauty's this with Royal Grace,
Springs up a grateful Object to our Eyes
In so deform'd and desolate a Place?
As Chymick Flowers from their own Ashes rise.
Does Time revolve back to the
Saxons Days,
Devotions more than Golden Age? 'Twas thus
Those were employed who did the Temples raise,
And left, I blush I can not say, to us.
For a succeeding Age produc'd a Race
That durst assume the (then unthought of) Guilt,
And with a false but equal Zeal, deface
What the
True Puritans before had built.
But now slow time repays again that Debt
Which kind Antiquity of old did lend:
Fate has a Monarch raised who, Good as Great,
Does like himself, our wounded Faith defend.
Tell of the pious
Ethelbert no more,
Nor mention peaceful
Edgar's happy Fame,
Since that renown they justly claim'd before,
Lessens and drowns in
Charles his greater Name.
Those Royal Saints rejoice where now they reign,
To see the chief of all their mighty Heirs,
Under his Government restore again
The Darling Peace, and Piety of theirs.
To such a King what Duty ought appear,
How much of unfeign'd Reverence and Love?
Who not alone pleases all Good Men, here,
But adds a Joy to the Blest Souls above.
He
London raised, ruin'd and sunk in Fire,
To her now State, and as a Crown to all
(Since higher than Heaven no
Hero can aspire)
Restores the Honour of her Patron
Paul.
Paul, a great Prince among the Twelve, and our
Peculiar Doctor, after all the Grief
He lately suffer'd from a Rebel Power,
Has found at
Caesars Judgment-Seat, Relief.
Who has not heard how they these Walls did stain
Making a Church a loathsome Stable? Thus
The Saint with Beasts encounter'd once again,
More Barberous than those at
Ephesus.
Since like a common
House, Flames did surprize
The Roof: the Church obscured in Ruins, lay;
'Till now Great
Charles bids her a Temple rise,
And from her Ten Years sleep, salute the Day.
Here, while the Powers of Art are all imploy'd
To build, what's past the thought of Reparation;
The very Ruins are themselves distroy'd,
And the Whole levelled to the first Foundation.
Once more from nothing
Pauls shall peirce the Sky!
So at the last and universal flame,
Man from that Earth where he dissolved did lie,
Shall spring new made, more fair, and yet the same.
Ruin does thus the way to Beauty prove:
And if a Paradox like this, can be,
The Immaterial Church in time may move
Out of Confusion to Conformity.
Rise a good Omen to our Churches Peace,
Thou reverend Structure; and as thy Saint
Paul
(Whose Honour did by being 'orecome increase)
Advance more Great and Glorious from thy Fall.
But since a Work like this must slowly rise,
And few may live to see it built out-right,
To satisfy this Generation's Eyes,
Behold in little a Prophetick
The Model.
SightThus when in flames th'
Arabian Bird expires,
To live again in a more vigorous Birth,
A little
Phenix from those Funeral Fires
Starts up the Embryo-Wonder of the Earth.
What miracle of Art will grow from hence,
And Challenge through the World a Parallel,
When the bare Model only, for expence,
And real value, does so far excell?
But something more majestick than even this,
May we with solid Reason well expect,
Where to the Work a
Charles auspicious is:
An aid so Great can have no small effect.
That darling Name shall be for ever blest;
And all who help this noble Pile to rise,
When from their happy Labours here, they rest,
Eternal Fame shall mention their due praise.
What did I say? Only Eternal Fame?
Better Records are to such merit given;
Angels shall write with their own Quills each name
I'th' everlasting Registers of Heaven.
While every Artist, who is any way
Concern'd in this illustrious Edifice,
Like Officers who their own Pensions pay,
Builds his own Monument in building This.
Earths Cabinet of Rarities, famed
Rome,
No longer now, remains without compare;
Since
British Architecture dares presume
To vie with the most celebrated there.
Britain, who tho', perhaps, the last she be
To imitate what's Great in Foreign parts,
Yet when she that hath done, we always see,
Th' inventors she excells in their own Arts.
Oh, happy
Englishmen! if we cou'd know
Our Happiness, and our too active fears
Of being wretched, did not make us so!
What cause of grief, but this alone, appears.
France, and her Neighbours flame in mutual War,
Seeking by Arms each others Rest t'invade;
But while they burn and bleed, we only, are
Rich in an envy'd Peace, and Foreign Trade.
While there nor Church, nor Sanctuary, can
Sheild the rich Merchant from the armed Rout,
Nor Virgin from the lust of furious Man,
Our Island one
Asylum seems, throughout.
Sacred and Civil Structures, there, decrease,
And while to Arms their lofty Heads submit,
We are imploy'd in the best works of Peace,
And erect Temples to the God of it.
The CHOIRE.
Writ in the Year,
1697.
TH'
Almighty Architect forms in Mankind
The Heart, and nobler Organs of the Soul,
In the first place; so here first built we find
The sacred
Choire, that animates the Whole.
Full twenty Years (a time but short when past,
Tho' long to come) this noble Object gave:
See and admire, what Miracles at last
We may by patient Expectation have.
'Tis true th'
Eternal built the World's vast Frame
By one commanding Word, then left to Man
With time to furnish, and adorn the same:
The Creature works not as this Maker can!
Those who extoll old
Rome are forced to say
The Great
Vitruvius in our
Wren survives:
The Sons of Modern
Rome as truly may
Confess, the ancient Piety still lives.
Such solid Art, and uniform Design,
Admiring
England ne're did yet behold:
Where Strength and Curiosity combine,
To same these latter Days above the old.
What shall I first applaud, what first display?
The charming Objects please so many ways,
That in the Choice 'tis difficult to say
Where to begin; more where to end our Praise.
Without, within, below, above, the Eye
Is fill'd with equal Wonder and Delight;
Beauty appears in all Variety,
Yet in each different Dress, 'tis exquisite.
The rich
Festoons are of such noble kind
Around the Sacred Pile, as sure had been
Too good for outward Work, did we not find
Something more Great, more Wonderful, within.
The
Gates that open to this Glorious Place
Are of so rare, so exquisite a Mold,
Who views 'em thinks he has before his Face
The Temple-Gate call'd
Act. 3.2.
Beautiful of Old.Rich in their Price, in Workmanship no less,
And still to make it more Authentical,
The hammer'd Mettle carries an Impress
Of Holy
Peter joyn'd to that of
Paul.
Well may St.
Peter's Figure here be seen,
For if those Gates of which he shews the Keys
Have ever truly represented been,
It is undoubtedly by such as these.
The
Organ such, for Pipes, Case, Cost, and those
Rich Marble Legs on which the Frame does stand,
That all who see the Work may well suppose
This the
Cathedral Organ of the Land.
Such Ornaments, such Miracles of Art,
Enrich the
Stalls, those Springs of Harmony,
That did nor Voice, nor Organ, bear their part,
Yet this alone, were Musick to the Eye.
A Cherub's Head appears o're every Seat
Form'd with surpassing Skill, as hov'ring there
Like the bright Ministers of Heaven who wait
To catch, and carry up the Suppliants Prayer.
The pollisht
Floor seems to th' admiring Eye
Too Rich and Delicate to tread upon:
More precious, here, than such in
Italy;
For here 'tis Marble, there, the Country Stone.
The
Altar-Piece, and Decorations there,
Are of a New, and singular Design:
And all as pleasing as surprizing are,
While with a solemn Gayety they shine.
This is a handsome Abstract of the Whole:
For all the Objects that we here do find
Are so adapted to a pious Soul,
At once they cheer, and elivate, the Mind.
How inexcusable is then that Man
Who backward goes, or in By-paths will stray,
When in this open, easie Road, he can
Advance to Heaven in such a heavenly Way?
London has no a Church! Long mist before:
For 'tis a certain Truth which all must own,
That for the space of thirty Years, or more,
The Parish had a Church, the City none.
He who ascends the Roof, and thence looks down,
While all around he takes th' amazing View▪
Of this Unbounded, and still growing Town,
Stupendious Great, and no less Beautious too,
Graced with so many Spires, such Princely Halls,
Whole Streets of Wonders, readily admits
That such a City fits a Church like
Pauls,
And such a Church such City well befits.
Majestick Beauty! when the Harmony
Which from thy tuneful Voice is daily given,
Blesses the Ear, while thus you please the Eye,
How justly both appear a Tast of Heaven!
Musick, which charms a Soul so many ways,
Can all th' Affections of the mind produce,
And every Passion mitigate and raise,
Is best imploy'd for God, in sacred use.
The only Science that's in Heaven profest,
Useless are other Arts, which we admire:
In this the Angells joyn and all the Blest,
Who with Mankind make one full, perfect, Choire.
By Musick's Scale (like
Jacob's Ladder) we
In Spirit mount the highest Heavens, and thus
Meet Angels in united Harmony;
And the same way Angels descend to us.
Praise is the noblest Sacrifice, and paid
Duly from noblest Souls, but always best
(When to the best of Objects, Heaven, 'tis made)
With Songs, and Instruments of Joy, exprest.
Most aptly then, and with a happy Choice,
In a Thanksgiving and an Act of Praise,
This Church revives,
First opened on the
2d. of
Decemb. 1697. a Publick Thanksgiving day for the Peace.
for Peace, her long lost Voice:Celestial Peace! For which the whole Church prays.
Peace, that shut
Janus Temple, opens this:
And thus in Consequence it ought to be;
So fully opposite the Difference is
'Twixt true Religion, and Idolatry.
Apace the mighty Fabrick now will rise,
And the Whole finisht, soon, we hope to see;
Since in the Work the Church, her self imploys,
By dayly Prayer, and sacred Harmony.
To build with Harmony proves strangely true!
False and incredible did once appear
What some have said
Amphion's Lute cou'd do;
'Twas Fiction then, but now we see it, here.
FINIS.
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EPicteti Enchiridion, made English. In a Poetical Paraphrase. By Ellis Walker, M. A. Printed for Sam. Keble at the Turk's-Head in Fleet-street, over against Fetterlane.