Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. III. The Eighteenth Century: Addison to Blake

Christopher Smart (1722–1771)

Extracts from A Song to David

O THOU that sit’st upon a throne,

With harp of high majestic tone,

To praise the King of kings;

And voice of heaven-ascending swell,

Which, while its deeper notes excel,

Clear as a clarion rings:

To bless each valley, grove and coast,

And charm the cherubs to the post

Of gratitude in throngs;

To keep the days on Zion’s mount,

And send the year to his account

With dances and with songs:

O servant of God’s holiest charge,

The minister of praise at large,

Which thou may’st now receive;

From thy blest mansion hail and hear,

From topmost eminence appear

To this the wreath I weave.

Great, valiant, pious, good, and clean,

Sublime, contemplative, serene,

Strong, constant, pleasant, wise!

Bright effluence of exceeding grace;

Best man!—the swiftness and the race,

The peril, and the prize!

Great—from the lustre of his crown,

From Samuel’s horn and God’s renown,

Which is the people’s voice;

For all the host, from rear to van,

Applauded and embraced the man—

The man of God’s own choice.

Valiant—the word and up he rose—

The fight—he triumphed o’er his foes,

Whom God’s just laws abhor;

And armed in gallant faith he took

Against the boaster, from the brook,

The weapons of the war.

Pious—magnificent and grand;

’Twas he the famous temple planned

(The seraph in his soul);

Foremost to give his Lord his dues,

Foremost to bless the welcome news,

And foremost to condole.

Good—from Jehudah’s genuine vein,

From God’s best nature good in grain,

His aspect and his heart;

To pity, to forgive, to save;

Witness Engedi’s conscious cave,

And Shimei’s blunted dart.

Clean—if perpetual prayer be pure,

And love, which could itself inure

To fasting and to fear—

Clean in his gestures, hands, and feet,

To smite the lyre, the dance complete,

To play the sword and spear.

Sublime—invention ever young,

Of vast conception, towering tongue

To God th’ eternal theme;

Notes from yon exaltations caught,

Unrivalled royalty of thought

O’er meaner strains supreme.

Contemplative—on God to fix

His musings, and above the six

The sabbath-day he blest;

’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned,

And heavenly melancholy tuned,

To bless and bear the rest.

Serene—to sow the seeds of peace,

Remembering, when he watched the fleece,

How sweetly Kidron purled—

To further knowledge, silence vice,

And plant perpetual paradise

When God had calmed the world.

Strong—in the Lord, who could defy

Satan, and all his powers that lie

In sempiternal night;

And hell, and horror, and despair

Were as the lion and the bear

To his undaunted might.

Constant—in love to God the truth,

Age, manhood, infancy and youth—

To Jonathan his friend

Constant, beyond the verge of death,

And Ziba and Mephibosheth

His endless fame attend.

Pleasant—and various as the year;

Man, soul, and angel, without peer,

Priest, champion, sage, and boy;

In armour or in ephod clad,

His pomp, his piety was glad;

Majestic was his joy.

Wise—in recovery from his fall,

Whence rose his eminence o’er all,

Of all the most reviled;

The light of Israel in his ways,

Wise are his precepts, prayer and praise

And counsel to his child.

His muse, bright angel of his verse,

Gives balm for all the thorns that pierce,

For all the pangs that rage;

Blest light, still gaining on the gloom,

The more than Michal of his bloom,

Th’ Abishag of his age.

He sung of God—the mighty source

Of all things—the stupendous force

On which all strength depends;

From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes,

All period, power and enterprise

Commences, reigns, and ends.

Angels—their ministry and meed,

Which to and fro with blessings speed,

Or with their citterns wait;

Where Michael with his millions bows,

Where dwells the seraph and his spouse,

The cherub and her mate.

Of man—the semblance and effect

Of God and Love—the Saint elect

For infinite applause—

To rule the land, and briny broad,

To be laborious in his laud,

And heroes in his cause.

The world—the clustering spheres He made,

The glorious light, the soothing shade,

Dale, champaign, grove and hill;

The multitudinous abyss,

Where secrecy remains in bliss,

And wisdom hides her skill.

Trees, plants, and flowers—of virtuous root;

Gem yielding blossom, yielding fruit,

Choice gums and precious balm;

Bless ye the nosegay in the vale,

And with the sweetness of the gale

Enrich the thankful psalm.

Of fowl—e’en every beak and wing

Which cheer the winter, hail the spring,

That live in peace or prey;

They that make music, or that mock,

The quail, the brave domestic cock,

The raven, swan, and jay.

Of fishes—every size and shape

Which nature frames of light escape,

Devouring man to shun:

The shells are in the wealthy deep,

The shoals upon the surface leap,

And love the glancing sun.

Of beasts—the beaver plods his task,

While the sleek tigers roll and bask,

Nor yet the shades arouse;

Her cave the mining coney scoops;

Where o’er the mead the mountain stoops

The kids exult and browse.

Of gems—their virtue and their price,

Which hid in earth from man’s device,

Their darts of lustre sheathe;

The jasper of the master’s stamp,

The topaz blazing like a lamp

Among the mines beneath.

O David, highest on the list

Of worthies, on God’s ways insist,

The genuine word repeat:

Vain are the documents of men,

And vain the flourish of the pen

That keeps the fool’s conceit.

Praise above all—for praise prevails:

Heap up the measure, load the scales,

And good to goodness add:

The generous soul her favour aids,

But peevish obloquy degrades;

The Lord is great and glad.

For adoration all the ranks

Of angels yield eternal thanks,

And David in the midst;

With God’s good poor, which, last and least

In man’s esteem, thou to thy feast,

O blessed bridegroom, bidst.

For adoration seasons change,

And order, truth, and beauty range,

Adjust, attract, and fill:

The grass the polyanthus checks;

And polished porphyry reflects,

By the descending rill.

Rich almonds colour to the prime

For adoration; tendrils climb,

And fruit-trees pledge their gems;

And Ivis with her gorgeous vest

Builds for her eggs her cunning nest,

And bell-flowers bow their stems.

Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,

And drops upon the leafy limes;

Sweet Hermon’s fragrant air:

Sweet is the lily’s silver bell,

And sweet the wakeful tapers smell

That watch for early prayer.

Sweet the young nurse with love intense,

Which smiles o’er sleeping innocence;

Sweet when the lost arrive:

Sweet the musician’s ardour beats,

While his vague mind ’s in quest of sweets,

The choicest flowers to hive.

Sweeter in all the strains of love

The language of thy turtle dove

Paired to thy swelling chord;

Sweeter with every grace endued

The glory of thy gratitude

Respired unto the Lord.

Strong is the horse upon his speed;

Strong in pursuit the rapid glede,

Which makes at once his game:

Strong the tall ostrich on the ground;

Strong thro’ the turbulent profound

Shoots xiphias to his aim.

Strong is the lion—like a coal

His eyeball—like a bastion’s mole

His chest against the foes;

Strong, the gier-eagle on his sail,

Strong against tide th’ enormous whale

Emerges as he goes.

But stronger still, in earth and air,

And in the sea, the man of prayer;

And far beneath the tide;

And in the seat to faith assigned,

Where ask is have, where seek is find,

Where knock is open wide.

Beauteous the fleet before the gale;

Beauteous the multitudes in mail,

Ranked arms and crested heads:

Beauteous the garden’s umbrage mild,

Walk, water, meditated wild,

And all the bloomy beds.

Beauteous the moon full on the lawn;

And beauteous, when the veil’s withdrawn,

The virgin to her spouse:

Beauteous the temple decked and filled,

When to the heaven of heavens they build

Their heart-directed vows.

Beauteous, yea beauteous more than these,

The shepherd-king upon his knees

For his momentous trust;

With wish of infinite conceit,

For man, beast, mute, the small and great,

And prostrate dust to dust.

Precious the bounteous widow’s mite;

And precious, for extreme delight,

The largess from the churl:

Precious the ruby’s blushing blaze,

And alba’s blest imperial rays,

And pure cerulean pearl.

Precious the penitential tear;

And precious is the sigh sincere,

Acceptable to God:

And precious are the winning flowers,

In gladsome Israel’s feast of bowers,

Bound on the hallowed sod.

More precious that diviner part

Of David, even the Lord’s own heart,

Great, beautiful, and new;

In all things where it was intent,

In all extremes, in each event

Proof—answering true to true.

Glorious the sun in mid career;

Glorious th’ assembled fires appear;

Glorious the comet’s train:

Glorious the trumpet and alarm;

Glorious th’ almighty stretched-out arm;

Glorious th’ enraptured main:

Glorious the northern lights astream;

Glorious the song, when God’s the theme;

Glorious the thunder’s roar:

Glorious hosanna from the den;

Glorious the catholic amen;

Glorious the martyr’s gore:

Glorious—more glorious is the crown

Of Him that brought salvation down,

By meekness call’d thy Son;

Thou at stupendous truth believed,

And now the matchless deed’s achieved,

Determined, dared, and done.