Edward Taylor, Meditation 33, Stanza Five

16 Sunday May 2021

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Edward Taylor, life, Literarure, Literature, Meditation 33, Mercy Seat, Poet, Poetry, Puritan

Stanza Five

Life thus abused fled to the golden ark, 25

Lay locked up there in mercy’s seat enclosed.

Which did incorporate it whence its sparke

Enlivens all things in this ark enclosed.

Oh, glorious ark! Life’s store-house full of glee!

Shall not my love safe locked up lie in thee? 30

Summary: Life, which is something external to the poet, fled from the assault of the “elf” spitting venom. The place of refuge for life was a the “golden ark”, enclosed by the “mercy seat”. And in that place of refuge life flows out as life to all things. This realization turns in a exclamation of the poet that my love should lie locked-up in the very same ark.

The Eternal Power of God At Work - Truth Immutable

Notes:

The Ark of the Covenant (not Noah’s Ark, here) was a golden box in which were placed the two copies of the Ten Commandments, the covenant between God and Israel. On top of that Ark was the Mercy Seat, the place where God would meet Israel and show them mercy:

“The Hebrew word for which “mercy seat” is the translation is technically best rendered as “propitiatory,” a term denoting the removal of wrath by the offering of a gift. The significance of this designation is found in the ceremony performed on the Day of Atonement, held once a year, when blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat to make atonement for the sins of the people of Israel (Lv 16). Because of the importance of this covering on the ark and the ceremony associated with it, the Holy of Holies in which the ark was housed in the temple is termed the “room for the mercy seat” in 1 Chronicles 28:11.” Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Mercy Seat,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1441.

To understand Taylor use of the images of the ark, mercy seat, life, Christ, we need to see how these elements were connected in Puritan writing. Without understanding the connections which would have been obvious to Taylor (but would be obscure to others), the poem seems to go in an incomprehensible direction.

If you look more broadly, the image of the mercy seat is not uncommon in the Lutheran writings. It is in places connected to Christ. The connection of Christ and the mercy-seat is rare in the Ante-Nicene Fathers. When I did a search of Calvin (granted these are all Boolean searches, and thus are limited in that manner), the connection of Christ and the mercy seat was not common. In the Puritan writers, particularly in Thomas Boston (an overlapping contemporary of Taylor), the connection of the two images is quite common.

The connection between Christ and Life is built into the framework of Christian theology.

Life/ Its sparke/enlivens all things:

Life comes from God:

“He is life itself, has life in himself, and is the fountain of life to all the creatures.” Thomas Boston, The Whole Works of Thomas Boston: An Illustration of the Doctrines of the Christian Religion, Part 1, ed. Samuel M‘Millan, vol. 1 (Aberdeen: George and Robert King, 1848), 131. Life is in Christ, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.” John 1:3

The Church (and thus the poet personally) draws its life from Christ: “The mystery of the church drawing her life out of Christ’s sleeping the sleep of death on the cross.”Thomas Boston, The Whole Works of Thomas Boston: An Illustration of the Doctrines of the Christian Religion, Part 1, ed. Samuel M‘Millan, vol. 1 (Aberdeen: George and Robert King, 1848), 179.

“Whatsoever is excellent in nature, either in heaven or earth, it serves to set forth the excellency of Christ. Why? To delight us, that we may be willing and cheerful to think of Christ; that together with the consideration of the excellency of the creature, some sweet meditation of Christ, in whom all those excellencies are knit together, might be presented to the soul. When we see the sun, oft to think of that blessed Sun that quickens and enlivens all things, and scatters the mists of ignorance. When we look on a tree, to think of the Tree of righteousness; on the way, to think of him the Way; of life, of him that is the true Life.” Richard Sibbes and Alexander Balloch Grosart, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, vol. 3 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1862), 391.

Golden Ark:

“The mercy of God is like the ark, which none but the priests were to meddle with; none may touch this golden ark of mercy but such as are ‘priests unto God,’ Rev. 1:6 and have offered up the sacrifice of tears.” Thomas Watson, “Discourses upon Christ’s Sermon on the Mount,” in Discourses on Important and Interesting Subjects, Being the Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton, & Co.; A. Fullarton & Co., 1829), 115.

Mercy Seat:

“In that Lev. 16:13, 14, you read of two things: first, of the cloud of incense that covered the mercy seat; secondly, of the blood of the bullock, that was sprinkled before the mercy-seat. Now that blood typified Christ’s satisfaction, and the cloud of incense his intercession.” Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 274.

Note further that the mercy-seat is also connected to life:

“in like manner, after our great High Priest had offered himself a sacrifice to God in his bloody death, he entered into heaven, not only with his blood, but with the incense of his prayers, as a cloud about the mercy-seat, to preserve by his life the salvation which he had purchased by his death.” Thomas Boston, The Whole Works of Thomas Boston: An Illustration of the Doctrines of the Christian Religion, Part 1, ed. Samuel M‘Millan, vol. 1 (Aberdeen: George and Robert King, 1848), 473.

Life thus abused fled to the golden ark: How did life “flee” to the ark? The concept here relies upon the concept of covenant. Human life exists in God and is given to us. Without that life, we will die. Following the Fall of Adam, we were without life. Life is made available to us again in the covenant. The New Covenant has replaced the ark and mercy seat with Christ (who is prefigured in these things, see Hebrews 9).

Couplet:

The couplet has two elements. First a praise, “Oh, glorious ark! Life’s store-house full of glee!” One aspect of this praise which sounds out of tune is the use of the word “glee.” In our contemporary use glee is an ironic way to refer to happiness – rather than boundless happiness meant by Taylor

Second, a prayer, a statement of intention: Shall not my love safe locked up lie in thee?

The point is the re-integration of love and life which has been parted in the Fall. This is a central theme in Augustine: our sinfulness is built around misdirected love. Before the Fall love was rightly directed toward life: God.

God then seeks to restore that rupture. Life is made available in the covenant, which was first figured in the Ark and Mercy Seat, then in Christ. The poet, seeing a remember for his misdirected love seeks that his love may be re-directed toward the proper goal: life, i.e., God in Christ.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 33, Stanza Four

10 Monday May 2021

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Edward Taylor, flower, life, Literature, Meditation 33, poem, Poetry, Puritan Poetry, seed

Stanza Four

Glory lined out a paradise in power

Where e’ery seed a royal coach became 20

For Life to ride in, to each shining flower.

And made man’s flower with glory all o’re flame.

Hell’s ink-faced elf black venom spit upon

The same and killed it. So that life is gone.

Summary: The original creation was a well of life: Life was in the seed and would produce into the flower. The glory of humanity was aflame. But this vibrant life was killed by an elf who spat venom into life and brought about death. “So that life is gone”

Notes:

Elf: Since Tolkien (at least) elves and fairies are considered popularly to marvelous and good creatures. It was not so with Taylor. Such things would be thought dangerous or “mad”:

“If a man riding in an open country should afar off see men and women dancing together, and should not hear their music according to which they dance and tread out their measures, he would think them to be a company of fairies and madmen, appearing in such various motions and antic postures; but if he came nearer, and heard the musical notes, according to which they exactly dance, he would find that to be art which before he thought madness.”

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 21 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1874), 107. They were examples of deception and danger:

“The world, as they say of fairies, deprives of true children, and puts changelings in their room; deprives men of true substantial joy, and gives them shadows in the room; but godliness, on the contrary, deprives of painted poisons, and gives them wholesome and real pleasures.”

George Swinnock, The Works of George Swinnock, M.A., vol. 3 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1868), 185. But this does not mean that he would have believed such were real:

“Yet here I cannot but disallow the indoctrinating of children with superstitious notions, which nuzzle them up in vulgar errors that lead unto unbelief; the affrighting of them with silly tales of bugbears, stories of hobgoblins and fairies, &c., “profane and old wives’ fables,” not tending to godliness, (1 Tim. 1:4, 6; 4:7,) which occasion needless and groundless fears, that afterwards, when they should have more brains, are not easily corrected, or not without great difficulty.”

James Nichols, Puritan Sermons, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 331.

The elf is the Serpent of Genesis 3; that is, the Devil. By “spitting venom”, he tempted the couple to sin which brought about death.

Glory lined out a paradise

The Genesis account describes the earth in three categories. First, there was Eden, which was a place from whence water flowed out and in the Garden. Second, was the Garden where God placed Adam and Eve with instruction to keep this garden. Third, was the field, the world outside the Garden. That “glory lined out” means that God laid out a garden (“paradise”).

Seeds and flowers/ light and life

Glory lined out a paradise in power

Where e’ery seed a royal coach became 20

For Life to ride in, to each shining flower.

And made man’s flower with glory all o’re flame.

In Genesis 1:11, a particular type of plant is note, “plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed.” In verse 29, God says, “Behold I have given you every plant yielding see that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in in its fruit. You shall have them for food.” Seed is thus bound up with living.

Taylor takes that emphasis in a slightly different direction, speaking of the flower which comes from the seed.

The picking of life riding through seed to flower (to seed) bearing along life like a coach is quite striking.

The whole discussion of life is filled with light: First, it was “glory” which lines out the Garden. The flowers are “shining” and man’s flower has “glory all o’re flame”. This is a bright burning light of life.

This combination of light and life comes from the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1:1–5 (AV)

Prosody:

Glory lined out a paradise in power

Where e’ery seed a royal coach became 20

For Life to ride in, to each shining flower.

And made man’s flower with glory all o’re flame.

Hell’s ink-faced elf black venom spit upon

The same and killed it. So that life is gone.

The two major sections of the stanza begin with an accented syllable: Glory in line 19 and Hell’s in line 23.

Line 23 is difficult to scan because it seems that one could accent every syllable. Certainly, one could not read the line out-loud and read it quickly.

The final line is such plan speech as to be striking in this poem. The final sentence has a remarkable finality. “So that life is gone.” It is not rhythmic, nor is there much music in it. Typically, such a line would be “bad” poetry, but here it works because of it appearing out of place. (We could say that this line sounds like a line of contemporary poetry in terms of rhythm, but of such Taylor could have no concept._

The repetition of “glory” creates a sort of inclusion: Glory lines out the garden and glory is flaming in the flower. The repetition of “fl” in flower, flower, and “flame” as well as the “L” of life and in “gLory” works well. L’s work well with “m” in “made man’s”

Edward Taylor, Meditation 33, Stanza Three

06 Thursday May 2021

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Edward Taylor, Meditation 33, nature, Poems, Poetry

Stanza Three

Nature’s amazed, Oh monstrous thing, quoth she,

Not love my life? What violence doth split

True love and life, that they should sundered be? 15

She doth not lay such eggs, nor on them sit.

How do I sever then my heart with all

It powers whose love scare to my life doth crawl.

Summary:

“Nature” now makes an appearance. “She” is amazed when she looks upon the unnatural love of Taylor of that which is not his life. This leads the poet to a question: How do I stop my heart from loving that which is not his life?

Notes:

Nature’s amazed: this is an interesting personification of nature. The concept of “nature” or “natural” has a few potential meanings, which need to be distinguished here.

First is “nature” in the sense of being or essence: it is a kind of nature you are: “Since Christ, being a divine Person, did not suffer according to His divine nature but according to His human nature, exaltation as such did not occur according to His divine nature.” Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, ed. Joel R. Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1992), 625.

Second, there is nature as opposed to grace: to be “natural” is what one is aside from the work of the Spirit. “By spiritual Edwards means “sanctified” in opposition to “carnal,” which signifies the natural or unsanctified man.” John E. Smith, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Religious Affections, ed. John E. Smith and Harry S. Stout, Revised edition., vol. 2, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 24.

Third, there is a common grace operation of the Spirit generally, which makes certain considerations “natural” to everyone, “The nature of the work of the Spirit may be learnt from the nature of his work in legal conviction. ’Tis the same common enlightening assistance of both, but only one is of evil, and the other of good. Those legal convictions that natural men have are from the common illuminations of the Spirit of God concerning evil.” Jonathan Edwards, The “Miscellanies”: (Entry Nos. 501–832), ed. Ava Chamberlain and Harry S. Stout, vol. 18, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2000), 357–358.

But a personified “Nature” is certainly not a common idiom among those of Taylor’s intellectual world. This “nature” is no human being, but rather fulfills the position of say an angel who can look upon and see Taylor, but is not himself God nor another human being.

But such an understanding immediately runs into a problem in the next line:

Nature’s amazed, Oh monstrous thing, quoth she,

Not love my life?

The “my” of “my life” means that Nature is the one conveying the life to Taylor. But that life is also in God and of God. I can understand what Taylor means by this usage, but this is not Taylor’s most theologically careful usage.

Perhaps a way to keep this line is as if “Nature” refers to the natural life which Taylor being alive. It would then be his own life speaking to him: Why don’t you cherish your own life? But that is problematic with this line:

She doth not lay such eggs, nor on them sit.

And so we are left with a vaguely personified Nature speaking to him.

Love and life:

The incoherence of sin is here laid out: He loves something which is contrary to his life. Rationally, one’s love should be to one’s own life. As Paul writes, “For no one ever hated his own flesh.” Eph. 5:29 But in sin one loves something not only trivial but also contrary to one’s own good.

This then justifies the use of “Nature” in the sense of: to love something contrary to one’s own life is certainly “unnatural”.

Finally, the quandary:

How do I sever then my heart with all

It powers whose love scare to my life doth crawl.

This is a Kierkegaardian despair: What do I do? How can I stop this of love of what is not my life? I have a heart which refuses to even seek its own good: It will not even crawl toward life.

Someone whose body was ravaged would drag and crawl out of a wreck, but his heart will not even make an effort toward it’s own life: Hence, it is unnatural.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 33 Stanza Two

04 Tuesday May 2021

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Stanza Two

Oh! What strange charm encrampt my heart with spite

Making my love gleam upon a toy?

Lay out cartloads of love upon a mite?

Scarce lay a mite of love on thee, my Joy? 10

Oh, lovely thou, shalt not thou loved be?

Shall I a-shame thee thus? Oh! Shame for me!

Summary:

The argument of the poem begins to come more in focus here: The poet demands of himself, why do I so love this thing so unworthy of love, a “toy”.

Notes:

The concept of “toy” here emphasizes unimportance or triviality far more than a plaything which might be precious to a child. For instance, Shakespeare, has Macbeth upon “hearing” that the king has been murdered, say with multiple levels of irony:

Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time; for, from this instant,
There ‘s nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.

That is, “life is meaningless” it is but a toy.

His love “gleams” upon the toy. His love produces a light which makes the toy visible. It is a striking image of love enlightening an object. Coupled with “strange charm” in the first stanza, we have an image of some sort of witchcraft:

Oh! What strange charm encrampt my heart with spite

Making my love gleam upon a toy?

Although not a direct allusion, there seems to be something in the background here of Paul to the Galatians, “Who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth” (Gal. 3:1) Something so inexplicable must be the result of a spell. Remember, that while our public culture has either a bemused or a sort of positive view of such things, Taylor would have found the idea horrifying and wicked.

Encrampt: His heart is brought under the control of something foreign (the spell) and thus does not function rightly. His heart is unnaturally constrained.

This brings us to the “spite” lying at the source of this spell which constrains his heart to fix its attention upon a pointless object.

[Midsummer night's dream, IV, 1, Titania adorns Bottom with flowers] [graphic] / [Alexandre Bida ...

Another image from Shakespeare helps, where the Tatiana Queen of the Fairies falls in love the imbecile Bottom whose human head has been replaced with a donkey head. She has fallen in love by means of a spell meant to humble her.

This brings us to the incredulous irony:

Lay out cartloads of love upon a mite?

Scarce lay a mite of love on thee, my Joy?

We have here a biblical allusion: Cartloads of treasure were brought to Moses by the leaders of each tribe at the setting up of the tabernacle. A mite reminds us of the widow who could only give a mite. It was an insignificant offering. And so a treasure of love is being loaded upon something meaningless, which his “joy” is being neglected.

The joy is identified in the first line of the poem as “My Lord, my life.” He has fallen profoundly in love with something which is utterly valueless and has in the same moment neglected his Lord and life. The only explanation can be some hideous spell.

We then end with the couplet providing a judgment upon the situation:

Oh, lovely thou, shalt not thou loved be?

Shall I a-shame thee thus? Oh! Shame for me!

He is shaming the true object of his love by withholding honor to whom honor is due and showering that upon a trifle. It is a shame, because the it is a deliberate dishonor. But in the end, it is the poet who is in shame by loving something so valueless.

Prosody:

Oh! What strange charm encrampt my heart with spite

Making my love gleam upon a toy?

Lay out cartloads of love upon a mite?

Scarce lay a mite of love on thee, my Joy? 10

Oh, lovely thou, shalt not thou loved be?

Shall I a-shame thee thus? Oh! Shame for me!

An interesting aspect of this stanza is the accent of the first syllable of every line (except the last). Also note the trochees as well as the repeated L alliteration: love/lay

OH what STRANGE CHARM

MAKING my LOVE GLEAM

LAY out CARTloads of LOVE

SCARCE LAY a MITE of LOVE

OH LOVELY thou, shalt not THOU LOVed BE?

There is the fine wordplay in the last line on a-shame/shame which works with the internal rhyme on “thee/me”.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 33

16 Friday Apr 2021

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Edward Taylor, envy, Meditation 33

Meditation 33

My Lord, my life, can envy ever be

A golden virtue? Then would God I were

Top full thereof until it colors me

With yellow streaks for thy dear sake, most dear

Till I be envious made by’t at myself, 5

As scarely loving thee, my life, my health.

Oh! What strange charm encrampt my heart with spite

Making my love gleam upon a toy?

Lay out cartloads of love upon a mite?

Scarce lay a mite of love on thee, my Joy? 10

Oh, lovely thou, shalt not thou loved be?

Shall I ashame thee thus? Oh! Shame for me!

Nature’s amazed, Oh monstrous thing, quoth she,

Not love my life? What violence doth split

True love and life, that they should sundered be? 15

She doth not lay such eggs, nor on them sit.

How do I sever then my heart with all

It powers whose love scare to my life doth crawl.

Goly lined out a paradise in power

Where e’ery seed a royal coach became 20

For Life to ride in, to each shining flower.

And made man’s flower with glory all ore flame.

Hell’s ink-faced elf black venom spt upon

The same and killed it. So that life is gone.

Life thus abused fled to the golden ark, 25

Lay locked up there in mercy’s seat enclosed.

Which did incorporate it whence its sparke

Enlivens all things in this ark enclosed.

Oh, glorious ark! Life’s store-house full of glee!

Shall not my love safe locked up lie in thee? 30

Lord ark my soule safe in thyself, whereby

I and my life again may joined be.

That I may find what once I did destroy

Again conferred upon my soul in thee.

Thou art this golden ark, this. Living tree 35

Where life lies treasured up for all in thee.

Oh! Graft me in this tree of life within

The paradise of God, that I may live.

Thy life make live in me. I’ll then begin

To bear thy living fruits, and them fort give. 40

Give me my life this way; and I’ll bestow

My love on thee, my life, and it shall grow.

Stanza One:

My Lord, my life, can envy ever be

A golden virtue? Then would God I were

Top full thereof until it colors me

With yellow streaks for thy dear sake, most dear

Till I be envious made by’t at myself, 5

As scarely loving thee, my life, my health.

Summary:

This poem beings with an address to God, whom the poet calls, “My Lord, my life”. That theme of life will run through-out the poem. The theme of “envy” will be used ironically, as noted by calling envy – a sin – a “golden virtue”. He is expressing a desire that he be filled with envy at himself because he “scarcely” love God who is his life.

At this point in the poem, the exact nature of the envy is difficult to ascertain. What do have is a jarring introduction where he wishes (would God I were) to filled with envy against himself.

Notes:

One striking question is the use of the word “yellow” for envy:

The explanation for the use of ‘yellow’ is given thus:

There is a disease in the body, called the yellow jaundice,† which makes the persons look yellow all over: this springs from the overflowing of the gall, which, overspreading the whole man, makes it lifeless, listless. Covetousness is the yellow jaundice of the soul, which arises from the overflowing of the heart with love to yellow gold, by which a Christian is dulled and deadened.

James Nichols, “How May We Get Rid of Spiritual Sloth”, Rev. Mr. Simmons, Puritan Sermons, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 440. Envy being a form of covetousness.

We are more familiar with envy being “green” from Shakespeare:

Iago:

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o’er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!

The concept of envy:

The basic concept is one desiring something.

“Not to envy the prosperity of the wicked.” John Lightfoot, The Whole Works of the Rev. John Lightfoot, ed. John Rogers Pitman, vol. 7 (London: J. F. Dove, 1822), 349. It arises from discontentment, “thy discontentedness usually breeds envy at it.” Jeremiah Burroughs, “Sermon IX,” in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (London: W. Bentley, 1651), 112. It also has the sense of being unhappy at the happiness of another, “Pride is impatient of reproof, and envy looketh with an evil eye upon their privileges and advantages in Christ.” Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 10 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 377.

Envy springing from discontentment then creates discontentment in the one on experiencing envy:

Envie is a squint-eyed foole, Job 5:2. Envie slayeth the silly one. James 3:14. If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts. Envie is a bitter thing, and causes strife, and makes that bitter too: So ver. 16. Where envying and strife is. Gal. 5:20. Hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings. 1 Cor. 3:3. There is among you envying, strife, divisions. Envy made divisions between Angels and men; it was the first sinne, not the first borne of the Devill, but that which turned Angels into Devils. The first heart-division amongst men was between Cain and Abel, and what caused it but envy? Who can stand before Envy? she is subtill, undermining, dares not appeare at the first; but if she cannot be satisfied with her under-workes, then she flings, rends, frets, and fights, uses violence, seeks to raise a contrary faction, falls on any thing in the world so be it mischief may be done

Jeremiah Burroughs, Irenicum, To the Lovers of Truth and Peace (London: Robert Dawlman, 1646), 123.

This then gives us a hint at the ironic use of envy by Taylor. He seeks to stir up a discontentment in himself to not settle for the “toy” (Stanza Two) but seek the better.

Theodore Gericault,

Portrait of a Woman Suffering from Obsessive Envy (1822)

The quality of the desire:

Consider this language of his prayer:

Then would God I were

Top full thereof until it colors me

With yellow streaks

His desire is that he becoming completely colored by this desire to the point that it is physically manifested: you would look at him and see this desire in him.

The ground of this desire:

until it colors me

With yellow streaks for thy dear sake, most dear

The prayed for envy is grounded in the Lord who is his life. The prayer itself, for the poem is a prayer, is directly addressed to “My Lord, my life”. And it is for the sake of the Lord that he wishes to be branded with this envy.

The paradoxical object of the desire:

Till I be envious made by’t at myself, 5

As scarely loving thee, my life, my health.

He seeks to be envious at himself. This presents a puzzle: How can one be envious of oneself?

The rational for the desire:

Because the poet “scarcely” love the Lord, who is his life, his health.

The quandary:

At this point we have a quandary: What does it mean that he wishes to be envious “at” himself because he does not rightly love God?

Prosody:

The stanzas are ten syllable iambic pentameter, with an ABABCC rhyme scheme. This form is known as the Italian sestet, or the sextilla.

The rhythm is regular through out. However, the phrase “by’t at” cannot satisfy the iamb well because the “by’t” must be unaccented from place: which is very difficult to perform in reading.

The interesting musical effect in this stanza is on the word “my”. The first two phrases are “my Lord, my life”, the last two, “my life, my health.” This also forms an inclusion.