T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, Section IV

17 Friday Jun 2022

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Burnt Norton, poem, Poem Analysis, Poetry, Poetry Analysis, T.S. Eliot

The longer I work with this poem (the previous post on this poem is here) the more evocative and allusive it becomes. It certainly does not fit to into any easily assigned “meaning.” There is no quick code here to “understand” it. Rather it provokes pondering.

Time and the bell have buried the day,

The black cloud carries the sun away.

Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis

Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray

Clutch and cling?

Chill

Fingers of yew be curled

Down on us? After the kingfisher’s wing

Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still

At the still point of the turning world.

The third section ended as we “descend lower” from the “place of disaffection.” Down from the world which can only distract with distraction, down into “the world of perpetual solitude.” A place of “abstention from movement” which is contrasted with “the world [which] moves in appetency, on its metalled ways.” The world is craving its metalled ways (which reminds of Blake’s satanic mills, and the nightmare of factories in The Old Curiosity Shop) The day – presumably of the “real world” have been buried, which is a grim picture. The burial has come from the movement of time, and the bell which marks the movement of time and the end of the world.

The cloud that carries the sun away reminds us of the sun which filled the pool with water, in the speculative, memory world of the first section:

And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight …

Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.

Here the cloud has come has taken all the light out of the world; yet here the light does not merely pass, it is carried away. The cloud is not merely coming before the sun, it is a black cloud which extinguishes the sun.

Will the sunflower turn to us,

He then turns to the sunflower – which famously tracks the movement of the sun as it passes the sky. This makes the question curious: A sunflower does not track people. But in this place, with the sun itself gone, perhaps this flower will provide a substitute.

It is hard to know what to make of this question.

will the clematis

Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray

Clutch and cling?

When we come to the climbing, flowering vine, the question shifts slightly. Will the garden grow with flowers. This again reminds us of the garden where speculation and memory brought us in the first section.

The third question brings this to a grim resolution:

Chill

Fingers of yew be curled

Down on us?

A yew tree is poisonous. Moreover, the trees are planted in churchyards in England. The sun is gone, the sunflower will ignore us, the garden will not grow for us. Will we face poison and the graveyard? This section began with the verb “buried” as the end of the day.

This monstrous tree seems to be clutching down toward the poet.

We come to yet another allusion to the first section. At first, it was a thrush which led them to the speculative garden. Here, rather than a thrush is a kingfisher.

After the kingfisher’s wing

Has answered light to light, and is silent,

The meaning seems to be that the color of the kingfisher’s wing is a light which answers back to light. It is interesting that the flowers are questionable in their interaction with “us”. The yew tree is coming for us, but the bird belongs to a different sphere.

That is further emphasized because the kingfisher is “silent” as to us. It answers the light, but not us. The thrush called the poet along. The kingfisher is otherwise engaged.

It is possible that the kingfisher also is a more violent bird than a thrush.

As noted in the beginning, this section enters after the “descent” of section III. With the buried day and the bird who no longer speaks to us, it would be easy for the poem to descend wholly into despair. But this section ends with this:

the light is still

At the still point of the turning world.

The day may be buried, but the light is not extinguished. There is a place for hope at the still point of the turning world.

The tone of this section reminds of the jarring mix of registers at the beginning of The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock:

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

The section begins with the very song-like lines:

Time and the bell have buried the day,

The black cloud carries the sun away.

The rhythm and the sound carries the lines along. But the content is deadly. Looking back at these words, especially after the encounter with the yew tree, “Time and bell” are more than just the marker for the end of a workday. This is a funeral bell. This is a burial.

The understanding of the lines thus change as you consider more of the context. A burial of sorts has come to us. Is there any hope here? If we cannot have the sun can we have a sunflower? No. At least a flowering vine? No. Instead the yew tree has come to poison and bury us. What about that thrush that led us to the garden – this is sort of like a garden. Here there is no thrush, there is a kingfisher who is silent. What then? Well, there is still light at the still point. Time perhaps will kill, but there is a still point still.

My life? The black cloud will drag away the sun. Time and the bell will put out the light. I may look at the flowers and birds, but it is the yew tree which will come for me.

And even now, as I think about it, I see another allusion lying behind the poem: flowers and birds:

““Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:25–33, ESV)

This allusion to things which will perish so quickly: flowers and birds. He is looking to them for some sort of protection against the loss. It is these things which Jesus holds up as examples of that which quickly perishes.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 40 conclusion (Was ever heart like mine)

07 Tuesday Jun 2022

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Tenth Stanza

Lord take thy sword: these Anakims destroy: 55

Then soak my soul in Zion’s bucking tub:

With holy soap and nitre, and rich lye

From all defilement me cleanse, wash, and rub.

Then rinse and wring me out till th’water fall

As pure as in the well: not foul at all. 60

Eleventh Stanza

And let thy sun shine on my head out clear

And bathe my heart within its radiant beams:

Thy Christ make my propitiation dear.

Thy praise shall from my heart break forth in streams.

This reaching virtue of Christ’s blood will quench 65

Thy wrath, slay sin, in thy love me bench.

Notes

These two stanzas should be taken together for they concern the resolution of the whole. Since there is hope, the poet presses his case. In this he makes three interrelated petitions.

First, there is the petition to kill his devilish enemy:

Lord take thy sword: these Anakims destroy:

Anakim is a reference to an enemy of Israel whom God destroyed to save the people. Deut. 2:21. The Devils are here referred to as “Anakims.” References to the destruction of Anakim, used as a figure or illustration was not uncommon among the Puritans, for instance: “Jesus doth not free us from Egypt, but from wrath to come: 1 Thes. 1:10, ‘To wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.’ He doth not vanquish Anakims, but the devil; to deliver us from the hurt and fear of him: Heb. 2:14, ‘That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.’ He doth not only lead us into Canaan, but into heaven, into a better land of promise.” Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 19 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1874), 455.

Second, is the petition to be cleansed from sin:

Then soak my soul in Zion’s bucking tub:

With holy soap and nitre, and rich lye

From all defilement me cleanse, wash, and rub.

Then rinse and wring me out till th’water fall

As pure as in the well: not foul at all.

Buck here refers to alkaline lye used to bleach linen or yarn. This was referred as “buck washing.” Nitre is potassium nitrate, used for washing. The plea here is for every sort of bleach and cleanser to be used on his heart and to make him clean from all sin.

The biblical allusion which seems closest comes David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 51”

Psalm 51:1–12 (ESV)

¹ Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin!

³ For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.

⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you may be justified in your words

and blameless in your judgment.

⁵ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,

and in sin did my mother conceive me.

⁶ Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,

and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

⁷ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

⁹ Hide your face from my sins,

and blot out all my iniquities.

¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me.

¹¹ Cast me not away from your presence,

and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and uphold me with a willing spirit.

The prayer for cleansing continues into the next stanza where he prays that having been scrubbed he may be set out to dry, like washed clothes.

And let thy sun shine on my head out clear

And bathe my heart within its radiant beams:

The third petition is for forgiveness of his sin, “propitiation”:

Thy Christ make my propitiation dear.

“Thy Christ” comes from Psalm 2:2

Psalm 2:2 (ESV)

² The kings of the earth set themselves,

and the rulers take counsel together,

against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,

Anointed is “Christ” (κατὰ τοῦ χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ)

The poem then ends with the praise for what God has done for him:

Thy praise shall from my heart break forth in streams.

This reaching virtue of Christ’s blood will quench 65

Thy wrath, slay sin, in thy love me bench.

The last line explains that the blood of Christ will turn away judgment (thy wrath), turn his heart from sin (slay sin), and will leave him resting in the love of God (in thy love me bench).

Edward Taylor, Meditation 40.4 (Was ever heart like mine)

03 Friday Jun 2022

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Seventh Stanza

My reason now’s more than my sense, I feel

I have more sight than sense. Which seems to be

A rod of sun beams t’whip me for my steel.

My spirit’s spiritless, and dull in me 40

For my dead prayerless prayers, the Spirit’s wind

Scarce blows my mill about. I little grind.

Notes

Here is the quandary:

Taylor can see and understand his sin, and he can hate it. Why then can he not stop it? He gives an explanation developed by means of two parallel descriptions. First,

My reason now’s more than my sense,

“Sense” means emotion, desire, as in the contrast of Austen’s title, “Sense and Sensibility”. I am conflicted between my intellect and my passions. Passion and reason are often seen as conflicting aspects of the human heart:

“He that lets loose the reins upon the necks of the unruly horses of his passions, will endanger the tumbling his reason out of the chariot.” James Nichols, Puritan Sermons, vol. 1, Samuel Lee (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 154.

“We had need to maintain a strong garrison of holy reasons against the assaults of strong passions; we may hope for the best, but fear the worst, and prepare to bear whatsoever.”

Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1862), 163.

“Sin, in the first motions and titillations thereof, in the natural conflict, the fight is between distinct faculties, reason and passion, and so is at a distance, and as it were by missile arms; but in the spiritual conflict, the fight is close and immediate, there is something of grace in every faculty to encounter the corruption there.” Edward Polhill, The Works of Edward Polhill (London: Thomas Ward and Co., 1844), 276.

The concept here is that sin has better access to the heart through the passions than through reason, sin being by definition irrational. His trouble is irrational.

The second contrast:

I feel

I have more sight than sense.

Here the word “sense” takes on a different meaning, more akin to “sensibility.” I feel (which has implicitly been condemned in the first contrast with rationality) that I can see this better (sight) than I have reason (the sense) to stop what I am doing.

The poet can see and understand what is happening within him, but he feels unable to transform the working of his heart. He is seeing himself invested with a contrary army driving him along against his will. The effect of this is to increase his sense of guilt. These thoughts persecute him for his inability to change (his steel):

Which seems to be

A rod of sun beams t’whip me for my steel.

The sun beams are his knowledge of his situation, which only brings him trouble.

If he cannot count on his own heart, then certainly he can count on the work of the Holy Spirit to transform his heart. But even that seems ineffective:

My spirit’s spiritless, and dull in me 40

For my dead prayerless prayers, the Spirit’s wind

Scarce blows my mill about.

In both Greek and Hebrew (which would in Taylor’s knowledge and mind) the word for spirit is also the word for wind. The “Spirit’s wind” is thus a sort of pun.

His spirit (his soul, mind) is disheartened, it is “spiritless”. His prayers are without prayer. The Spirit blows upon him, but there is little effect.

The shift to the image of mill grinding (I little grind) perhaps was driven by the necessity of a rhyme on “wind”. Such mills would have been known to Taylor.

Gotland, Gotland, Bunge, Gotland, Byggnader-Jordbruk-Kvarn

The linguistic plays in this stanza are well executed: (1) The play on two senses of the word “sense”. (2) Spiritless spirit. (3) Prayerless prayer. (4) Spirit’s wind (a play on the English translations of the biblical languages).

There is also a remarkable play on the sound of the words particularly the use of the letter “s”

My reason now’s more than my sense, I feel

I have more sight than sense. Which seems to be

A rod of sun beams t’whip me for my steel.

My spirit’s spiritless, and dull in me 40

For my dead prayerless prayers, the Spirit’s wind

Scarce blows my mill about. I little grind.

Finally, while “grind” may have been suggested by his previous “wind,” Taylor does put it to good effect. The preceding lines have been quite “poetic”. There is careful attention to sound and word-play. But here at the end, the elevated language of poetry become quite pedestrian. It is as if the thought itself runs out of strength. The shift to “mill” introduces a conceptual difference (again perhaps his association of mill and wind was much stronger than mine). But in the last two lines we gather up some new sounds. There are the p’s of prayer/prayerless (and Spirit). But then we come to blows, about, grind. Then the speed of the lines completely changes. There is a full stop in the middle of the final line on the word “about.” The final sentence is prosaic, not musical, and slow, “I little grind.” It is like a resignation.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 40.3 (Was ever heart like mine)

29 Sunday May 2022

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Fifth Stanza

Grace shuffled is away; patience oft sticks 25

Too soon, or draws itself out, and’s out put.

Faith over trumped, and oft does lose her tricks.

Repentance’s chalked up noddy, and out shut

They post, and pare off grace, and its shine.

Alas! Alas! Was ever heart like mine? 30

Notes:

Something remarkable happens here. In the previous stanza, Taylor has spoken of his heart as a ground for games of all the devils. His heart is in full Hexensabatt with all the sports of debauchery in view. But here, those games are played with graces!

Grace shuffled is away; At first this is ambiguous. Something could be merely moved out of the way, but as the stanza goes on we will see that Grace has been shuffled in a deck of cards.

To skip ahead to line 27, “Faith over trumped, and oft does lose her tricks.” A trump in cards is a higher hand. A trick is the individual play. Faith is being set to play at cards against the sinful desires of his heart. Thus, to lose the trick must mean that the call of faith falls to the counter play of sin.

So, when Grace is shuffled away, it is played into the deck and does not play against the opposing side. Grace is simply inoperative because it is put away.

Patience is a key Christian virtue. It means something far more than merely tolerating a boring event. It contains within it the concept of endurance.

A key allusion here would be

James 1:2–3 “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; ³Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.” More modern translation render the word translated “patience” (as it would have been in Taylor’s Bible) as “endurance.” Endurance being then the ability to withstand a trial without falling into sin. You should understand that the sin could be the result of a temptation, that is luring into a sinful project, or trial being forced and pressed and sinning in response. Patience would be the virtue to be neither pushed or pulled in sin.

Repentance’s chalked up noddy, and out shut

They post, and pare off grace, and its shine.

Repentance has no place in the response, it is a fool (noddy). It is just considered unnecessary.

The “They” that shuts out grace is not clearly identified in this stanza, so it must refer back to the devils given such free reign in the previous stanza. The line “They post, and pare off grace” is excellent. Note the movement of the sound on the accented syllables p, then pr, then gr. This returns to the refrain again, “Was ever a heart like mine.”

His heart seems utterly turned over to his enemy.

Sixth Stanza

Sometimes me thinks the Serpent’s head I maul

Now all is still: my spirits do recruit

But ere my harp can tune sweet praise, they fall

On me afresh, and tear me at my root.

They bite like badgers now, nay worse, although 35

I took them toothless skulls not long ago.

Notes

He sometimes thinks he has some success.

Sometimes me thinks the Serpent’s head I maul

The Serpent’s head is an allusion to the protoevangelium. When God passes sentence upon the original sin, a strange promise is made to the Serpent (the Devil who led them into sin):

Genesis 3:15

¹⁵And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

There will be a conflict the “seed” of the serpent and the “seed” of the woman. The Serpent will cause him an injury, but he will deal a death blow to the Serpent. And so, there are moments when it seems that he has been successful suppressing his sin. He has “mauled” the Serpent’s dead. This brings about a reprieve from his sorrow, “Now all is still: my spirits do recruit.” He has peace, but before his peace can ripen into praise, trouble comes:

But ere my harp can tune sweet praise, they fall

On me afresh, and tear me at my root.

He no longer has some “victory” but sin returns and tears him at the very heart of his being.

The couplet gives voice to the strange movement of the Christian life. When freed from sin, when repentance has its place and there is rest, sin seems utter madness; something which could not possibly disturb a sane man. It looks over, temptations are not ravenous lions, but rather toothless skulls. And yet, somehow, those toothless skulls arise and attack:

They bite like badgers now, nay worse, although 35

I took them toothless skulls not long ago.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 40.2 (Was ever heart like mine?)

25 Wednesday May 2022

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Third Stanza

His palace garden where his courtiers walk

His jewel’s cabinet. Here his cabal

Do sham it, and truss up their privie talk. 15

In fardels of consults and bundles all.

His shambles, and his butcher’s stalls herein.

It is the fuddling school of every sin.

Notes

His heart now the Devil’s Palace.

It is the place where his servants gather, “where his courtiers walk.” A courtier is an attendant upon a king.

It is the place where precious things are kept, “His jewel’s cabinet” (cabinet for his jewels).

This is the place where the devils generally to meet together to make plans. They are a “cabal” who gather together to plan deceptions (sham). They are brought in a close-knit group (truss up) which belongs to the sovereign (privie).

A “fardel” is a bundle, a small pack a wrapping. So this would be a close gathering. The idea is repeated in the same line, “bundles all.” The OED provides an interesting use of fardel to be a burden used figuratively of sin. Thus, the thing which is experienced by Taylor as a burden (fardel) of sin and sorrow is the result of a close gathering (fardel) of demonic actors.

It is not just the place where the agents of Satan meet; it is even the place where they find time to eat. Their “butcher” has quarters present. But this also raises the idea of what is being butchered? There are no cattle or sheep mentioned.

Fuddle refers to intoxication. It is a drunken school: it is place where sin’s are learned and taught.

His heart is the palace of rebellion against God.

Fourth Stanza

Was ever heart like mine? Pride, passion, fell.

Ath’ism, blasphemy, pot, pipe it, dance 20

Play barlybreaks, and at last couple in hell.

At cudgels, kit-cat, carts and dice here prance.

At noddy, ruff-and trumped, jing, post-and-are,

Put, one-and-thirty, and such other ware.

Notes

He repeats the refrain, “Was ever heart like mine” which again alludes to Herbert’s poem on the passion of Christ (Was ever grief like mine?)

Line 19, through the first half of line 20 speaks to what his heart contains: pride, the archetype of all sin, passion (wild desire), “fell” (simply evil).

Line 20, active rebelling of God, atheism and blasphemy.

Atheism had a far more diabolical sound to a 17^th century minister than it does to modern ears. Consider Thomas Manton:

Partly because the most universal and incurable disease of the world is atheism; it is disguised under several shapes, but atheism it is that lies at the root, and blasts and destroys all practice and good conscience; and therefore it is good to deal upon this argument, and to reflect the light of this truth upon our conscience, and to take all occasions to batter down that atheism that is in our hearts.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 14 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1973), 125. Atheism is a direct denial of God. This is followed by the charge of blasphemy, which would be disparaging God.

At this point, Taylor’s description of his heart sounds like the trouble faced by Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress as he crossed the Valley of the Shadow of Death:

One thing I would not let slip. I took notice that now poor Christian was so confounded that he did not know his own voice; and thus I perceived it. Just when he was come over against the mouth of the burning pit, one of the wicked ones got behind him, and stepped up softly to him, and whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he verily thought had proceeded from his own mind. This put Christian more to it than any thing that he met with before, even to think that he should now blaspheme Him that he loved so much before. Yet if he could have helped it, he would not have done it; but he had not the discretion either to stop his ears, or to know from whence these blasphemies came.

John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1995).

Then seemingly in an incongruous move, the remainder of the stanza is merely a list of the drunken games played by the devils:

pot, pipe it, dance 20

Play barlybreaks, and at last couple in hell.

The Wikipedia page for Barley Breaks reads “Barley-Break is an old English country game frequently mentioned by the poets of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was played by three pairs, each composed of a man and a woman, who were stationed in three bases or plots, contiguous to each other. The couple occupying the middle base, called hell or prison, endeavoured to catch the other two, who, when chased, might break to avoid being caught. If one was overtaken, he and his companion were condemned to hell. From this game was taken the expression “the last couple in hell”, often used in old plays.”

Willam Chappell, Popular Music of the Olden Times (1859) contains this entry:

Edward Taylor, Meditation 40.1, Was ever a heart like mine?

23 Monday May 2022

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Still I complain; I am complaining still.

Oh! Woe is me! Was ever heart like mine?

A sty of filth, a trough of washing swill

A dunghill pit, a puddle of mere slim,

A nest of vipers, hive of hornet; stings, 5

A bag of poison, civit-box of sins.

Was ever heart like mine? So bad? Black, vile?

Is any devil blacker, or can hell

Produce its match? It is the very soil

Where Satan reads his charms, and set his spell. 10

His bowling alley, where he shears his fleece

At nine pins, nine holes, morrice, Fox and Geese.

Notes:

The opening of the poem is remarkable. To begin in the middle of an action, in medias res, is the form of an epic. The Illiad begins years into the Trojan War. Paradise Lost begins with Satan already cast down and Adam created. But lyrics usually begin at their beginning.

Here, the poem begins “Still I complain.” Unless we take the other poems written so far in this series of mediations as part of the conversation, we come into this poem mid-complaint and without a background.

The effect is interesting: We need to read what is written as part of a continuing complaint. Perhaps that explains the rather extended complaint which will follow. Taylor will four times in the poem write, “Was ever heart like mine.” He will speak at length concerning the depravity and sinfulness of heart.

We must heart this as a continuing complaint over his own sinfulness. “I am complaining still.”

He is incredulous that he possesses a heart capable of such sin, “Oh! Woe is me.”

And then he asks his question

Was ever heart like mine? (2)

The repetition and peculiar form of the question make for an interesting allusion to an earlier poem of George Herbert. Taylor studied Herbert in school and Herbert Stanford in his introduction to Taylor’s collected poems (1960) states that Herbert was a favorite poet of Taylor. Therefore, we are on good ground to see the allusion: (1) the questions are rhetorically distinct and similar to one-another; (2) Taylor would have known the poem from which the allusion comes.

Herbert’s poem The Sacrifice recounts the passion of Christ, from Christ’s point of view. Two representative stanzas read:

Mine own Apostle, who the bag did beare,

Though he had all I had, did not forbeare

To sell me also, and to put me there:

Was ever grief like mine?

For thirtie pence he did my death devise,

Who at three hundred did the ointment prize,

Not half so sweet as my sweet sacrifice:

Was ever grief like mine?

Each stanza ends with the refrain, “Was ever grief like mine?” Of particular interest for our allusion here is found in these stanzas:

O all ye who passe by, behold and see;

Man stole the fruit, but I must climbe the tree;

The tree of life to all, but onely me:

Was ever grief like mine?

Lo, here I hang, charg’d with a world of sinne,

The greater world o’ th’ two; for that came in

By words, but this by sorrow I must win:

Was ever grief like mine?

The death of Christ was for the sin of man. Christ was charged with sin, and for the sin man bore grief like no one.

Taylor alluding to this poem of Christ’s grief experienced for Taylor’s sin and look to his own heart and asks, Was ever a heart like mine. Taylor supplies the sin; Christ suffers the grief. Man stole the fruit; Christ is hoist onto the tree.

The first stanza simply recounts the foul things present in his heart: sty, swill, dunghill, puddle, vipers, hornets, stings, poison, sin. It is appropriate that the last in the list of evils is plain sin.

The second stanza begins with the question, Was ever a heart like mine? But this time, rather than recount the evil it contains it references his heart’s relationship to the Devil. His heart is the place where the Devil conducts magic (charms, spells); it is the place where Satan plays games and rejoices. The image of his heart as the Devil’s bowling alley or the place the Devil plays tag (Fox and Geese) is striking and terrifying.

He is filled with all evil; and evil has a playground in his heart. He thinks of Christ’s death and grief (“Was ever a grief like mine”) and can think only of his own evil (“Was ever a heart like mine.”)

Edward Taylor, Meditation 39, conclusion

18 Wednesday May 2022

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Seventh & Eighth Stanzas

What shall I do, my Lord? What do, that I
May have thee plead my case? I fee thee will
With faith, repentance, and obediently
Thy service against satanic sins fulfill.
I’ll fight thy fields while live I do, although
I should be hacked in pieces by thy foe.

Make me thy friend, Lord, be my surety: I
Will be thy client, be my advocate.
My sins make thine; thy pleas make mine hereby.
Thou wilt me save, I will thee celebrate.
Thou’lt kill my sins that cut my heart within:
And my rough feet shall thy smooth praises sing.

The poem ends with a prayer and praise, with a petition and a promise. The seventh stanza begins with “What shall I do”. The 8th with “Make my thy friend.” Thus, 7 is the potential, 8 the actuality.

What shall I do, my Lord? What do, that I
May have thee plead my case?

Here is the last hesitation in the poem. After this point has been resolved, he will proceed with confidence that his trouble will be resolved. What can I offer to God that he should provide me such a defense?

This question and the answer he will provide echoes the prophet Micah:

Micah 6:6–8 (ESV)

What Does the LORD Require?
6 “With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

What shall I do to come before God? The same scheme is here: What shall I do to receive christ as my Advocate? I fee thee will. “I fee thee” means I will pay you. A lawyer receives a “fee.” That is still the idiom of an attorneys’ payment.

   How will he pay?

With faith, repentance, and obediently
Thy service against satanic sins fulfill.
I’ll fight thy fields while live I do, although
I should be hacked in pieces by thy foe.

The language which follows is martial and political. The concept of faith is not a bare belief that something will be true, but rather an act of fealty to a King. I will submit my life to you. I will give you my faith, I will repent of not doing so, I will live in obedience in constant warfare with my sin: even if it should kill me.

This sort of language is not out of step with the general tenor of the Puritan (rough) contemporaries of Taylor. There is another way to understand Taylor’s promise at this point. In the current edition of Credomag, there is a discussion of how Jonathan Edwards understood saving faith. This might provide an alternative understanding to Taylor’s (and Edwards’) thinking on the question of faith:

“Edwards’s variance with his tradition on the issue of sola fide is seen even more clearly when we face the role of obedience in justification. In Part 1 of this series, I quoted Miscellany #218, entitled “Faith, Justifying,” where Edwards states the following:

“‘Tis the same agreeing or consenting disposition that according to the divers [sic] objects, different states or manner of exertion, is called by different names. When ‘tis exerted towards a Savior, [it is called] faith or trust…when toward unseen good things promised, faith and also hope; when towards a gospel or good news, faith; when towards persons excellent, love; when towards commands, obedience; when towards God with respect to changes, ‘tis properly called resignation; when with respect to calamities, submission.

“Edwards sees no difficulty blurring the distinction between faith and obedience. The Reformed tradition, on the other hand, held that faith alone, apart from obedience, apprehends Christ for justification in him. While faith alone justifies, faith is “not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces.””

If the idea more clearly expressed in Edwards is found in Taylor in a less developed form, then the idea in some form was “in the air” in some fashion and found its way to Edwards. I do not know the answer to the question, beyond suggesting there is a possibility of something here. It will be something to consider more carefully in future readings.

Make me thy friend, Lord, be my surety: I
Will be thy client, be my advocate.

Here he moves to the direct petition. But notice that he begins with “friend.” The love comes before the advocacy. God loves us first. “For God so love the world he gave ….” God’s love comes first in time. Moreover, James 2 tells us the obedient Abraham who believed God “was called a friend of God.” James 2:23.

A surety pays another’s debts. Forgiveness of debt is another way to consider sin: The parable of the unforgiving servant Matthew 18:21-35 speaks of forgiving sin in terms of forgiven debt.

We then finally come to the direct petition which has been the thrust of the poem, “be my advocate.” He does not doubt that the petition will be granted.

My sins make thine; thy pleas make mine hereby.

This is an allusion to

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The direct substitution: Christ takes on our sin. In exchange, his righteousness pleads for us. To be righteous here has the sense of being declared to be innocent of a charge. Christ stands ready to plead our case:

1 John 2:1 (ESV)

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Thou wilt me save, I will thee celebrate.

This is an allusion to:

Psalm 50:15 (ESV)
and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

We call upon God for salvation. God will deliver us. We will praise him. Interestingly, God will save him from God.

Thou’lt kill my sins that cut my heart within:

If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Rom. 8:13) This is best line in the poem, both for sound and sense. There is the sharp consonants lt/k/c/t and the internal rhyme sins/within. God will kill that which is killing me.

And then we end with the self-reference to the poem (my rough feet) as itself the praise promised above.

And my rough feet shall thy smooth praises sing.

Thus, the poem ends with the certainty that the Advocate has in fact made and will make the defense. The poem is the evidence of the pardon obtained.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 39.4

03 Tuesday May 2022

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Fifth Stanza

I have no plea mine Advocate to give.

What now? He’ll anvil arguments great store

Out of his flesh and blood to make me live.

O dear bought arguments: good pleas therefor.

Nails made of heavenly steel, more choice than gold

Drove home, well clenched, eternally will hold.

Notes:

Since a lawyer is limited by the facts of the case (attorneys’ pleas spring from the state/

The case is in), and since this case is so dire, they “knock me down to woe”, the poet has nothing to help:

I have no plea mine Advocate to give.

There is nothing particularly musical about this line: it is a plain statement of fact. And this leaves him with the wholly prosaic question:

What now?

The first line and-a-half of this stanza contain no clever image, interesting musical devices. It is just a clear statement of fact. But when we turn to the Advocate’s work, the stanza becomes “poetic”. This is an interesting rhetorical tactic by Taylor, increasing the rhetorical fireworks when it comes to the Advocate’s work.

How will the Advocate plead for the poet, when the facts are against the poet?

He’ll anvil arguments great store

Out of his flesh and blood

The image striking: the argument will come from the Advocate’s own “flesh and blood”. Moreover, he will not merely take these arguments, they will be hammered like a blacksmith with iron at a furnace, He’ll anvil arguments.

The picture is grotesque and wonderful: how does not take an hammer and anvil to one’s own body? And yet it is out of the body of the Advocate that the defense is raised.

Here is a central mystery of the Christian claim. All human beings have a body which is ultimate derived from the body of Adam. All people are of one body: “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.” Acts 17:26 (ESV) Thus, in both a representative and physical sense, all human beings are born “in Adam”.

The Son of God is “made flesh”. (John 1:14) Christ then lives a sinless life, and yet suffers the death allotted to all of Adam’s descendants. Being innocent, and being representative, he bears the weight of the judgment against sin: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 (ESV) In the end he is vindicated (as evidenced by this resurrection, Romans 1:4). Christ becomes a new Adam. (Rom. 5:12-19) As raised, he stands as a new humanity.

⁴²So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. ⁴³It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. ⁴⁴It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. ⁴⁷The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:42–49 (ESV) Much, much more could said on this point from the New Testament. But is without question the doctrine of the Apostles that the physical body of Christ in life, death, burial, and resurrection, becomes the plea for our salvation: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV) The way in which that life of Christ becomes our life is a further discussion. The point here is that Taylor says nothing but what the Bible teaches. In a roughly contemporary work, William Gurnal uses an image which reminds of the language here in Taylor:

“He lived and died for you; he will live and die with you; for mercy and tenderness to his soldiers, none like him. Trajan, it is said, rent his clothes to bind up his soldiers’ wounds; Christ poured out his blood as balm to heal his saints’ wounds; tears off his flesh to bind them up.”

William Gurnall and John Campbell, The Christian in Complete Armour (London: Thomas Tegg, 1845), 6.

These arguments made from the body of the advocate bring life, “to make me live.” As Paul writes: “But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Romans 4:23–25 (ESV)

These arguments come at great cost, “O dear bought arguments”. They will also work, they are “good pleas.”

The final couplet makes an in ironic use of nails:

Nails made of heavenly steel, more choice than gold

Drove home, well clenched, eternally will hold.

At one level, “nails” references the strength of this argument: They are “heavenly steel.” They are more precious that gold. And they have been fit so well, that the argument will be valid for all eternity: “Drove home, well clenched, eternally will hold.”

The final line contains two pauses, which slows down and underscores the proposition raised: This argument will stand.

The use of nails as the image for the argument then alludes to the basis for the argument: Christ’s sacrificial death. He was nailed to the tree, and in so doing, our sins were nailed to the tree. In this seeming loss, there was victory:

11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Colossians 2:11–15 (ESV)

Edward Taylor, Meditation 39.3

02 Monday May 2022

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Fourth Stanza

Joy, joy, God Son’s the sinner’s Advocate

Doth plead the sinner guiltless and a saint.

But yet attorneys’ pleas spring from the state

The case is in: if bad it’s bad in plaint.

My papers do contain no pleas that do

Secure me from, but knock me down to woe.

Notes:

There are three propositions in this stanza. First, the Son as Advocate can plead the guilty innocent. How this possible is not yet raised. Second, a lawyer’s work can be no better than the material he has to work with. Third, the material I can supply only proves my guilt.

Proposition one:

Joy, joy, God Son’s the sinner’s Advocate

Doth plead the sinner guiltless and a saint.

Aside from the spondee of JOY JOY, these two lines run in regular iambs. There is a usesful alliteration on S which draws primary elements together: Son SinnerS, Sinner, guiltless, Saint.

The work of this advocate does not merely obtain a not-guilty plea. The sinner is not merely left off for insufficient evidence. Rather, the work of the Son transforms the sinner into a saint. He is not only “not guilty”, he is positively innocent.

Proposition two:

But yet attorneys’ pleas spring from the state

The case is in: if bad it’s bad in plaint.

The plea an attorney can enter in a trial is limited by the nature of the underlying facts: the plea “springs from the state the case in.” To make the negative case clear: if it the facts are bad, the attorney’s plea (his “plaint”, as in “complaint”) is also bad. “If bad it’s bad in plaint” is a fine clause.

Proposition Three

My papers do contain no pleas that do

Secure me from, but knock me down to woe.

We now come to the poet’s particular situation. We have just been told that the quality of the plea will depend upon the quality of the facts. So what facts are here for the poet?

He looks to his legal papers, but there is nothing in the papers to absolve him.

My papers do contain no pleas that do

Secure me

What do the papers say:

The facts “but knock me down to woe.” Woe: that is condemnation.

Thus, the legal conflict is set in full: A lawyer can only plead what the facts permit. The facts here condemn. But the Son can somehow make a plea which can make the poet guiltless. How can this be? That is the matter of the remainder of the poem.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 39.2

29 Friday Apr 2022

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Third Stanza

Lord, hold thy hand: for handle me thou may’st

In wrath but, oh! A twinkling ray of hope

Methinks I spy thou graciously gracious display’st.

There is an Advocate: a door is ope.

Sin’s poison swell my heart would till it burst,

Did not a hope hence creep in’t thus, and nursed.

Notes:

Lord, hold thy hand: for handle me thou may’st

In wrath but, oh! A twinkling ray of hope

The accented first syllable with the vocative “Lord” presses the urgency of the whole. Nothing precedes “Lord;” no “dear Lord”, “Oh Lord” et cetera. He has no time to slow his plea.

The prayer is that God not discipline him in anger. This alludes to

Psalm 6:1 (AV)

O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.

In the original Hebrew, there is no injection “O”, it begins directly Yhwh [the name of the Lord, rendered into English as “Lord” following the custom of the earlier Jews to not use God’s covenant, and to substitute Adonai, “Lord”]

Next notice the alliterative H: hold, hand, handle, [wrath], and then, hope. The H’s draw attention to the danger faced by the poet. But the final H changes the direction of the poem’s movement. God has the right to judge him; this is indicated by the “may’st”; there is a moral permission for God’s action.

A twinkling ray of hope

Methinks I spy thou graciously gracious display’st.

There is an Advocate: a door is ope.

Here the rhyme works perfectly: hope/ope. The use of “poetic” “ope” not only makes the rhyme, it connotates something special by use of “special” language. The second line makes good use of an adverb/adjective graciously/gracious.

The poet faces danger: God is set to strike him in wrath. And there at the final moment he sees a “ray of hope” through an opening door: He sees and “Advocate.”

Sin’s poison swell my heart would till it burst,

Did not a hope hence creep in’t thus, and nursed.

This introduces an idea which is not intuitive in our contemporary understanding of “sin,” even within the church. Sin only pretends to be a pleasurable thing. We speak of temptation and sin as luxurious pleasures which we must forego, often for no apparent reason. A common conservation is to question “why” this is forbidden. Why would God not let me X.

The understanding of sin presented by Taylor is quite different. He never denies the degree to which is he tempted toward sin. But he also understands that sin is its own punishment. To ingest sin is a danger. No matter how desirable it may seem, it is poison.

Notice the correspondence of God’s judgment upon him and sin bursting his heart with poison: the danger of sin and the judgment of God are two sides of the same event. Notice that his heart is also saved from the poison of sin by the very same hope: His heart would have failed, “Did not a hope hence creep in’t”. The hope then “nurses” his heart to health.

Thus, the hope of his advocate saves him from the wrath of God and the danger of sin. In all salvation of God, the salvation is from death & sin (which are inseparable).