Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON BARCLAY'S APOLOGY FOR THE QUAKERS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: These sheets primeval doctrines yield, / where revelation is revealed
Last Line: The crows, that brought him bread and meat.'
Subject(s): Friends, Religious Society Of; Prometheus; Quakers


THESE sheets primeval doctrines yield,
Where revelation is revealed:
Soul-phlegm from literal feeding bred,
Systems lethargic to the head,
They purge, and yield a diet thin,
That turns to gospel-chyle within.
Truth sublimate may here be seen
Extracted from the parts terrene.
In these is shown how men obtainWhat of Prometheus poets feign:
To scripture-plainness dress is brought,
And speech, apparel to the thought.
They hiss from instinct at red coats,
And war, whose work is cutting throats,
Forbid, and press the law of love,
Breathing the spirit of the dove.
Lucrative doctrines they detest,
As manufactured by the priest:
And throw down turnpikes, where we pay
For stuff which never mends the way;
And tithes, a Jewish tax, reduce,
And frank the gospel for our use.
They sable standing armies break,But the militia useful make;
Since all unhired may preach and pray,
Taught by these rules as well as they,
Rules, which, when truths themselves reveal,
Bid us but follow what we feel.
The world can't hear the small still voice,
Such is its bustle and its noise;
Reason the proclamation reads,
But not one riot passion heeds.
Wealth, honour, power the graces are,
Which here below our homage share:
They, if one votary they find
To mistress more divine inclined,
In truth's pursuit to cause delayThrow golden apples in his way.
Place me, O heav'n, in some retreat,
There let the serious death-watch beat,
There let me self in silence shun,
To feel thy will, which should be done.
Then comes the spirit to our hut,
When fast the senses' doors are shut;
For so divine and pure a guest
The emptiest rooms are furnished best.
O Contemplation! air serene,
From damps of sense, and fogs of spleen!
Pure mount of thought! thrice holy ground,
Where grace, when waited for, is found!
Here 'tis the soul feels sudden youth,
And meets, exulting, virgin Truth;
Here, like a breeze of gentlest kind,
Impulses rustle through the mind;
Here shines that light with glowing face,
The fuse divine that kindles grace,
Which, if we trim our lamps, will last
Till darkness be by dying past,
And then goes out at end of night,
Extinguished by superior light.
Ah me! the heats and colds of life,
Pleasure's and Pain's eternal strife,
Breed stormy passions which, confined,
Shake, like th' Aeolian cave, the mind,
And raise despair my lamp can last,
Placed where they drive their furious blast.
False eloquence, big empty sound,
Like showers that rush upon the ground,
Little beneath the surface goes,
All streams along and muddy flows.
This sinks, and swells the buried grain,
And fructifies like southern rain.
His art, well hid in mild discourse,
Exerts persuasion's winning force,
And nervates so the good design,
That King Agrippa's case is mine.
Well-natured, happy shade, forgive!
Like you I think, but cannot live.
Thy scheme requires the world's contempt,
That, from dependence life exempt,
And constitution framed so strong,
This world's worst climate cannot wrong.
Not such my lot, not fortune's brat,
I live by pulling off the hat,
Compelled by station every hour
To bow to images of power,
And, in life's busy scenes immersed,
See better things, and do the worst.
Eloquent Want, whose reasons sway,
And make ten thousand truths give way,
While I your scheme with pleasure trace,
Draws near and stares me in the face.
'Consider well your state,' she cries,
'Like others kneel, that you may rise;
Hold doctrines, by no scruples vexed,
To which preferment is annexed,
Nor madly prove, where all depends,
Idolatry upon your friends.
See how you like my rueful face;
Such you must wear, if out of place.
Cracked is your brain to turn recluse
Without one farthing out at use.
They who have lands and safe bank-stock,
With faith so founded on a rock,
May give a rich invention ease,
And construe scripture how they please.
'The honoured prophet, that of old
Used heav'n's high counsels to unfold,
Did, more than courier angels, greet
The crows, that brought him bread and meat.'





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net