Poems (Greenwell)/Notes
NOTES.
Were worthier prizing.
"Though I love my friends dearly, and though they arc good, I have, however, much to pardon, except in the single Klopstock alone. He is good, really good—good in all the foldings of his heart. I know him, and sometimes I think if we knew others in the same manner, the better we should find them. For it may be that an action displeases us which would please us if we knew its true aim and whole extent."—From the Letters of Meta Klopstock.
Unto mine equals.
"Perhaps love and grief may make me speak more than many will think fit. But though some passion blind the judgment, some doth but excite it to duty, and God made it to that end. And I will not he judged by any that never felt the like."—Richard Baxter on his Wife's Death.
Of time nor of his flight.
Appear to stay upon his constant course,
Then flows no sand, then strikes no warning bell;
Oh! he is fallen from his Heaven already
Whose thoughts are heedful of the changing hours—
The happy hear no dock."—Wallenstein.
Entreat for me.
"Brother Bradford, as long as I shall understand thou art on thy journey by God's grace, I shall call upon our Heavenly Father for Christ's sake to let thee safely home, and then, good brother, speak you, and pray for the remnant which are to suffer for Christ's sake, according to that thou shalt then know more clearly."—Bishop Ridley writing to Bradford the Martyr.
For Thou didst suffer life for us.
"We bear with life for the sake of Him who suffered both life and death for us."—Pascal.
I see thy smile, I do not feel thy hand.
"Rabia, a devout Arabian woman, being asked in her last illness, how she endured the extremity of her sufferings, made answer, 'They who look upon God's face do not feel his hand.'"—Milne's Palm Leaves.
Ye wore not then the halo on your brow.
"Elias was a man of like passions as we are," says St. James, "to wean Christians from that false idea which makes us reject the examples of the saints as disproportioned to our own condition; these were saints, we cry, and not men like us. We look on them as being crowned in glory; and now that time has cleared up things, it does really appear so. But at the time when the great Athanasius was persecuted, he was a man who bore that name; and St. Teresa, in her day, was like the other religious sisters of her order."—Pascal.
Love like to yours?
"Fain would I know thy present feelings towards thy Brother, thy beloved, if indeed it is permitted to one bathing in the floods of Divine radiance, and transported with the happiness of eternity, to call to mind our misery, to be occupied with our grief. For perhaps though thou hast hitherto known us according to the flesh, yet now thou knowest us no longer. He who is joined to God is one spirit with God; he can have no thought, no desire, save for God and for the things of God, with whose fulness he is filled. Yet 'God is love,' and the more closely a soul is bound to God, the more does it abound in love. It is true that God is impassible, but He is not insensible, for His 'nature is to have mercy and to forgive;' so then, thou must be merciful, since thou art joined to Him who showeth mercy, and thine affection, though transformed, is no whit diminished. Thou hast laid aside thine infirmities, but not thy love, for 'love abideth,' saith the Apostle, and throughout eternity thou wilt not forget me. It seems to me that I hear my Brother saying, 'Can a woman forget her sucking child? Yea, they may forget, yet will I never forget thee.' Truly it is not expedient. Thou hast found greater consolations. Thou art in the everlasting presence of the Lord Jesus, and hast angels for thy companions; but what have I to fill up the void thou hast left? In all that has since happened I have looked to Gerard as I had been wont, and he is not."—St. Bernard on the death of his Brother.