My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee, Wherewith whole shoals of Martyrs once did burn, Besides their other flames? doth Poetry Wear Venus' livery? only serve her turn? Why are not Sonnets made of thee? and lays Upon thine altar burnt? Cannot thy love Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise As well as she? Cannot thy Dove Outstrip their Cupid easily in flight? Or, since thy ways are deep, and still the same, Will not a verse run smooth that bears thy name? Why doth the fire which by thy power and might Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose Than that, which one day worms may chance refuse? Sure, Lord, there is enough in thee to dry Oceans of ink; for as the Deluge did Cover the Earth, so does thy Majesty; Each cloud distils thy praise, and doth forbid Poets to turn it to another use. Roses and lilies speak thee: and to make A pair of cheeks of them, is thy abuse. Why should I women's eyes for crystal take? Such poor invention burns in their low mind Whose fire is wild, and does not upward go To praise, and on thee, Lord, some note bestow. Open the bones, and you shall nothing find In the best face but filth; when, Lord, in thee Thy beauty lies in the discovery.
It is no matter to him that to the uninspired audience his holy persons appear only exquisite marionettes. His sermons are all of his love for them. Could one leave out the names of prophet and evangelist, they might seem to be addressed to earthly beauties. No eyebrow ever awakened more glowing praise. He takes religion, as he does his severe morality, like a sensuous delight. One might think from his epithets that he was an æsthete, except that he is so abandoned.
When he ventures to speak of men, their very virtues and vices are all handled in such a way that they seem to be his own imaginations. Thus, his drunkard is as unreal and as terrible as a chimera. The words are those of a man who has conceived a drunkard in his own brain, and then, seeing the real thing, has preferred his own conception, and shunned the poor human imitation. Still, he speaks of religious things, of incidents in the life of David or Christ or the Maries, as if he had seen, for example, the Holy Family in some misty barn among his own hills. I have even heard him introduce a farmer whittling a flail of hazel sticks and binding it with willow thongs, in a picture of that scene. This quaintness and clearness are perhaps the result of his not quite healthy asceticism. But even by the farmhouse fire he makes use of them, and will speak of the red or brown hair of scriptural characters, and even of the grey hair and shining eyes of Charity. In hunger or weariness or pain, common people sometimes see things thus: he never sees them otherwise. In the chapel they delight the older labourers, and yet fail because they vanish in the cold night air and "leave not a rack behind." Some hearers, on the other hand, sicken at them, when the blood is noisy in the breast and the brain is warm, as they sicken at drugs.