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86 FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES
And what is the quality of the verses written by
that man, then sixty-four years old, and published under
his name as his first attempt, as it were, at poetry ?
They are verses with a poetic ring to them and such
as only a man thoroughly versed in languages could
have written ; but, certainly,
never could have been
conceived by any one who had not written many, a great
many verses before in his life.
The first thing that strikes us is the fact that they
are all
rhymed. Would it not have been the most
natural thing for a man who had never had any
practice in rhyming, to have translated the psalms into
the form in which we are accustomed to see them, in
blank verse? But if he must rhyme, would a man, who
had had little or no practice at all in verse-writing and
rhyming, not have at least preferred to write the seven
poems in the same metre or in the same form of stanza ?
Bacon did not do so ;
as becomes an experienced poet,
he chose for each psalm that form which suited it
We now offer the reader a few specimens
:
best.
Both Death and Life obey thy holy lore,
And visit in their turns, as they are sent.
A Thousand years with thee, they are no more
Than yesterday, which, e're it is, is spent ;
Or as a Watch by night, that course doth keep,
And goes, and comes, unwares to them that sleep.
Thou earnest Man away as with a Tide ;
Then down swim all his Thoughts, that mounted high ;
Much like a mocking Dream, that will not bide,
But flies before the sight of waking Eye ;
Or as the Grass, that cannot term obtain,
To see the Summer come about again.
Psalm xc., stanzas 2 and 3.