The Temper (I)
Yearning for Steady Love
The soul longs to always feel the fervent love it sometimes experiences, wishing it could engrave that love in enduring praise.
How should I praise you, Lord! How gladly would my rhymes engrave your love in steel, if my soul could always feel what it sometimes feels!
Stretched Between Heaven and Hell
The soul describes its spiritual extremes—soaring to heaven, falling to hell—and complains of being stretched to vast distances, then pleads for refuge under God's shelter.
Even if there were some forty heavens, or more, Sometimes I peer above them all; Sometimes I hardly reach twenty, Sometimes I fall to hell.1 Oh, don't stretch me to such a vast extent; those distances belong to you: the world is too small for your tent, a grave too big for me.✦2 Will you take up arms against a man, that you stretch a crumb of dust from heaven to hell?✦✦3 Will the great God measure himself against a wretch?4 Shall he reckon your stature?5 Oh, when your roof has hidden my soul, let me roost and nestle there. Then you'll be rid of a sinner, and I'll be rid of hope and fear.
Tuning the Heart to Trust
The soul submits to God's will, seeing the stretching as a tuning for better music, and affirms that whether with angels or dust, it rests in God's hands and love.
Yet take your way; for sure your way is best: stretch or contract me, your poor debtor: this is only the tuning of my heart, to make the music better. Whether I fly with angels or fall with dust, your hands made both, and I am there. Your power and love, my love and trust make one place everywhere.
Read the original English
HOw should I praise thee, Lord! how should my rymes Gladly engrave thy love in steel, If what my soul doth feel sometimes, My soul might ever feel!
Although there were some fourtie heav'ns, or more, Sometimes I peere above them all; Sometimes I hardly reach a score, Sometimes to hell I fall.
O rack me not to such a vast extent; Those distances belong to thee: The world's too little for thy tent, A grave too big for me.
Wilt thou meet arms with man, that thou dost stretch A crumme of dust from heav'n to hell? Will great God measure with a wretch? Shall he thy stature spell?
O let me, when thy roof my soul hath hid, O let me roost and nestle there: Then of a sinner thou art rid, And I of hope and fear.
Yet take thy way; for sure thy way is best: Stretch or contract me thy poore debter: This is but tuning of my breast, To make the musick better.
Whether I flie with angels, fall with dust, Thy hands made both, and I am there. Thy power and love, my love and trust Make one place ev'ry where.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Kgs.8.27;2Chr.2.6;Isa.40.22 — But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain you—how much less this house that I have built! 2Chr.2.6 — But who is able to build him a house, since the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain him? Who am I, then, to build him a house, except to burn incense before him? Isa.40.22 — He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
- ↩Gen.2.7 — Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
- ↩Ps.139.8;Amos.9.2 — If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. Amos.9.2 — Though they dig into Sheol, from there my hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down.
Notes
- 1 ↩Early modern score means twenty (here, twenty heavens); modernized for clarity while keeping the count contrast with forty.
- 2 ↩Source 'rack' keeps its Early Modern sense of stretch on the rack of torment, not merely annoy; the next section's 'stretch' confirms the physical-spiritual span.
- 3 ↩"Meet arms with" is combat language: to match force or contend. Rendered as "take up arms against" for plain modern sense while keeping the martial metaphor.
- 4 ↩"Measure with" means compare stature or contend in measure; "himself" is supplied only to make the contestive sense plain in modern English.
- 5 ↩Early modern "spell" here means work out, read, or calculate; rendered "reckon" to keep the measuring sense without archaic diction.
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