’Scape, like Angelica, the striver’s hands,”
are only a few of the jewels five words long that might be produced as specimens. But it is not here that we find the true Donne: it was not this province of the universal monarchy of wit that he ruled with the most unshackled sway. The provinces that he did so rule were quite other: strange frontier regions, uttermost isles where sensuality, philosophy, and devotion meet, or where separately dwelling they rejoice or mourn over the conquests of each other. I am not so sure of the Progress of the Soul as some writers have been—interesting as it is, and curious as is the comparison with Prior’s Alma, which it of necessity suggests, and probably suggested. As a whole it seems to me uncertain in aim, unaccomplished in execution. But what things there are in it! What a line is—
“Great Destiny, the Commissary of God!”
What a lift and sweep in the fifth stanza—
“To my six lustres almost now outwore!”
What a thought that—
“This soul, to whom Luther and Mahomet were Prisons of flesh!”
And the same miraculous pregnancy of thought
