Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE HIND AND THE PANTHER: PART 1, by JOHN DRYDEN



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE HIND AND THE PANTHER: PART 1, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: A milk-white hind, immortal and unchang'd
Last Line: The lady of the spotted muff began.
Variant Title(s): The Hind And The Panther: A Poem In Three Parts: 1
Subject(s): Anglican Church; Catholics; Religious Discrimination; Roman Catholics; Catholicism; Religious Conflict


A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchang'd,
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd;
Without unspotted, innocent within,
She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.
Yet had she oft been chas'd with horns and hounds
And Scythian shafts; and many winged wounds
Aim'd at her heart; was often forc'd to fly,
And doom'd to death, tho' fated not to die.
Not so her young; for their unequal line
Was hero's make, half human, half divine.
Their earthly mold obnoxious was to fate,
Th' immortal part assum'd immortal state.
Of these a slaughter'd army lay in blood,
Extended o'er the Caledonian wood,
Their native walk; whose vocal blood arose,
And cried for pardon on their perjur'd foes.
Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed,
Endued with souls, increas'd the sacred breed.
So captive Israel multiplied in chains,
A numerous exile, and enjoy'd her pains.
With grief and gladness mix'd, their mother view'd
Her martyr'd offspring, and their race renew'd;
Their corps to perish, but their kind to last,
So much the deathless plant the dying fruit surpass'd.
Panting and pensive now she rang'd alone,
And wander'd in the kingdoms, once her own.
The common hunt, tho' from their rage restrain'd
By sov'reign pow'r, her company disdain'd;
Grinn'd as they pass'd, and with a glaring eye
Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity.
'T is true, she bounded by, and tripp'd so light,
They had not time to take a steady sight,
For Truth has such a face and such a mien,
As to be lov'd needs only to be seen.
The bloody Bear, an Independent beast,
Unlick'd to form, in groans her hate express'd.
Among the timorous kind the Quaking Hare
Profess'd neutrality, but would not swear.
Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use,
Mimick'd all sects, and had his own to choose:
Still when the Lion look'd, his knees he bent,
And paid at church a courtier's compliment.
The bristled Baptist Boar, impure as he,
(But whiten'd with the foam of sanctity,)
With fat pollutions fill'd the sacred place,
And mountains level'd in his furious race:
So first rebellion founded was in grace.
But since the mighty ravage which he made
In German forests had his guilt betray'd,
With broken tusks, and with a borrow'd name,
He shunn'd the vengeance, and conceal'd the shame;
So lurk'd in sects unseen. With greater guile
False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil:
The graceless beast by Athanasius first
Was chas'd from Nice; then, by Socinus nurs'd,
His impious race their blasphemy renew'd,
And nature's King thro' nature's optics view'd.
Revers'd, they view'd him lessen'd to their eye,
Nor in an infant could a God descry:
New swarming sects to this obliquely tend,
Hence they began, and here they all will end.
What weight of ancient witness can prevail,
If private reason hold the public scale?
But, gracious God, how well dost thou provide
For erring judgments an unerring guide!
Thy throne is darkness in th' abyss of light,
A blaze of glory that forbids the sight.
O teach me to believe thee thus conceal'd,
And search no farther than thyself reveal'd;
But her alone for my director take,
Whom thou hast promis'd never to forsake!
My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain desires,
My manhood, long misled by wand'ring fires,
Follow'd false lights; and when their glimpse was gone,
My pride struck out new sparkles of her own.
Such was I, such by nature still I am,
Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame.
Good life be now my task: my doubts are done:
(What more could fright my faith, than Three in One?)
Can I believe eternal God could lie
Disguis'd in mortal mold and infancy?
That the great Maker of the world could die?
And after that trust my imperfect sense
Which calls in question his omnipotence?
Can I my reason to my faith compel,
And shall my sight, and touch, and taste rebel?
Superior faculties are set aside,
Shall their subservient organs be my guide?
Then let the moon usurp the rule of day,
And winking tapers show the sun his way;
For what my senses can themselves perceive,
I need no revelation to believe.
Can they who say the host should be descried
By sense, define a body glorified?
Impassible, and penetrating parts?
Let them declare by what mysterious arts
He shot that body thro' th' opposing might
Of bolts and bars impervious to the light,
And stood before his train confess'd in open sight.
For since thus wondrously he pass'd, 't is plain,
One single place two bodies did contain.
And sure the same Omnipotence as well
Can make one body in more places dwell.
Let Reason then at her own quarry fly,
But how can finite grasp Infinity?
'T is urg'd again that faith did first commence
By miracles, which are appeals to sense,
And thence concluded, that our sense must be
The motive still of credibility.
For latter ages must on former wait,
And what began belief, must propagate.
But winnow well this thought, and you shall find
'T is light as chaff that flies before the wind.
Were all those wonders wrought by pow'r divine,
As means or ends of some more deep design?
Most sure as means, whose end was this alone,
To prove the Godhead of th' eternal Son.
God thus asserted: man is to believe
Beyond what sense and reason can conceive,
And for mysterious things of faith rely
On the proponent, Heav'n's authority.
If then our faith we for our guide admit,
Vain is the farther search of human wit,
As when the building gains a surer stay,
We take th' unuseful scaffolding away.
Reason by sense no more can understand;
The game is play'd into another hand.
Why choose we then like bilanders to creep
Along the coast, and land in view to keep,
When safely we may launch into the deep?
In the same vessel which our Savior bore,
Himself the pilot, let us leave the shore,
And with a better guide a better world explore.
Could he his Godhead veil with flesh and blood
And not veil these again to be our food?
His grace in both is equal in extent,
The first affords us life, the second nourishment.
And if he can, why all this frantic pain
To construe what his clearest words contain,
And make a riddle what he made so plain?
To take up half on trust, and half to try,
Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry.
Both knave and fool the merchant we may call,
To pay great sums, and to compound the small:
For who would break with Heav'n, and would not break for all?
Rest then, my soul, from endless anguish freed:
Nor sciences thy guide, nor sense thy creed.
Faith is the best ensurer of thy bliss;
The bank above must fail before the venture miss.
But heav'n and heav'n-born faith are far from thee,
Thou first apostate to divinity.
Unkennel'd range in thy Polonian plains;
A fiercer foe th' insatiate Wolf remains.
Too boastful Britain, please thyself no more,
That beasts of prey are banish'd from thy shore:
The Bear, the Boar, and every savage name,
Wild in effect, tho' in appearance tame,
Lay waste thy woods, destroy thy blissful bow'r,
And, muzzled tho' they seem, the mutes de vour.
More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race
Appear with belly gaunt, and famish'd face:
Never was so deform'd a beast of grace.
His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears,
Close clapp'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears,
And pricks up his predestinating ears.
His wild disorder'd walk, his haggard eyes,
Did all the bestial citizens surprise.
Tho' fear'd and hated, yet he rul'd a while,
As captain or companion of the spoil.
Full many a year his hateful head had been
For tribute paid, nor since in Cambria seen:
The last of all the litter scap'd by chance,
And from Geneva first infested France.
Some authors thus his pedigree will trace,
But others write him of an upstart race:
Because of Wycliffe's brood no mark he brings
But his innate antipathy to kings.
These last deduce him from th' Helvetian kind.
Who near the Leman lake his consort lin'd:
That fi'ry Zuinglius first th' affection bred,
And meager Calvin bless'd the nuptial bed.
In Israel some believe him whelp'd long since,
When the proud Sanhedrin oppress'd the prince,
Or, since he will be Jew, derive him high'r,
When Corah with his brethren did conspire
From Moses' hand the sov'reign sway to wrest,
And Aaron of his ephod to divest:
Till opening earth made way for all to pass,
And could not bear the burden of a class.
The Fox and he came shuffled in the dark,
If ever they were stow'd in Noah's ark:
Perhaps not made; for all their barking train
The Dog (a common species) will contain.
And some wild curs, who from their masters ran,
Abhorring the supremacy of man,
In woods and caves the rebel-race began.
O happy pair, how well have you increas'd!
What ills in Church and State have you redress'd!
With teeth untried, and rudiments of claws,
Your first essay was on your native laws:
Those having torn with ease, and trampled down,
Your fangs you fasten'd on the miter'd crown,
And freed from God and monarchy your town.
What tho' your native kennel still be small,
Bounded betwixt a puddle and a wall;
Yet your victorious colonies are sent
Where the north ocean girds the continent.
Quicken'd with fire below, your monsters breed
In fenny Holland, and in fruitful Tweed:
And, like the first, the last effects to be
Drawn to the dregs of a democracy.
As, where in fields the fairy rounds are seen,
A rank sour herbage rises on the green;
So, springing where these midnight elves advance,
Rebellion prints the footsteps of the dance.
Such are their doctrines, such contempt they show
To Heav'n above, and to their prince below,
As none but traitors and blasphemers know.
God, like the tyrant of the skies, is plac'd,
And kings, like slaves, beneath the crowd debas'd.
So fulsome is their food that flocks refuse
To bite; and only dogs for physic use.
As, where the lightning runs along the ground,
No husbandry can heal the blasting wound,
Nor bladed grass, nor bearded corn succeeds,
But scales of scurf and putrefaction breeds:
Such wars, such waste, such fiery tracks of dearth
Their zeal has left, and such a teemless earth.
But as the poisons of the deadliest kind
Are to their own unhappy coasts confin'd;
As only Indian shades of sight deprive,
And magic plants will but in Colchos thrive;
So Presbyt'ry and pestilential zeal
Can only flourish in a commonweal.
From Celtic woods is chas'd the wolfish crew;
But ah! some pity e'en to brutes is due:
Their native walks, methinks, they might enjoy,
Curb'd of their native malice to destroy.
Of all the tyrannies on humankind,
The worst is that which persecutes the mind.
Let us but weigh at what offense we strike,
'T is but because we cannot think alike.
In punishing of this, we overthrow
The Laws of Nations and of Nature too.
Beasts are the subjects of tyrannic sway,
Where still the stronger on the weaker prey;
Man only of a softer mold is made,
Not for his fellows' ruin, but their aid:
Created kind, beneficent, and free,
The noble image of the Deity.
One portion of informing fire was giv'n
To brutes, th' inferior family of heav'n:
The smith divine, as with a careless beat,
Struck out the mute creation at a heat;
But, when arriv'd at last to human race,
The Godhead took a deep consid'ring space;
And, to distinguish man from all the rest,
Unlock'd the sacred treasures of his breast;
And mercy mix'd with reason did impart,
One to his head, the other to his heart:
Reason to rule, but mercy to forgive:
The first is law, the last prerogative.
And like his mind his outward form appear'd,
When, issuing naked to the wond'ring herd,
He charm'd their eyes; and, for they lov'd, they fear'd:
Not arm'd with horns of arbitrary might,
Or claws to seize their furry spoils in fight,
Or with increase of feet t' o'ertake 'em in their flight;
Of easy shape, and pliant ev'ry way;
Confessing still the softness of his clay,
And kind as kings upon their coronation day;
With open hands, and with extended space
Of arms, to satisfy a large embrace.
Thus kneaded up with milk, the new-made man
His kingdom o'er his kindred world began;
Till knowledge misapplied, misunderstood,
And pride of empire sour'd his balmy blood.
Then, first rebelling, his own stamp he coins;
The murth'rer Cain was latent in his loins:
And blood began its first and loudest cry
For diff'ring worship of the Deity.
Thus persecution rose, and farther space
Produc'd the mighty hunter of his race.
Not so the blessed Pan his flock increas'd,
Content to fold 'em from the famish'd beast:
Mild were his laws; the Sheep and harmless Hind
Were never of the persecuting kind.
Such pity now the pious Pastor shows,
Such mercy from the British Lion flows,
That both provide protection for their foes.
O happy regions, Italy and Spain,
Which never did those monsters entertain!
The Wolf, the Bear, the Boar, can there advance
No native claim of just inheritance.
And self-preserving laws, severe in show,
May guard their fences from th' invading foe.
Where birth has plac'd 'em, let 'em safely share
The common benefit of vital air.
Themselves unharmful, let them live unharm'd;
Their jaws disabled, and their claws disarm'd:
Here, only in nocturnal howlings bold,
They dare not seize the Hind, nor leap the fold.
More pow'rful, and as vigilant as they,
The Lion awfully forbids the prey.
Their rage repress'd, tho' pinch'd with famine sore,
They stand aloof, and tremble at his roar:
Much is their hunger, but their fear is more.
These are the chief; to number o'er the rest,
And stand, like Adam, naming ev'ry beast,
Were weary work: nor will the Muse describe
A slimy-born and sun-begotten tribe;
Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound,
In fields their sullen conventicles found.
These gross, half-animated lumps I leave;
Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive.
But if they think at all, 't is sure no high'r
Than matter, put in motion, may aspire:
Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay;
So drossy, so divisible are they,
As would but serve pure bodies for allay:
Such souls as shards produce, such beetle things
As only buzz to heav'n with ev'ning wings;
Strike in the dark, offending but by chance,
Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance.
They know not beings, and but hate a name;
To them the Hind and Panther are the same.
The Panther, sure the noblest, next the Hind,
And fairest creature of the spotted kind;
O, could her inborn stains be wash'd away,
She were too good to be a beast of prey!
How can I praise, or blame, and not offend,
Or how divide the frailty from the friend!
Her faults and virtues lie so mix'd that she
Nor wholly stands condemn'd, nor wholly free.
Then, like her injur'd Lion, let me speak;
He cannot bend her, and he would not break.
Unkind already, and estrang'd in part,
The Wolf begins to share her wand'ring heart.
Tho' unpolluted yet with actual ill,
She half commits, who sins but in her will.
If, as our dreaming Platonists report,
There could be spirits of a middle sort,
Too black for heav'n, and yet too white for hell,
Who just dropp'd halfway down, nor lower fell;
So pois'd, so gently she descends from high,
It seems a soft dismission from the sky.
Her house not ancient, whatsoe'er pretense
Her clergy heralds make in her defense;
A second century not halfway run,
Since the new honours of her blood begun.
A Lion, old, obscene, and furious made
By lust, compress'd her mother in a shade;
Then, by a left-hand marriage, weds the dame,
Cov'ring adult'ry with a specious name:
So Schism begot; and Sacrilege and she,
A well-match'd pair, got graceless Heresy.
God's and kings' rebels have the same good cause,
To trample down divine and human laws;
Both would be call'd reformers, and their hate
Alike destructive both to Church and State:
The fruit proclaims the plant; a lawless prince
By luxury reform'd incontinence;
By ruins, charity; by riots, abstinence.
Confessions, fasts, and penance set aside;
O, with what ease we follow such a guide,
Where souls are starv'd, and senses gratified!
Where marriage pleasures midnight pray'r supply,
And matin bells (a melancholy cry)
Are tun'd to merrier notes, increase and multiply!
Religion shows a rosy-color'd face;
Not hatter'd out with drudging works of grace:
A downhill reformation rolls apace.
What flesh and blood would crowd the narrow gate,
Or, till they waste their pamper'd paunches, wait?
All would be happy at the cheapest rate.
Tho' our lean faith these rigid laws has giv'n,
The full-fed Mussulman goes fat to heav'n;
For his Arabian prophet with delights
Of sense allur'd his Eastern proselytes.
The jolly Luther, reading him, began
T'interpret Scriptures by his Alcoran;
To grub the thorns beneath our tender feet,
And make the paths of paradise more sweet:
Bethought him of a wife ere halfway gone,
(For 't was uneasy travailing alone;)
And, in this masquerade of mirth and love,
Mistook the bliss of heav'n for Bacchanals above.
Sure he presum'd of praise, who came to stock
Th' ethereal pastures with so fair a flock;
Burnish'd, and batt'ning on their food, to show
The diligence of careful herds below.
Our Panther, tho' like these she chang'd her head,
Yet, as the mistress of a monarch's bed,
Her front erect with majesty she bore,
The crosier wielded, and the miter wore.
Her upper part of decent discipline
Show'd affectation of an ancient line;
And Fathers, councils, Church and Church's head,
Were on her reverend phylacteries read.
But what disgrac'd and disavow'd the rest,
Was Calvin's brand, that stigmatiz'd the beast.
Thus, like a creature of a double kind,
In her own labyrinth she lives confin'd.
To foreign lands no sound of her is come,
Humbly content to be despis'd at home.
Such is her faith; where good cannot be had,
At least she leaves the refuse of the bad:
Nice in her choice of ill, tho' not of best,
And least deform'd, because reform'd the least.
In doubtful points betwixt her diff'ring friends,
Where one for substance, one for sign contends,
Their contradicting terms she strives to join;
Sign shall be substance, substance shall be sign.
A real presence all her sons allow,
And yet 't is flat idolatry to bow,
Because the Godhead 's there they know not how.
Her novices are taught that bread and wine
Are but the visible and outward sign,
Receiv'd by those who in communion join;
But th' inward grace, or the thing signified,
His blood and body, who to save us died,
The faithful this thing signified receive.
What is 't those faithful then partake or leave?
For what is signified and understood,
Is, by her own confession, flesh and blood.
Then, by the same acknowledgment, we know
They take the sign, and take the substance too.
The lit'ral sense is hard to flesh and blood,
But nonsense never can be understood.
Her wild belief on ev'ry wave is toss'd;
But sure no Church can better morals boast.
True to her king her principles are found;
O that her practice were but half so sound!
Steadfast in various turns of state she stood,
And seal'd her vow'd affection with her blood;
Nor will I meanly tax her constancy,
That int'rest or obligement made the tie
(Bound to the fate of murder'd monarchy.)
Before the sounding ax so falls the vine,
Whose tender branches round the poplar twine.
She chose her ruin, and resign'd her life,
In death undaunted as an Indian wife:
A rare example! but some souls we see
Grow hard, and stiffen with adversity:
Yet these by fortune's favours are undone,
Resolv'd, into a baser form they run,
And bore the wind, but cannot bear the sun.
Let this be Nature's frailty, or her fate,
Or Isgrim's counsel, her new-chosen mate;
Still she's the fairest of the fallen crew,
No mother more indulgent, but the true.
Fierce to her foes, yet fears her force to try,
Because she wants innate authority;
For how can she constrain them to obey,
Who has herself cast off the lawful sway?
Rebellion equals all, and those who toil
In common theft will share the common spoil.
Let her produce the title and the right
Against her old superiors first to fight;
If she reform by text, ev'n that 's as plain
For her own rebels to reform again.
As long as words a diff'rent sense will bear,
And each may be his own interpreter,
Our airy faith will no foundation find;
The word 's a weathercock for ev'ry wind:
The Bear, the Fox, the Wolf, by turns prevail,
The most in pow'r supplies the present gale.
The wretched Panther cries aloud for aid
To Church and councils, whom she first betray'd;
No help from Fathers or tradition's train,
Those ancient guides she taught us to disdain.
The Wolf.
And by that Scripture which she once abus'd
To reformation, stands herself accus'd.
What bills for breach of laws can she prefer,
Expounding which she owns herself may err?
And, after all her winding ways are tried,
If doubts arise, she slips herself aside
And leaves the private conscience for the guide.
If then that conscience set th' offender free,
It bars her claim to Church authority.
How can she censure, or what crime pretend,
But Scripture may be construed to defend?
Ev'n those whom for rebellion she transmits
To civil pow'r, her doctrine first acquits;
Because no disobedience can ensue,
Where no submission to a judge is due;
Each judging for himself, by her consent,
Whom thus absolv'd she sends to punish ment.
Suppose the magistrate revenge her cause,
'T is only for transgressing human laws.
How answ'ring to its end a Church is made,
Whose pow'r is but to counsel and persuade?
O solid rock, on which secure she stands!
Eternal house, not built with mortal hands!
O sure defense against th' infernal gate,
A patent during pleasure of the state!
Thus is the Panther neither lov'd nor fear'd,
A mere mock queen of a divided herd;
Whom soon by lawful pow'r she might control,
Herself a part submitted to the whole.
Then, as the moon who first receives the light
By which she makes our nether regions bright,
So might she shine, reflecting from afar
The rays she borrow'd from a better star;
Big with the beams which from her mother flow,
And reigning o'er the rising tides below:
Now, mixing with a savage crowd, she goes,
And meanly flatters her invet'rate foes;
Rul'd while she rules, and losing ev'ry hour
Her wretched remnants of precarious pow'r.
One evening, while the cooler shade she sought,
Revolving many a melancholy thought,
Alone she walk'd, and look'd around in vain,
With rueful visage, for her vanish'd train:
None of her sylvan subjects made their court;
Levees and couchees pass'd without resort.
So hardly can usurpers manage well
Those whom they first instructed to rebel:
More liberty begets desire of more;
The hunger still increases with the store.
Without respect they brush'd along the wood,
Each in his clan, and, fill'd with loathsome food,
Ask'd no permission to the neighb'ring flood.
The Panther, full of inward discontent,
Since they would go, before 'em wisely went;
Supplying want of pow'r by drinking first,
As if she gave 'em leave to quench their thirst.
Among the rest, the Hind, with fearful face,
Beheld from far the common wat'ring place,
Nor durst approach; till with an awful roar
The sovereign Lion bade her fear no more.
Encourag'd thus she brought her younglings nigh,
Watching the motions of her patron's eye,
And drank a sober draught; the rest amaz'd
Stood mutely still, and on the stranger gaz'd;
Survey'd her part by part, and sought to find
The ten-horn'd monster in the harmless Hind,
Such as the Wolf and Panther had design'd.
They thought at first they dream'd; for 't was offense
With them to question certitude of sense,
Their guide in faith; but nearer when they drew,
And had the faultless object full in view,
Lord, how they all admir'd her heav'nly hue!
Some, who before her fellowship disdain'd,
Scarce, and but scarce, from inborn rage restrain'd,
Now frisk'd about her, and old kindred feign'd.
Whether for love or int'rest, ev'ry sect
Of all the savage nation show'd respect:
The viceroy Panther could not awe the herd;
The more the company, the less they fear'd.
The surly Wolf with secret envy burst,
Yet could not howl; the Hind had seen him first:
But what he durst not speak, the Panther durst.
For when the herd, suffic'd, did late repair
To ferny heaths, and to their forest lair,
She made a mannerly excuse to stay,
Proff'ring the Hind to wait her half the way:
That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk
Might help her to beguile the tedious walk.
With much good will the motion was embrac'd,
To chat a while on their adventures pass'd;
Nor had the grateful Hind so soon forgot
Her friend and fellow-suff'rer in the Plot.
Yet wond'ring how of late she grew estrang'd,
Her forehead cloudy, and her count'nance chang'd,
She thought this hour th' occasion would present
To learn her secret cause of discontent,
Which well she hop'd might be with ease redress'd,
Consid'ring her a well-bred civil beast,
And more a gentlewoman than the rest.
After some common talk what rumors ran,
The lady of the spotted muff began.





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