Platonism in English poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Plato · en
And all this time he held their hands in one;
Then they with chearfull look one thing desired,
That he nould break this happy union.
I happy union break? quoth he anon:
I _Ahad_? Father of Community?
Then they: That you nould let your hand be gone
Off from our hands. He grants with smiling glee.”
(I. 38.)
In this way More has expressed his conception of the Christian Trinity.
Inasmuch as his purpose in the “Psychozoia” is to relate the experiences
of the human soul from the time of its departure from God to its return
thither, he has laid especial emphasis upon the third hypostasis of
Plotinus,—Soul.
In William Drummond’s “An Hymn of the Fairest Fair” attention is centred
upon the first person of the Trinity. Drummond is more of a poet and
less of a philosopher than More; but the philosophic conceptions which
are woven into his poetical description of the nature, attributes, and
works of God are drawn from the same system of metaphysics. In
Drummond’s “Hymn” there is a mingling of two conceptions of God. He is
described, according to the Hebraic idea, as a mighty king, the creator
of the universe, dwelling in heaven, and possessing such attributes of
personality as justice, mercy, might. Running in and out of this
description is a strain of Platonic speculation, in which the conception
of God as an essence is very prominent. Thus by means of a poetic device
picturing youth standing before God and pouring immortal nectar into His
cup, Drummond expresses the Platonic idea of absolute oneness. And this
idea is the attribute of God first set forth.
“If so we may well say (and what we say,
Here wrapt in flesh, led by dim reason’s ray,
To show by earthly beauties which we see,
That spiritual excellence that shines in thee,
Good Lord, forgive), not far from thy right side,
With curled locks Youth ever doth abide;
Rose-cheeked Youth, who, garlanded with flowers
Still blooming, ceaselessly unto thee pours
Immortal nectar in a cup of gold,
That by no darts of ages thou grow old,
And, as ends and beginnings thee not claim,
Successionless that thou be still the same.”
(ll. 31–42.)
After a description of God’s might, Drummond passes on to consider His
truth, conceived as the Platonists conceived intellect, embracing all
reality as essential form. This attribute is pictured as a mirror in
which God beholds all things.