Isaac Watts as Poet

Isaac Watts published four major books of poetry in his life, and three of them were wildly popular. These were Horae Lyricae (1706), Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707), Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children (1715), and The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (1719)[1].

Given the sort of careful person and careful writer that Watts was, it is not surprising that each of these contain a preface describing his goals and methods for writing poetry. There are plenty of online editions of these works, and the prefaces are usually included, so I recommend them as primary sources. But in this essay, I want to provide a broad overview of what Watts says he is doing when he is being a poet.

Horae Lyricae

Horae Lyricae was his first book of poetry, published in 1706, when he was 32; a second, expanded edition was published in 1709. Horae Lyricae means “lyrical hours,” which I think means something like, “poetry I wrote in my spare time.” That is, Watts wasn’t engaged in this writing as his main vocation, but it was something he thought important enough to do. Hoxie Neale Fairchild calls the preface to Horae Lyricae “one of the most significant documents in eighteenth-century literary criticism[2].” Watts starts out his preface with, “It has long been a complaint of the virtuous and refined world, that poesie, whose origin is divine, should be enslaved to vice and profaneness.” This is a variation of William Booth’s (and Larry Norman’s) complaint, “Why should the Devil have all the good tunes?” He wants the Christian world to match the quality and quantity of the non-Christian world. He likens the poets of his day to the dragons in Roscommon’s paraphrase of Psalm 148, which is later used by William Billings in his An Anthem for Thanksgiving:

Ye dragons, whose contagious breath
Peoples the dark retreats of Death,
Change your dire hissings into heav’nly songs,
And praise your Maker with your forkéd tongues.

The Christian story is greater than the stories of the classical myths; “happy talent” should be employed in revealing religion’s “majesty, beauty, and terror.” He notes some current poets are attempting to do just that, and recommends that Christian poets use classical forms (especially the Pindaric ode) to rhyme out Christian poems. He offers poems for worship and exhortations to virtue; he also includes poems using classical forms. Finally, he has a number of poems written in honor of friends and mentors (again, using classical forms).

The songs of devotion he writes not with “a design to appear before the judges of wit,” but to assist “the meditations and worship of vulgar Christians,” by which he means ordinary people (from Latin vulgus, “common people”). This rhetorical strategy we also see in the hymns, psalms, and poems for children. But I think that, in some sense, Horae Lyricae was written to establish his bona fides as a poet.

Hymns and Spiritual Songs

Watts’s Hymns and Spiritual Songs remain his greatest literary and spiritual legacy. It was first published in 1707 and “corrected and much enlarged” for a second edition in 1709. It went through sixteen editions during his lifetime. Most of the Watts texts in the Sacred Harp come from this book. Its preface starts with a complaint:

While we sing the praises of our God in his Church, we are employed in that part of worship which of all others is the nearest akin to Heaven; and 'tis pity that this, of all others, should be performed the worst upon Earth.

The problem was, as Watts, as well as others, saw it, that the psalm-singing as normally practiced, was very badly done. The psalm texts are old-fashioned—both in the sense of badly translated but also concerned with the “ancient Saints” of the Old Testament rather than Christians of his day. He also says the music leader “parcels out” these texts, that is, provides it line by line. His “composures” were written with several goals. First, they express the joys and concerns of Christians gathered together for worship or worshiping privately: “the breathings of our piety expressed according to the variety of our passions, our love, our fear, our hope, our desire, our sorrow, our wonder, and our joy.” Second, they attempt to express what C.S. Lewis would call a “mere Christianity,” with, as Watts says, “the contentions and distinguishing words of sects and parties” not discussed in these texts.

Third, he writes the poems to be simply understood and sung. He limits himself to four common poetic meters, and he tries to make the poetry easy to sing and to understand. As in the preface to Horae Lyricae, he notes the images are “generally sunk to the level of vulgar capacities.” Like a good pop song, it is very complicated (“it cost me labor to make it so”) to make the texts simple. Sometimes, he gave up: “I have been forced to lay aside many hymns … because of the bolder figures of speech that crowed themselves into the verse.” These “bolder” texts he put into the second edition of Horae Lyricae.

The book is divided into three sections: hymns based directly on Scripture (150 hymns), hymns based on spiritual topics (170 hymns), and hymns suitable to the Lord’s Supper (45 hymns). Texts based on the psalms that were in the first edition he removed to place in his Psalms of David, which is discussed later.

Divine Songs for Children

Watts published Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children in 1715; seventeen editions were printed during his lifetime. Similar to his Hymns and Spiritual Songs, he expressly states in the preface that the words would “sink the language to the level of a child’s understanding” and that the songs would be profitable to all Christian children, dissenter or Church of England: “I have designed to profit all, if possible, and offend none.” He also wants children to learn their moral lessons, and he wants this to be an enjoyable task: he hopes they will “incline children to make this part of their business a diversion.” He also attempted a few sonnets on moral subjects that have an “air of pleasantry” about them; one of these is “’Tis the voice of the sluggard.”

The Psalms of David

The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament also has a significant preface with the title, “A brief essay on improving psalmody, or an inquiry into how David’s psalms should be adapted into Christian songs, and why it is lawful and necessary to compose other hymns based on the clearer revelations of the gospel, for Christian church use.” There were fifteen editions published in his lifetime.

From these titles alone we can sense Watts’s intentions, some of which are also mentioned in the preface to Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Having reviewed more than twenty versions of the psalter, he notes they all “make the Hebrew psalmist only speak English, and keep all his own characters still.” Some psalms, thus translated, are universal, and these are “very proper materials for psalmody in all times and places,” but most are specific to the religious, political, and linguistic situation of the psalmists. Watts thinks this inadequate for Christian worship; he gives the example of the difficulty of finding a psalm for the celebration of the Lord’s supper. He acknowledges that, as scripture, the texts should not be changed; but, as sung hymns, to be properly devotional, the sense needs to be adapted to Christian use. If the psalm is an invective against David’s personal enemies, then we sing them against “our spiritual adversaries: sin, Satan, and temptation.” For psalms expressing sublime love or deep want, Watts uses “words of greater latitude and comprehension suited to the general circumstances of men.” Psalms that point to a Messiah, Watts points to Christ; similarly, psalms about worship and sacrifice, Watts points to the church and to Christ’s death. He notes this is what a preacher does when preaching, and he has the same thing for singing.

As with the Hymns and Spiritual Songs and the Divine Songs, Watts aims his paraphrases for a general audience, and for regular worship. He’s not trying to be a capital-P-Poet, but “a servant to the churches, and helper to the meanest[3] Christian”. He notes that Hymns and Spiritual Songs can be used together with The Psalms of David; they have overlapping, but distinct purposes.

Summary

In summary, Watts, having make a case for himself as a capable poet in the Horae Lyricae, attempts to write serviceable poetry for a general Christian audience, which means he abstains from fancy meters, images, and language. Our age is one that tends to enjoy simpler language, and so Watts’s language, despite being two hundred years old, often speaks to us in ways that his contemporaries do not. It’s clear this was also true for the Christians of his time in England, and very soon afterwards in America. As in so many of Watts’s endeavors, he applies logic, a deep spiritual insight, and passionate emotion to his task of helping the church sing and be “employed in that part of worship which of all others is the nearest akin to Heaven.”

Appendix: Poetic Examples

From Horae Lyricae

Two poems are highlighted. The first is a poem dedicated to, and written to, William Blackbourn, who was a fellow dissenter, I think[4].

TO Mr. William Blackbourn.

Life flies too fast to be wasted.

Quae tegit canas modo Bruma valles
Sole vicinos jaculante montes
Deteget rursum —Casimir. Lib. 2. Od. 2.

1. Mark how it snows! how fast the valley fills;
And the sweet groves the hoary garment wear;
Yet the warm sun-beams, bounding from the hills,
Shall melt the veil away, and the young green appear.

2. But when old age has on your temples shed
Her silver frost, there's no returning sun;
Swift flies our autumn, swift our summer's fled,
When youth, and love, and spring, and golden joys are gone.

3. Then cold, and winter, and your aged snow,
Stick fast upon you; not the rich array,
Not the green garland, nor the rosy bough,
Shall cancel or conceal the melancholy gray.

4. The chase of pleasures is not worth the pains,
While the bright sands of health run wasting down;
And honor calls you, from the softer scenes,
To sell the gaudy hour for ages of renown.

5. 'Tis but one youth, and short, that mortals have;
And one old age dissolves our feeble frame:
But there's a heavenly art to elude the grave;
And with the hero-race immortal kindred claim.

6. The man that has his country's sacred tears
Bedewing his cold hearse, has lived his day:
Thus, Blackbourn, we should leave our names our heirs;
Old time and waning moons sweep all the rest away.

Few Happy Matches

This can be sung to the tune of the same name in The Sacred Harp, 1991 edition.

1. Say, mighty love, and teach my song
To whom thy sweetest joys belong,
And who the happy pairs,
Whose yielding hearts and joining hands
Find blessings twisted with their bands,
To soften all their cares.

2. Not the wild herd of nymphs and swains,
That thoughtless fly into the chains,
As custom leads the way:
If there be bliss without design,
Ivies and oaks may grow and twine,
And be as blessed as they.

3. Not sordid souls of earthy mold,
Who drawn by kindred charms of gold,
To dull embraces move:
So two rich mountains of Peru
May rush to wealthy marriage too,
And make a world of love.

4. Not the mad tribe that hell inspires
With wanton flames; those raging fires
The purer bliss destroy:
On Aetna's top let furies wed,
And sheets of lightning dress the bed,
To improve the burning joy.

5. Not the dull pairs, whose marble forms
None of the melting passions warms,
Can mingle hearts and hands:
Logs of green wood, that quench the coals.
Are married just like Stoic souls,
With osiers for their bands.

6. Not minds of melancholy strain,
Still silent, or that still complain,
Can the dear bondage bless:
As well may heavenly concerts spring
From two old lutes with ne'er a string,
Or none beside the bass.

7. Nor can the soft enchantments hold
Two jarring souls of angry mold.
The rugged and the keen:
Sampson's young foxes might as well
In bands of cheerful wedlock dwell,
With firebrands tied between.

8. Nor let the cruel fetters bind
A gentle to a savage mind;
For love abhors the sight:
Loose the fierce tiger from the deer;
For native rage and native fear
Rise and forbid delight.

9. Two kindest souls alone must meet;
Tis friendship makes the bondage sweet,
And feeds their mutual loves:
Bright Venus on her rolling throne
Is drawn by gentlest birds alone,
And Cupids yoke the doves.

Glossary

Aetna: The famous volcano
Cupid: Son of Venus
Ossier: Willows, which make weak bonds
Peru: A mysterious source of wealth to 18^th century folk
Sampson: released foxes with torches on their tails in his enemy’s field (Judges 15)
Stoic: Here, a passion-denying philosophy
Venus: Roman Goddess of Love

From Divine Songs

Versions of Psalm 23

King James Version (1611)

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
 he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
 he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
 thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
 thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
 and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

From Sternhold and Hopkins’s The Whole Book of Psalms (1640)

1. My shepherd is the living Lord,
Nothing therefore I need:
In pastures fair with waters calm,
He sets me for to feed.

2. He did convert and glad my soul,
And brought my mind in frame:
To walk in paths of righteousness,
For his most holy Name.

3. Yea though I walk in vale of death,
Yet will I fear none ill:
Thy rod, thy staff doth comfort me,
And thou art with me still.

4. And in the presence of my foes,
My table thou shalt spread:
Thou shalt (O Lord) fill still my cup,
And eke anoint my head.

Watts’s Common Meter version from The Psalms of David, 1719

1. My shepherd will supply my need,
Jehovah is his name;
In pastures fresh he makes me feed,
Beside the living stream.

 2. He brings my wand’ring spirit back
When I forsake his ways;
And leads me, for his mercy's sake,
In paths of truth and grace.

3. When I walk through the shades of death,
Thy presence is my stay;
A word of thy supporting breath
Drives all my fears away.

4. Thy hand, in sight of all my foes,
Doth still my table spread,
My cup with blessings overflows,
Thine oil anoints my head.

5. The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days:
O may thy house be mine abode,
And all my work be praise!

6. There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger or a guest,
But like a child at home.

[1] He also published a book with significant poetic content later in life that were “youthful remnants” from his younger days, Reliquiae Juveniles: Miscellaneous Thoughts in Prose and Verse (1734), and often included a hymn at the end of sermons he wrote.

[2] Fairchild, Hoxie Neale. Religious Trends in English Poetry, Volume I, 1700-1740, Protestantism and the Cult of Sentiment, Columbia University Press, 1939.

[3] “Mean” here means “low,” of course.

[4] In the next generation, there is a famous architect with the same name who was a dissenter. Perhaps the son of this Blackbourn?