Words of Fire: Mrs. M. A. Reid’s The Harp of Salem
By Peggy Dunn Bailey
Critical Essay
In The Harp of Salem; A Collection of Historical Poems, from the Scriptures. Together with Some Reflective Pieces, Mrs. M.A. Reid, identifying herself on the title page of the text only as "a lady," aligns herself with and even assumes the mantle of David, the boy shepherd and giant slayer who became king of Israel and forefather of Christ. With the title of her text, Reid evokes that most famous harpist of the Bible, he who attempted to sooth Saul's troubled spirit, to overcome rage and resentment, with artistry. With this title, she also focuses our attention on the instrument itself, the harp rather than the harpist. Thus, he-or she-who plays this instrument is secondary to the instrument itself, and even more so to the message being communicated through and by it. The harp is not "of David" but "of Salem"; Salem, of course, is often identified with Jerusalem, but more to Reid's point is Salem's meaning: "peace," the peace Reid shows us as being offered by God. While the harp may have been played by David, as Reid presents it, it is not solely his; it can be taken up by another artist committed to the message of peace. In The Harp of Salem, Reid focuses on message and medium, but by highlighting her gender, as she does on the title page and more than once in the individual poems of the collection, she does something even more provocative-she blurs the lines that might seem to separate message, medium, and messenger. Her message is Christian, her medium is poetry, and the messenger-Reid herself-announces herself as female. In The Harp of Salem, the messenger becomes part of the message. Reid takes up an instrument historically seen as a male's possession-at one and the same time David's harp and divinely inspired poetry, even language itself-in order to communicate the message of a patriarchal religion. As she does so, however, she calls attention to herself as female messenger and selectively focuses upon and recasts only certain elements of scripture, thus reshaping the message as well.
Reid's identification of herself only as "a lady" on the title page of her text may not appear all that remarkable at first glance. Many women, aware that their texts might be judged by their authors' gender, chose to publish anonymously (or pseudonymously) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. When Reid identifies herself as "a lady," she conceals her individual self. By concealing her individual identity, she may direct her reader's attention to message rather than messenger, and, for a Christian poet, such a strategy is understandable. However, by designating herself "a lady," Reid conceals her individual identity but calls attention to her gender.
She does not call attention to her gender only
on the title page, however; she does so in the first poem of the collection, and
this focus on gender becomes even more provocative as Reid situates herself in
formerly male literary and religious territory. She begins her collection, in
epic style, with an invocation of a muse: "Hail, holy muse of Zion!"
(1). Like Milton, Reid begins by asking for inspiration and aid as she re-tells
the message of creation, fall, and redemption. Unlike Milton, she, from the very
beginning of her endeavor, focuses upon the gender of the messenger and suggests
that gender can determine access to the position from which one may communicate
such a divine message; Reid casts herself as a "mortal vot'ress" who
bends before the muse's shrine (2; emphasis mine). In the second stanza of
"The Invocation," she associates herself with David, as she asks to be
inspired as he was. Just as she has chosen not to call herself by name, she
foregoes, at this point, mentioning the psalmist by name as well. Her appeal to
the muse is an appeal for inspiration, but its diction is remarkable: "Shed
that celestial influence o'er my head,/ And rouse within me the inspiring flame/
Which glow'd within the heart of Jesse's son;/ Till, fir'd like him, I strike
the sounding lyre" (6-9). Upon first reading, this plea is simply one for
inspiration, but the passion it evinces, even as it asks for passion, suggests
Promethean aspiration. Reid asks for light and fire; a "mortal vot'ress,"
she asks for gifts previously bestowed on a man (like David or, we may add, like
Milton) who was, after all, mortal as well: a father's son. By the last stanza
of "The Invocation," Reid's prayer seems to have been answered:
"Hail, power sublime! My inmost spirit owns/ Thy sacred inspiration. Bold I
seize/ The Harp of Salem, and
Reid progresses rather swiftly through the story of creation; she does not dedicate even one stanza (let alone an entire poem) to Eve's original sin that, according to Genesis and according to Milton, preceded and prompted Adam's. Instead, Reid moves from an anthem to God's power as demonstrated in the creation to a discussion of Cain's murder of Abel. In "The Fratricide," Reid's Cain is not depicted as harshly as other "sinners" she will later describe; this Cain grieves and regrets his act immediately after he commits it:
But mark him now-that murd'rer, lost
In all the agony of guilt!
Behold his troubl'd bosom toss'd
In anguish-till that hour unfelt.
By the pale dead he stands, and calls—
"Abel, my bother, Abel, rise;"
O'er the cold corpse he prostrate falls,
Whilst wild despair glar'd in his eyes." (37-44)
Reid does not suggest that Cain's punishment is unjust, but her stance toward this "lost one" (77) whose shame is said to be written on his body for all to see and abhor — just as women's bodies have been read as shameful proof of their "corruption" — is decidedly less harsh than her commentary upon other figures from the Bible, such as Jephthah whose thirst for military victory costs his daughter her life.
In "The Obedience of Abraham," Reid holds up for admiration and emulation Abraham's humility and righteousness; she also manages to provide a stark contrast to Jephthah, whose poor judgment leads to his daughter's death. When God commands Abraham to sacrifice his beloved child, Isaac, Abraham mournfully obeys; or rather, he is in the process of obeying. For his obedience, his humble submission to divine will, God spares Isaac. Jephthah's daughter, who isn't even named, does not fare so well. Jephthah is not commanded to sacrifice a child; he offers a loved one in return for success in battle:
The leader of Israel had vow'd to the Lord,
When his marshall'd hosts against Ammon were led,
That if victory crowned his battling sword,
On the altar of heav'n should an off'ring be laid.
And O what an off'ring! The first who should come
To hail his return from victorious strife;
The first that appear'd from his own happy home,
Should bleed by his hand-be it daughter or wife. ("Jephthah's Vow," 5-8)
With the last phrase of the second stanza, Reid
highlights the fact that Jephthah, whose family consisted of his wife and only
one child, knew he was offering a female sacrifice. Like Isaac, Jephthah's
daughter submits to her fate; she says to her father, "Thou hast vow'd to
Jehovah, my father-then give/ The forfeit to heav'n-'tis a fast fleeting
breath" (51-52). Unlike Isaac, however, the young woman dies by her
father's hand. Although she is given some time (two months, according to Judges
11:37-39) to "mourn/ [her] youth's early doom" (55-56), she must be
sacrificed. She dies because she has a "rash father" (32) willing to
sacrifice her for military victory and because, in her devotion, she was too
anxious to greet him when he returned from battle. At the end of this poem and
in the entirety of the next, "The Lament of the Virgins for the Daughter of
Jephthah," Reid focuses upon those who mourn the unlucky virgin's death:
other
Immediately following "The Lament of the Virgins for the Daughter of Jephthah," Reid shifts the narrative focus to David. Interestingly enough, this shift amounts to a rather obvious avoidance of one of only two books of the Bible devoted to women; between Judges, where we read of Jephthah's daughter's sad fate, and I Samuel, where we read of David, there is only one book: Ruth. Yet Reid avoids it, just as she avoids Esther. This avoidance actually serves to make Reid's selection of Biblical narratives even more intriguing. The Book of Ruth is famous for its powerful portrayal of one woman's loyalty to another:
And Ruth said [to her mother-in-law Naomi], Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. (Ruth 1: 16, KJV)
Reid does not feel it necessary to
"prove" that women can be loyal, just as she does not feel it
necessary to remind her readers that Ruth would have been David's
great-grandmother and, thus, the foremother of Christ. Nor does she feel the
need to prove that women can be clever and powerful, as a re-telling of Esther's
story might have allowed her to do. Her agenda is not one of conscious
vindication of all women; her aim seems to be to remind her readers that God is
no "respecter of persons" and to prove it-not by focusing on stories
of godly and influential women in the Bible but simply, as we have seen, by
announcing herself as a woman and proceeding to write herself into the role of
messenger of divine truth. Her choice of David, then, becomes even more
understandable. While David was quite obviously not a woman, he was, like many
women-especially women artists-of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
overlooked and
In the first of the eight poems specifically dedicated to stories surrounding David's early manhood, "David Anointed King over Israel," Reid reminds her readers of the fact that even David's father did not understand who and what his young son was, or could be: "It cannot be the Lord would call the child;/ Few days have darken'd o'er his sunny locks--/ I thought not of him in the lonely wild" (42-44), Jesse tells Samuel. Next, she moves to David's victory over Goliath, the giant who mocks the young shepherd in front of the Israelites and the Philistines, and to Saul's jealousy as his people compare him to David and find him (Saul) wanting: "Saul vanquish'd thousands-his foes fly before him;/ David of Judah ten thousands hath slain" ("The Song of Triumph," 13-14). In "Saul Throws the Javelin at David," David is the "warrior shepherd" who "[s]truck the high harp with sweet bewitching hand" (1-2). Reid writes that "harmony could lull his [Saul's] cares to rest" (7; my emphasis), but David's art does not prevent Saul's attack: "Sweet sung the warlike favourite of the land,/ But still the monarch frown'd with alter'd eye;/ The pointed javelin glitters in his hand-" (13-15). While David's demonstration of restraint, when he takes a spear from beside a sleeping Saul but leaves the king unharmed, provokes remorse in the heart of the jealous king and a promise that he will not injure David ("David's Generosity to Saul"), David still must pay a very personal price for the throne. For, along with Saul, David's beloved friend Jonathan must die. On his way to becoming the harbinger he is intended to be, David experiences dismissal (even by those closest to him) and ridicule; he encounters violent resentment and profound personal loss; yet he becomes a powerful ruler, a revered king. (Reid, not surprisingly, completely avoids any mention of David's "indiscretion" with Bathsheba.) David's association with the harp makes him an even more attractive figure for an aspiring artist, for such an artist might see in David a model of his-or her-lived experience and a symbol of hope.
Reid follows her poems on David with two on Elijah, the insufficiently respected messenger who is taken directly to heaven by way of a chariot of fire, and a short poem in which the harp is again conspicuously highlighted. In "The Jewish Captives," Reid recasts David's Psalm 137, in which the Jews, told by their captors to entertain them with joyous songs of Zion, hang their harps in the willows:
How could they wake the silent string
With trembling and unwilling hand?
O, how the Lord's song could they sing
Within a heathen, foreign land? (21-24)
Reid's re-writing of this particular psalm,
with this particular image of the harp, is significant. It suggests, once again,
Reid's association of herself with David. Here, it is not David the warrior or
David the soon-to-be king whom she evokes but David the artist, the artist who
sings of other artists, captives who refuse to use their instruments to
entertain their oppressors. In Biblical tradition, the harp is not just an
instrument; it has often been read as a symbol of human suffering (Jeffrey
330-31). David's attempt to sooth Saul by playing the harp is fueled by
suffering: Saul's and David's. Grieving over his alienation from his king, and
the father of his dearest friend, David's music originates in his pain. The
paradigm is an ancient one: pain provokes art. With his music, David attempts to
sooth Saul's pain, and thus his own. The captive Jews, suffering indeed, refuse
to transmute their pain into entertainment for their captors. The line
separating artist and medium blurs when the "message" is one of
suffering. The harp, with its strings stretched tautly over wood and its holes
that have been bored to accommodate nails, has even been linked by some
philosophers and theologians to the suffering body of Christ (Jeffrey 331), thus
making the hanging of the harp in/on a tree even more suggestive. The instrument
by which one may communicate the message of redemption merges with the very
instrument of that redemption, and he or she who attempts to communicate the
message becomes not just messenger
Only one poem separates "The Jewish Captives" from the story of Christ's birth, death, and resurrection. In "Belshazzar's Feast," Reid re-tells the famous story of the mysterious writing on the wall: "See, see that hand!-'tis as the hand of man;/ But man-poor feeble man! Man cannot read,/ Unless illum'd by heaven, these words of fire" (92-94). Daniel interprets the message: the king is doomed, divine justice is at hand, and "Proud Babylon" will fall; and fall it must, in order to make way for the coming of Christ and the establishment of Christianity. Interpreted in this way, Reid's jump from the Book of Daniel to the story of Christ's birth seems less odd. But those fiery words are worth a second look. For, essentially, they are what Reid prays for in "The Invocation"-not necessarily words of condemnation, but words of fire; she prayed not just to be Daniel, who would interpret the words, but the divine messenger who would inscribe them.
Like all of her Biblical narratives, Reid's narration of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ is remarkable, both for what she includes and for what she leaves out. She begins with the shepherds who are told of the virgin birth and the holy child lying in a manger, but she does not take us to that stable. We read nothing of the childhood of Jesus; in fact; the poem that follows "Angels Announce the Birth of Christ" is "The Raising of Lazarus from the Dead." In this narrative, what seems to capture Reid's attention is that shortest verse of the Bible: "Jesus wept." Reid inflates that short verse into three stanzas, repeatedly calling our attention to Christ's tears:
For see, he weeps. Amazing proof of love
To frail mortality! Lo! Jesus weeps!
Weeps to behold the ravages of death—
Weeps to behold the woes-the piercing woes- . . . . (35-38)
Christ's compassionate humanity serves as Reid's focus in the next poems as well. In "Blind Bartimeus Restored to Sight," Jesus smiles "in pity on the child of man" (71) and heals Bartimeus, who has been grieving over his inability to see nature's beauty. In "Christ's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem," Reid's description of Christ's grief over the sad future of the city belies the triumphant tone suggested by the title. "Christ's Agony in the Garden" and "The Crucifixion" depict the suffering of Christ at its most intense. While "nature mourns, dismayed, around her Lord" in "The Crucifixion" (87), she "thunders with triumphant voice" in "The Resurrection of Christ" (33). The most blatant authorial intrusion comes in "The Ascension of Christ," where Reid imagines Christ's vision, immediately preceding his ascension, of the future nations who will acknowledge Him as Lord. Reid transforms the lines in which He does so into a paean celebrating the beauty of her native land:
And thee, my native island! Distant far
From flowery Canaan's then more favour'd land;
He saw thee-proudest island of the deep!
He saw thee; but he saw thee lie in night—
The sternest superstition's willing slave;
Yet he, — before whose piercing, awful ken
The past, the present, and the future lie
Expos'd and open, — saw thy warlike sons
Forsake their idol gods, and kneel to him:
He saw thy mountains bloom, thy deserts smile,
With the fair coming harvest of his power:
He heard thy valleys ring with songs of praise;
` Thy wild rocks echo back the holy hymn. (25-37)
The final poem of The Harp of Salem
brings us full circle, back to the aspirations expressed in "The
Invocation" and Reid's daring grasp of the harp. In "The
Conclusion," Reid
And [of] Salem's ancient harp,--which erst obey'd
The thrilling numbers of the shepherd king,
And scatter'd o'er the world th' inspired songs
Of heav'n-wrapt sages in prophetic fire,
Indignant at the feeble touch, which now
Would wake again its bold seraphic tones.... (19-24)
However, this apologetic conclusion regarding her supposed failings as a messenger comes after the fact and does nothing to undercut her message; she has already relayed it. In the final lines of The Harp of Salem, Reid's muse comforts her with the vision of a heaven in which she (Reid), inspired by harps played by seraphim, shall "resume the glorious lay--/ No more unworthy of the wond'rous theme" (45-46). The muse acknowledges that the harpist-poet's mortality may compromise her ability to transmit her message as she would like, but she (the muse) tells the poet that heaven is a place where garlands are hung in "amaranthine bowers/ of sweet celestial blessedness" (49-50); thus, Reid effectively transforms the image of suffering and sacrifice, the harps in the willows, into an image of joy and peace.
The "Reflective Pieces" that follow The Harp of Salem are meditations upon human transience, human folly, divine grace, and divine justice. Her poetic revision of Hebrews 4:9, "There Remaineth Therefore a Rest for the People of God," with its quatrains of alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter lines, is especially well made. Re-inscribing her association with the shepherd king, she devotes almost half of the poems in "Reflective Pieces" to re-workings of selected psalms. She ends her volume, however, with a poem entitled "Stanzas" which does not appear in the table of contents. In this selection, Reid comments upon the source of much human suffering:
Man-emmet man,-the creature of an hour,
Against his brother man, in wrath or scorn,
Will raise his hand, or trample, in his power,
A being, like himself, to changes born. (5-8)
She proceeds to relay the Almighty's comment upon this state of affairs and, in doing so, suggests the often quoted but less frequently obeyed commandment, "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matthew 7:1, KJV):
It must be that offences flow on man:
Yet woe to him who lifts an impious head,
And proudly would another's failings scan. (10-12)
Her final comments are of comfort, but also of warning: the "poor and oppress'd" will be comforted by God Himself (17-20), but the oppressors, Reid tells us, would have been better off if they had been swallowed by a raging ocean (21-24).
Reid's final words, then, are words of warning, of impending judgment. "Stanzas" thus serves to remind us of Reid's focus on human suffering throughout her collection and to remind us of Reid's chosen role. In the invocation she asks for fire-for the light suggestive of insight and inspiration, but also for that zeal which embraces peace as a gift from God and as a by-product of his judgment. In The Harp of Salem and the "Reflective "Pieces" that follow it, through her diction and her imagery, through her selections and her omissions, Reid demonstrates that words of fire may proceed from the harp of peace.
Works Cited
Jeffrey, David Lyle, ed. A Dictionary of
Biblical Tradition in English Literature. Grand Rapids, MI: William B.
Eerdmans, 1992.
Reid, Mrs. M.A. The Harp of Salem; A Collection of Historical Poems, From the
Scriptures. Together with Some Reflective Pieces. Edinburgh: James Taylor
Smith & Co., 1827.