‘If I could shut the gate against my thoughts’ Anonymous (17th century)

If I could shut the gate against my thoughts
And keep out sorrow from this room within,
Or memory could cancel all the notes
Of my misdeeds, and I unthink my sin:  
How free, how clear, how clean my soul should lie,
Discharged of such a loathsome company!  6

Or were there other rooms without my heart
That did not to my conscience join so near,
Where I might lodge the thoughts of sin apart
That I might not their clam'rous crying hear;
What peace, what joy, what ease should I possess,
Freed from their horrors that my soul oppress!  12

But, O my Saviour, who my refuge art,
Let thy dear mercies stand 'twixt them and me,
And be the wall to separate my heart
So that I may at length repose me free;
That peace, and joy, and rest may be within,
And I remain divided from my sin.   18

Note: This poem is sometimes attributed to John Danyell (1564-1626) though not in The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse edited by Donald Davie (Oxford, 1981) from which this version of the poem comes. John Danyell did set the poem to music and this may be one of the reasons for attributing the text, also, to him.

Considering the Poem

When we come across a poem in which each stanza begins with conjunctions like ‘If’, ‘Or’ and ‘But’, we know the author is recreating an anxious train of thought that is always likely to alter direction. Possibilities, probabilities questions and perspectives are jostling with one another as the writer strives to reach a state of settled understanding. What we don’t know in this case, is the identity of the author.

The composer and lutenist, John Danyell, to whom the text is sometimes attributed, set this poem to music (see Note above). John was the brother of the once well-known Elizabethan poet, Samuel Daniel (or Danyell), who may also have made a contribution to the poem. The brothers were contemporaries of Shakespeare and there is evidence, as well as a common-sense likelihood, that Samuel and Shakespeare knew each other’s work.

There are some slight signs in the poem of the author’s familiarity with Shakespeare’s personal style and verbal habits. In the opening line of the poem, the imagined gate separates the speaker from a threat arising inside his own mind and echoes an image in one of Feste’s songs in ‘Twelfth Night’ (1601-2) with the difference that Feste’s image of a shut gate is used to represent a barrier guarding against dangers coming from the world outside:

 But when I came to man’s estate,
 With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
 ’Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
 For the rain it raineth every day.

We can see that the anonymous poet is a competent writer of English verse. An intricate rhyme scheme is sustained and the most common of English metres, the iambic pentameter, is nicely managed. He has some surprises for the reader, too, in the sudden change to a prayerful tone at the start of the final verse and in the confident (and rather Shakespearean) act of making the new word ‘unthink’ (4) by adding the negative prefix ‘un-‘ to an existing verb.

The writer also has the ability to build the poem on the framework of a single, underlying, structural image. The idea of shutting the gate (1) against intrusion initiates the image that governs the whole poem; a gate is the place that separates the public world from our personal, private worlds. If someone crosses that threshold uninvited and enters the house, that person is intruding. The writer’s own thoughts are presented as intruders into the house of his body and mind. It’s easy to see the structural nature of the image by looking for the set of words that are to do with either the safety and privacy of a house or the intrusion of unwanted visitors: ‘room(s)’ (2, 7); ‘loathsome company’ (6); ‘lodge’ (9); ‘refuge’ (13); ‘wall’ (15); ‘repose’ (16); ‘rest’ (17).

The thoughts that intrude into the poet’s mind are memories of his failures – the ‘misdeeds’ (4) and ‘sin’ (9) that inhabit his ‘conscience’ (12). These unwanted guests are impossible to deter. They crowd themselves in, breaking his complacency. This isn’t hard to identify with. Who hasn’t, at some point in a stream of personal, anxious thoughts, tried to shut them out. As always, here they are insistent and determined. The pain they bring is amplified as we move from the first to the second verse by words to do with noise and unease: the thoughts are ‘loathsome’ (6) and make a ‘clam’rous crying’ (10).

The poem concentrates on the idea that it’s impossible to repel the attacks of conscience. There are no ‘other rooms’ (7) ‘without’ (meaning outside) his heart to which expel these ‘thoughts of sin’ (9). The last verse brings a new tone and a new, prayerful manner. The conjunction ‘But’ (13) introduces the answer – the only possible answer – to the writer’s dilemma: Christ’s ‘mercies’ (14) can stand between the writer and the intruders and can, by making a ‘wall’ (15), provide a ‘refuge’ (12) and ‘repose’ (16).

What the poet wants to know and trust, in the end, is that he is more than his errors, sins and failures and that his heart can be made good through an undeserved act of merciful grace. Christ can forgive, ensuring that he is ‘divided’ forever from his ‘sin’ (18).

Edited by Louis Lohr Martz and Richard Sylvester (Norton)