TO THE

TEMPLE

Sacred Poems

With

The Delights of the Muses

By RICHARD CRASHAW, some-
times of Pembroke Hall and
late fellow of S. Peter's Coll.
in Cambridge

The second Edition wherein are added divers
pieces not before extant

LONDON

Printed for Humphrey Moseley and are to be sold at his shop at the Princes Armes in St. Pauls Church-yard

1648.

B

to ad

SAINT MARY MAGDALENE, OR,

THE WEEPER

Lo! where a wounded heart with bleeding eyes conspire, Is she a flaming fountain or a weeping fire?

THE WEEPER

I

HALL, sister springs!

Parents of silver-footed rills!

Ever-bubbling things!

Thawing crystal! snowy hills
Still spending, never spent! I mean
Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene !

II

Heavens thy fair eyes be;
Heavens of ever-falling stars.

'Tis seed-time still with thee;

And stars thou sow'st, whose harvest dares

Promise the Earth to countershine

Whatever makes Heaven's forehead fine.

III

But we are deceived all :
Stars indeed they are too true :
For they but seem to fall,

As Heaven's other spangles do ;
It is not for our Earth and us,
To shine in things so precious.

IV

Upwards thou dost weep,

Heaven's bosom drinks the gentle stream. Where th' milky rivers creep,

Thine floats above, and is the cream. Waters above th' heavens, what they be We are taught best by thy tears and thee.

V

Every morn from hence,

A brisk cherub something sips,
Whose sacred influence

Adds sweetness to his sweetest lips;

Then to his music; and his song
Tastes of this breakfast all day long.

VI

When some new bright guest

Takes up among the stars

room,

And Heaven will make a feast:

1

Angels with crystal phials 1 come
And draw from these full eyes of thine,
Their Master's water, their own wine.
1 Original text, violls.

VII

The dew no more will weep
The primrose's pale cheek to deck:
The dew no more will sleep
Nuzzel'd1 in the lily's neck;
Much rather would it be thy tear,
And leave them both to tremble here.

VIII

Not the soft gold which
Steals from the amber-weeping tree,2
Makes Sorrow half so rich

As the drops distill'd from thee.
Sorrow's best jewels lie in these
Caskets, of which Heaven keeps the keys.

IX

When Sorrow would be seen

In her brightest majesty:
(For she is a Queen):

Then is she dress'd by none but thee.
Then, and only then, she wears

Her proudest pearls: I mean, thy tears.

1 Nestled.

2 Obscure, possibly an evergreen shrub, a species of Anthospermum, whose leaves when bruised smell sweetly. But the tears of birds were said in old times to become amber. Cf. also Othello, v. 2—

"Of one, whose subdued eyes Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinal gum."