Subtlest, but surest being! Thou by whom
Our nothing hath a definition:

Fair cloud of fire! both shade and light,
Our life in death, our day in night:
Fates cannot find out a capacity

Of hurting thee.

From thee their thin dilemma with blunt horn Shrinks, like the sick moon at the wholesome morn.

COWLEY.

Hope, thou bold taster of delight,

Who, stead of doing so, devour'st it quite;
Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'st us poor
By clogging it with legacies before.

The joys which we entire should wed
Come deflower'd virgins to our bed:
Good fortunes without gain imported be,
So mighty custom's paid to thee!
For joy, like wine kept close, doth better taste,
If it take air before its spirits waste.

CRASHAW.

Thou art love's legacy under lock
Of faith the steward of our growing stock:
Our crown-lands lie above, yet each meal brings
A seemly portion for the sons of kings.

Nor will the virgin-joys we wed

Come less unbroken to our bed,

Because that from the bridal cheek of bliss

Thou thus steal'st down a distant kiss ; Hope's chaste kiss wrongs no more joy's maidenhead, Than spousal rites prejudge the marriage-bed.

COWLEY.

Hope, Fortune's cheating lottery,

Where for one prize an hundred blanks there be :
Fond archer, Hope, who tak'st thine aim so far,
That still or short or wide thine arrows are:
Thine empty cloud the eye itself deceives
With shapes that our own fancy gives:
A cloud which gilt and painted now appears,
But must drop presently in tears.
When thy false beams o'er reason's light prevail,
By ignes fatui, not North stars, we sail.

CRASHAW.

Fair Hope! our earlier heaven, by thee

Young Time is taster to Eternity.

The generous wine with age grows strong, not sour; Nor need we kill thy fruit to smell thy flower.

Thy golden head never hangs down,

Till in the lap of love's full noon

It falls and dies. O, no, it melts away
As doth the dawn into the day:

As lumps of sugar lose themselves, and twine
Their subtle essence with the soul of wine.

COWLEY.

Brother of Fear! more gaily clad,

The merrier fool o' th' two, yet quite as mad:
Sire of repentance! shield of fond desire,
That blows the chymic's and the lover's fire,
Still leading them insensibly on,

With the strange witchcraft of Anon!

By thee the one doth changing nature through

Her endless labyrinths pursue,

And th' other chases woman, while she goes

More ways and turns than hunted Nature knows.

CRASHAW.

Fortune, alas! above the world's law wars: Hope kicks the curled heads of conspiring stars: Her keel cuts not the waves where our winds stir, And Fate's whole lottery is one blank to her. Her shafts and she fly far above,

And forage in the fields of light and love.

Sweet Hope! kind cheat! fair fallacy! by thee We are not where or what we be,

But what and where we would: thus art thou

Our absent presence, and our future now.

CRASHAW.

Faith's sister! nurse of fair desire! Fear's antidote! a wise, a well-stay'd fire Temper'd 'twixt cold despair and torrid joy: Queen regent in young love's minority! Though the vex'd chymic vainly chases His fugitive gold through all her faces, And love's more fierce, more fruitless fires assay One face more fugitive than they,

True Hope's a glorious huntress, and her chase,—— The God of nature in the field of grace!

THE

DELIGHTS OF THE MUSES;

OR, OTHER POEMS

WRITTEN ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS,

BY RICHARD CRASHAW.

MART. DIC MIHI QUID MELIUS DESIDIOSUS AGAS.