If neither love, thy beauty, nor thy tears, Invent some other way to make him know He need not hunt, that can have such a deer: The Queen of Love did once Adonis woo, But, hard of soul, with no persuasions won, He felt the curse of his disdain too soon.
In vain I counsel her to put on wing;
Echo hath left her solitary grove; And in the vale, the palace of the spring, Sits silently attending to her love; But round about, to catch his voice with care, In every shade and tree she hid a snare. Now do the huntsmen fill the air with noise,
And their shrill horns chafe her delighted ear, Which, with loud accents, give the woods a voice Proclaiming parley to the fearful deer: She hears the jolly tunes; but every strain, As high and musical, she returns again. Rous'd is the game; pursuit doth put on wings; The sun doth shine, and gild them out their way; The deer into an o'ergrown thicket springs,
Through which he quaintly steals his shine away; The hunters scatter; but the boy, o'erthrown In a dark part of the wood, complains alone. Him, Echo, led by her affections, found,
Joy'd, you may guess, to reach him with her eye; But more, to see him rise without a wound--
Who yet obscures herself behind some tree; He, vexed, exclaims, and asking, 'Where am I?' The unseen virgin answers,' Here am I !' 'Some guide from hence! Will no man hear?' he cries: She answers, in her passion, 'Oh man, hear!' 'I die, I die,' say both; and thus she tries, With frequent answers, to entice his ear And person to her court, more fit for love; He tracks the sound, and finds her odorous grove. The way he trod was paved with violets,
Whose azure leaves do warm their naked stalks; In their white double ruffs the daisies jet,
And primroses are scattered in the walks, Whose pretty mixture in the ground declares Another galaxy embossed with stars. Two rows of elms ran with proportioned grace, Like nature's arras, to adorn the sides; The friendly vines their loved barks embrace, While folding-tops the chequered ground-work hides; Here oft the tired sun himself would rest, Riding his glorious circuit to the west. From hence delight conveys him unawares Into a spacious green, whose either side
A hill did guard, whilst with his trees, like hairs, The clouds were busy binding up his head; The flowers here smile upon him as he treads, And, but when he looks up, hang down their heads. Not far from hence, near an harmonious brook, Within an arbour of conspiring trees, Whose wilder boughs into the stream did look, A place more suitable to her distress, Echo, suspecting that her love was gone, Herself had in a careless posture thrown. But Time upon his wings had brought the boy To see this lodging of the airy queen, Whom the dejected nymph espies with joy Through a small window of eglantine; And that she might be worthy his embrace, Forgets not to new-dress her blubber'd face. With confidence she sometimes would go out, And boldly meet Narcissus in the way; But then her fears present her with new doubt, And chide her over-rash resolve away. Her heart with overcharge of love must break; Great Juno will not let poor Echo speak.
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RICHARD CRASHAW, a religious poet, whose devotional strains and lyric raptures' evince the highest genius, was the son of a preacher at the Temple church, London. The date of his birth is not known, but in 1644 he was a fellow of Peterhouse college, Cambridge. Crashaw was, at all periods of his life, of an enthusiastic disposition. He lived for the greater part of several years in St Mary's church, near Peterhouse, engaged chiefly in religious offices and writing devotional poetry; and, as the preface to his works informs us, like a primitive saint, offering more prayers by night, than others usually offer in the day.' He is said to have been an eloquent and powerful preacher. Being ejected from his fellowship for non-compliance with the rules of the parliamentary army, he removed to France, and became a proselyte to the Roman Catholic faith. Through the friendship of Cowley, Crashaw obtained the notice of Henrietta Maria, then at Paris, and was recommended by her majesty to the dignitaries of the church in Italy. He became secretary to one of the cardinals, and a canon of the church of Loretto. In this situation, Crashaw died about the year 1650. Cowley honoured his memory with
The meed of a melodious tear.
The poet was an accomplished scholar. and his translations from the Latin and Italian possess great freedom, force, and beauty. He translated part of the Sospetto d'Herode, from the Italian of Marino; and passages of Crashaw's version are not unworthy of Milton, who had evidently seen the work. He thus describes the abode of Satan :
Below the bottom of the great abyss,
There, where one centre reconciles all things, The world's profound heart pants; there placed is Mischief's old master; close about him clings A curl'd knot of embracing snakes, that kiss His corresponding cheeks: these loathsome strings Hold the perverse prince in eternal ties Fast bound, since first he forfeited the skies.
Fain would he have forgot what fatal strings Eternally bind each rebellious limb; He shook himself, and spread his spacious wings, Which like two bosom'd sails, embrace the dim Air with a dismal shade, but all in vain; Of sturdy adamant is his strong chain. While thus Heaven's highest counsels, by the low Footsteps of their effects, he trac'd too well, He toss'd his troubled eyes-embers that glow Now with new rage, and wax too hot for hell; With his foul claws he fenc'd his furrow'd brow, And gave a ghastly shriek, whose horrid yell Ran trembling through the hollow vault of night.
While resident in Cambridge, Crashaw published a volume of Latin poems and epigrams, in one of which occurs the well-known conceit relative to the sacred miracle of water being turned into wine
The conscious water saw its God and blush'd. In 1646 appeared his English poems, Steps to the Temple, The Delights of the Muses, and Carmen Deo Nostro. The greater part of the volume consists of religious poetry, in which Crashaw occasionally addresses the Saviour, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalen, with all the passionate earnestness and fer
vour of a lover. He had an extravagant admiration of the mystic writings of St Theresa, founder of the Carmelites, which seems to have had a bad effect on his own taste, naturally prone, from his enthusiastic temperament, to carry any favourite object, feeling, or passion, to excess. In these flights into the third heavens, with all his garlands and singing robes about him,' Crashaw luxuriates among
An hundred thousand loves and graces, And many a mystic thing Which the divine embraces
Of the dear Spouse of Spirits with them will bring; For which it is no shame
That dull mortality must not know a name. Such seem to have been his daily contemplations, the heavenly manna on which his young spirit fed with delight. This mystical style of thought and fancy naturally led to exaggeration and to conceits. The latter pervaded all the poetry of the time, and Crashaw could hardly escape the infection, even if there had not been in his peculiar case strong predisposing causes. But, amidst all his abstractions, metaphors, and apostrophes, Crashaw is seldom tedious. His imagination was copious and various. He had, as Coleridge has remarked, a 'power and opulence of invention,' and his versification is sometimes highly musical. With more taste and judgment (which riper years might have produced), Crashaw would have outstripped most of his contemporaries, even Cowley. No poet of his day is so rich in barbaric pearl and gold,' the genuine ore of poetry. It is deeply to be regretted that his life had not been longer, more calm and fortunate-realising his own exquisite lines
A happy soul, that all the way
To heaven, hath a summer's day.
Amidst his visions of angels ascending and descending, Crashaw had little time or relish for earthly love. He has, however, left a copy of verses entitled, Wishes to a Supposed Mistress, in which are some fine thoughts. He desires his fair one to pos
All his leaves so fresh and sweet, And lay them trembling at his feet. I've seen the morning's lovely ray Hover o'er the new-born day, With rosy wings, so richly bright, As if he scorn'd to think of night, When a ruddy storm, whose scowl Made Heaven's radiant face look foul, Call'd for an untimely night
To blot the newly-blossom'd light.
The felicity and copiousness of Crashaw's language are, however, best seen from his translations; and we subjoin, entire, his version of Music's Duel, from the Latin of Strada. It is seldom that so sweet and luxurious a strain of pure description and sentiment greets us in our poetical pilgrimage:
Now westward Sol had spent the richest beams Of noon's high glory, when, hard by the streams Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat, Under protection of an oak, there sat A sweet lute's-master; in whose gentle airs He lost the day's heat, and his own hot cares. Close in the covert of the leaves there stood A nightingale, come from the neighbouring wood (The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree, Their muse, their syren, harmless syren she): There stood she list'ning, and did entertain The music's soft report: and mould the same In her own murmurs; that whatever mood His curious fingers lent, her voice made good: The man perceiv'd his rival, and her art, Dispos'd to give the light-foot lady sport, Awakes his lute, and 'gainst the fight to come Informs it in a sweet præludium
Of closer strains, and e'er the war begin, He lightly skirmishes on every string Charged with a flying touch; and straightway she Carves out her dainty voice as readily, Into a thousand sweet distinguish'd tones, Quick volumes of wild notes, to let him know, And reckons up in soft divisions By that shrill taste, she could do something too. His nimble hand's instinct then taught each string A cap'ring cheerfulness, and made them sing To their own dance; now negligently rash He throws his arm, and with a long-drawn dash Blends all together; then distinctly trips From this to that, then quick returning, skips And snatches this again, and pauses there. She measures every measure, everywhere Meets art with art; sometimes, as if in doubt Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out, Trails her plain ditty in one long-spun note, Through the sleek passage of her open throat, A clear unwrinkled song; then doth she point it With tender accents, and severely joint it By short diminutives, that, being rear'd In controverting warbles, evenly shar'd, With her sweet self she wrangles; he amaz'd, That from so small a channel should be rais'd The torrent of a voice, whose melody Could melt into such sweet variety, Strains higher yet, that, tickled with rare art, The tattling strings, each breathing in his part, Most kindly do fall out; the grumbling base In surly groans disdains the treble's grace; The high-perch't treble chirps at this, and chides, Until his finger (moderator) hides
And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all Hoarse, shrill at once; as when the trumpets call Hot Mars to th' harvest of death's field, and woo Men's hearts into their hands: this lesson too
She gives them back: her supple breast thrills out Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill, And folds in wav'd notes, with a trembling bill, The pliant series of her slippery song; Then starts she suddenly into a throng
Of short thick sobs, whose thund'ring volleys float
And roll themselves over her lubric throat
In panting murmurs, still'd out of her breast; That ever-bubbling spring, the sugar'd nest Of her delicious soul, that there does lie Bathing in streams of liquid melody; Music's best seed-plot; when in ripen'd airs A golden-headed harvest fairly rears
His honey-dropping tops, plough'd by her breath Which there reciprocally laboureth.
In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire, Sounded to th' name of great Apollo's lyre; Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes Of sweet-lipp'd angel-imps, that swill their throats In cream of morning Helicon, and then Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men, To woo them from their beds, still murmuring That men can sleep while they their matins sing (Most divine service): whose so early lay Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day. There might you hear her kindle her soft voice, In the close murmur of a sparkling noise; And lay the ground-work of her hopeful song, Still keeping in the forward stream so long, Till a sweet whirlwind (striving to get out) Heaves her soft bosom, wanders round about, And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast, Till the fledg'd notes at length forsake their nest, Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the sky, Wing'd with their own wild echoes, prattling fly. She opes the flood-gate, and lets loose a tide Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride On the way'd back of every swelling strain, Rising and falling in a pompous train, And while she thus discharges a shrill peal Of flashing airs, she qualifies their zeal With the cool epode of a graver note; Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat
Would reach the brazen voice of war's hoarse bird; Her little soul is ravish'd, and so pour'd Into loose ecstacies, that she is plac'd Above herself, music's enthusiast.
Shame now and anger mix'd a double stain In the musician's face: yet, once again, Mistress, I come: now reach a strain, my lute, Above her mock, or be for ever mute. Or tune a song of victory to me,
Or to thyself sing thine own obsequy.' So said, his hands sprightly as fire he flings, And with a quavering coyness tastes the strings: The sweet-lipp'd sisters musically frighted, Singing their fears, are fearfully delighted: Trembling as when Apollo's golden hairs
Are fann'd and frizzled in the wanton airs Of his own breath, which, married to his lyre,
Doth tune the spheres, and make heaven's self look
From this to that, from that to this he flies, Feels music's pulse in all her arteries;
Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads, His fingers struggle with the vocal threads, Following those little rills, he sinks into A sea of Helicon; his hand does go
Those parts of sweetness which with nectar drop, Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup: The humorous strings expound his learned touch By various glosses; now they seem to grutch, And murmur in a buzzing din, then gingle In shrill-tongued accents, striving to be single;
Every smooth turn, every delicious stroke Gives life to some new grace; thus doth he invoke Sweetness by all her names: thus, bravely thus (Fraught with a fury so harmonious)
The lute's light genius now does proudly rise, Heav'd on the surges of swoll'n rhapsodies; Whose flourish (meteor-like) doth curl the air With flash of high-born fancies, here and there Dancing in lofty measures, and anon Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone, Whose trembling murmurs, melting in wild airs, Run to and fro, complaining his sweet cares; Because those precious mysteries that dwell In music's ravish'd soul he dare not tell, But whisper to the world: thus do they vary, Each string his note, as if they meant to carry Their master's blest soul (snatch'd out at his ears By a strong ecstacy) through all the spheres Of music's heaven; and seat it there on high, In th' empyreum of pure harmony.
At length (after so long, so loud a strife Of all the strings, still breathing the best life Of blest variety, attending on
His fingers' fairest revolution,
In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall) A full-mouth'd diapason swallows all.
This done, he lists what she would say to this; And she, although her breath's late exercise Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat, Yet summons all her sweet powers for a note. Alas! in vain! for while (sweet soul) she tries To measure all those wild diversities Of chatt'ring strings, by the small size of one Poor simple voice, raised in a natural tone;, She fails, and failing grieves, and grieving dies: She dies, and leaves her life the victor's prize, Falling upon his lute: Oh fit to have (That lived so sweetly) dead, so sweet a grave!
Temperance, or the Cheap Physician.
Go, now, and with some daring drug Bait thy disease; and, whilst they tug, Thou, to maintain their precious strife, Spend the dear treasures of thy life. Go, take physic, dote upon Some big-named composition, The oraculous doctors' mystic bills- Certain hard words made into pills; And what at last shalt gain by these! Only a costlier disease.
That which makes us have no need Of physic, that's physic indeed. Hark, hither, reader! wilt thou see Nature her own physician be? Wilt see a man, all his own wealth, His own music, his own health; A man whose sober soul can tell How to wear her garments well; Her garments, that upon her sit, As garments should do, close and fit;
A well-cloth'd soul that's not oppress'd
Nor chok'd with what she should be dress'd;
A soul sheath'd in a crystal shrine,
Through which all her bright features shine; As when a piece of wanton lawn, A thin aërial veil, is drawn
O'er beauty's face, seeming to hide, More sweetly shows the blushing bride;
A soul, whose intellectual beams
No mists do mask, no lazy steams
A happy soul, that all the way To heaven, hath a summer's day? Would'st see a man, whose well-warm'd blood Bathes him in a genuine flood?
A man whose tuned humours be A seat of rarest harmony?
Wouldst see blithe looks, fresh cheeks, beguile Age! Wouldst see December smile? Wouldst see nests of new roses grow In a bed of reverend snow? Warm thoughts, free spirits flattering Winter's self into a spring?
In sum, wouldst see a man that can Live to be old, and still a man? Whose latest and most leaden hours
Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flowers; And when life's sweet fable ends,
Soul and body part like friends; No quarrels, murmurs, no delay; A kiss, a sigh, and so away?
This rare one, reader, wouldst thou see? Hark, hither and thyself be he.
Hymn to the Name of Jesus.
I sing the Name which none can say, But touch'd with an interior ray; The name of our new peace; our good; Our bliss, and supernatural blood; The name of all our lives and loves: Hearken and help, ye holy doves! The high-born brood of day; you bright Candidates of blissful light,
The heirs elect of love; whose names belong Unto the everlasting life of song;
All ye wise souls, who in the wealthy breast
Of this unbounded Name build your warm nest. Awake, my glory! soul (if such thou be, And that fair word at all refer to thee), Awake and sing,
Bring hither thy whole self; and let me see What of thy parent heaven yet speaks in thee.
O thou art poor
Of noble powers, I see,
And full of nothing else but empty me; Narrow and low, and infinitely less Than this great morning's mighty business. One little world or two, Alas! will never do; We must have store;
Go, soul, out of thyself, and seek for more;
Great Nature for the key of her huge chest Of heav'ns, the self-involving set of spheres, Which dull mortality more feels than hears; Then rouse the nest
Of nimble art, and traverse round The airy shop of soul-appeasing sound: And beat a summons in the same
All-sovereign name,
To warn each several kind
And shape of sweetness-be they such
As sigh with supple wind
Or answer artful touch
That they convene and come away
The attending world, to wait thy rise, First turn'd to eyes;
And then, not knowing what to do, Turn'd them to tears, and spent them too. Come, royal name! and pay the expense Of all this precious patience: Oh, come away
And kill the death of this delay. Oh see, so many worlds of barren years Melted and measur'd out in seas of tears! Oh, see the weary lids of wakeful hope (Love's eastern windows) all wide ope With curtains drawn,
To catch the daybreak of thy dawn! Oh, dawn at last, long-look'd for day! Take thine own wings and come away. Lo, where aloft it comes! It comes, among The conduct of adoring spirits, that throng Like diligent bees, and swarm about it. Oh, they are wise,
And know what sweets are suck'd from out it. It is the hive
By which they thrive,
Where all their hoard of honey lies.
Lo, where it comes, upon the snowy dove's Soft back, and brings a bosom big with loves. Welcome to our dark world, thou womb of day! Unfold thy fair conceptions; and display The birth of our bright joys.
Body of blessings! spirit of souls extracted! Oh, dissipate thy spicy powers,
Cloud of condensed sweets! and break upon us In balmy showers!
Oh, fill our senses, and take from us
All force of so profane a fallacy,
To think aught sweet but that which smells of thes. Fair flow'ry name! in none but thee,
And thy nectarcal fragrancy,
Hourly there meets
An universal synod of all sweets; By whom it is defined thus- That no perfume
For ever shall presume
To pass for odoriferous,
But such alone whose sacred pedigree
Can prove itself some kin, sweet name! to thee. Sweet name! in thy each syllable
A thousand blest Arabias dwell;
A thousand hills of frankincense; Mountains of myrrh and beds of spices, And ten thousand paradises,
The soul that tastes thee takes from thence. How many unknown worlds there are Of comforts, which thou hast in keeping! How many thousand mercies there In pity's soft lap lie a-sleeping! Happy he who has the art
To awake them,
And to take them
Home, and lodge them in his heart.
Oh, that it were as it was wont to be,
When thy old friends, on fire all full of thee,
To wait at the love-crowned doors of that illustrious Fought against frowns with smiles; gave glorious chase day
To persecutions; and against the face
Of death and fiercest dangers, durst with brave
And sober pace march on to meet a grave.
On their bold breasts about the world they bore thee, And to the teeth of hell stood up to teach thee;
In centre of their inmost souls they wore thee, Where racks and torments striv'd in vain to reach thee.
Little, alas! thought they
Who tore the fair breasts of thy friends,
Their fury but made way
For thee, and serv'd them in thy glorious ends.
Of thy so oft-repeated rising.
Each wound of theirs was thy new morning, And re-enthron'd thee in thy rosy nest,
With blush of thine own blood thy day adorning : It was the wit of love o'erflow'd the bounds
Of wrath, and made the way through all these wounds. Welcome, dear, all-adored name!
For sure there is no knee
That knows not thee;
Or if there be such sons of shame,
Alas! what will they do,
When stubborn rocks shall bow,
And hills hang down their heav'n-saluting heads To seek for humble beds
Of dust, where, in the bashful shades of night, Next to their own low nothing they may lie,
And couch before the dazzling light of thy dread Majesty.
They that by love's mild dictate now
Will not adore thee,
Shall then, with just confusion, bow And break before thee.
SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE, knight, brother of Thomas Lord Fanshawe, was born in 1607. He joined the royalists, and was secretary at war to Prince Rupert. After the Restoration, he was appointed ambassador to Spain and Portugal, in which character he died at Madrid in 1666. Fanshawe translated the Lusiad of Camoens, and the Pastor Fido of Guarini. With the latter production, published in 1648, he gave to the world some miscellaneous poems, from which the following are selected :
Thou blushing rose, within whose virgin leaves The wanton wind to sport himself presumes, Whilst from their rifled wardrobe he receives For his wings purple, for his breath perfumes! Blown in the morning, thou shalt fade ere noon : What boots a life which in such haste forsakes thee? Thou'rt wondrous frolic being to die so soon : And passing proud a little colour makes thee. If thee thy brittle beauty so deceives,
Know, then, the thing that swells thee is thy bane; For the same beauty doth in bloody leaves The sentence of thy early death contain.
Some clown's coarse lungs will poison thy sweet flower, If by the careless plough thou shalt be torn : And many Herods lie in wait each hour To murder thee as soon as thou art born; Nay, force thy bud to blow; their tyrant breath Anticipating life, to hasten death.
Thee, senseless stock, because thou'rt richly gilt, The blinded people without cause admire, And superstition impiously hath built
Altars to that which should have been the fire. Where shall my tongue consent to worship thee, Since all's not gold that glisters and is fair; Carving but makes an image of a tree : But gods of images are made by prayer.
Sabean if Illustrio Like a k For mor And thy Thy dul
The clean contrary way. "Tis for Religion that you fight, And for the kingdom's good,
By robbing churches, plundering men, And shedding guiltless blood.
Down with the orthodoxal train,
All loyal subjects slay;
When these are gone, we shall be blest, The clean contrary way.
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When Charles we've bankrupt made like us,
Of crown and power bereft him, And all his loyal subjects slain,
And none but rebels left him. When we've beggar'd all the land, And sent our trunks away,
We'll make him then a glorious prince, The clean contrary way. 'Tis to preserve his majesty,
That we against him fight, Nor are we ever beaten back, Because our cause is right: If any make a scruple on't,
Our declarations say,
Who fight for us, fight for the king The clean contrary way.
At Keynton, Branford, Plymouth, York, And divers places more,
What victories we saints obtain❜d, The like ne'er seen before ! How often we Prince Rupert kill'd, And bravely won the day; The wicked cavaliers did run
The clean contrary way. The true religion we maintain, The kingdom's peace and plenty; The privilege of parliament
Not known to one of twenty; The ancient fundamental laws; And teach men to obey
Their lawful sovereign; and all these The clean contrary way. We subjects' liberties preserve, By prisonments and plunder, And do enrich ourselves and state By keeping the wicked under. We must preserve mechanics now, To lecturise and pray; By them the Gospel is advanced The clean contrary way. And though the king be much misled By that malignant crew; He'll find us honest, and at last Give all of us our due. For we do wisely plot, and plot, Rebellion to destroy,
He sees we stand for peace and truth, The clean contrary way.
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