HERBERT.

Sheep eat the grass, and dung the ground for more:
Trees after bearing drop their leaves for soil:
Springs vent their streams, and by expense get store:
Clouds cool by heat, and baths by cooling boil.

Who hath the virtue to express the rare
And curious virtues both of herbs and stones?
Is there an herb for that? O that Thy care
Would shew a root that gives expressions!

And if an herb hath power, what have the stars!
A rose, besides his beauty, is a cure.
Doubtless our plagues and plenty, peace and wars,
Are there much surer than our art is sure.

Thou hast hid metals: man may take them thence,
But at his peril; when he digs the place,
He makes a grave; as if the thing had sense,
And threaten'd man, that he should fill the space.

Ev'n poisons praise Thee. Should a thing be lost?
Should creatures want, for want of heed, their due?
Since where are poisons, antidotes are most;
The help stands close, and keeps the fear in view.

The sea, which seems to stop the traveller,
Is by a ship the speedier passage made.
The winds, who think they rule the mariner,
Are rul'd by him, and taught to serve his trade.

And as Thy house is full, so I adore

Thy curious art in marshalling Thy goods.

The hills with health abound, the vales with store;
The south, with marble; north, with furs and woods.

Hard things are glorious; easy things good cheap;
The common all men have; that which is rare,
Men therefore seek to have and care to keep.
The healthy frosts with summer fruits compare.

Light without wind is glass; warm without weight
Is wool and furs; cool without coldness, shade;

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Speed without pains, a horse; tall without height,

A servile hawk; low without loss, a spade.

All countries have enough to serve their need:
If they seek fine things, Thou dost make them run
For their offence; and then dost turn their speed
To be commerce and trade from sun to sun.

Nothing wears clothes but man; nothing doth need
But he to wear them. Nothing useth fire,
But man alone, to shew his heavenly breed:
And only he hath fuel in desire.

When the earth was dry, Thou mad'st a sea of wet;

When that lay gather'd, Thou didst broach the mountains; When yet some places could no moisture get,

The winds grew gard'ners, and the clouds good fountains.

Rain, do not hurt my flowers; but gently spend
Your honey-drops; press not to smell them here;
When they are ripe, their odour will ascend,
And at your lodging with their thanks appear.

But who hath praise enough? nay, who hath any?
None can express Thy works but he that knows them;
And none can know Thy works, which are so many,
And so complete, but only He that owns them.

All things that are, though they have several ways,

Yet in their being join with one advice
To honour Thee; and so I give Thee praise

In all my other hymns, but in this twice.

Each thing that is, although in use and name
It go for one, hath many ways in store
To honour Thee and so each hymn thy fam
Extolleth many ways; yet this, one more.

The Flower.

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean

Are Thy returns! ev'n as the flowers in spring:

HERBERT.

To which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frost's tributes of pleasure bring.
Grief melts away

Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivell'd heart
Could have recover'd greenness? It was gone
Quite under ground, as flowers depart
To see their mother root, when they have blown;
Where they together

All the hard weather,

Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

These are Thy wonders, Lord of power!
Killing and quick'ning, bringing down to hell
And up to heaven in an hour;
Making a chiming of a passing-bell.
We say amiss,

This or that is:'

Thy word is all, if we would spell.

Oh, that I once past changing were;
Fast in Thy Paradise, where no flow'r can wither!
Many a spring I shot up fair,

Offering at heav'n, growing and groaning thither:
Nor doth my flower

Want a spring-shower,

My sins and I joining together.

But, while I grow in a straight line,
Still upwards bent, as if heav'n were mine own,
Thy anger comes, and I decline:

What frost to that? What pole is not the zone
Where all things burn,

When thou dost turn,

And the least frown of thine is shown?

And now in age I bud again;
After so many deaths I live and write,
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing. O my only light,

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It cannot be

That I am he,

On whom Thy tempests fell at night!

These are Thy wonders, Lord of love!
To make us see we are but flow'rs that glide:
Which when we once can find and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us where to 'bide.
Who would be more,

Swelling through store,

Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

RICHARD CRASHAW.

William Crashaw was a celebrated preacher at the Temple, and his son Richard, who was born in London, was a student of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. He was afterwards elected a Fellow of Peterhouse. With a pensive and poetical temperament, and, at the same time, with feelings deeply devotional, he was ill at home amidst the wranglings and tumults of the Parliamentary era, and at last, when ejected from his fellowship, he took refuge in the Church of Rome. He seems to have died in Italy; but the exact period of his death, as well as of his birth, is unknown.

Mystical, enthusiastic, artificial, Crashaw is a poet by no means English. He seldom sees either an object in nature or a truth in revelation, as it offers itself to Anglo-Saxon eyes; but everything has a halo or nimbus around it, and is painted in mediæval proportions. But the less that we sympathise with this style, the stronger is the testimony implied in the homage which we are constrained to yield to the author's genius; and no one can read such effusions as the following without feeling that the harp is in the hand of a master, and, we might almost add, without envying the fervour of the enraptured minstrel, whose motto was

"Live, Jesus, live, and let it be

My life to die for love of Thee."

CRASHAW,

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

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