As sigh with supple wind

Or answer artful touch

That they convene and come away

To wait at the love-crowned doors of that illustrious day.
Wake, lute and harp,

And every sweet-lipp'd thing
That talks with tuneful string!

Start into life, and leap with me

Into a hasty fit-tun'd harmony.

Nor must you think it much
To obey my bolder touch:

I have authority, in love's name, to take you
And to the work of love this morning wake you.
Wake! in the name

Of Him who never sleeps, all things that are,-
Or, what's the same,

Are musical;

Answer my call,

And come along;

Help me to meditate mine immortal song.

Come, ye soft ministers of sweet sad mirth!
Bring all your household-stuff of heaven on earth.
Oh you, my soul's most certain wings,
Complaining pipes, and prattling strings,

Bring all the store

Of sweets you have; and murmur that you have no more. Come, ne'er to part,

Nature and Art!

Come; and come strong,

To the conspiracy of our spacious song.
Bring all the powers of praise

Your provinces of well-united worlds can raise ;
Bring all your lutes and harps of heaven and earth,
Whate'er co-operates to the common mirth;
Vessels of vocal joys,

Or you, more noble architects of intellectual noise,
Cymbals of heav'n, or human spheres,

Solicitors of souls or ears:

And when you are come, with all

That you can bring or we can call,

CRASHAW.

Oh may you fix

For ever here, and mix
Yourselves into the long

And everlasting series of a deathless song;-
Mix all your many worlds, above,

And loose them into one, of love.

Cheer thee, my heart!

For thou too hast thy part,

And place, in the great throng

Of this unbounded all-embracing song.
Powers of my soul, be proud!

And speak aloud

To all the dear-bought nations this redeeming name,
And in the wealth of one rich word proclaim

The name of your delights and our desires,

And fit it to so far inferior lyres.

Our murmurs have their music too,

Ye mighty orbs! as well as you;
Nor yields the noblest nest

Of warbling seraphim, to th' ears of love,
A choicer lesson than the joyful breast
Of a poor panting turtle-dove.

And we, low worms, have leave to do

The same bright business, ye third heav'ns! with you.
Gentle spirits, do not complain;

We will have care

To keep it fair,

And send it back to you again.

Come, lovely name! appear from forth the bright

Regions of peaceful light;

Look from thine own illustrious home,

Fair King of names, and come:

Leave all thy native glories in their gorgeous nest,

And give thyself awhile the gracious guest

Of humble souls, that seek to find

95

The hidden sweets

Which man's heart meets

When thou art master of the mind.
Come, lovely name! life of our hope!
Lo, we hold our hearts wide ope!
Unlock thy cabinet of day,

Dearest sweet, and come away.

Lo, how the thirsty lands

Gasp for thy golden showers, with long stretch'd hands!

Lo, how the labouring earth

That hopes to be

All heaven by thee,

Leaps at thy birth!

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 the 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!

VOL. III.

Unfold thy fair conceptions;

The birth of our bright joys.

Oh, thou compacted

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 thee.
Fair, flowery name! in none but thee,

And thy nectareal fragrancy,

Hourly there meets

An universal synod of all sweets;
By whom it is defined thus-

That no perfume

For ever shall presume

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 of fire, all full of thee,

Fought against frowns with smiles; gave glorious chase

To persecutions; and against the face

Of death and fiercest dangers, durst with brave

And sober pace march on to meet a grave.

I

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 strived 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 served them in thy glorious ends.
What did their weapons, but with wider pores
Enlarge thy flaming-breasted lovers,

More freely to transpire

That impatient fire

The heart that hides thee hardly covers?
What did their weapons, but set wide the doors
For thee? fair purple doors, of love's devising;
The ruby windows which enrich'd the east
Of thy so oft-repeated rising.

Each wound of theirs was thy new morning,

And re-enthroned 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.