(c) Richard Crashaw (1613–50), the son of a clergyman, was born in London, and educated at the Charterhouse and at Cambridge. During the Civil War, in which he was a strong Royalist, he was compelled to escape to France, where he became a Roman Catholic. At a later stage he went to Rome and to Loretto. At the latter place he died and was buried.
Crashaw represents the best and the worst of the Metaphysical poets. At his best he has an energy and triumphant rapture that, outside the poems of Shelley, are rarely equaled in English; at his worst he is shrill, frothy, and conceited. His style at its best is harmonious, precise, and nobly elevated; at its worst it is disfigured by obscurity, perversity, and unseemly images. His chief work is Steps to the Temple (1646).
We quote an extract to show the exalted mood to which his poetry can ascend:
Live in these conquering leaves; live all the same;
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame;
Live here, great heart;[124] and love, and die, and kill;
And bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer still.
Let this immortal life where’er it comes
Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms.
Let mystic deaths wait on’t; and wise souls be