The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume I

by Richard Crashaw

And is He gone, Whom these armes held but now?
Their hope, their vow!
Did euer greife and joy in one poore heart
Soe soone change part?
Hee's gone! The fair'st flower that e're bosome drest;
My soule's sweet rest.
My wombe's chast pride is gone, my heauen-borne boy;
And where is joy?
Hee's gone! and His lou'd steppes to wait vpon,
My joy, is gone.
My joyes, and Hee are gone; my greife, and I
Alone must ly.
Hee's gone! not leaving with me, till He come,
One smile at home.
Oh come then, bring Thy mother her lost joy:
Oh come, sweet boy!
Make hast, and come, or e're my greife and I
Make hast, and dy.
Peace, heart! The heauens are angry, all their spheres
Rivall thy teares.
I was mistaken, some faire sphere or other
Was Thy blest mother.
What but the fairest heauen, could owne the birth
Of soe faire earth?
Yet sure Thou did'st lodge heere: this wombe of mine
Was once call'd Thine!
Oft haue these armes Thy cradle envied,
Beguil'd Thy bed.
Oft to Thy easy eares hath this shrill tongue
Trembled, and sung.
Oft haue I wrapt Thy slumbers in soft aires,
And stroak't Thy cares.
Oft hath this hand those silken casements kept,
While their sunnes slept.
Oft haue my hungry kisses made Thine eyes
Too early rise.
Oft haue I spoild my kisses' daintiest diet,
To spare Thy quiet.
Oft from this breast to Thine, my loue-tost heart
Hath leapt, to part.
Oft my lost soule haue I bin glad to seeke
On Thy soft cheeke.
Oft haue these armes—alas!—show'd to these eyes
Their now lost joyes.
Dawne then to me, Thou morne of mine owne day,
And lett heauen stay.
Oh, would'st Thou heere still fixe Thy faire abode,
My bosome God:
What hinders, but my bosome still might be
Thy heauen to Thee?

THE WOUNDS OF THE LORD JESUS.

IN CICATRICES DOMINI JESU.

Come braue soldjers, come and see
Mighty Loue's artillery.
This was the conquering dart; and loe
There shines His quiuer, there His bow.
These the passiue weapons are,
That made great Loue, a man of warre.
The quiver that He bore, did bide
Soe neare, it prov'd His very side:
In it there sate but one sole dart,
A peircing one—His peirced heart.
His weapons were nor steele, nor brasse,
The weapon that He wore, He was.
For bow His vnbent hand did serue,
Well strung with many a broken nerue.
Strange the quiver, bow and dart!
A bloody side, and hand, and heart!
But now the feild is wonne; and they
(The dust of Warre cleane wip'd away)
The weapons now of triumph be,
That were before of Victorie.

ON Y^E GUNPOWDER-TREASON.[59]

I sing Impiety beyond a name:
Who stiles it any thinge, knowes not the same.
Dull, sluggish Ile! what more than lethargy
Gripes thy cold limbes soe fast, thou canst not fly,
And start from of[f] thy center? hath Heauen's loue
Stuft thee soe full with blisse, thou can'st not moue?
If soe, oh Neptune, may she farre be throwne
By thy kind armes to a kind world vnknowne:
Lett her surviue this day, once mock her fate,
And shee's an island truely fortunate.
Lett not my suppliant breath raise a rude storme
To wrack my suite: O keepe Pitty warme
In thy cold breast, and yearely on this day
Mine eyes a tributary streame shall pay.
Dos't thou not see an exhalation
Belch'd from the sulph'ry lungs of Phlegeton?
A living comet, whose pestiferous breath
Adulterates the virgin aire? with death
It laboures: stif'led Nature's in a swound,
Ready to dropp into a chaos, round
About horror's displai'd; It doth portend,
That earth a shoure of stones to heauen shall send,
And crack the christall globe; the milkly streame
Shall in a siluer raine runne out, whose creame
Shall choake the gaping earth, w^ch then shall fry
In flames, & of a burning feuer dy.
That wonders may in fashion be, not rare,
A Winter's thunder with a groane shall scare,
And rouze the sleepy ashes of the dead,
Making them skip out of their dusty bed.
Those twinckling eyes of heauen, w^ch eu'n now shin'd,
Shall with one flash of lightning be struck blind.
The sea shall change his youthfull greene, & slide
Along the shore in a graue purple tide.
It does præsage, that a great Prince shall climbe,
And gett a starry throne before his time.
To vsher in this shoale of prodigies,
Thy infants, Æolus, will not suffice.
Noe, noe, a giant wind, that will not spare
To tosse poore men like dust into the aire;
Justle downe mountaines: Kings courts shall be sent,
Like bandied balles, into the firmament.
Atlas shall be tript vpp, Ioue's gate shall feele
The weighty rudenes of his boysterous heele.
All this it threats, & more: Horro^r, that flies
To th' empyræum of all miseries.
Most tall hyperbole's cannot descry it;
Mischeife, that scornes expression should come nigh it.
All this it only threats: the meteor ly'd;
It was exhal'd, a while it hung, & dy'd.
Heauen kickt the monster downe: downe it was throwne,
The fall of all things it præsag'd, its oune
It quite forgott: the fearfull earth gaue way,
And durst not touch it, heere it made noe stay.
At last it stopt at Pluto's gloomy porch;
He streightway lighted vpp his pitchy torch.
Now to those toiling soules it giues its light,
W^ch had the happines to worke ith' night.
They banne the blaze, & curse its curtesy,
For lighting them vnto their misery.
Till now Hell was imperfect; it did need
Some rare choice torture; now 'tis Hell indeed.
Then glutt thy dire lampe with the warmest blood,
That runnes in violett pipes: none other food
It can digest, then watch the wildfire well,
Least it breake forth, & burne thy sooty cell.

Upon the Gunpowder-Treason.

Reach me a quill, pluckt from the flaming wing
Of Pluto's Mercury, that I may sing
Death to the life. My inke shall be the blood
Of Cerberus, or Alecto's viperous brood.
Vnmated malice! Oh vnpeer'd despight!
Such as the sable pinions of the night
Neuer durst hatch before: extracted see
The very quintessence of villanie:
I feare to name it; least that he, w^ch heares,
Should haue his soule frighted beyond the spheres.
Heauen was asham'd, to see our mother Earth
Engender with the Night, & teeme a birth
Soe foule, one minute's light had it but seene,
The fresh face of the morne had blasted beene.
Her rosy cheekes you should haue seene noe more
Dy'd in vermilion blushes, as before:
But in a vaile of clouds mufling her head
A solitary life she would haue led.
Affrighted Phœbus would haue lost his way,
Giving his wanton palfreys leaue to play
Olympick games in the' Olympian plaines,
His trembling hands loosing the golden raines.
The Queene of night gott the greene sicknes then,
Sitting soe long at ease in her darke denne,
Not daring to peepe forth, least that a stone
Should beate her headlong from her jetty throne.
Ioue's twinckling tapers, that doe light the world,
Had beene puft out, and from their stations hurl'd:
Æol kept in his wrangling sonnes, least they
With this grand blast should haue bin blowne away.
Amazèd Triton, with his shrill alarmes
Bad sporting Neptune to pluck in his armes,
And leaue embracing of the Isles, least hee
Might be an actor in this Tragedy.
Nor should wee need thy crispèd waues, for wee
An Ocean could haue made t' haue drownèd thee.
Torrents of salt teares from our eyes should runne,
And raise a deluge, where the flaming sunne
Should coole his fiery wheeles, & neuer sinke
Soe low to giue his thirsty stallions drinke;
Each soule in sighes had spent its dearest breath,
As glad to waite vpon their King in death.
Each wingèd chorister would swan-like sing
A mournfull dirge to their deceasèd king.
The painted meddowes would haue laught no more
For ioye of their neate coates; but would haue tore
Their shaggy locks, their flowry mantles turn'd
Into dire sable weeds, & sate, & mourn'd.
Each stone had streight a Niobe become,
And wept amaine; then rear'd a costly tombe,
T' entombe the lab'ring earth. For surely shee
Had died just in her deliuery.
But when Ioue's wingèd heralds this espied,
Vpp to th' Almighty thunderer they hied,
Relating this sad story. Streight way hee
The monster crusht, maugre their midwiferie.
And may such Pythons neuer liue to see
The Light's faire face, but still abortiue bee.