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. Remembering Sir Philip Sidney and his Arcadia, Crashaw desires his fair one to possess Sydneian showers Of sweet discourse, whose powers Can crown old Winter's head with flowers. Whate'er delight Can make Day's forehead bright, Soft silken hours, Open suns, shady bowers; 'Bove all, nothing within that lowers. We quote two similes, the first reminding us of a passage in Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying, and the second of one of Shakspeare's best sonnets: I've seen, indeed, the hopeful bud His tender top not fully spread; The sweet dash of a shower new shed, His swelling glories, Auster spied him; To blot the newly blossomed 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 : Music's Duel. Now westward Sol had spent the richest beams He lost the day's heat, and his own hot cares. Of closer strains, and ere the war begin, Quick volumes of wild notes, to let him know, A capering cheerfulness, and made them sing And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all Of short thick sobs, whose thundering volleys float And roll themselves over her lubric throat In panting murmurs, stilled out of her breast; To woo them from their beds, still murmuring On the waved back of every swelling strain, Would reach the brazen voice of war's hoarse bird; Her little soul is ravished, and so poured Into loose ecstasies, that she is placed Shame now and anger mixed a double stain In the musician's face: 'Yet, once again, Mistress, I come. Now reach a strain, my lute, Or tune a song of victory to me, Or to thyself sing thine own obsequy.' Doth tune the spheres, and make heaven's self look higher; From this to that, from that to this he flies, Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads, Those parts of sweetness which with nectar drop, The lute's light genius now does proudly rise, ears By a strong ecstasy-through all the spheres Of all the strings, still breathing the best life His fingers' fairest revolution, In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fallA full-mouthed diapason swallows all. at his 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. As garments should do, close and fit; Nor choked with what she should be dressed; A soul sheathed 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, 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? Wouldst see a man, whose well-warmed 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? In a bed of reverend snow? In sum, wouldst see a man that can Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flowers; This rare one, reader, wouldst thou see? The hands be pure That hold these weapons, and the eyes Those of turtles, chaste and true, Wakeful and wise, Here is a friend shall fight for you. Hold but this book before your heart, Let Prayer alone to play his part. Oh, come away And kill the death of this delay. To catch the daybreak of thy dawn! Oh, they are wise, And know what sweets are sucked from out it. It is the hive By which they thrive, Where all their hoard of honey lies. Sweet name! in thy each syllable A thousand hills of frankincense; The soul that tastes thee takes from thence. Of comforts, which thou hast in keeping! Happy he who has the art To awake them, And to take them On their bold breasts about the world they bore thee, Who tore the fair breasts of thy friends, Their fury but made way For thee, and served them in thy glorious ends. More freely to transpire That impatient fire The heart that hides thee hardly covers ? Each wound of theirs was thy new morning, With blush of thine own blood thy day adorning : It was the wit of love o'erflowed 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, When stubborn rocks shall bow, And hills hang down their heaven-saluting heads Of dust, where, in the bashful shades of night, And couch before the dazzling light of thy dread They that by love's mild dictate now Will not adore thee, Shall then, with just confusion, bow DR WILLIAM STRODE. This accomplished divine (whose scattered poetical pieces deserve collection) was born near Plympton, Devonshire, about 1598. He studied at Christchurch, Oxford, took orders in 1621, and was installed canon of Christchurch in 1638. He died April 10, 1644. Answer to The Lover's Melancholy? Return, my joys! and hither bring Free wandering thoughts not tied to muse, Men take no care but only to be jolly; To be more wretched than we must, is folly. Kisses. My love and I for kisses played: She would keep stakes-I was content; But when I won, she would be paid; This made me ask her what she meant. 'Pray, since I see,' quoth she, 'your wrangling vein, Take your own kisses; give me mine again.' ROBERT HERRICK. One of the most exquisite of our early lyrical poets was ROBERT HERRICK, born in Cheapside, London, in 1591. He studied at Cambridge, and having entered into holy orders, was presented by Charles I. in 1629, to the vicarage of Dean Prior, in Devonshire. After about twenty years' residence in this rural parish, Herrick was ejected from his living by the storms of the civil war, which, as Jeremy Taylor says, 'dashed the vessel of the church and state all in pieces.' Whatever regret the poet may have felt on being turned adrift on the world, he could have experienced little on parting with his parishioners, for he describes them in much the same way as Crabbe portrayed the natives of Suffolk, among whom he was cast in early life, as a 'wild amphibious race,' rude 'almost as salvages,' and 'churlish as the seas.' Herrick gives us a glimpse of his own character: Born I was to meet with age, Drinking wine and crowned with flowers. This light and genial temperament would enable the poet to ride out the storm in composure. About the time that he lost his vicarage, Herrick appears to have published his works. His Noble Numbers, or Pious Pieces, are dated 1647; his Hesperides, or the Works, both Humane and Divine, of Robert Herrick, Esquire, in 1648. The clerical prefix to his name seems now to have been abandoned by the poet; and there are certainly many pieces in the second volume which would not become one ministering at the altar, or belonging to the sacred profession. Herrick lived in Westminster, and was supported or assisted by the wealthy royalists. He associated with the jovial spirits of the age. He 'quaffed the mighty bowl' with Ben Jonson, but could not, he tells us, 'thrive in frenzy,' like rare Ben, who seems to have excelled all his fellow-compotators in sallies of wild wit and high imaginations. The recollection of these brave translunary scenes' of the poets inspired the muse of Herrick in the following strain : Ah Ben! Say how or when Made at the Sun, The Dog, the Triple Tun; As made us nobly wild, not mad? And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine. My Ben! Or come again, Or send to us Thy wit's great overplus. Wisely to husband it; Lest we that talent spend ; And having once brought to an end That precious stock, the store Of such a wit, the world should have no more. After the Restoration, Herrick was replaced in his Devonshire vicarage. How he was received by the rude salvages of Dean Prior, or how he felt on quitting the gaieties of the metropolis, to recorded. He was now about seventy years of resume his clerical duties and seclusion, is not age, and was probably tired of canary sack and the pleasures of a country life, if we may judge tavern jollities. He had an undoubted taste for from his works, and the fondness with which he dwells on old English festivals and rural customs. Though his rhymes were sometimes wild, he says his life was chaste, and he repented of his errors: For these my unbaptised rhymes, Writ in my wild unhallowed times, For every sentence, clause, and word, That's not inlaid with thee, O Lord! Forgive me, God, and blot each line Out of my book that is not thine; But if, 'mongst all, thou findest one Worthy thy benediction, That one of all the rest shall be The glory of my work and me. The poet would better have evinced the sincerity and depth of his contrition by blotting out the unbaptised rhymes himself, or not reprinting them; but the vanity of the author probably triumphed over the penitence of the Christian. Gaiety was the natural element of Herrick. His muse was a goddess fair and free, that did not move happily in serious numbers. The time of the poet's death was long unknown; but the parish register shews that he was interred at Dean Prior, on the 15th of October 1674. The poetical works of Herrick_lay neglected for many years after his death. They are now again in esteem, especially his shorter lyrics, some of which have been set to music, and are sung and quoted by all lovers of song. His verses, Cherry Ripe, and Gather the Rose-buds while ye may-though the sentiment and many of the expressions of the latter are taken from Spenser-possess a delicious mixture of playful fancy and natural feeling. Those To Blossoms, To Daffodils, and To Primroses, have a tinge of pathos that wins its way to the heart. They abound, like all Herrick's poems, in lively imagery and conceits; but the pensive moral feeling predominates, and we feel that the poet's smiles might as well be tears. Shakspeare and Jonson had scattered such delicate fancies and snatches of lyrical melody among their plays and masksMilton's Comus and the Arcades had also been published-Carew and Suckling were before him -Herrick was, therefore, not without models of the highest excellence in this species of composition. There is, however, in his songs and anacreontics, an unforced gaiety and natural tenderness, that shew he wrote chiefly from the impulses of his own cheerful and happy nature. The select beauty and picturesqueness of Herrick's language, when he is in his happiest vein, is worthy of his fine conceptions; and his versification is harmony itself. His verses bound and flow like some exquisite lively melody, that echoes nature by wood and dell, and presents new beauties at every turn and winding. The strain is short, and sometimes fantastic; but the notes long linger in the mind, and take their place for ever in the memory. One or two words, such as 'gather the rose-buds,' call up a summer landscape, with youth, beauty, flowers, and music. This is, and ever must be, true poetry. To Blossoms. Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, But you may stay yet here awhile, What! were ye born to be An hour or half's delight, But you are lovely leaves, where we May read how soon things have Their end, though ne'er so brave: And after they have shewn their pride, Like you awhile, they glide Into the grave. 2. It is an active flame, that flies First to the babies of the eyes, And charms them there with lullabies; 2. Then to the chin, the cheek, the ear, It frisks and flies: now here, now there; 'Tis now far off, and then 'tis near; Chor.-And here, and there, and everywhere. I. Has it a speaking virtue ?—2. Yes. 1. How speaks it, say?-2. Do you but this, Part your joined lips, then speaks your kiss; Chor. And this love's sweetest language is. 1. Has it a body?-2. Ay, and wings, With thousand rare encolourings; And as it flies, it gently sings, Chor.-Love honey yields, but never stings. To the Virgins, to make much of their Time. And this same flower that smiles to-day, The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The sooner will his race be run, That age is best which is the first, Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here. Which known, let us make And let not a man then be seen here, A health to the king and the queen here. Next crown the bowl full To make the wassail a swinger. Give them to the king And though with ale ye be wet here; As free from offence, As when ye innocent met here. Amongst the sports proper to Twelfth-night in England, was the partition of a cake with a bean and pea in it: the individuals who got the bean and pea were respectively king and queen for the evening. 1 A drink of warm ale, with roasted apples and spices in it. The Chor. And stills the bride, too, when she cries: term is a corruption from the Celtic. |