'My thoughts are at a stand, of milke and blood,
Delights of brest and side, which yeelds most good;
And say, when on the teates mine eyes I cast,
O Lady, of thy brest I beg a taste.
But if mine eyes upon the wounds doe glide,
Then, Jesu, I had rather sucke Thy side.
Long have I mused, now knowe I where to rest;
For with my right hand I will graspe the brest,
If so I may presume: as for the wounds,
With left He catch them; thus my zeale abounds.'
Again:
'Mother and Son, give eare to what I crave,
I beg this milke, that bloud, and both would have.
Youngling, that in Thy mother's armes art playing,
Sucking her brest sometimes, and sometimes staying,
Why dost Thou view me with that looke of scorne?
'Tis forceless envie that 'gainst Thee is borne.
Oft hast Thou said, being angry at my sinne,
Darest thou desire the teates My food lyes in?
I will not, oh I dare not, golden Child;
My mind from feare is not so farre exild:
But one, even one poore drop I doe implore
From Thy right hand or side, I ask no more.
If neither, from Thy left hand let one fall;
Nay from Thy foot, rather than none at all:
If I displease Thee, let Thy wounds me wound,
But pay my wage if I in grace be found.'
Finally:
'But ah, I thirst; ah, droght my breath doth smother,
Quench me with blood, sweet Son; with milk, good mother
Say to Thy mother, See My brother's thirst;
Mother, your milke will ease him at the first.
Say to thy Son, Behold Thy brother's bands;
Sweet Son, Thou hast his ransome in Thy hands.
Shew Thy redeeming power to soules opprest,
Thou Sonne, if that Thy blood excel the rest.
And shew Thyselfe justly so stilde indeed,
Thou mother, if thy brests the rest exceed.
Ah, when shall I with these be satisfi'd?
When shall I swimme in joyes of brest and side?
Pardon, O God, mine eager earnestnesse,
If I Thy lawes and reason's bounds transgresse;
Where thirst o're-swayes, patience is thrust away:
Stay but my thirst, and then my cryes will stay.
I am better then Thy nailes; yet did a streame
Of Thy deere bloud wash both the lance and them.
More worthy I then clouts; yet them a flood
Moistened of mother's milke and of Son's blood.'
Rhythm, epithet, and the whole ring of these Verses remind us of the
younger Crashaw. But the most remarkable Verse-production of the elder
Crashaw is his translation of the 'Querela, sive Dialogvs Animae et
Corporis damnati,' ascribed to St. Bernard. It originally appeared in
1616, and has been repeatedly reprinted since. Those of 1622 and 1632
are now before me, and the English title-page runs: 'The Complaint, or
Dialogve betwixt the Soule and the Bodie of a damned man. Each laying
the fault vpon the other. Supposed to be written by S. Bernard, from a
nightly vision of his; and now published out of an ancient manuscript
copie. By William Crashaw.' The Dialogue thus opens:
'In silence of a Winter's night,
A sleeping yet a walking spirit;
A livelesse body to my sight
Methought appeared, thus addight.
In that my sleepe I did descry
A Soule departed but lately
From that foule body which lay by;
Wailing with sighes, and loud did cry.
Fast by the body, thus she mones
And questions it, with sighes and grones;
O wretched flesh, thus low who makes thee lye,
Whom yesterday the world had seene so high?
Was't not but yesterday the world was thine,
And all the countrey stood at thy devotion?
Thy traine that followed thee when thy sunne did shine
Have now forsaken thee: O dolefull alteration!
Those turrets gay of costly masonry,
And larger palaces, are not now thy roome;
But in a coffin of small quantity
Thou lyest interred in a little tombe.
. . . . .
O wretched flesh, with me that art forlorne,
If thou couldst know how sharpe our punishment;
How justly mightest thou wish not to be borne,
Or from the wombe to tombe to have been hent!
. . . . .
How lik'st thou now, poor foole, thy latter lodging,
The roofe whereof lyes even with thy nose?
Thy eyes are shut, thy tongue cannot be cogging;
Nothing of profit rests at thy dispose.
. . . . .
Thy garments, wretched fool, are farre from rich;
Thy upper garment hardly worth a scute;
A little linnen shrouds thee in thy ditch,
No rents nor gifts men bring, nor make their suite.'
Again, st. 79-81:
'If I be clad in rich array,
And well attended every day,
Both wise and good I shal be thoght,
My kinred also shall be sought.
I am, say men, the case is cleere,
Your cosen, sir, a kinsman neere.
But if the world doe change and frowne,
Our kinred is no longer knowne;
Nor I remembred any more
By them that honoured me before.
O vanity! vile love of mucke,
Foule poyson, wherefore hast thou stucke
Thyselfe so deepe, to raise so high
Things vanishing so suddenly?'
In a 'Manvall for true Catholicks, or a Handfvll, or rather a Heartfull
of holy Meditations and Prayers, gathered out of certaine ancient
Manuscripts, written 300 yeeres agoe, or more,' which is usually bound
up with the 'Querela,' there is no little striking thought and
word-painting, combined with a parsimony of epithet, and a naked and yet
imaginative echo of the monkish Latin, singularly impressive. Passing
the 'Orthodoxall Confessions of God the Father' and 'Sonne' and 'Holy
Ghost,' though all have many memorable things--I would close our
specimens with one complete poem from the 'Manvall.' It is entitled 'The
Conclusion, with a devout and holy prayer;' the word 'prayer' reminding
us that in his Prayers herein and in his 'Milke for Babes' (1618, and
several later), Crashaw is lowly and devout, and simply a sinner holding
the Christian's hope. The remark applies also to much of his celebration
of 'Carraciolo,' the Italian convert and 'Second Moses' (1608).
'This is Christian faith unfained,
Orthodoxall, true, unstained.
As I teach, all understand,
Yeelding unto neither hand.
And in this my soule's defence,
Reiect me not for mine offence:
Thogh Death's slave, yet desperation
I fly in death to seek salvation.
I have no meane Thy love to gain,
But this faith which I maintaine.
This Thou seest, nor will I cease
By this to beg for a release.
Let this sacred salve be bound
Vpon my sores, to make them sound.
Though man be carried forth, and lying
In his grave, and putrifying:
Bound and hid from mortall eyes;
Yet if Thou bid, he must arise.
At Thy will the grave will open,
At Thy will his bonds are broken.
And forth he comes without delay,
If Thou but once bid, Come away!
In this sea of dread and doubt
My poore barke is tost about;
With storms and pirats far and wide,
Death and woes on every side.
Come, thou Steer's-man ever blest,
Calme these winds that me molest;
Chase these ruthlesse pyrats hence,
And show me some safe residence.
My tree is fruitles, dry, and dead,
All the boughs are withered;
Downe it must, and to the fire,
If desert have his due hire.
But spare it, Lord, another yeare.
With manuring it [yet] may beare.
If it then be dead and dry,
Burne it; alas, what remedy!
Mine old foe assaults me sore
With fire and water, more and more.
Poore I, of all my strength bereft,
Onely unto Thee am left.
That my foe may hence be chased,
And I from Ruin's clawes released,
Lord, vouchsafe me every day
Strength to fast, and faith to pray:
These two meanes Thyself hast taught
To bring temptation's force to noght.
Lord, free my soule from sin's infection
By repentance's direction.
Be Thy feare in me abiding,
My soule to true salvation guiding.
Grant me faith, Lord, hope, and love,
Zeale of heaven and things above.
Teach mee prize the world at nought;
On Thy blisse be all my thought.
All my hopes on Thee I found,
In Whom all good things abound.
Thou art all my dignitie:
All I have I have from Thee.
Thou art my comfort in distresse,
Thou art my cure in heavinesse;
Thou art my music in my sadnes,
Thou art my medicine in my madnesse.
Thou my freedom from my thral,
Thou my raiser from my fall.
In my labour Thou reliev'st me;
Thou reform'st whatever grieves me.
Al my wrongs Thy hand revengeth,
And from hurt my soul defendeth.
Thou my deepest doubts revealest,
Thou my secret faults concealest.
O do Thou stay my feet from treading
In paths to hel and horror leading,
Where eternal torment dwels,
With fears and tears and lothsome smels;
Where man's deepest shame is sounded,
And the guilty still confounded;
Where the scourge for ever beateth,
And the worme that alwaies eateth;
Where all those endless do remain,
Lord, preserve us from this paine.
In Sion lodge me, Lord, for pitty--
Sion, David's kingly citty,
Built by Him that's onely good;
Whose gates be of the Crosse's wood;
Whose keys are Christ's undoubted word;
Whose dwellers feare none but the Lord;
Whose wals are stone, strong, quicke and bright;
Whose Keeper is the Lord of Light:
Here the light doth never cease,
Endlesse Spring and endles peace;
Here is musicke, heaven filling,
Sweetnesse evermore distilling;
Here is neither spot nor taint,
No defect, nor no complaint;
No man crooked, great nor small,
But to Christ conformed all.
Blessed towne, divinely graced,
On a rocke so strongly placed,
Thee I see, and thee I long for;
Thee I seek, and thee I grone for.
O what ioy thy dwellers tast,
All in pleasure first and last!
What full enioying blisse divine,
What iewels on thy wals do shine!
Ruby, iacinth, chalcedon,
Knowne to them within alone.
In this glorious company,
In the streets of Sion, I
With Iob, Moses, and Eliah,
Will sing the heauenly Alleviah. Amen.
Surely this is a very noteworthy transfusion of old Latin pieties into
vivid English. 'Visions' of Jerusalem the Golden transfigure even the
austere words towards the close. One can picture Master Richard's eyes
kindling over his Father's verses when he was gone.
So endeth what I have thought it needful to tell of the elder Crashaw.
As hitherto almost nothing has been told of him, even our compressed
little Memorial--keeping back many things and notices that have gathered
in our note-books--may be welcome to some. I pass now to