Rosy with a double red;
With thine own blush thy cheeks adorning,
And the dear drops this day were shed.
The crimson curtains of thy bed,
Guilds thee not with so sweet graces,
Nor setts thee in so rich a red.
None so fair thy bosom strowes,
As this modest maiden lilly
Our sins haue sham'd into a rose.
Burnisht in his best beames rise,
Put all his red-ey'd rubies on;
These rubies shall putt out their eyes.
Search what the world's close cabinets keep,
Rob the rich births of each bright nest
That flaming in their fair beds sleep.
With a new morning made of gemmes;
And wear, in those his wealthy dresses,
Another day of diadems.
To make himselfe rich in his rise,
All will be darknes to the day
That breakes from one of these bright eyes.
Dear Babe, ere many dayes be done;
The Morn shall come to meet Thee here,
And leaue her own neglected sun.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
St. ii. line 1,
the reference is to the empurpled lighter and lace- (or gauze-) like clouds of the morning. The heavier clouds are the 'crimson curtains,' the 'purple laces' the fleecy, lace-like, and empurpled streakings of the lighter and dissolving clouds, which the Poet likens to the lace that edged the coverlet, and possibly other parts of the bed and bedstead. Shakespeare describes a similar appearance with the same word, but uses it in the sense of inter or cross lacing, when he makes Juliet say (iii. 5),
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East.'
So too in stanza v. 'each sparkling nest,' the flame-coloured clouds are intended. 'Nest,' like 'bud,' is a favourite word with Crashaw, and he uses it freely. In 1648 edition, st. iii. line 2 reads 'showes;' stanza v. line 2, 'cabinets;' stanza viii. line 5, 'and meet;' stanza ix. 'paramours' = lovers, wooers, not as now signifying loose love. G.
IN THE GLORIOVS EPIPHANIE OF OVR LORD GOD:
A HYMN SVNG AS BY THE THREE KINGS.[38]
The morn incurr a sweet mistake;
To disinheritt the sun's rise:
The day, and plant it fairer in Thy face.
For loue of Thee,
Thus farr from home
The East is come
To seek her self in Thy sweet eyes.
Lost in a bright
Meridian night.
By Thy fair starr,20
Lo, at last haue found our way.
Lo, we at last haue found the way
To Thee, the World's great vniuersal East,
The generall and indifferent Day.25
The World's one, round, æternall year:
Nor sinks nor swells with time or place;
Is one consistent, solid smile:
Sordidly shifting hands with shades and Night.35
The World lyes warm, and likes his place;
Nor does his full globe fail to be
Kist on both his cheeks by Thee.
Time is too narrow for Thy year,40
Nor makes the whole World Thy half-sphear.
From him we flee.
The blindnes of the World did call the eye.45
Thyself our sun, though Thine Own shade.
Farewell, the white
Ægypt; a long farewell to thee50
Bright idol, black idolatry:
The dire face of inferior darknes, kis't
And courted in the pompus mask of a more specious mist.
The proud and misplac't gates of Hell,55
Pertch't in the Morning's way perched.
And double-guilded as the doores of Day:
The deep hypocrisy of Death and Night
More desperately dark, because more bright.
Heavn's wholsom ray.
(Sweet!) to our selues, in Thee.
Embosom'd in a much more rosy Morn:
The blushes of Thy all-vnblemisht mother.
Aurora shall sett ope
Her ruby casements, or hereafter hope70
From mortall eyes
To meet religious welcomes at her rise.
A gentler Morn, a iuster sun.
Spare our eyes, but peirce our harts:
We guild the humble cheek of this chast place;
Shall any day but Thine adore.
For cheap Ægyptian deityes.
Of ram, he-goat, or reuerend ape;90
Those beauteous rauishers opprest so sore
The too-hard-tempted nations.
The altar-stall'd ox, fatt Osyris now
With his fair sister cow
And Mithra now shall be no name.100
Of adulterous godles dust
The poor World's fault that He is fair.105
Reuenge Thy bountyes in their beauteous shapes;
And punish best things worst; because they stood
Guilty of being much for them too good.
Heau'n it self to find them Hell:
From this World's East the other's West.
And vrge their sun into Thy cloud;115
Forcing His sometimes eclips'd face to be
A long deliquium to the light of Thee.
The shamefac't lamp hung down his head
For that one eclipse he made,120
Then all those he suffered!
With a red face confes't his scorn.
Or hiding his vex't cheeks in a hir'd mist
Kept them from being so vnkindly kis't.125
So oft with blubber'd eyes:
For this the Evening wept; and we ne're knew
But call'd it deaw.
Silenc't the morning-sons, and damp't their song:
Long made th' harmonious orbes all mute to vs.
When this so proudly poor135
And self-oppressèd spark, that has so long
By the loue-sick World bin made
Not so much their sun as shade:
Weary of this glorious wrong
From them and from himself shall flee140
For shelter to the shadow of Thy tree:
And chang'd his false crown for Thy crosse.
Whose is the master Fire, which sun should shine:145
That sable judgment-seat shall by new lawes
Decide and settle the great cause
Of controuerted light:
All the idolatrous thefts done by this Night of Day;
And the great Penitent presse his own pale lipps
With an elaborate loue-eclipse:
To which the low World's lawes
Shall lend no cause,155
From our sins and His Own sorrowes.
His penance, as our fault, conspicuous:
The Nations' terror now then erst their loue.
Miss-ledde, before, they lost their way;165
So shall they, by the seasonable fright
Of an vnseasonable Night,
Loosing it once again, stumble on true Light:
Was their more blind idolatry;170
So his officious blindnes now shall be
Their black, but faithfull perspectiue of Thee:
Their new and admirable light,
The supernaturall dawn of Thy pure Day;175
While wondring they
(The happy conuerts now of Him
Whom they compell'd before to be their sin)
Shall henceforth see
To kisse him only as their rod,180
Whom they so long courted as God.
To learn of him at last, to worship Thee.
But it shall be185
Their wisdome now, as well as duty,
To injoy his blott; and as a large black letter
Vse it to spell Thy beautyes better;
And make the Night it self their torch to Thee.
Couch't in that conscious shade
The right-ey'd Areopagite
Shall with a vigorous guesse inuade
And catch Thy quick reflex; and sharply see
On this dark ground195
To descant Thee.
Of his strong soul, shall he
Leap at thy lofty face,
And seize the swift flash, in rebound200
From this obsequious cloud,
Once call'd a sun,
Till dearly thus vndone;
Twinne svnnes!) and taught now to negotiate you.205
Come forth great master of the mystick Day;
By the frugall negatiue light210
Of a most wise and well-abusèd Night
To read more legible Thine originall ray;
Maintaining 'twixt Thy World and oures
A commerce of contrary powres,215
A mutuall trade
'Twixt sun and shade,
By confederat black and white
Borrowing Day and lending Night.219
That (at Thy cost) are call'd, not vainly, ours:
We vow to make braue way
Vpwards, and presse on for the pure intelligentiall prey;
2 Kinge. At least to play
The amorous spyes225
And peep and proffer at Thy sparkling throne;
And fastening on Thine eyes:
Forfeit our own
And nothing gain230
But more ambitious losse at last, of brain;
Eagles; and shutt our eyes that we may see.
(Dread Sweet!) lo thus
At last by vs,
The delegated eye of Day
Does first his scepter, then himself, in solemne tribute pay.
Thus he vndresses240
His sacred vnshorn tresses;
At Thy adorèd feet, thus he layes down
Of flame and fire,
For being show'd by this Day's light, how farr
He is from sun enough to make Thy starr,
His best ambition now is but to be250
Somthing a brighter shadow, Sweet, of Thee.
Or on Heaun's azure forhead high to stand
Thy golden index; with a duteous hand
Pointing vs home to our own sun
The World's and his Hyperion.255
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
The title in 1648 edition is simply 'A Hymne for the Epiphanie. Sung as by the three Kings.' Except the usual slight changes of orthography, the following are all the variations between the two texts necessary to record: and I give with them certain corrective and explanatory notes:
line 25, 'indifferent' is = impartial, not as now 'unconcerned.'
Line 52, 1648 edition misprints 'his't' for 'kis't.' In the
51st line the 'bright idol' is the sun.
Line 83, ib. reads 'thy' for 'this.'
" 95, 'a guilded horn.' Cf. Juvenal, Satire x.
" 99, ib. is given to 3d King. Throughout we have corrected
a number of slips of the Paris printer in his figures.
Line 108, ib. spells 'to' for 'too.'
" 117, 'deliquium' = swoon, faint. In chemistry = melting.
" 122, 1648 edition reads 'his' for 'this;' and I have
adopted it.
Line 143, ib. reads 'deere:' a misprint.
" 155, ib. reads 'domesticks.'
" 180, ib. reads 'the' for 'their.'
" 186, ib. drops 'it.'
" 195, ib. reads 'what' for 'that,' and in next line 'his'
for 'this,' of 1652: both adopted.
Line 212, 'legible' is = legibly.
" 224 and onward, in 1648 is printed 'least,' in our text
(1652) 'lest.' Except in line 224 it is plainly = last, and so I
read it in 231st and 237th.
See our Essay for Miltonic parallels with lines in this remarkable composition. Line 46, 'these mortal clouds,' i.e. of infant flesh. Cf. Sosp. d' Herode, stanza xxiii.
Through clouds of infant flesh.'
Line 114, 'And urge their sun into Thy cloud,' i.e. into becoming Thy cloud, forcing him to become 'a long deliquium to the light of thee.' Line 189, our text (1652) misprints 'in self.' Line 190, 'By the oblique ambush,' &c. The Kings continuing in the spirit of prophecy, and with words not to be understood till their fulfilment, pass on from the dimming of the sun at the Crucifixion to a second dimming, but this time through the splendour of a brighter light, at the conversion of him who was taken to preach to the Gentiles in the court of the Areopagites. The speaker, or rather Crashaw, takes the view which at first sight may seem to be implied in the gospel narrative, that the light brighter than midday shone round about Saul and his companions but not on them, they being couched in the conscious shade of the daylight. Throughout, there is a double allusion to this second dimming of the sun as manifesting Christ to St. Paul and the Gentiles, and to the dimming of the eyes, and the walking in darkness for a time of him who as a light on Earth was to manifest the True Light to the world. Throughout, too, there is a kind of parallelism indicated between the two lesser lights. Both rebellions were to be dimmed and brought into subjection, and then to shine forth 'right-eyed' in renewed and purified splendour as evidences of the Sun of Righteousness. Hence at the close, the chorus calls them 'ye twin-suns,'—and the words, 'Till thus triumphantly tamed' refer equally to both. The punctuation to make this clear should be '... sun, ... undone; ...' 'To negotiate you' (both word and metaphor being rather unhappily chosen) means, to pass you current as the true-stamped image of the Deity. 'O price of the rich Spirit' (line 197) may be made to refer to 'thee [O Christ], price of the rich spirit' of Paul, but 'may be' is almost too strong to apply to such an interpretation. It is far more consonant to the structure and tenor of the whole passage, to read it as an epithet applied to St. Paul: 'O prize of the rich Spirit of grace.' I have also without hesitation changed 'of this strong soul' into 'of his strong soul.' 'Oblique ambush' may refer to the oblique rays of the sun now rays of darkness, but the primary reference is to the indirect manner and 'vigorous guess,' by which St. Paul, mentally glancing from one to the other light, learned through the dimming of the sun to believe in the Deity of Him who spake from out the dimming brightness. The same thought, though with a strained and less successful effort of expression, appears in the song of the third King, 'with that fierce chase,' &c.
Line 251. 'Somthing a brighter shadow (Sweet) of Thee.' Apparently a remembrance of a passage which Thomas Heywood, in his 'Hierarchie of the Angels,' gives from a Latin translation of Plato, 'Lumen est umbra Dei et Deus est Lumen Luminis.' On which see our Essay. Perhaps the same gave rise to the thought that the sun eclipsed God, or shut Him out as a cloud or shade, or made night, e.g.
. . . . eclipse he made:' (lines 115-120).
'Not so much their sun as shade
. . . . by this night of day:' (lines 138-151). G.
TO THE QVEEN'S MAIESTY.[39]
'Mongst those long rowes of crownes that guild your race,
These royall sages sue for decent place:
The day-break of the Nations; their first ray,
When the dark World dawn'd into Christian Day,5
And smil'd i' th' Babe's bright face; the purpling bud
And rosy dawn of the right royall blood;
Fair first-fruits of the Lamb! sure kings in this,
They took a kingdom while they gaue a kisse.
But the World's homage, scarse in these well blown,10
We read in you (rare queen) ripe and full-grown.
For from this day's rich seed of diadems
Does rise a radiant croppe of royalle stemms,
A golden haruest of crown'd heads, that meet
And crowd for kisses from the Lamb's white feet:15
In this illustrious throng, your lofty floud
Swells high, fair confluence of all high-born bloud:
With your bright head, whole groues of scepters bend
Their wealthy tops, and for these feet contend.
So swore the Lamb's dread Sire: and so we see't,20
Crownes, and the heads they kisse, must court these feet.
Fix here, fair majesty! May your heart ne're misse
To reap new crownes and kingdoms from that kisse;
Nor may we misse the ioy to meet in you
The aged honors of this day still new.25
May the great time, in you, still greater be,
While all the year is your epiphany;
While your each day's deuotion duly brings
Three kingdomes to supply this day's three kings.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
In 1648 the title is 'To the Queene's Majestie upon his dedicating to her the foregoing Hymne, viz. "A Hymne for the Epiphanie,"' which there precedes, but in 1652 follows, the dedicatory lines to the Queen. 1648 furnishes these variations: line 7 misprints 'down' for 'dawn:' line 11 reads 'deare' for 'rare:' line 14 'royall' for 'golden:' line 18 corrects our text's misprint of 'whose' for 'whole,' which I have accepted: line 20 reads 'great' for 'dread.'
In line 3 we read
We know that the King on Twelfth-day presented gold, frankincense and myrrh, and so perhaps did the Queen. But these gifts were not presented to the magi-kings, and Crashaw seems to sue on behalf of 'these royall sages.' The explanation doubtless is that this was a verse-letter to the Queen, enclosing as a gift his Epiphany Hymn 'sung as by the three Kings.'
In line 5 'the purpling bud,' &c. requires study. Led by the (erroneous) punctuation (face,) I supposed this clause to refer to the 'Babe.' But would our Poet have said that the 'dawn of the world smiled on the Babe's face,' and in the same breath have called the face a 'rosy dawn'? Looking to this, and his rather profuse employment of 'bud,' I now believe the clause to be another description of the kings, and punctuate (face;). The rhythm of the passage is certainly improved thereby and made more like that of Crashaw, and the words 'right royall blood,' which may be thought to become difficult, can be thus explained. The races of the heathen kings were not 'royal,' their authority being usurped and falsely derived from false gods, and the kingly blood first became truly royal when the kings recognised the supreme sovereignty of the King of kings and the derivation of their authority from Him, and when they were in turn recognised by Him. Hence the use of the epithet 'purpling,' the Christian or Christ-accepting kings being the first who were truly 'born in the purple,' or 'right royall blood.'
In lines 15-18, as punctuated in preceding editions, the Poet is made to arrange his words after a fashion hardly to be called English, and to jumble his metaphors like a poetaster or 4th of July orator in America. But both sense and poetry are restored by taking the (!) after 'blood' as at least equal to (:), and by replacing 'whose' by 'whole,' as in 1648. This seems to us restoration, not change. Even thus read, however, the passage is somewhat cloudy; but the construction is—the groves of sceptres of your high-born ancestors bend with you their wealthy tops, when you bow down your head. Our Poet is fond of inversions, and they are sometimes more obscure than they ought to be. Line 20 = Psalm i., and cf. Philip. ii. 11. G.
VPON EASTER DAY.[40]
From thy virgin tombe!
Rise mighty Man of wonders, and Thy World with Thee!
Thy tombe the uniuersall East,
Nature's new wombe,5
Thy tombe, fair Immortalitie's perfumèd nest.
This is the Morne;
This Rock buds forth the fountaine of the streames of Day;
In Joye's white annalls live this howre10
When Life was borne;
No cloud scoule on His radiant lids, no tempest lower.
All creatures have;
Death onely by this Daye's just doome is forc't to dye,15
Nor is Death forc't; for may he ly
Thron'd in Thy grave,
Death will on this condition be content to dye.
SOSPETTO D' HERODE.
LIBRO PRIMO.[41]
ARGOMENTO.
Death's master his owne death divines:
Strugling for helpe, his best hope is
Herod's suspition may heale his.
Therefore he sends a fiend to wake
foolish The sleeping tyrant's fond mistake;
Who feares (in vaine) that He Whose birth
Meanes Heav'n, should meddle with his Earth.
I.
Hate is thy theame, and Herod, whose unblest
Hand (O what dares not jealous greatnesse?) tore
A thousand sweet babes from their mothers' brest:
The bloomes of martyrdome. O be a dore
Of language to my infant lips, yee best
Of confessours: whose throates answering his swords,
Gave forth your blood for breath, spoke soules for words.
II.
Thou mighty branch of emperours and kings;
The beauties of whose dawne what eye may bide?
Which with the sun himselfe weigh's equall wings;
Mappe of heroick worth! whom farre and wide
To the beleeving world, Fame boldly sings:
Deigne thou to weare this humble wreath, that bowes
To be the sacred honour of thy browes.
III.
Other than what their owne blest beauties bring:
They were the smiling sons of those sweet bowers
That drink the deaw of life, whose deathlesse spring,
Nor Sirian flame nor Borean frost deflowers:
From whence heav'n-labouring bees with busie wing,
Suck hidden sweets, which well-digested proves
Immortall hony for the hive of loves.
IV.
Holds high the reine of faire Parthenope,
That neither Rome nor Athens can bring forth
A name in noble deeds rivall to thee!
Thy fame's full noise, makes proud the patient Earth,
Farre more then, matter for my Muse and mee.
The Tyrrhene Seas and shores sound all the same
And in their murmurs keepe thy mighty name.
V.
There where one center reconciles all things:
The World's profound heart pants; there placèd is
Mischiefe's old master. Close about him clings
A curl'd knot of embracing snakes, that kisse
His correspondent cheekes: these loathsome strings
Hold the perverse prince in eternall ties
Fast bound, since first he forfeited the skies.
VI.
He fills a burnisht throne of quenchlesse fire:
And for his old faire roabes of light, he weares
A gloomy mantle of darke flames; the tire
That crownes his hated head on high appeares:
Where seav'n tall hornes (his empire's pride) aspire.
And to make up Hell's majesty, each horne
Seav'n crested Hydras, horribly adorne.
VII.
Startle the dull ayre with a dismall red:
Such his fell glances, as the fatall light
Of staring comets, that looke kingdomes dead.
From his black nostrills, and blew lips, in spight
Of Hell's owne stinke, a worser stench is spread.
His breath Hell's lightning is: and each deepe groane
Disdaines to think that Heav'n thunders alone.
VIII.
Vnto a dreadfull pile gives fiery breath;
Whose unconsum'd consumption preys upon
The never-dying life of a long death.
In this sad house of slow destruction,
(His shop of flames) hee fryes himself, beneath
A masse of woes; his teeth for torment gnash,
While his steele sides sound with his tayle's strong lash.
IX.
Assist the throne of th' iron-sceptred king.
With whips of thornes and knotty vipers twin'd
They rouse him, when his ranke thoughts need a sting.
Their lockes are beds of uncomb'd snakes that wind
About their shady browes in wanton rings.
Thus reignes the wrathfull king, and while he reignes,
His scepter and himselfe both he disdaines.