To improve that precious hour,
And every day

Seize her sweet prey,

All fresh and fragrant as he rises,
Dropping with a balmy shower,
A delicious dew of spices!

O, let the blessful heart hold fast
Her heavenly armful, she shall taste

At once ten thousand paradises!
She shall have power

To rifle and deflower

The rich and roseal spring of those rare sweets,
Which with a swelling bosom there she meets,
Boundless and infinite, bottomless treasures
Of pure inebriating pleasures!

Happy proof she shall discover,

What joy, what bliss,

How many heavens at once it is,

To have a God become her lover!

Richard Crashaw.

249

ON THE GLORIOUS ASSUMPTION OF THE

BLESSED VIRGIN

HARK! she is call'd, the parting hour is come;

Take thy farewell, poor world, Heaven must go home.

A piece of heavenly light, purer and brighter

Than the chaste stars, whose choice lamps come to light her,

While through the crystal orbs, clearer than they,

She climbs, and makes a far more milky way.

She's call'd again; hark! how th' immortal Dove
Sighs to his silver mate:- Rise up, my love,

Rise up, my fair, my spotless one!

The winter's past, the rain is gone :
The spring is come, the flowers appear,

No sweets, since thou are wanting here.
Come away, my love;

Come away, my dove;

Cast off delay:

The court of heav'n is come,

To wait upon thee home;

Come away, come away!

She's call'd again, and will she go?
When Heav'n bids come, who can say no?
Heav'n calls her, and she must away;
Heav'n will not, and she cannot stay.
Go then, go, glorious, on the golden wings
Of the bright youth of heaven, that sings
Under so sweet a burden: go,

Since thy great Son will have it so :
And while thou go'st, our song and we
Will, as we may, reach after thee :—
Hail! holy queen of humble hearts,
We in thy praise will have our parts;

And though thy dearest looks must now be light
To none but the blest heavens, whose bright
Beholders, lost in sweet delight,

Feed for ever their fair sight

With those divinest eyes, which we

And our dark world no more shall see ;

Though our poor joys are parted so,
Yet shall our lips never let go
Thy gracious name, but to the last
Our loving song shall hold it fast.

Thy sacred name shall be
Thyself to us, and we

With holy cares will keep it by us;
We to the last

Will hold it fast,

And no assumption shall deny us.
All sweetest showers

Of fairest flowers

We'll strew upon it:

Though our sweetness cannot make

It sweeter, they may take

Themselves new sweetness from it.

Maria, men and angels sing,

Maria, mother of our King.

Live, rarest princess, and may the bright

Crown of a most incomparable light

Embrace thy radiant brows! O, may the best

Of everlasting joys bathe thy white breast!

Live our chaste love, the holy mirth
Of heaven, and humble pride of earth:
Live crown of women, queen of men :
Live mistress of our song; and when
Our weak desires have done their best,
Sweet angels come, and sing the rest!'

Richard Crashaw.

ON

250

THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME

I SING the name which none can say
But touch'd with an interior ray;
The name of our new peace; our good:
Our bliss, and supernatural blood:
The name of all our lives and loves.
Hearken, and help, ye holy doves!
The high-born brood of day; you bright
Candidates of blissful light,

The heirs elect of love; whose names belong
Unto the everlasting life of song;

All ye wise souls, who in the wealthy breast
Of this unbounded name build your warm nest.
Awake, my glory, Soul, if such thou be,
And that fair word at all refer to thee,
Awake and sing,

And be all wing;

Bring hither thy whole self; and let me see
What of thy parent heav'n yet speaks in thee!
O, thou art poor

Of noble pow'rs, I see,

And full of nothing else but empty me;

Narrow, and low, and infinitely less

Than this great morning's mighty business!

One little world or two,

Alas! will never do;

We must have store.

Go, Soul, out of thyself, and seek for more;
Go and request

Great Nature for the key of her huge chest
Of Heav'ns, the self-involving set of spheres,
Which dull mortality more feels than hears;
Then rouse the nest

Of nimble art, and traverse round

The airy shop of soul-appeasing sound:
And beat a summons in the same

All-sovereign name,

To warn each several kind

And shape of sweetness-be they such

As sigh with supple wind

Or answer artful touch

That they convene and come away

To wait at the love-crowned doors of that

Illustrious day.

Shall we dare this, my Soul? We'll do 't, and bring
No other note for 't, but the Name we sing.

Wake, lute and harp,

And every sweet-lipp'd thing
That talks with tuneful string;
Start into life, and leap with me
Into a hasty fit-tuned harmony.
Nor must you think it much
T'obey my bolder touch;

I have authority in Love's name to take you
And to the work of love this morning wake you.
Wake, in the name

Of Him who never sleeps, all things that are ;

Or what's the same,

Are musical;

Answer my call

And come along;

Help me to meditate mine immortal song !

Come, ye soft ministers of sweet sad mirth,

Bring all your household-stuff of heav'n on earth :

O you, my Soul's most certain wings,

Complaining pipes, and prattling strings,

Bring all the store

Of sweets you have, and murmur that you have no more.

Come, ne'er to part,

Nature and art!

Come, and come strong,

To the conspiracy of our spacious song.

Bring all the pow'rs of praise

Your provinces of well-united worlds can raise ;

Bring all your lutes and harps of heav'n and earth;

Whate'er co-operates to the common mirth;

Vessels of vocal joys,

Or you, more noble architects of intellectual noise,
Cymbals of heav'n, or human spheres,

Solicitors of souls or ears;

And when you are come, with all

That you can bring, or we can call,

O, may you fix

For ever here, and mix

Yourselves into the long

And everlasting series of a deathless song!

Mix all your many worlds above,

And loose them into one of love!

Cheer thee, my heart!

UNIVERSIT

For thou, too, hast thy part

And place in the great throng

Of this unbounded, all-embracing song.

Pow'rs of my soul, be proud!

And speak loud

To all the dear-bought nations this redeeming name;
And in the wealth of one rich word proclaim
New smiles to nature.

May it be no wrong,

Blest Heav'ns, to you, and your superior song,

That we dark sons of dust and sorrow

Awhile dare borrow

The name of your delights, and our desires,

And fit it to so far inferior lyres !

Our murmurs have their music, too,
Ye mighty orbs, as well as you,
Nor yields the noblest nest

Of warbling seraphim to the ears of love,

A choicer lesson than the joyful breast

Of a poor panting turtle-dove;

And we, low worms, have leave to do

The same bright business, ye third Heav'ns, with you. Gentle spirits, do not complain,

We will have care

To keep it fair,

And send it back to you again.

Come, lovely name! appear from forth the bright

Regions of peaceful light;

Look from Thine own illustrious home,

Fair king of names, and come :

Leave all thy native glories in their gorgeous nest,

And give thyself awhile the gracious guest

Of humble souls, that seek to find

The hidden sweets

Which man's heart meets

When Thou art master of the mind.

Come, lovely name! life of our hope!

Lo, we hold our hearts wide ope!

Unlock thy cabinet of day,

Dearest sweet, and come away.

Lo, how the thirsty lands

Gasp for thy golden showers with long-stretch'd hands!

Lo, how the labouring earth,

That hopes to be

All heaven by thee,

Leaps at thy birth!

Th' attending world, to wait thy rise,