First turn'd to eyes,

And then, not knowing what to do,
Turn'd them to tears, and spent them, too.
Come, royal name! and pay th' expense
Of all this precious patience;

O, come away,

And kill the death of this delay!

O, see so many worlds of barren years
Melted and measured out in seas of tears!
O, see the weary lids of wakeful hope,
Love's eastern windows, all wide ope,
With curtains drawn,

To catch the day-break of thy dawn!
O, dawn, at last, long-look'd for day!
Take thine own wings and come away.
Lo, where aloft it comes! It comes, among
The conduct of adoring spirits, that throng,
Like diligent bees, and swarm about it.
O, they are wise,

And know what sweets are suck'd from out it !
It is the hive

By which they thrive,

Where all their hoard of honey lies.

Lo, where it comes, upon the snowy dove's

Soft back, and brings a bosom big with loves!

Welcome to our dark world, thou womb of day!

Unfold thy fair conceptions, and display

The birth of our bright joys.

O thou compacted

Body of blessings! spirit of souls extracted!

O, dissipate thy spicy pow'rs,

Cloud of condensed sweets, and break upon us

In balmy show'rs!

O, fill our senses, and take from us

All force of so profane a fallacy

To think aught sweet but that which smells of thee!

Fair, flow'ry name, in none but thee

And thy nectareal fragrancy

Hourly there meets

An universal synod of all sweets;

By whom it is definéd thus

That no perfume

For ever shall presume

To pass for odoriferous,

But such alone whose sacred pedigree

Can prove itself some kin, sweet name, to thee!

Sweet name, in thy each syllable

P

A thousand blest Arabias dwell:
A thousand hills of frankincense,
Mountains of myrrh, and beds of spices,
And ten thousand paradises,

The soul that tastes thee takes from thence.
How many unknown worlds there are

Of comforts, which thou hast in keeping!

How many thousand mercies there
In Pity's soft lap lie a-sleeping!

Happy he who has the art

To awake them,

And to take them

Home, and lodge them in his heart!

O, that it were as it was wont to be,

When thy old friends of fire, all full of thee,

Fought against frowns with smiles; gave glorious chase To persecutions; and against the face

Of death and fiercest dangers durst, with brave

And sober pace, march on to meet a grave!

On their bold breasts about the world they bore thee,

And to the teeth of hell stood up to teach thee;

In centre of their inmost souls they wore thee,

Where racks and torments strived in vain to reach thee. Little, alas! thought they

Who tore the fair breasts of thy friends,

Their fury but made way

For thee, and served them in thy glorious ends.

What did their weapons, but with wider pores

Enlarge thy flaming-breasted lovers,

More freely to transpire

That impatient fire,

The heart that hides thee hardly covers!

What did their weapons, but set wide the doors
For thee fair purple doors, of Love's devising,

The ruby windows which enrich'd the east

Of thy so oft-repeated rising !

Each wound of theirs was thy new morning,

And re-enthroned thee in thy rosy nest,

With blush of thine own blood thy day adorning !

It was the wit of love o'erflow'd the bounds

Of wrath, and made the way through all these wounds. Welcome, dear, all-adoréd name,

For sure there is no knee

That knows not thee !

Or, if there be such sons of shame,

Alas! what will they do

When stubborn rocks shall bow,

And hills hang down their heav'n-saluting heads
To seek for humble beds

Of dust, where, in the bashful shades of night,

Next to their own low nothing they may lie,

And couch before the dazzling light of thy dread Majesty !
They that by Love's mild dictate now

Will not adore thee,

Shall then, with just confusion, bow

And break before thee.

251

то LUCASTA GOING

Richard Crashaw.

BEYOND THE SEAS

IF to be absent were to be

Away from thee;

Or that when I am gone,

You or I were alone;

Then, my Lucasta, might I crave

Pity from blust'ring wind or swallowing wave.

But I'll not sigh one blast or gale

To swell my sail,

Or pay a tear to suage

The foaming blue-god's rage;

For, whether he will let me pass

Or no, I'm still as happy as I was.

Though seas and land betwixt us both,

Our faith and troth,

Like separated souls,

All time and space controls.

Above the highest sphere we meet,

Unseen, unknown, and greet as angels greet.

So then we do anticipate

Our after-fate,

And are alive i' th' skies,

If thus our lips and eyes

Can speak like spirits unconfined

In heaven, their earthy bodies left behind.

Richard Lovelace.

252

TO LUCASTA GOING TO THE WARS

TELL me not, sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I flie.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field,

And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you, too, shall adore:

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.

Richard Lovelace.

253

TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON

WHEN Love with unconfinéd wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered to her eye,

The gods that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,

Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.

When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing

The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King;

When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage:
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.

Richard Lovelace.

254

AWAKE, AWAKE, MY LYRE

AWAKE, awake, my Lyre,

And tell thy silent master's humble tale

In sounds that may prevail,

Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire!

Though so exalted she

And I so lowly be,

Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.

Hark! how the strings awake,

And, though the moving hand approach not near,
Themselves with awful fear

A kind of numerous trembling make!

Now all thy forces try;

Now all thy charms apply;

Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye.

Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure

Is useless here, since thou art only found

To cure, but not to wound,

And she to wound, but not to cure!

Too weak too wilt thou prove

My passion to remove :

Physic to other ills, thou 'rt nourishment to love.

Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre!

For thou canst never tell my humble tale

In sounds that will prevail,

Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire;