Gifts of Genius Part 10

The contention invites every art of expression. The highest powers of the lute are evoked in rapid succession closing with a martial strain:

"this lesson, too, She gives him back, her supple breast thrills out Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill, And folds in waved notes, with a trembling bill, The pliant series of her slippery song; Then starts she suddenly into a throng Of short thick sobs, whose thund'ring vollies float, And roll themselves over her lubric throat In panting murmurs, 'still'd out of her breast, That ever-bubbling spring, the sugar'd nest Of her delicious soul, that there does lie Bathing in streams of liquid melody, Music's best seed-plot; when in ripen'd airs A golden-headed harvest fairly rears His honey-dropping tops, ploughed by her breath, Which there reciprocally laboreth.

In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire, Founded to th' name of great Apollo's lyre; Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes Of sweet-lipp'd angel imps, that swill their throats In cream of morning Helicon; and then Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men, To woo them from their beds, still murmuring That men can sleep while they their matins sing."

What wealth of imagery and proud a.s.sociation of ideas--the bubbling spring, the golden, waving harvest, "ploughed by her breath"--the fane of Apollo suggesting in a word images of Greek maidens in chorus by the white temple of the G.o.d, the dew of Helicon, the soft waking of men from beneficent repose. It is all very well to talk of a bird doing all this: we admire nightingales, but Philomela never enchanted us in this way; it is the s.e.x with which we are charmed. The poet's "light-foot lady" tells us the secret. We are subdued by the loveliest of prima-donnas.

There is more of this, and as good. The little poem is a poet's dictionary of musical expression. Its lines, less than two hundred, deserve to be committed to memory, to rise at times in the mind--the soft a.s.suagement of cares and sorrows.

A famous poem of Crashaw is "On a Prayer-Book sent to Mrs. M.R." It breathes a divine ecstasy of the sacred ode:

"Delicious deaths, soft exhalations Of soul; dear and divine annihilations; A thousand unknown rites Of joys, and rarefied delights."

It is human pa.s.sion sublimated and refined to the uses of heaven, but human pa.s.sion still--the very luxury of religion--the rapture of earth-born seraphs, as he sings with venturous exultation:

"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 G.o.d become her lover!"

Mrs. M.R., whether maid or widow we know not--in Crashaw's day virgins were called Mistress--has another poem addressed to her--"Counsel concerning her choice." It alludes to some check or hindrance in love, and asks:

"Dear, heav'n-designed soul!

Amongst the rest Of suitors that besiege your maiden breast, Why may not I My fortune try, And venture to speak one good word, Not for myself, alas! but for my dearer Lord?

* * * * *

Your first choice fails; oh, when you choose again, May it not be among the sons of men!"

This is the language of devotional rapture common to the extremes of the religious world--Methodism and Roman Catholicism. Every one has heard the ardent hymn by Newton--"The Name of Jesus," and that stirring anthem, "The Coronation of Christ"--few have read the eloquent production of the canon of Loretto, a canticle from the flaming heart of Rome, addressed "To the name above every name, the name of Jesus."

"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.

* * * * *

Sweet name, in thy each syllable 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 asleeping!"

Crashaw's invitations to holiness breathe the very gallantry of piety. He addresses "the n.o.blest and best of ladies, the Countess of Denbigh," who had been his patroness in exile, "persuading her to resolution in religion."

"What heaven-entreated heart is this Stands trembling at the gate of bliss.

* * * * *

What magic bolts, what mystic bars Maintain the will in these strange wars!

What fatal, what fantastic bands Keep the free heart from its own hands!

So, when the year takes cold, we see Poor waters their own prisoners be;

Fetter'd and lock'd up fast, they lie In a sad self-captivity; Th' astonish'd nymphs their floods' strange fate deplore, To see themselves their own severer sh.o.r.e.

* * * * *

Disband dull fears; give Faith the day; To save your life, kill your delay; It is Love's siege, and sure to be Your triumph, though his victory."

His poem, "The Weeper," shoots the prismatic hues of the rainbow athwart the veil of fast-falling tears:

"Hail sister springs, Parents of silver-footed rills!

Ever bubbling things!

Thawing crystal! snowy hills!

Still spending, never spent; I mean Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene.

* * * * *

"Every morn from hence, A brisk cherub something sips, Whose soft influence Adds sweetness to his sweetest lips; Then to his music, and his song Tastes of this breakfast all day long.

"Not in the evening's eyes, When they red with weeping are For the sun that dies, Sits sorrow with a face so fair.

Nowhere but here did ever meet Sweetness so sad, sadness so sweet.

"When Sorrow would be seen In her brightest majesty, For she is a queen, Then is she drest by none but thee.

Then, and only then, she wears Her richest pearls, I mean thy tears.

"The dew no more will weep, The primrose's pale cheek to deck; The dew no more will sleep, Nuzzled in the lily's neck.

Much rather would it tremble here, And leave them both to be thy tear."

These are some of Crashaw's "Steps to the Temple"--verily he walked thither on velvet.

"Wishes to his supposed Mistress," is more than a pretty enumeration of the good qualities of woman as they rise in the heart of a n.o.ble, gallant lover:

"Whoe'er she be, That not impossible she, That shall command my heart and me:

"Where'er she lie, Locked up from mortal eye, In shady leaves of destiny:

"Till that ripe birth Of studied fate, stand forth, And teach her fair steps to our earth:

"Till that divine Idea take a shrine Of crystal flesh, through which to shine:

"Meet you her, my wishes, Bespeak her to my blisses, And be ye call'd my absent kisses."

We are not reprinting Crashaw, and must forbear further quotation. It is enough if we have presented to the reader a lily or a rose from his pages, and have given a clue to that treasure-house--

"A box where sweets compacted lie."

A generation nurtured in poetic susceptibility by the genius of Keats and Tennyson, should not forget the early muse of Crashaw. His verse is the very soul of tenderness and imaginative luxury: less intellectual, less severe in the formation of a broad, manly character than Herbert; catching up the brighter inspirations of Vaughan, and excelling him in richness--it has a warm, graceful garb of its own. It is tinged with the glowing hues of Spenser's fancy; baptized in the fountains of sacred love, it draws an earthly inspiration from the beautiful in nature and life, as in the devout paintings of the great Italian masters, we find the models of their angels and seraphs on earth.

MISERERE DOMINE.

BY WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH.