The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw Volume I Part 46

Britain! the mighty Ocean's lovely bride! 1 Now stretch thy self, fair isle, and grow: spread wide Thy bosome, and make roome. Thou art opprest With thine own glories, and art strangely blest Beyond thy self: for (lo!) the G.o.ds, the G.o.ds 5 Come fast upon thee; and those glorious ods Swell thy full honours to a pitch so high As sits above thy best capacitie.

Are they not ods? and glorious? that to thee Those mighty genii throng, which well might be 10 Each one an Age's labour? that thy dayes Are gilded with the union of those rayes Whose each divided beam would be a sunne To glad the sphere of any Nation?

Sure, if for these thou mean'st to find a seat, 15 Th' hast need, O Britain, to be truly Great.

And so thou art; their presence makes thee so: They are thy greatnesse. G.o.ds, where-e're they go, Bring their Heav'n with them: their great footsteps place An everlasting smile upon the face 20 Of the glad Earth they tread on: while with thee Those beames that ampliate mortalitie, And teach it to expatiate and swell To majestie and fulnesse, deign to dwell, Thou by thy self maist sit, (blest Isle) and see 25 How thy great mother Nature dotes on thee.

Thee therefore from the rest apart she hurl'd, And seem'd to make an Isle, but made a World.

Time yet hath dropt few plumes since Hope turn'd Joy, And took into his armes the princely boy, 30 Whose birth last blest the bed of his sweet mother, And bad us first salute our prince, a brother.

_The Prince and Duke of York._

Bright Charles! thou sweet dawn of a glorious Day!

Centre of those thy grandsires (shall I say, Henry and James? or, Mars and Phoebus rather? 35 If this were Wisdome's G.o.d, that War's stern father; 'Tis but the same is said: Henry and James Are Mars and Phoebus under diverse names): O thou full mixture of those mighty souls Whose vast intelligences tun'd the poles 40 Of Peace and War; thou, for whose manly brow Both lawrels twine into one wreath, and woo To be thy garland: see (sweet prince), O see, Thou, and the lovely hopes that smile in thee, Art ta'n out and transcrib'd by thy great mother: 45 See, see thy reall shadow; see thy brother, Thy little self in lesse: trace in these eyne The beams that dance in those full stars of thine.

From the same snowy alabaster rock Those hands and thine were hewn; those cherries mock 50 The corall of thy lips: thou wert of all This well-wrought copie the fair princ.i.p.all.

_Lady Mary._

Iustly, great Nature, didst thou brag, and tell How ev'n th' hadst drawn that faithfull parallel, And matcht thy master-piece. O then go on, 55 Make such another sweet comparison.

Seest thou that Marie there? O teach her mother To shew her to her self in such another.

Fellow this wonder too; nor let her shine Alone; light such another star, and twine 60 Their rosie beams, that so the Morn for one Venus, may have a constellation.

_Lady Elizabeth._

These words scarce waken'd Heaven, when--lo!--our vows Sat crown'd upon the n.o.ble infant's brows.

Th' art pair'd, sweet princesse: in this well-writ book 65 Read o're thy self; peruse each line, each look.

And when th' hast summ'd up all those blooming blisses, Close up the book, and clasp it with thy kisses.

So have I seen (to dresse their mistresse May) Two silken sister-flowers consult, and lay 70 Their bashfull cheeks together: newly they Peep't from their buds, show'd like the garden's eyes Scarce wak't: like was the crimson of their joyes; Like were the tears they wept, so like, that one Seem'd but the other's kind reflexion. 75

_The new-borne Prince._

And now 'twere time to say, sweet queen, no more.

Fair source of princes, is thy pretious store Not yet exhaust? O no! Heavens have no bound, But in their infinite and endlesse round Embrace themselves. Our measure is not their's; 80 Nor may the pov'rtie of man's narrow prayers Span their immensitie. More princes come: Rebellion, stand thou by; Mischief, make room: War, blood, and death--names all averse from Ioy-- Heare this, we have another bright-ey'd boy: 85 That word's a warrant, by whose vertue I Have full authority to bid you dy.

Dy, dy, foul misbegotten monsters! dy: Make haste away, or e'r the World's bright eye Blush to a cloud of bloud. O farre from men 90 Fly hence, and in your Hyperborean den Hide you for evermore, and murmure there Where none but h.e.l.l may heare, nor our soft aire Shrink at the hatefull sound. Mean while we bear High as the brow of Heaven, the n.o.ble noise 95 And name of these our just and righteous joyes, Where Envie shall not reach them, nor those eares Whose tune keeps time to ought below the spheres.

But thou, sweet supernumerary starre, Shine forth; nor fear the threats of boyst'rous Warre. 100 The face of things has therefore frown'd a while On purpose, that to thee and thy pure smile The World might ow an universall calm; While thou, fair halcyon, on a sea of balm Shalt flote; where while thou layst thy lovely head, 105 The angry billows shall but make thy bed: Storms, when they look on thee, shall straigt relent; And tempests, when they tast thy breath, repent To whispers, soft as thine own slumbers be, Or souls of virgins which shall sigh for thee. 110 Shine then, sweet supernumerary starre, Nor feare the boysterous names of bloud and warre: Thy birth-day is their death's nativitie; They've here no other businesse but to die.

_To the Queen._

But stay; what glimpse was that? why blusht the Day? 115 Why ran the started aire trembling away?

Who's this that comes circled in rayes that scorn Acquaintance with the sun? what second morn At midday opes a presence which Heaven's eye Stands off and points at? Is't some deity 120 Stept from her throne of starres, deignes to be seen?

Is it some deity? or is't our queen?

'Tis she, 'tis she: her awfull beauties chase The Day's abashed glories, and in face Of noon wear their own sunshine. O thou bright 125 Mistresse of wonders! Cynthia's is the Night; But thou at noon dost shine, and art all day (Nor does thy sun deny't) our Cynthia.

Ill.u.s.trious sweetnesse! in thy faithfull wombe, That nest of heroes, all our hopes find room. 130 Thou art the mother-phenix, and thy brest Chast as that virgin honour of the East, But much more fruitfull is; nor does, as she, Deny to mighty Love, a deitie.

Then let the Eastern world brag and be proud 135 Of one coy phenix, while we have a brood, A brood of phenixes: while we have brother And sister-phenixes, and still the mother.

And may we long! Long may'st thou live t'increase The house and family of phenixes. 140 Nor may the life that gives their eye-lids light E're prove the dismall morning of thy night: Ne're may a birth of thine be bought so dear To make his costly cradle of thy beer.

O may'st thou thus make all the year thine own, 145 And see such names of joy sit white upon The brow of every month! and when th' hast done, Mayst in a son of his find every son Repeated, and that son still in another, And so in each child, often prove a mother. 150 Long may'st thou, laden with such cl.u.s.ters, lean Vpon thy royall elm (fair vine!) and when The Heav'ns will stay no longer, may thy glory And name dwell sweet in some eternall story!

Pardon (bright Excellence,) an untun'd string, 155 That in thy eares thus keeps a murmuring.

O speake a lowly Muse's pardon, speake Her pardon, or her sentence; onely breake Thy silence. Speake, and she shall take from thence Numbers, and sweetnesse, and an influence 160 Confessing thee. Or (if too long I stay,) O speake thou, and my pipe hath nought to say: For see Apollo all this while stands mute, Expecting by thy voice to tune his lute.

But G.o.ds are gracious; and their altars make 165 Pretious the offrings that their altars take.

Give then this rurall wreath fire from thine eyes, This rurall wreath dares be thy sacrifice.

NOTES AND ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.

This poem was originally ent.i.tled (as _supra_) 'Upon the Duke of York's Birth.' As new children were born additions were made to it and the t.i.tle altered. Cf. the Latin poem in our vol. ii. _ad Reginam_.

The children celebrated were the following: Charles James, born May 13, 1628, died the same day; the Queen's first child: Charles II., born May 29, 1630: James, who is placed before his sister Mary, who was older than he; born Oct. 14, 1633; afterwards James II.: Princess Mary, born Nov. 4, 1631, afterwards mother of William III.: Princess Elizabeth, born Dec. 28, 1635; died of grief at her father's tragical end, Sept. 8, 1650; was buried in the church at Newport, Isle of Wight, where her remains were found in 1793. Vaughan the Silurist has a fine poem to her memory (our edition, vol. ii. pp. 115-17): Anne, born March 17, 1636-7; she died Dec. 8, 1640 (Crashaw from first to last keeps Death out of his poem): Henry, born July 8, 1640, afterwards Duke of Gloucester and Earl of Cambridge. Henrietta Anne, born June 16, 1644, is not named.

The t.i.tle in 1646 is 'Vpon the Duke of Yorke his Birth: a Panegyricke;'

and so in 1670, which throughout agrees with that very imperfect text, except in one deplorable blunder of its own left uncorrected by TURNBULL, as noted below. The heading in the SANCROFT MS. is 'A Panegyrick vpon the birth of the Duke of Yorke. R. CR.'

Line 7, in 1646 'glories' for 'honours.' In the SANCROFT MS. line 8 reads 'As sitts alone ....'

Line 15, ib. 'O' for 'Sure.'

" 16, ib. 'Th' art.'

" 29-32 restored from 1648. Not in SANCROFT MS.

" 33. These headings here and onward omitted hitherto.

" 34, in 1646 'great' for 'bright.'

" 43, our text (1648) misprints 'owne' for 'one' of Voces Votivae.

Line 50, 1646 oddly misprints 'these Cherrimock.'

Line 52, 1646, 'art' for 'wert.'

" 54, ib. 'may'st' for 'did'st.'

" 55, ib. 'th' art' for 'th' hadst.'

" 64-70 restored from 1648. Not in SANCROFT MS.

" 74, 1646, 'pearls' for 'tears.' So the SANCROFT MS.

" 78-118, all these lines--most characteristic--restored from 1648. TURNBULL overlooked them. Not in the SANCROFT MS.

Line 140, 1670 drops a line here, and thus confuses,

'A brood of phenixes, and still the mother: And may we long: long may'st thou live t' encrease The house,' &c.

PEREGRINE PHILLIPS in his selections from CRASHAW (1785), following the text of 1670, says in a foot-note, 'A line seems wanting, but is so in the original copy.' TURNBULL follows suit and says, 'Here a line seems deficient.' If either had consulted the 'original' editions, which both professed to know, it would have saved them from this and numerous kindred blunders.