Of closer straines, and ere the warre begin,
He lightly skirmishes on every string,
Charg'd with a flying touch: and streightway she
Carves out her dainty voyce as readily,
Into a thousand sweet distinguish'd tones,
And reckons up in soft divisions

Quicke volumes of wild notes; to let him know
By that shrill taste, she could do something too.
His nimble hands' instinct then taught each string
A capring cheerefullnesse; and made them sing
To their owne dance; now negligently rash

He throwes his arme, and with a long drawne dash
Blends all together; then distinctly tripps
From this to that; then quicke returning skipps
And snatches this again, and pauses there.
Shee measures every measure, every where
Meets art with art; sometimes as if in doubt,
Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out,
Trayles her plaine ditty in one long-spun note
Through the sleeke passage of her open throat,
A cleare unwrinckled song; then doth shee point it
With tender accents, and severely joynt it
By short diminutives, that being rear'd
In controverting warbles evenly shar'd,

With her sweet selfe shee wrangles. Hee amazed
That from so small a channell should be rais'd
The torrent of a voyce, whose melody
Could melt into such sweet variety,
Straines higher yet, that tickled with rare art
The tatling strings (each breathing in his part)
Most kindly doe fall out; the grumbling base
In surly groans disdaines the treble's grace;
The high-perch't treble chirps at this, and chides,
Untill his finger (Moderatour) hides
And closes the sweet quarrell, rowsing all,
Hoarce, shrill at once; as when the trumpets call
Hot Mars to th' harvest of Death's field, and woo
Men's hearts into their hands: this lesson too
Shee gives him back; her supple brest thrills out
Sharpe aires, and staggers in a warbling doubt
Of dallying sweetnesse, hovers o're her skill,
And folds in wav'd notes with a trembling bill
The plyant series of her slippery song;
Then starts shee suddenly into a throng

Of short, thicke sobs, whose thundring volleyes float
And roule themselves over her lubrick throat
In panting murmurs, 'still'd out of her breast,
That ever-bubling spring; the sugred nest
Of her delicious soule, that there does lye
Bathing in streames of liquid melodie ;
Musick's best seed-plot, whence in ripen'd aires
A golden-headed harvest fairly reares
His honey-dropping tops, plow'd by her breath,
Which there reciprocally laboureth

In that sweet soyle; it seemes a holy quire
Founded to th' name of great Apollo's lyre,
Whose silver-roofe rings with the sprightly notes
Of sweet-lipp'd angel-imps, that swill their throats
In creame of morning Helicon, and then
Preferre soft-anthems to the eares of men,
To woo them from their beds, still murmuring
That men can sleepe while they their mattens sing
(Most divine service), whose so early lay
Prevents the eye-lidds of the blushing Day!
There you might heare her kindle her soft voyce,
In the close murmur of a sparkling noyse,

And lay the ground-worke of her hopefull song,
Still keeping in the forward streame, so long,
Till a sweet whirle-wind (striving to get out)
Heaves her soft bosome, wanders round about,
And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast,
Till the fledg'd notes at length forsake their nest,
Fluttering in wanton shoales, and to the sky,
Wing'd with their owne wild ecchos, pratling fly.
Shee opes the floodgate, and lets loose a tide
Of streaming sweetnesse, which in state doth ride
On the way'd backe of every swelling straine,
Rising and falling in a pompous traine.
And while she thus discharges a shrill peale
Of flashing aires, she qualifies their zeale
With the coole epode of a graver noat,
Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat

Would reach the brazen voyce of War's hoarce bird; Her little soule is ravisht, and so pour'd

Into loose extasies, that she is plac't

Above her selfe, Musick's Enthusiast.

Shame now and anger mixt a double staine
In the Musitian's face; yet once againe,

Mistresse! I come; now reach a straine, my lute,
Above her mocke, or be for ever mute;
Or tune a song of victory to me,

Or to thy selfe, sing thine own obsequie:
So said, his hands sprightly as fire, he flings
And with a quavering coynesse tasts the strings.
The sweet-lip't sisters, musically frighted,
Singing their feares, are fearefully delighted,
Trembling as when Apollo's golden haires
Are fan'd and frizled, in the wanton ayres
Of his own breath, which marryed to his lyre
Doth tune the spheares, and make Heaven's selfe looke
From this to that, from that to this he flyes, [higher.
Feeles Musick's pulse in all her arteryes;
Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads,
His fingers struggle with the vocall threads.
Following those little rills, he sinkes into
A sea of Helicon; his hand does goe
Those pathes of sweetnesse which with nectar drop,
Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup.
The humourous strings expound his learned touch,
By various glosses; now they seeme to grutch,
And murmur in a buzzing dinne, then gingle
In shrill-tongu'd accents, striving to be single.
Every smooth turne, every delicious stroake
Gives life to some new grace; thus doth h' invoke
Sweetnesse by all her names; thus, bravely thus
(Fraught with a fury so harmonious)

The lute's light genius now does proudly rise,
Heav'd on the surges of swolne rapsodyes,
Whose flourish (meteor-like) doth curle the aire
With flash of high-borne fancyes: here and there
Dancing in lofty measures, and anon
Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone,
Whose trembling murmurs melting in wild aires
Runs to and fro, complaining his sweet cares,
Because those pretious mysteryes that dwell
In Musick's ravish't soule he dares not tell,
But whisper to the world: thus doe they vary
Each string his note, as if they meant to carry
Their Master's blest soule (snatcht out at his eares
By a strong extasy) through all the spheares
Of Musick's heaven, and seat it there on high
In th' empyræum of pure harmony.

At length (after so long, so loud a strife
Of all the strings, still breathing the best life

Of blest variety, attending on

His fingers fairest revolution

In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall) A full-mouth'd diapason swallowes all.

This done, he lists what she would say to this, And she, (although her breath's late exercise Had dealt too roughly with her tender throate,) Yet summons all her sweet powers for a noate. Alas! in vaine! for while (sweet soule!) she tryes To measure all those wild diversities

Of chatt'ring strings, by the small size of one Poore simple voyce, rais'd in a naturall tone; She failes, and failing grieves, and grieving dyes. She dyes and leaves her life the Victor's prise, Falling upon his lute: O, fit to have

(That liv'd so sweetly) dead so sweet a grave!

Wishes.

To his Supposed Mistresse.

Who ere she be,

That not impossible she

That shall command my heart and me;

Where ere she lye,

Lock't up from mortall eye,

In shady leaves of Destiny;

Till that ripe birth

Of studied Fate stand forth,

And teach her faire steps tread our Earth;

Till that divine

Idæa take a shrine

Of chrystall flesh, through which to shine;

Meet you her, my wishes,
Bespeake her to my blisses,

And be ye call'd, my absent kisses.

I wish her beauty

That owes not all its duty

To gaudy tire or glistring shoo-tye.

More than the spoyle

Of shop, or silkeworme's toyle,

Or a bought blush, or a set smile.

A face that's best

By its owne beauty drest,

And can alone commend the rest.

A cheeke where Youth,
And blood, with pen of Truth

Write what their reader sweetly ru'th.

Lipps, where all day

A lover's kisse may play,

Yet carry nothing thence away.

Eyes, that displace

The neighbour diamond, and out-face

That sunshine, by their own sweet grace.

Tresses, that weare

Jewells but to declare

How much themselves more pretious are. . . .

From 'In Praise of Lessius' Rule of Health.'

Heark hither, reader! wilt thou see
Nature her own physician be?
Wilt see a man all his own wealth,
His own musick, his own health?
A man whose sober soul can tell
How to wear her garments well?
Her garments, that upon her sit,
As garments should do, close and fit?
A well-clothed soul that's not opprest
Nor choked with what she should be drest?
A soul sheath'd in a crystall shrine,
Through which all her bright features shine?
As when a piece of wanton lawn,

A thin aërial vail, is drawn

O're Beauty's face, seeming to hide,

More sweetly shews the blushing bride;

A soul whose intellectual beams

No mists do mask, no lazie steams?

A happie soul, that all the way

To Heav'n hath a Summer's day?

Would'st see a man whose well-warmed bloud
Bathes him in a genuine floud?

A man whose tuned humours be

A seat of rarest harmonie?

Would'st see blithe looks, fresh cheeks, beguile
Age? Would'st see December smile?
Would'st see a nest of roses grow

In a bed of reverend snow?
Warm thoughts, free spirits flattering
Winter's self into a Spring?

In sum, would'st see a man that can
Live to be old, and still a man?
Whose latest and most leaden houres
Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flowres,

And when Life's sweet fable ends,

His soul and bodie part like friends;

No quarrels, murmures, no delay;

A kisse, a sigh, and so away?

This rare one, reader, wouldst thou see,
Heark hither: and thyself be he.

Much larger in itselfe than in its looke.
A nest of new-born sweets;
Whose native fires, disdaining

To ly thus folded and complaining
Of these ignoble sheets,
Affect more comly bands

(Fair one) from thy kind hands;
And confidently look
To find the rest

Of a rich binding in your breast.

It is, in one choise handfull, Heavn and all
Heavn's royall host incampt thus small;
To prove that true, schooles use to tell,
Ten thousand angels in one point can dwell.
It is Love's great artillery,

Which here contracts it self, and comes to ly

Close couch't in your white bosom, and from thence,

As from a snowy fortress of defence,

Against the ghostly foe to take your part,

And fortify the hold of your chast heart.

It is an armory of light:

Let constant use but keep it bright,
You'l find it yields

To holy hands and humble hearts,
More swords and sheilds

Than sin hath snares or Hell hath darts.
Only be sure

The attending World, to wait Thy rise,
First turn'd to eyes;

And then, not knowing what to doe,
Turn'd them to teares, and spent them too.
Come, royall Name! and pay the expence
Of all this pretious patience :
O come away

And kill the death of this delay!

O see, so many worlds of barren yeares
Melted and measur'd out in seas of teares:
Oh, see the weary liddes of wakefull hope
(Love's eastern windowes) all wide ope
With curtains drawn,

To catch the daybreak of Thy dawn.
Oh, dawn at last, long-lookt-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.

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

Of Death and feircest dangers, durst with brave

And sober pace march on to meet a grave!

On their bold brests about the world they bore Thee,

And to the teeth of Hell stood up to teach Thee;
In centre of their inmost soules they wore Thee,
Where rackes and torments striv'd in vain to reach Thee.
Little, alas, thought they

Who tore the fair breasts of Thy freinds,

Their fury but made way

For Thee, and serv'd them in Thy glorious ends.
What did their weapons, but with wider pores
Inlarge Thy flaming-brested lovers,

More freely to transpire

That impatient fire

The heart that hides Thee hardly covers?
What did their weapons but sett wide the doores
For Thee? fair purple doores of Love's devising;
The ruby windowes which inricht 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 witt of love oreflowd the bounds

Of wrath, and made Thee way through all these wounds.
Welcome, dear, all-adored Name!

For sure there is no knee

That knows not Thee;

Or if there be such sonns of shame,
Alas! what will they doe

When stubborn rocks shall bow,

And hills hang down their heavn-saluting heads
To seek for humble beds

Of dust, where, in the bashfull shades of night,
Next to their own low Nothing they may ly,

And couch before the dazeling 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.

The Steps of 1646 were reprinted in 1648; and as Carmen Deo Nostro (from one of the poems), with twelve vignettes from Crashaw's own designs, but without the translations from Marino and Strada, in 1652. There are poorer editions or selections (1670, 1775, and 1858), but the fullest is that by Grosart (for the Fuller Worthies Library, 1872). W. Tutin published a selection from the Poems in 1887 and 1893; the English Poems, almost quite complete, in 2 vols. in 1900; and, separately, the secular poems as The Delights of the Muses (1 vol. 1900). And see Professor Dowden's Puritan and Anglican (1901).

Henry Vaughan (1622–95), long regarded with disdain as 'one of the harshest of the inferior order of the poetic school of conceits,' is now classed with George Herbert and Crashaw as a religious poet of exquisite feeling and fancy, tender and delicate expression, and meditative mysticism; though much of what he wrote is uncouth and obscure, dull and tedious, broken only occasionally by noble thoughts. Born at the farmhouse of Newton, near Skethiog, in the parish of Llansaintffraed in Brecon, on 17th April 1622, he called himself Silurist' as a native of the territory of the ancient Silures; and he was twin-brother of Thomas Vaughan (1622-66), the alchemist. The brothers studied at Jesus College, Oxford, and shared the loyalty of their family for the royal cause. Both of them suffered imprisonment and deprivation, although only Thomas actually bore arms for the king. Early a devoted admirer of Ben Jonson, Randolph, and the other poets of the day, in 1646 he published his first Poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal Englished. studied medicine, became M.D., and settled down to practise first at Brecon, and then at his birthplace. Olor Is anus (Swan of Usk'), a collection of poems and translations, was sent to his brother in Oxford, and published without authority in 1651. A serious illness deepened his religious convictions, and henceforward time and eternity, sin and grace, were his main themes. Silex Scintillans (Sparks from the Flint;' two parts, 1650-55) are religious poems and meditations. Flores Solitudinis and The Mount of Olives (1652) are devotional prose

He now

pieces. Thalia Rediviva: the Pastimes and Diversions of a Countrey Muse (1678), is a collection of poems by the twin-brothers-elegies, translations, religious verses. Henry Vaughan died 23rd April 1695; and his grave in Llansaintffraed churchyard was restored in 1896. The close similarity between Vaughan's Retreate and Wordsworth's famous ode on Intimations of Immortality has often and justly been dwelt on. The earlier poem is at least an intimation or forerunner of the more famous one. The Retreate and Beyond the Veil are universally counted amongst the purest and most exquisite reflective pieces of the age in which Vaughan lived. He complains of the proverbial poverty and suffering of poets:

As they were merely thrown upon the stage,
The mirth of fools, and legends of the age.

But he was not without hopes of renown, and he wished the river of his native vale, the Usk, to share in the distinction:

When I am laid to rest hard by thy streams,
And my sun sets where first it sprang in beams,
I'll leave behind me such a large kind light
As shall redeem thee from oblivious night,
And in these vows which, living yet, I pay,
Shed such a precious and enduring ray,
As shall from age to age thy fair name lead
Till rivers leave to run, and men to read!

Early Rising and Prayer.

When first thy eyes unveil, give thy soul leave
To do the like; our bodies but forerun
The spirit's duty: true hearts spread and heave
Unto their God, as flowers do to the sun :
Give Him thy first thoughts then, so shalt thou keep
Him company all day, and in Him sleep.

Yet never sleep the sun up; prayer shou'd
Dawn with the day: there are set awful hour
'Twixt heaven and us; the manna was not good
After sunrising; fair day sullies flowres :
Rise to prevent the sun; sleep doth sins glut,
And heaven's gate opens when this world's is shut.

Walk with thy fellow-creatures; note the hush
And whispers amongst them. There's not a spring
Or leafe but hath his morning-hymn; each bush
And oak doth know I AM. Canst thou not sing?
O leave thy cares and follies! Go this way,
And thou art sure to prosper all the day.

Serve God before the world; let Him not go
Until thou hast a blessing; then resigne
The whole unto Him; and remember who
Prevailed by wrestling ere the sun did shine.
Pour oyl upon the stones, weep for thy sin,
Then journey on, and have an eie to heav'n.

Mornings are mysteries; the first world's youth,
Man's resurrection, and the future's bud,
Shroud in their births; the crown of life, light, truth,
Is styled their 'starre,' the stone,' and 'hidden food.'
Three blessings wait upon them, two of which
Should move; they make us holy, happy, rich.

When the world 's up, and every swarm abroad,
Keep well thy temper; mix not with each clay;
Dispatch necessities; life hath a load
Which must be carri'd on, and safely may;
Yet keep those cares without thee; let the heart
Be God's alone, and choose the better part.

(From Silex Scintillans.)

From 'The Rainbow.' Still young and fine! but what is still in view We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new. How bright wert thou when Shem's admiring eye Thy burnisht flaming arch did first descry! When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot, The youthful world's gray fathers, in one knot Did with intentive looks watch every hour For thy new light, and trembled at each shower! When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair, Forms turn to musick, clouds to smiles and air: Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers. Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tye Of my Lord's hand, the object of his eye! When I behold thee, though my light be dim, Distinct, and low, I can in thine see Him, Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne, And mindes the covenant 'twixt all and One. (From Silex Scintillans.)

Monsieur Gombauld.

...

[From Olor Iscanus. Written after reading the romance Endymion, by the French Protestant poet J. O. de Gombauld (1570-1666), which was translated in 1637.]

I 'ave read thy soul's faire night peece, and have seen
Th' amours and courtship of the silent queen;
Her stoln descents to earth, and what did move her
To juggle first with heav'n, then with a lover;
With Latmos' lowder rescue, and, alas !
To find her out, a hue and crie in brasse ;
Thy journal of deep mysteries, and sad
Nocturnall pilgrimage; with thy dreams clad
In fancies darker than thy cave; thy glasse
Of sleepie draughts; and as thy soul did passe
In her calm voyage, what discourse she heard
Of spirits, what dark groves and ill-shap'd guard
Ismena led thee through; with thy proud flight
O'r Periardes, and deep-musing night
Near fair Eurota,' banks; what solemn green
The neighbour shades weare; and what forms are seen
In their large bowers, with that sad path and seat
Which none but light-heel'd nymphs and fairies beat ;
Their solitary life, and how exempt
From common frailty, the severe contempt
They have of man, their priviledge to live
A tree or fountain, and in that reprieve
What ages they consume: with the sad vale
Of Diophania; and the mournfull tale

Of th' bleeding, vocall myrtle: these and more,
Thy richer thoughts, we are upon the score
To thy rare fancy for. Nor doest thou fall

From thy first majesty, or ought at all
Betray consumption. Thy full vig'rous bayes
Wear the same green, and scorne the lene decayes
Of stile or matter; just so I have known

Some chrystal spring, that from the neighbour down
Deriv'd her birth, in gentle murmurs steal

To the next vale, and proudly there reveal

Her streams in lowder accents, adding still
More noise and waters to her channell, till
At last, swoln with increase, she glides along
The lawnes and meadows, in a wanton throng
Of frothy billows, and in one great name
Swallows the tributary brooks' drown'd fame.
Nor are they meere inventions, for we
In th' same peece find scatter'd philosophie
And hidden, disperst truths, that enfolded lye
In the dark shades of deep allegorie,
So neatly weav'd, like arras, they descrie
Fables with truth, fancy with mysterie.
So that thou hast, in this thy curious mould,
Cast that commended mixture wish'd of old,
Which shall these contemplations render far
Lesse mutable, and lasting as their star;
And while there is a people, or a sunne,
Endymion's storie with the moon shall runne.

From The Timber.'

Sure thou didst flourish once, and many springs, Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers, Passed ore thy head; many light hearts and wings Which now are dead, lodg'd in thy living bowers.

And still a new succession sings and flies,

Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot Towards the old and still enduring skies,

While the low violet thrives at their root.

But thou beneath the sad and heavy line

Of death, doth waste all senseless, cold, and dark, Where not so much as dreams of light may shine, Nor any thought of greenness, leaf, or bark.

And yet as if some deep hate and dissent,
Bred in thy growth betwixt high winds and thee,
Were still alive, thou dost great storms resent
Before they come, and know'st how near they be.
Else all at rest thou lyest, and the fierce breath
Of tempests can no more disturb thy ease;
But this thy strange resentment after death
Means onely those who broke, in life, thy peace.

So murthered man, when lovely life is done,

And his blood freez'd, keeps in the center still Some secret sense, which makes the dead blood run At his approach that did the body kill.

And is there any murth'rer worse than sin?
Or any storms more foul than a lewd life?
Or what resentient can work more within
Then true remorse, when with past sins at strife?

The Retreate.

Happy those early dayes, when I
Shin'd in my angell-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy ought
But a white, celestiall thought;
When yet I had not walkt above
A mile or two from my first love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of His bright face;