The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw Volume I Part 29

" 54. The allusion is to one of the names of Satan, viz.

Baal-zebub = fly-G.o.d, dunghill-G.o.d.

Line 55, 'pleasures.'

" 57. Our text (1652) inadvertently drops 'in.' 1648 has 'i' th'.'

Line 59. Our text misprints 'spheares:' 1648 adopts 'spheare' from 1646 edition. 1670 misprints 'spear.'

Line 62, 'forswearing:' a cla.s.sic word.

" 64, 'git' is the spelling.

" 65. All the editions save our text (1652) omit 'meanwhile.'

Line 66, 'the' for 'that.'

" 69, 'These' for 'Those,' by mistake.

" 78, 'doth' for 'does' I have adopted here.

" 83, 1648, by misprint, has 'O' for 'Of.'

" 84, 'An hundred thousand loves and graces.'

" 90. I have accepted 'hidden' before 'store' from 1646 edition.

Line 101. I have also adopted this characteristic line from 1646 edition. In all the others (except 1670) it is 'Selected dove.'

Line 107, 'soule' for 'indeed.'

" 114, 'that' for 'the.'

" 121-122. In 1648 printed as _supra_, the lines probably indicating a blank where the MS. was illegible. In our text (1652) we have two lines, but no blank indicated.

Line 124, 'soul' for 'proof.'

" 127, 'a' for 'her.' G.

TO THE SAME PARTY:

COVNCEL CONCERNING HER CHOISE.[45]

Dear, Heaun-designed sovl! 1 Amongst the rest Of suters that beseige your maiden brest, Why may not I My fortune try 5 And venture to speak one good word, Not for my self, alas! but for my dearer Lord?

You have seen allready, in this lower sphear Of froth and bubbles, what to look for here: Say, gentle soul, what can you find 10 But painted shapes, Peac.o.c.ks and apes; Ill.u.s.trious flyes, Guilded dunghills, glorious lyes; Goodly surmises 15 And deep disguises, Oathes of water, words of wind?

Trvth biddes me say 'tis time you cease to trust Your soul to any son of dust.

'Tis time you listen to a brauer loue, 20 Which from aboue Calls you vp higher And biddes you come And choose your roome Among His own fair sonnes of fire; 25 Where you among The golden throng That watches at His palace doores May pa.s.se along, And follow those fair starres of your's; 30 Starrs much too fair and pure to wait vpon The false smiles of a sublunary sun.

Sweet, let me prophesy that at last t'will proue Your wary loue Layes vp his purer and more pretious vowes, 35 And meanes them for a farre more worthy Spovse Then this World of lyes can giue ye: Eu'n for Him with Whom nor cost, Nor loue, nor labour can be lost; Him Who neuer will deceiue ye. 40 Let not my Lord, the mighty Louer Of soules, disdain that I discouer The hidden art Of His high stratagem to win your heart: It was His heaunly art 45 Kindly to cross you In your mistaken loue; That, at the next remoue Thence, He might tosse you And strike your troubled heart 50 Home to Himself; to hide it in His brest: The bright ambrosiall nest Of Loue, of life, and euerlasting rest.

Happy mystake!

That thus shall wake 55 Your wise soul, neuer to be wonne Now with a loue below the sun.

Your first choyce failes; O when you choose agen May it not be amongst the sonnes of men.

NOTES AND ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.

The first line, 'To Mistress M.R.

Dear, Heav'n-designed soul,'

as in 1670, is not to be considered as an unrhymed line, but as the address or superscription, though so contrived as not to interfere with the metre, but to make a five-foot line with the two feet of the true first line of the poem. So Parolles prefaces his verse with

'Dian, the count's a fool and full of gold.'

(_All's Well that ends Well_, iv. 3.)

and Longaville (_Love's Labour Lost_) prefixes to his sonnet,

'O sweet Maria, empress of my love.'

In fact, it is the 'Madam' of a poetical epistle brought into metrical harmony with the verse. G.

DESCRIPTION OF A RELIGIOVS HOVSE AND CONDITION OF LIFE.

(OVT OF BARCLAY.)[46]

No roofes of gold o're riotous tables s.h.i.+ning 1 Whole dayes and suns, deuour'd with endlesse dining.

No sailes of Tyrian sylk, proud pauements sweeping, Nor iuory couches costlyer slumber keeping; False lights of flairing gemmes; tumultuous ioyes; 5 Halls full of flattering men and frisking boyes; What'ere false showes of short and slippery good Mix the mad sons of men in mutuall blood.

But walkes, and vnshorn woods; and soules, iust so Vnforc't and genuine; but not shady tho. 10 Our lodgings hard and homely as our fare, That chast and cheap, as the few clothes we weare.

Those, course and negligent, as the naturall lockes Of these loose groues; rough as th' vnpolish't rockes.

A hasty portion of praescribed sleep; 15 Obedient slumbers, that can wake and weep, And sing, and sigh, and work, and sleep again; Still rowling a round spear of still-returning pain.

Hands full of harty labours; paines that pay And prize themselves: doe much, that more they may, 20 And work for work, not wages; let to-morrow's New drops, wash off the sweat of this daye's sorrows.

A long and dayly-dying life, which breaths A respiration of reuiuing deaths.

But neither are there those ign.o.ble stings 25 That nip the blossome of the World's best things, And lash Earth-labouring souls....

No cruell guard of diligent cares, that keep Crown'd woes awake, as things too wise for sleep: But reuerent discipline, and religious fear, 30 And soft obedience, find sweet biding here; Silence, and sacred rest; peace, and pure ioyes; Kind loues keep house, ly close, make no noise; And room enough for monarchs, while none swells Beyond the kingdomes of contentfull cells. 35 The self-remembring sovl sweetly recouers Her kindred with the starrs; not basely houers Below: but meditates her immortall way Home to the originall sourse of Light and intellectuall day

NOTES AND ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.

In 1648 the heading is simply 'Description of a religious house.' The original occurs in BARCLAY'S _Argenis_, book v. These variations include one important correction of a long-standing blunder:

Line 3, 1648 misprints 'weeping' for 'sweeping.'

" 4, 'costly' for 'costlyer.'