The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw Volume I Part 6

Shall thy tomb report of thee; But, 'so long she grieued:' 165 Thus must we date thy memory.

Others by moments, months, and yeares Measure their ages; thou, by teares.

XXIX.

So doe perfumes expire, So sigh tormented sweets, opprest 170 With proud vnpittying fire.

Such teares the suffring rose, that's vext With vngentle flames, does shed, Sweating in a too warm bed.

x.x.x.

Say, ye bright brothers, 175 The fugitiue sons of those fair eyes, Your fruitfull mothers!

What make you here? what hopes can 'tice You to be born? what cause can borrow You from those nests of n.o.ble sorrow? 180

x.x.xI.

Whither away so fast?

For sure the s.l.u.ttish earth Your sweetnes cannot tast, Nor does the dust deserve your birth.

Sweet, whither hast you then? O say 185 Why you trip so fast away?

x.x.xII.

We goe not to seek The darlings of Aurora's bed, The rose's modest cheek, Nor the violet's humble head. 190 Though the feild's eyes too Weepers be, Because they want such teares as we.

x.x.xIII.

Much lesse mean we to trace The fortune of inferior gemmes, Preferr'd to some proud face, 195 Or pertch't vpon fear'd diadems: Crown'd heads are toyes. We goe to meet A worthy object, our Lord's feet.

NOTES AND ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.

With some shortcomings--superficial rather than substantive--'The Weeper' is a lovely poem, and well deserves its place of honour at the commencement of the 'Steps to the Temple,' as in editions of 1646, 1648, and 1670. Accordingly we have spent the utmost pains on our text of it, taking for basis that of 1652. The various readings of the different editions and of the SANCROFT MS. are given below for the capable student of the ultimate perfected form. I have not hesitated to correct several misprints of the text of 1652 from the earlier editions.

The present poem appears very imperfectly in the first edition (1646), consisting there of only twenty-three stanzas instead of thirty-three (and so too in 1670 edition). The stanzas that are not given therein are xvi. to xxix. (on the last see onward). But on the other hand, exclusive of interesting variations, the text of 1646 supplies two entire stanzas (xi. and xxvii.) dropped out in the editions of 1648 and 1652, though both are in 1670 edition and in the SANCROFT MS. Moreover I accept the succession of the stanzas in 1646, so far as it goes, confirmed as it is by the SANCROFT MS. A third stanza in 1652 edition (st. xi. there) as also in 1648 edition, I omit, as it belongs self-revealingly to 'The Teare,' and interrupts the metaphor in 'The Weeper.' Another stanza (xxix.) might seem to demand excision also, as it is in part repeated in 'The Teare;' but the new lines are dainty and would be a loss to 'The Weeper.' Our text therefore is that of 1652, as before, with restorations from 1646.

The form of the stanza in the editions of 1646, 1648 and 1670 is thus:

_______________________________ _______________________________ __________________________ _______________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________

In 1652 from stanza xv. (there) to end,

_______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________

but I have made all uniform, and agreeably to above of 1652.

I would now submit variations, ill.u.s.trations and corrections, under the successive stanzas and lines.

Couplet on the engraving of 'The Weeper.' In 1652 'Sainte' is misprinted 'Sanite,' one of a number that remind us that the volume was printed in Paris, not London. In all the other editions the heading 'Sainte Mary Magdalene' is omitted.

St. i. line 2. 1646, 1648 and 1670 editions read 'silver-forded.' Were it only for the reading of the text of 1652 'silver-footed,' I should have been thankful for it; and I accept it the more readily in that the SANCROFT MS. from Crashaw's own copy, also reads 'silver-footed.' The Homeric compound epithet occurs in HERRICK contemporarily in his _Hesperides_,

'I send, I send here my supremest kiss To thee, my _silver-footed_ Thamasis'

[that is, the river Thames]. WILLIAM BROWNE earlier, has 'faire _silver-footed_ Thetis' (Works by Hazlitt, i. p. 188). Cf. also the first line of the Elegy on Dr. Porter in our 'Airelles'--printed for the first time by us: 'Stay silver-footed Came.'

With reference to the long-accepted reading 'silver-_forded_,' the epithet is loosely used not for in the state of being forded, but for in a state to be forded, or fordable, and hence shallow. The thought is not quite the same as that intended to be conveyed by such a phrase as 'silver stream of Thames,' but pictures the bright, pellucid, silvery whiteness of a clear mountain rill. As silver-shallow--a meaning which, as has been said, cannot be fairly obtained from it--can it alone be taken as a double epithet. In any other sense the hyphen is only an attempt to connect two qualities which refuse to be connected. All difficulty and obscurity are removed by 'silver-footed.'

St. iii. line 1. The. 'we" may be = wee, as printed in 1646, but in 1648 it is 'we are,' and in 1670 'we're,' and in the last, line 2, 'they're.' The SANCROFT MS. in line 2, reads 'they are indeed' for 'indeed they are.'

St. iv. line 4, 1646 and 1670 have 'crawles' and 'crawls' respectively, for 'floates,' as in 1648 and our text. The SANCROFT MS. also reads 'crawles.' In line 3, 1646 and 1670 'meet' is inadvertently subst.i.tuted for 'creep.'

Lines 5 and 6, 1646 and 1670 read

'Heaven, of such faire floods as this, Heaven the christall ocean is.'

So too the SANCROFT MS., save that for 'this' it has 'these.'

St. v. line 2. 'Brisk' is = active, nimble. So--and something more--SHAKESPEARE: 'he made me mad, to see him s.h.i.+ne so _brisk_' (1 Henry IV. 3).

Line 3. 1646, 1670 and SANCROFT MS. read 'soft' for 'sacred' of 1652 and 1648.

Line 6, 'Breakfast.' See our Essay on this and similar homely words, with parallels. 1648 reads 'his' for '_this_ breakfast.'

St. vi. line 4, 'violls' = 'phials' or small bottles. The reading in 1646 and 1670 is 'Angels with their _bottles_ come.' So also in the SANCROFT MS.

St. vii. line 4. 'Nuzzeld' = nestled or nourished. In quaint old DR.

WORs.h.i.+P'S Sermons, we have 'dew _cruzzle_ on his cheek' (p. 91).

Lines 1 and 3, 'deaw' = 'dew.' This was the contemporary spelling, as it was long before in SIR JOHN DAVIES, the FLETCHERS and others in our Fuller Worthies' Library, _s.v._

Lines 5 and 6. 1646, 1670 and SANCROFT MS. read

'Much rather would it tremble heere And leave them both to bee thy teare.'

1648 is as our text (1652).

St. ix. A hasty reader may judge this stanza to have been displaced by the xith, but a closer examination reveals a new vein (so-to-say) of the thought. It is characteristic of Crashaw to give a first-sketch, and afterwards fill in other details to complete the scene or portraiture.

St. xi. Restored from 1646.

St. xii. line 1. 1646, 1648 and 1670 read 'There is.'

Line 4, '_med'cinable_ teares.' So SHAKESPEARE (nearly): 'their _medicinal_ gum' (Oth.e.l.lo, v. 2).

St. xiii. line 2. 1646 and 1670 unhappily misprint 'case;' and TURNBULL pa.s.sed the deplorable blunder and perpetuated it.