SONNET I.

ON HIS BEING ARRIVED TO HIS TWENTY-THIRD YEAR.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arriv'd so near;

And inward ripeness doth much less appear, That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th. Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,

It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which time leads me, and the will of
Heaven;

All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Task-master's eye.

SONNET II.

TO A VIRTUOUS YOUNG LADY.

LADY, that in the prime of earliest youth,
Wisely hast shun'd the broad way and the green,
And with those few art eminently seen,
That labour up the hill of heav'nly truth,
The better part with Mary and with Ruth
Chosen thou hast; and they that overween,
And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen,
No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth.
Thy care is fix'd and zealously attends

To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light, And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be

sure

Thou, when the bridegroom with his feastful

friends

Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night,
Hast gain'd thy entrance, virgin wise and pure.

SONNET III.

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT.

AVENGE, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones,

Forget not in thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moan The vales redoubled to the hills, and they

To heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow, O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant: that from these may grow A hundred fold, who, having learn'd thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

SONNET IV.

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

WHEN I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more
bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied ?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his

state

Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.

RICHARD CRASHAW.

DIED 1650.

CRASHAW was one of those clergymen, who, during the troubles of this century, were deprived of their benefices, and station in society. Wearied with the sufferings he had endured from political and religious convulsion at home, and exile in a foreign land, he sought a refuge upon the barren rock of papal infallibility. Such of his writings as were composed after this period, contain evident traces of the change; for which an enthusiastic disposition, not unlike that of the ancient anchorites, combined with his misfortunes to prepare him. A singular proof of this is his having passed the greater part of several years in St. Mary's Church, near Peterhouse, Cambridge. "There," says the preface to his works, "he lodged under Tertullian's roof of angels; there he made his nest more gladly than David's swallow, near the house of God; where, like a primitive saint, he offered more prayers in the night than others usually offer in the day. There he penned these poems, viz. Steps to the Temple,' the title of one-third part of the small volume containing his works: the other two parts are The Delights of the Muses,' and 'Sacred Poems.''

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Crashaw is a genuine and glowing poet: he is equally at home in the playful and the terrible, and throws an equal interest over the familar and the sublime. His well-known poem, "Music's Duel," is scarcely surpassed by any composition in the language for ease, variety, and richness of diction. The writings of Crashaw, however, are all more or less vitiated by that tendency to conceit, which, in his friend Cowley, and others, was carried to so extravagant a length, that it finally debased the whole literary character of the age.