Odours sweet perfume the skies; RICHARD CRASHAW. (16137-1649.) The Wishes first appeared in Crashaw's The Delights of the Muses, 1646. The Flaming Heart: upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint Teresa first appeared in the second edition of Steps to the Temple, Sacred Poems, in 1648. The next piece is Crashaw's own translation, in 1646, of his Latin epigram No. 1, Pharisæus et Publicanus, in his Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber, 1634. Crashaw's Works, edited by Dr. Grosart, 1872, are in the Fuller Worthies Library; his Poems are included in vol. vi. of Chalmers' Poets. WISHES: TO HIS SUPPOSED MISTRESS. HOE'ER she be, That not impossible she That shall command my heart and me; Where'er she lie, Locked up from mortal eye, In shady leaves of Destiny; Till that ripe birth Of studied Fate stand forth, And teach her fair steps tread our Earth; Till that divine Idea take a shrine Of crystal flesh, through which to shine; Meet you her, my wishes, Bespeak her to my blisses, And be ye called, my absent kisses. I wish her, beauty That owes not all its duty To gaudy tire or glistering shoe tie. A face that 's best By its own beauty drest, And can alone commend the rest. A cheek where Youth, And blood, with pen of Truth Write, what their reader sweetly ru'th. Lips, where all day A lover's kiss 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 wear Jewels, but to declare How much themselves more precious are. Life, that dares send A challenge to his end And when it comes say, Welcome friend! I wish her store Of worth may leave her poor Of wishes; and I wish-no more. Now if Time knows That her, whose radiant brows Her that dares be, What these lines wish to see: I seek no further: it is she. THE FLAMING HEART. IVE in these conquering leaves; live all the same; L' And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame. Live here, great heart; and love and die and kill; And bleed and wound and yield and conquer still. Let this immortal life where'er it comes Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms. Let mystic deaths wait on 't; and wise souls be The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee. O sweet incendiary! show here thy art, Upon this carcass of a hard cold heart; Let all thy scattered shafts of light, that play Among the leaves of thy large books of day, Combined against this breast at once break in, And take away from me my self and sin; This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be, And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me. O thou undaunted daughter of desires! (M 349) X By all thy dower of lights and fires; And by thy thirsts of love more large than they; By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire; By the full kingdom of that final kiss That seized thy parting soul, and sealed thee His; By all the heaven thou hast in Him (Fair sister of the seraphim); TWO WENT UP INTO THE TEMPLE TO PRAY. TWO went to pray? O rather say One went to brag, the other to pray: One stands up close and treads on high, One nearer to God's altar trod, HENRY VAUGHAN. (1621-1695). The Works of Henry Vaughan, "Silurist", fill four volumes of the Fuller Worthies Library, edited by Dr. A. B. Grosart, 1871; they also appear in the Muses' Library, edited by Mr. E. K. Chambers, 1896. His Sacred Poems have been reprinted also in the Aldine Poets, 1847, edited by the Rev. H. F. Lyte, and his Secular Poems have been edited by Mr. J. R. Tutin, Hull, 1893. The first three selections are found in Silex Scintillans, 1650; the next in Part II. of the same title, 1655; and the last from Thalia Rediviva, 1678. HAPPY THE RETREAT. APPY those early days, when I Before I understood this place Before I taught my tongue to wound |