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Richard Crashaw - Prayer
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LO here a little volume, but great Book  
  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 the kind hands  
  And confidently look  
  To find the rest  
Of a rich binding in your Brest.         
It is, in one choise handfull, heavenn; and all  
Heavn’s Royall host; incamp’t 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 itself, and comes to ly  
Close couch’t in their white bosom: and from thence  
As from a snowy fortresse of defence,  
Against their ghostly foes to take their part,  
And fortify the hold of their chast heart.         
It is an armory of light  
Let constant use but keep it bright,  
  You’l find it yeilds  
To holy hands and humble hearts  
  More swords and sheilds         
Then sin hath snares, or Hell hath darts.  
  Only be sure  
  The hands be pure  
That hold these weapons; and the eyes  
Those of turtles, chast and true;         
  Wakefull and wise;  
Here is a freind shall fight for you,  
Hold but this book before their heart;  
Let prayer alone to play his part,  
  But ô the heart         
  That studyes this high Art  
  Must be a sure house-keeper  
  And yet no sleeper.  
  Dear soul, be strong.  
  Mercy will come e’re long         
And bring his bosom fraught with blessings,  
Flowers of never fading graces  
To make immortall dressings  
For worthy soules, whose wise embraces  
Store up themselves for Him, who is alone         
The Spouse of Virgins and the Virgin’s son.  
But if the noble Bridegroom, when he come  
Shall find the loytering Heart from home;  
  Leaving her chast aboad  
  To gadde abroad         
Among the gay mates of the god of flyes;  
To take her pleasure and to play  
And keep the devill’s holyday;  
To dance th’sunshine of some smiling  
  But beguiling         
Spheares of sweet and sugred Lyes,  
  Some slippery Pair  
Of false, perhaps as fair,  
Flattering but forswearing eyes;  
Doubtlesse some other heart         
  Will gett the start  
Mean while, and stepping in before  
Will take possession of that sacred store  
Of hidden sweets and holy ioyes.  
Words which are not heard with Eares         
(Those tumultuous shops of noise)  
Effectuall wispers, whose still voice  
The soul it selfe more feeles then heares;  
Amorous languishments; luminous trances;  
Sights which are not seen with eyes;         
Spirituall and soul-peircing glances  
Whose pure and subtil lightning flyes  
Home to the heart, and setts the house on fire  
And melts it down in sweet desire  
  Yet does not stay         
To ask the windows leave to passe that way;  
Delicious Deaths; soft exalations  
Of soul; dear and divine annihilations;  
  A thousand unknown rites  
Of ioyes and rarefy’d delights;         
A hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces,  
  And many a mystick thing  
  Which the divine embraces  
Of the deare spouse of spirits with them will bring  
  For which it is no shame         
That dull mortality must not know a name.  
  Of all this store  
Of blessings and ten thousand more  
  (If when he come  
  He find the Heart from home)         
  Doubtlesse he will unload  
  Himself some other where,  
  And poure abroad  
  His pretious sweets  
On the fair soul whom first he meets.         
O fair, ô fortunate! O riche, ô dear!  
O happy and thrice happy she  
  Selected dove  
  Who ere she be,  
  Whose early love        
  With winged vowes  
Makes hast to meet her morning spouse  
And close with his immortall kisses.  
Happy indeed, who never misses  
To improve that pretious hour,        
  And every day  
  Seize her sweet prey  
All fresh and fragrant as he rises  
Dropping with a baulmy Showr  
A delicious dew of spices;        
O let the blissfull heart hold fast  
Her heavnly arm-full, she shall tast  
At once ten thousand paradises;  
  She shall have power  
  To rifle and deflour        
The rich and roseall spring of those rare sweets  
Which with a swelling bosome there she meets  
  Boundles and infinite  
  Bottomles treasures  
Of pure inebriating pleasures        
Happy proof! she shal discover  
  What ioy, what blisse,  
How many Heav’ns at once it is  
To have her God become her Lover.
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