The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume ICrashaw, Richard
General
The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume I
Crashaw, Richard
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700
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 shining 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 præscribèd 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 ignoble 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 ILLUSTRATIONS.
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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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