'Thus haue I back again to thy bright name, Fair floud of holy fires! transfus'd the flame I took from reading thee.... ... O pardon, if I dare to say Thine own dear bookes are guilty.' (vol. i. p. 150.) The words of the Preface (as above) remind us also that Crashaw took his part in the Fasts and Vigils and austerities of the Ferrars and the saintly, if ascetic, 'Little Gidding' group.[18] Going back on the 'Hymn,' such lines as these show how even then the Poet had drunk-in the very passion of Teresa: _e.g._ 'Loue toucht her heart, and, lo, it beates High, and burnes with such braue heates, Such thirsts to dy, as dares drink vp _A thousand cold deathes in one cup_. Good reason: for she breathes all fire; Her white breast heaues with strong desire. . . . . . Sweet, not so fast! lo, thy fair Spouse, Whom thou seekst with so swift vowes, Calls thee back, and bidds thee come T'embrace a milder martyrdom. Blest powres forbid thy tender life Should bleed vpon a barbarous knife: Or some base hand have power to raze Thy brest's chast cabinet, and vncase A soul kept there so sweet: O no, Wise Heaun will neuer haue it so. Thou art Love's victime, and must dy A death more mystical and high: Into Loue's armes thou shalt let fall A still-suruiuing funerall. His is the dart must make the death Whose stroke shall tast thy hallow'd breath; A dart thrice dipt in that rich flame Which writes thy Spouse's radiant name Vpon the roof of Heau'n, where ay It shines; and with a soueraign ray Beates bright vpon the burning faces Of soules which in that Name's sweet graces Find everlasting smiles. . . O how oft shalt thou complain Of a sweet and subtle pain; Of intolerable ioyes; Of a death, in which who dyes Loues his death, and dyes again, And would for ever so be slain, And liues and dyes; and knowes not why To live, but that he thus may neuer leaue to dy.'