The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume IICrashaw, Richard
General
The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume II
Crashaw, Richard
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700
I, miser, inque tuas rape non tua tempora curas:
Et nondum natis perge perire malis.
Mi querulis satis una dies, satis angitur horis:
Una dies lacrymis mi satis uda suis.
Non mihi venturos vacat expectare dolores:
Nolo ego, nolo hodie crastinus esse miser.
_Be ye not fretted about to-morrow._
Go, wretched mortal, antedate the day,
Fill thee with care;
Work thyself mis'ries, in a perverse way,
Before they're there.
Enough for me the day's cares in the day,
The passing hour;
Enough the tears that daily, yea or nay,
In sorrow low'r.
I have no leisure thus to antedate
The coming woe,
Nor to-day darken with to-morrow's fate;
And so I go. G.
ANOTHER VERSION.
Wretch, to thy woes add not
to-morrow morn;
And haste not thou to
groan with ills unborn.
Each day's laments, each
hour's griefs, me suffice;
Each morn, noon, eve, with
rueful weeping eyes.
No leisure is to look for
griefs to be:
Stir not to-day to-morrow's
pains in me. A.
XXIV.
_A telonio Matthaeus._ Matt. ix. 9.
Ah satis, ah nimis est: noli ultra ferre magistrum,
Et lucro domino turpia colla dare.
Jam fuge; jam, Matthaee, feri fuge regna tyranni:
Inque bonam, felix i fugitive,[48] crucem.
_Matthew called from the receipt of custom._
Enough, too much; no more a master's yoke
Endure, nor bow to lordly Lucre's stroke:
His service from thy slavish neck is broke.
Flee, Matthew, flee the cruel tyrant's sway,
And hie thee, like a happy runaway,
To the sweet cross that waits for thee to-day. R. WI.
XXV.
_Viduae filius e feretro matri redditur._ Luc. vii. 15.
En redeunt, lacrymasque breves nova gaudia pensant;
Bisque illa est, uno in pignore, facta parens.
Felix quae magis es nati per funera mater:
Amisisse, iterum cui peperisse fuit.
_The dead son re-delivered to his mother._
Sweet restoration! by new joys outweigh'd,
Brief sorrow is exil'd,
And the lorn widow is a mother made
Twice in her only child.
O happy mother! then a mother most
When all her hopes seem'd vain:
Happy, who wept beside a dear son lost,
And found him born again. CL.
XXVI.
_Bonum intrare in coelos cum uno oculo, &c._ Matt. xviii. 9.
Uno oculo? ah centum potius mihi, millia centum:
Nam quis ibi, in coelo, quis satis Argus erit?
Aut si oculus mihi tantum unus conceditur, unus
Iste oculus fiam totus et omnis ego.
_It is better to go into heaven with one eye, &c._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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