The hidden sweets

Which man's heart meets

When thou art master of the mind.
Come, lovely name! life of our hope!
Lo, we hold our hearts wide ope!
Unlock thy cabinet of day,

Dearest sweet, and come away.

Lo, how the thirsty lands

Gasp for thy golden showers, with long stretch'd hands! Lo, how the labouring earth

That hopes to be

All heaven by thee,

Leaps at thy birth!

The attending world, to wait thy rise,
First turn'd to eyes;

And then, not knowing what to do,
Turn'd them to tears, and spent them too.
Come, royal name! and pay the expense
Of all this precious patience:

Oh, come away

And kill the death of this delay.

Oh see, so many worlds of barren years
Melted and measur'd out in seas of tears!
Oh, see the weary lids of wakeful hope
(Love's eastern windows) all wide ope
With curtains drawn,

To catch the daybreak of the dawn.
Oh dawn at last, long-look'd for day!
Take thine own wings and come away.
Lo, where aloft it comes! It comes, among
The conduct of adoring spirits, that throng
Like diligent bees, and swarm about it.
Oh, they are wise,

And know what sweets are suck'd from out it.
It is the hive

By which they thrive,

Where all their hoard of honey lies.

Lo, where it comes, upon the snowy dove's
Soft back, and brings a bosom big with loves.
Welcome to our dark world, thou womb of day!

VOL. III.

CRASHAW.

Unfold thy fair conceptions; and display
The birth of our bright joys.

Oh, thou compacted

Body of blessings! spirit of souls extracted!
Oh dissipate thy spicy powers,

Cloud of condensed sweets! and break upon us
In balmy showers!

Oh, fill our senses, and take from us

All force of so profane a fallacy,

To think aught sweet but that which smells of thee.
Fair, flowery name! in none but thee,

And thy nectareal fragrancy,
Hourly there meets

An universal synod of all sweets;
By whom it is defined thus-
That no perfume

For ever shall presume

To pass for odoriferous,

But such alone whose sacred pedigree

Can prove itself some kin, sweet name! to thee.
Sweet name, in thy each syllable

A thousand blest Arabias dwell;
A thousand hills of frankincense;
Mountains of myrrh, and beds of spices,
And ten thousand paradises,

The soul, that tastes thee, takes from thence.
How
many unknown worlds there are
Of comforts, which thou hast in keeping!
How many thousand mercies there
In pity's soft lap lie a-sleeping!
Happy he who has the art

To awake them,

And to take them

Home, and lodge them in his heart.

Oh, that it were as it was wont to be,

When thy old friends of fire, all full of thee,

Fought against frowns with smiles; gave glorious chase

To persecutions; and against the face

Of death and fiercest dangers, durst with brave

And sober pace march on to meet a grave.

I

97

On their bold breasts about the world they bore thee,
And to the teeth of hell stood up to teach thee;

In centre of their inmost souls they wore thee,
Where racks and torments strived in vain to reach thee.
Little, alas! thought they

Who tore the fair breasts of thy friends,

Their fury but made way

For thee, and served them in thy glorious ends.
What did their weapons, but with wider pores
Enlarge thy flaming-breasted lovers,

More freely to transpire

That impatient fire

The heart that hides thee hardly covers?
What did their weapons, but set wide the doors
For thee? fair purple doors, of love's devising;
The ruby windows which enrich'd the east
Of thy so oft-repeated rising.

Each wound of theirs was thy new morning,

And re-enthroned thee in thy rosy nest,

With blush of thine own blood thy day adorning :

It was the wit of love o'erflow'd the bounds

Of wrath, and made the way through all these wounds. Welcome, dear, all-adored name!

For sure there is no knee

That knows not thee;

Or if there be such sons of shame,
Alas! what will they do,

When stubborn rocks shall bow,

And hills hang down their heav'n-saluting heads
To seek for humble beds

Of dust, where, in the bashful shades of night,

Next to their own low nothing they may lie,

And couch before the dazzling light of thy dread Majesty.

They that by love's mild dictate now

Will not adore thee,

Shall then, with just confusion, bow

And break before thee.

Thy sheep was stray'd, and Thou wouldst be Even lost thyself in seeking me.

Shall all that labour, all that cost
Of love, and ev'n that loss, be lost?

And this loved soul, judged worth no less
Than all that way and weariness?

Just Mercy, then, thy reckoning be
With my price, and not with me:
'Twas paid at first with too much pain,
To be paid twice, or once in vain.

Mercy, my Judge, mercy I cry
With blushing cheek and bleeding eye:
The conscious colours of my sin
Are red without and pale within.

O let Thine own soft bowels pay
Thyself; and so discharge that day.
If sin can sigh, love can forgive:-
O say the word, my soul shall live.

Those mercies which Thy Mary found, Or who Thy cross confess'd and crown'd, Hope tells my heart, the same loves be Still alive and still for me.

Though both my pray'rs and tears combine,

Both worthless are; for they are mine:

But Thou Thy bounteous self still be,
And shew Thou art, by saving me.

O, when Thy last frown shall proclaim
The flocks of goats to folds of flame,
And all Thy lost sheep found shall be,
Let"Come, ye blessed," then call me.

When the dread "Ite" shall divide Those limbs of death from Thy left side, Let those life-speaking lips command That I inherit Thy right hand.