Part 6

His homage to the Virgin is put into words that pass the bounds which we Protestants set to the 'blessed among women' in her great renown, and even while a Protestant Crashaw fell into what we must regard as the strange as inexplicable forgetfulness that it is The _Man_, not The Child, who is our ever-living High-Priest 'within the veil,' and that not in His mother's bosom, but on the Throne of sculptured light, is His place. Still, you recognise that the homage to the Virgin-mother is to the Divine Son through her, and through her in fine if also mistaken humility. 'Mary' is the Muse of Crashaw; the Lord Jesus his 'Lord' and hers. I would have the reader spend willing time, in slowly, meditatively reading the whole of our Poet's sacred Verse, to note how the thinking thus thrills into feeling, and feeling into rapture--the rapture of adoration. It is miraculous how he finds words wherewith to utter his most subtle and vanishing emotion. Sometimes there is a daintiness and antique richness of wording that you can scarcely equal out of the highest of our Poets, or only in them. Some of his images from Nature are scarcely found anywhere else. For example, take this very difficult one of ice, in the Verse-Letter to the Countess of Denbigh (vol. i. p. 298, ll. 21-26), 'persuading' her no longer to be the victim of her doubts:

'So, when the Year takes cold, we see Poor waters _their own prisoners be; Fetter'd and lock'd-up fast they lie In a cold self-captivity_. Th' astonish'd Nymphs their Floud's strange fate deplore, To find themselves their own severer shoar.'

Young is striking in his use of the ice-metaphor:

'in Passion's flame Hearts melt; but _melt like ice, soon harder froze_.'

(Night-Thoughts, N. II. l. 522-3.)

But how strangely original is the earlier Poet in so cunningly working it into the very matter of his persuasion! Our quotation from Young recalls that in the 'Night-Thoughts' there are evident reminiscences of Crashaw: _e.g._

'Midnight veil'd his face: Not such as this, not such as Nature makes; A midnight Nature shudder'd to behold; A midnight new; a dread eclipse, without Opposing spheres, from her Creator's frown.'

(Night IV. ll. 246-250.)

So in 'Gilt was Hell's gloom' (N. VII. l. 1041), and in this portrait of Satan:

'Like meteors in a stormy sky, how roll His baleful eyes!' (N. IX. ll. 280-1.) and

'the fiery gulf, That flaming bound of wrath omnipotent;' (Ib. ll. 473-4)

and

'Banners streaming as the comet's blaze;' (Ib. l. 323)

and

'Which makes a hell of hell,' (Ib. l. 340)

we have the impress and inspiration of our Poet.

How infinitely soft and tender and Shakesperean is the 'Epitaph vpon a yovng Married Covple dead and bvryed together' (with its now restored lines), thus!--

'Peace, good Reader, doe not weep; Peace, the louers are asleep. They, sweet turtles, folded ly In the last knott that Loue could ty. And though they ly as they were dead, Their pillow stone, their sheetes of lead (Pillow hard, and sheetes not warm), Loue made the bed; they'l take no harm: Let them sleep; let them sleep on, Till this stormy night be gone, And the aeternall morrow dawn; Then ...' (vol. i. pp. 230-1.)

The hush, the tranquil stillness of a church-aisle, within which 'sleep' old recumbent figures, comes over one in reading these most pathetically beautiful words. Of the whole poem, Dodd in his 'Epigrammatists' (as onward) remarks, 'after reading this Epitaph, all others on the same subject must suffer by comparison. Yet there is much to be admired in the following by Bishop Hall, on Sir Edward and Lady Lewkenor. It is translated from the Latin by the Bishop's descendant and editor, the Rev. Peter Hall (Bp. Hall's Works, 1837-9, xii. 331):

'In bonds of love united, man and wife, Long, yet too short, they spent a happy life; United still, too soon, however late, Both man and wife receiv'd the stroke of fate: And now in glory clad, enraptur'd pair, The same bright cup, the same sweet draught they share. Thus, first and last, a married couple see, In life, in death, in immortality.'

There is much beauty also in an anonymous epitaph in the 'Festoon' 143, 'On a Man and his Wife:'

'Here sleep, whom neither life nor love, Nor friendship's strictest tie, Could in such close embrace as thou, Their faithful grave, ally; Preserve them, each dissolv'd in each, For bands of love divine, For union only more complete, Thou faithful grave, than thine.' (p. 253.)

His 'Wishes to his (supposed) Mistresse' has things in it vivid and subtle as anything in Shelley at his best; and I affirm this deliberately. His little snatch on 'Easter Day' with some peculiarities, culminates in a grandeur Milton might bow before. The version of 'Dies Irae' is wonderfully severe and solemn and intense. Roscommon undoubtedly knew it. And so we might go on endlessly. His melody--with exceptional discords--is as the music of a Master, not mere versification. Once read receptively, and the words haunt almost awfully, and, I must again use the word, unearthlily. Summarily--as in our claim for Vaughan, as against the preposterous traditional assertions of his indebtedness to Herbert poetically, while really it was for spiritual benefits he was obligated--we cannot for an instant rank George Herbert as a Poet with Crashaw. Their piety is alike, or the 'Priest' of Bemerton is more definite, and clear of the 'fine mist' of mysticism of the recluse of 'Little St. Mary's;' but only very rarely have you in 'The Temple' that light of genius which shines as a very Shekinah-glory in the 'Steps to the Temple.' These 'Steps' have been spoken of as 'Steps' designed to lead into Herbert's 'Temple,' whereas they were 'Steps' to the 'Temple' or Church of the Living God. Crashaw 'sang' sweetly and generously of Herbert (vol. i. pp. 139-140); but the two Poets are profoundly distinct and independent. Clement Barksdale, probably, must bear the blame of foolishly subordinating Crashaw to Herbert, in his Lines in 'Nympha Libethris' (1651):

'HERBERT AND CRASHAW.

When unto Herbert's Temple I ascend By Crashaw's Steps, I do resolve to mend My lighter verse, and my low notes to raise, And in high accent sing my Maker's praise. Meanwhile these sacred poems in my sight I place, that I may learn to write.'

(_c_) _Epigrams._ The title-page of the Epigr. Sacra of 1670 marks out for us their main dates; that is to say, as it designates him 'Collegii Petrensis Socius,' which he was not until 1637, the only portion that belongs to that period must be the additions made in the 1670 edition (see vol. ii. pp. 3-4). Dr. Macdonald (in 'Antiphon') observes: 'His Divine Epigrams are not the most beautiful, but they are to me the most valuable, of his verses, inasmuch as they make us feel afresh the truth which he sets forth anew. In them some of the facts of our Lord's life and teaching look out upon us as from clear windows of the Past. As epigrams, too, they are excellent--pointed as a lance' (p. 240). He limits himself to the 'English' Epigrams, and quotes after above, Nos. LIV. (2) and XI.; and continues with No. XIV., and next LIV. (1); on which he says: 'I value the following as a lovely parable. Mary is not contented; to see the place is little comfort. The church itself, with all its memories of the Lord, the Gospel-story, and all theory about Him, is but His tomb until we find Himself;' and he closes with one which he thinks is 'perhaps his best,' viz. No. I.[34] We too may give it:

'_Two went up into the Temple to pray._ Two went to pray! O, rather say, One went to brag, th' other to pray. One stands up close, and treads on high, Where th' other dares not send his eye. One neerer to God's altar trod; The other to the altar's God.' (vol. ii. p. 35.)

The admiring critic on this proceeds: 'This appears to me perfect. Here is the true relation between the forms and the end of religion. The priesthood, the altar and all its ceremonies, must vanish from between the sinner and his God. When the priest forgets his mediation of a servant, his duty of a door-keeper to the temple of truth, and takes upon him the office of an intercessor, he stands between man and God, and is a satan, an adversary. Artistically considered, the poem could hardly be improved' (p. 241). 'Artistically,' nevertheless, it is a wonder Dr. Macdonald did not detect Turnbull's mis-reading of 'lend' for 'send' (l. 4). Bellew in his Poet's Corner reads 'bend,' which is equally poor for 'tendit.' There follows No. XLII., 'containing a similar lesson;' and finally No. XLV. p. 196, whereof he says: 'The following is a world-wide intercession for them that know not what they do. Of those that reject the truth, who can be said ever to have truly seen it? A man must be good to see truth. It is a thought suggested by our Lord's words, not an irreverent opposition to the truth of them' (p. 242).

Now that, besides the (relatively) few Epigrams which were translated by Crashaw himself, the whole are translated (for the first time), and now too that, exclusive of longer Latin poems, a goodly addition has been made by us to them, the reader will find it rewarding to turn and return on this remarkable section of Crashaw's poetry. Conceits there are, grotesque as gargoyles of a cathedral, oddities of symbolism, even passing into unconscious playing with holy words and things never to be played with; but each has a jewel of a distinct thought or sentiment, and often the wording is felicitous, albeit, as in all his Latin verse, not invariably without technical faults of quantity and even syntax. I had marked very many for specific criticism; but I must refrain. Our translation is perhaps a better commentary. To my co-workers and myself it has been a labour of love. I must close our notice of Crashaw as an Epigrammatist with some parallels from 'The Epigrammatists' of the Rev. Henry Philip Dodd, M.A. (1870). Under No. CXVII., 'On Pontius Pilate washing his hands,' he has this: 'In Elsum's Epigrams on Paintings, 1700, is one on a picture by Andrea Sacchi of Pilate washing his hands, translated from Michael Silos, De Romana Pictura et Sculptura' (Ep. 17):

'O cursed Pilate, villain dyed in grain, A little water cannot purge thy stain; No, Tanais can't do't, nor yet the main. Dost thou condemn a Deity to death, Him whose mere love gave and preserv'd thy breath?'

Similarly, under No. LI. 'On the Blessed Virgin's Bashfulness,' he has this: 'Some lines "To the Blessed Virgin at her Purification," by the old epigrammatist Bancroft, are almost as beautiful in sentiment as this exquisite piece (Book ii. 86):

Why, favourite of Heaven, most fair, Dost thou bring fowls for sacrifice? Will not the armful thou dost bear, That lovely Lamb of thine, suffice?'

Of the exceptionally celebrated, not exceptionally superior Epigram on 'The Water turned Wine,' which somehow has been given by a perverse continued blunder to Dryden, Aaron Hill's masterly translation may be read along with those given by us in the place (vol. ii. pp. 96-7):

'When Christ at Cana's feast by pow'r divine Inspir'd cold water with the warmth of wine; See! cried they, while in red'ning tide it gush'd, The bashful stream hath seen its God, and _blush'd_.'

Dryden's 'The conscious water saw its God, and blush'd,' is a mere remembrance of Crashaw.[35]

(_d_) _Translations and (briefly) Latin and Greek Poetry._ It may seem semi-paradoxical to affirm it, but in our opinion the genius of Crashaw shines with its fullest splendour in his Translations, longer and shorter. Even were there not his wonderful 'Suspicion of Herod' and 'Musick's Duell,' this might be said; for in his 'Dies Irae,' and 'Hymne out of Sainte Thomas,' and others lesser, there are felicities that only a genuine Maker could have produced. His 'Dies Irae' was the earliest version in our language. Roscommon and Scott alike wrote after and 'after' it. But it is on the two truly great Poems named we found our estimate. Turning to 'Musick's Duell,' as we ask the reader to do now (vol. i. 197-203), we have only to read critically the Latin of Strada, from whence it is drawn, to discern the creative gift of our Poet. Here it is:

Jam Sol a medio pronus deflexerat orbe Mitius, e radiis vibrans crinalibus ignem. Cum Fidicen, propter Tiberina fluenta, sonanti Lenibat plectra curas, aestumque levabat, Ilice defensus nigra scenaque virenti. Audiit hunc hospes silvae Philomela propinquae Musa loci, nemoris siren, innoxia siren; Et prope succedens stetit abdita frondibus, alte Accipiens sonitum, secumque remurmurat, et quos Ille modos variat digitis, haec gutture reddit. Sensit se Fidicen Philomela imitante referri, Et placuit ludum volucri dare; plenius ergo Explorat citharam, tentamentumque futurae Praebeat ut pugnae, percussit protinus omnes Impulsu pernice fides, nec segnius illa. Mille per excurrens variae discrimina vocis, Venturi specimen praefert argutula cantus. Tunc Fidicen per fila movens trepidantia dextram, Nunc contemnenti similis diverberat ungue, Depectitque pari chordas, et simplice ductu: Nunc carptim replicat, digitisque micantibus urget Fila minutatim, celerique repercutit ictu. Mox silet. Illa modis totidem respondet, et artem Arte refert. Nunc seu rudis aut incerta canendi Projicit in longum, nulloque plicatile flexu Carmen init, simili serie, jugique tenore, Praebet iter liquidum labenti e pectore voce; Nunc caesim variat, modulisque canora minutis. Delibrat vocem, tremuloque reciprocat ore. Miratur Fidicen parvis e faucibus ire Tam varium, tam dulce melos; majoraque tentans Alternat mira arte fides; dum torquet acutas Inciditque, graves operoso verbere pulsat, Permiscetque simul certantia rauca sonoris, Ceu resides in bella viros clangore lacessat. Hoc etiam Philomela canit: dumque ore liquenti Vibrat acuta sonum, modulisque interplicat acquis; Ex inopinato gravis intonat, et leve murmur Turbinat introrsus, alternantique sonore Clarat, et infuscat ceu martia classica pulset. Scilicet erubuit Fidicen, ... Non imitabilibus plectrum concentibus urget. Namque manu per fila volat, simul hos, simul illos Explorat numeros, chordaque laborat in omni, Et strepit, et tinnit, crescitque superbius, et se Multiplicat religens, plenoque choreumate plaudit.[36]

It will be noted by the student that such word-painting as in these lines belongs to Crashaw, not Strada:

'and streightway she _Carves out her dainty voyce as readily_. . . . . . Through the sleeke passage of her open throat _A clear unwrinckled song_; . . . . . closes the sweet quarrell, rowsing all, _Hoarce, shrill at once; as when the trumpets call Hot Mars to th' harvest of Death's field, and woo Men's hearts into their hands_:' . . . . . staggers in a warbling doubt _Of dallying sweetnesse_, hovers o'er her skill, _And folds in wav'd notes with a trembling bill_ . . . . . a tide Of streaming sweetnesse, _which in state doth ride On the wav'd backe of every swelling straine, Rising and falling in a pompous traine_. . . . . . Thus high, thus low, _as if her silver throat Would reach the brazen voyce of War's hoarce bird_.

... his hands sprightly as fire, he flings And with _a quavering coynesse tasts the strings_. The sweet-lip't sisters, musically frighted, Singing their feares, are fearefully delighted, _Trembling as when Appolo's golden haires Are fan'd and frizled, in the wanton ayres Of his own breath: which marryed to his lyre_ Doth tune the spheares. . . . . . with nectar drop, _Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup_. . . . . . _The lute's light genius now does proudly rise, Heav'd on the surges of swolne rapsodyes,_ . . . . . _Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone_.'

In the words of Willmott (as before), 'We shall seek in vain in the Latin text for the vigour, the fancy, and the grandeur of these lines. These remain with Crashaw, of whose obligations to Strada we may say, as Hayley [stupidly, if picturesquely] remarked of Pope's debt to Crashaw, that if he borrowed anything from him in this article, it was only as the sun borrows from the earth, when, drawing from thence a mere vapour, he makes it the delight of every eye, by giving it all the tender and gorgeous colouring of heaven' (vol. i. p. 323). The richness and fulness of our Poet as a Translator becomes the more clear when we place beside his interpretation of Strada the 'translations' of others, as given in the places (vol. i. pp. 203-6). A third (anonymous) version we discovered among the Lansdowne MSS. 3910, pt. lxvi., from which we take a specimen:

'Now the declininge sunn 'gan downward bende From higher heauene, and from his locks did sende A milder flame; when neere to Tyber's flowe A Lutaniste allayde his carefull woe, With sondinge charmes, and in a greeny seate Of shady oake, toke shelter from the heate.

A nitingale ore-hard hym that did use To soiourne in y^e neighbour groues, the Muse That files the place, the syren of the wood: Poore harmeles Syren, steling neere she stood Close lurkinge in the leaues attentiuely: Recordinge that vnwonted mellodye, She condt it to herselfe, and every straine His fingers playde, her throat return'd againe.'

And so to the end (MS. 3910, pp. 114-17). We have reserved until now incomparably the second, but only a far-off second, to Crashaw's, from John Ford's 'Lover's Melancholy' (1629); which probably was our Poet's guide to Strada. Here is the substance of the fine reminiscent version, from act i. scene 1:

_Menaphon._ A sound of music touched mine ears, or rather, Indeed, entranced my soul. As I stole nearer, Invited by the melody, I saw This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute, With strains of strange variety and harmony, Proclaiming, as it seemed, so bold a challenge To the clear choristers of the wood, the birds, That as they flocked about him all stood silent, Wondering at what they heard. I wondered too.

_Amethus._ And do so I: good, on.

_Men._ A nightingale, Nature's best-skilled musician, undertakes The challenge, and for every several strain The well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her own: He could not run division with more art Vpon his quaking instrument than she The nightingale did with her various notes Reply to: for a voice and for a sound, Amethus, 'tis much easier to believe That such they were, than hope to hear again.

_Ameth._ How did the rivals part?

_Men._ You term them rightly. For they were rivals, and their mistress, Harmony. Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last Into a pretty anger, that a bird, Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes, Should vie with him for mastery, whose study Had busied many hours to perfect practice. To end the controversy, in a rapture, Vpon his instrument he plays so swiftly So many voluntaries, and so quick, That there was curiosity and cunning, Concord in discord, lines of differing method Meeting in one full centre of delight.

_Ameth._ Now for the bird.

_Men._ The bird, ordained to be Music's first master, strove to imitate These several sounds; which when her warbling throat Failed in, for grief down dropped she on his lute, And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness, To see the conqueror upon her hearse To weep.[37]

Comment is needless on such pale, empty literality, as compared with the vitality and _elan_ of Crashaw, in all but Ford's; while even Ford's is surpassed in every way by the 'Musick's Duell.'

The 'Suspicion of Herod,' by Marino (c. i.), is a grand poem in the original. Milton knew it, and was taken by it. Our Poet had glorious materials whereon to work, accordingly, when he turned Translator of this all-too-little known Singer of Italy. But Crashaw's soul was more spacious, his imagination more imperial, his vocabulary wealthier, than even Marino's. The greatness and grandeur and force of the Italian roused the Englishman to emulation. Willmott (as before) has placed the original Italian beside Crashaw's interpretation, and the advance in the Translator on his original is almost startling. We prefer adducing Crashaw, and then giving a close rendering of the original: _e.g._

'He saw Heav'n blossome with a new-borne light, _On which, as on a glorious stranger, gaz'd The golden eyes of Night_.' (st. xvii.)

literally in Marino:

'_He sees also shining from heaven, With beauteous ray, the wondrous star_, Which, brilliant and beautiful, goes Pointing the way straight towards Bethlehem.'

Again:

'He saw how in that blest Day-bearing Night, The Heav'n-rebuked shades made hast away; _How bright a dawne of angels with new light Amaz'd the midnight world, and made a Day Of which the Morning knew not_.' (st. xv.)

literally in Marino:

'He sees the quiet shades and the dark Horrors of the happy, holy Night Smitten and routed by heavenly voices, And vanquished by angelic splendours.'

Once more: when Alecto, the most terrible of the infernal sisters, ascends to Earth at the command of Satan:

'Heav'n saw her rise, and saw Hell in the sight: The fields' faire eyes saw her, and saw no more, But shut their flowry lids for ever;' (st. xlviii.)

for

'Parvero i fiori intorno e la verdura Sentir forza di peste, ira di verno;'

literally:

'soon as Hell had vomited out This monster from the dark abyss, _The flowers all around and the verdure appeared To feel the strength of the plague, the fury of winter_.'

This naked simplicity of wording is very fine: yet do Crashaw's adornments bring new charm to Marino. The soliloquy of Satan, though close as the skin to the body, has a ruddiness (so-to-say) from Crashaw. Nothing in Milton is grander than st. xxv. to xxx.; and in all there are touches from the cunning hand of Crashaw: _e.g._

'_And for the never-fading fields of light;_' (st. xxvii.)

for Marino's

'Che piu puo farmi omai chi la celeste _Reggia mi tolse, e i regni i miei lucenti_?'

literally:

'What more can He now do to me, Who took _From me the heavenly palace and my bright realms_?'

Again:

'_Bow our bright heads before a king of clay;_' (st. xxviii.)

for Marino's

'Volle alle forme sue semplici e prime, Natura sovralzar corporea e bassa, E de' membri del ciel capo sublime Far di limo terrestre eterna massa;'

literally:

'He turns to his simple primitive forms, To raise Nature above the corporeal and low, And to make an unworthy mass of earthly clay The sublime head of the heavenly members.'

Compare also st. x. in Crashaw with the original as literally rendered: