RICHARD CRASHAW

Farewell whatever dear may be Mother's arms, or father's knee ! Farewell house, and farewell home ! She 's for the Moors and Martyrdom.

Sweet, not so fast ; lo ! thy fair spouse, Whom thou seek'st with so swift vows, Calls thee back, and bids thee come T' embrace a milder martyrdom. . . .

O how oft shalt thou complain

Of a sweet and subtle pain !

Of intolerable joys !

Of a death, in which who dies

Loves his death, and dies again,

And would for ever so be slain ;

And lives and dies, and knov/s not why

To live, but that he still may diet

How kindly will thy gentle heart

Kiss the sweetly-killing dart !

And close in his embraces keep

Those delicious wounds, that weep

Balsam, to heal themselves with thus,

When these thy deaths, so numerous,

Shall all at once die into one,

And melt thy soul's sweet mansion ;

Like a soft lump of incense, hasted

By too hot a fire, and wasted

Into perfuming clouds, so fast

Shalt thou exhale to heaven at last

In a resolving sigh, and then,

O what ? Ask not the tongues of men.

Angels cannot tell ; suffice, Thyself shalt feel thine own full joys,

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