|
Prev
| Next
| Contents
CRASHAW AND MARVELL.
I come now to one of the loveliest of our angel-birds, Richard Crashaw.
Indeed he was like a bird in more senses than one; for he belongs to that
class of men who seem hardly ever to get foot-hold of this world, but are
ever floating in the upper air of it.
What I said of a peculiar Æolian word-music in William Drummond applies
with equal truth to Crashaw; while of our own poets, somehow or other, he
reminds me of Shelley, in the silvery shine and bell-like melody both of
his verse and his imagery; and in one of his poems, Music's Duel, the
fineness of his phrase reminds me of Keats. But I must not forget that it
is only with his sacred, his best poems too, that I am now concerned.
The date of his birth is not known with certainty, but it is judged about
1616, the year of Shakspere's death. He was the son of a Protestant
clergyman zealous even to controversy. By a not unnatural reaction
Crashaw, by that time, it is said, a popular preacher, when expelled from
Oxford in 1644 by the Puritan Parliament because of his refusal to sign
their Covenant, became a Roman Catholic. He died about the age of
thirty-four, a canon of the Church of Loretto. There is much in his
verses of that sentimentalism which, I have already said in speaking of
Southwell, is rife in modern Catholic poetry. I will give from Crashaw a
specimen of the kind of it. Avoiding a more sacred object, one stanza
from a poem of thirty-one, most musical, and full of lovely speech
concerning the tears of Mary Magdalen, will suit my purpose.
Hail, sister springs,
Parents of silver-footed rills!
Ever-bubbling things!
Thawing crystal! Snowy hills,
Still spending, never spent!--I mean
Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene!
The poem is called The Weeper, and is radiant of delicate fancy. But
surely such tones are not worthy of flitting moth-like about the holy
sorrow of a repentant woman! Fantastically beautiful, they but play with
her grief. Sorrow herself would put her shoes off her feet in approaching
the weeping Magdalene. They make much of her indeed, but they show her
little reverence. There is in them, notwithstanding their fervour of
amorous words, a coldness like that which dwells in the ghostly beauty of
icicles shining in the moon.
But I almost reproach myself for introducing Crashaw thus. I had to point
out the fact, and now having done with it, I could heartily wish I had
room to expatiate on his loveliness even in such poems as The Weeper.
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.
Upon the Sepulchre of our Lord.
Here, where our Lord once laid his head,
Now the grave lies buriëd.
The Widow's Mites.
Two mites, two drops, yet all her house and land,
Fall from a steady heart, though trembling hand;
The other's wanton wealth foams high and brave:
The other cast away--she only gave.
On the Prodigal.
Tell me, bright boy! tell me, my golden lad!
Whither away so frolic? Why so glad?
What! all thy wealth in council? all thy state?
Are husks so dear? Troth, 'tis a mighty rate!
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.
Come, see the place-where the Lord lay.
Show me himself, himself, bright sir! Oh show
Which way my poor tears to himself may go.
Were it enough to show the place, and say,
"Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay;"
Then could I show these arms of mine, and say,
"Look, Mary; here see where thy Lord once lay."
From one of eight lines, on the Mother Mary looking on her child in her
lap, I take the last two, complete in themselves, and I think best alone.
This new guest to her eyes new laws hath given:
'Twas once look up, 'tis now look down to heaven.
And here is perhaps his best.
Two went up into the Temple to pray.
Two went to pray? Oh rather say,
One went to brag, the other to pray.
One stands up close, and treads on high,
Where the other dares not lend his eye.
One nearer to God's altar trod;
The other to the altar's God.
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.
Here is another containing a similar lesson.
I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof.
Thy God was making haste into thy roof;
Thy humble faith and fear keeps him aloof.
He'll be thy guest: because he may not be,
He'll come--into thy house? No; into thee.
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.
But now they have seen and hated.
Seen? and yet hated thee? They did not see--
They saw thee not, that saw and hated thee!
No, no; they saw thee not, O Life! O Love!
Who saw aught in thee that their hate could move.
We must not be too ready to quarrel with every oddity: an oddity will
sometimes just give the start to an outbreak of song. The strangeness of
the following hymn rises almost into grandeur.
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|