On The Death Of Mr Crashaw

Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given

The two most sacred names of earth and heaven,

The hard and rarest union which can be

Next that of godhead with humanity.

Long did the Muses banish’d slaves abide,

And built vain pyramids to mortal pride;

Like Moses thou (though spells and charms withstand)

Hast brought them nobly home back to their Holy Land.

Ah wretched we, poets of earth! but thou

Wert living the same poet which thou’rt now.

Whilst angels sing to thee their airs divine,

And joy in an applause so great as thine,

Equal society with them to hold,

Thou need’st not make new songs, but say the old.

And they (kind spirits!) shall all rejoice to see

How little less than they exalted man may be.

Still the old heathen gods in numbers dwell,

The heavenliest thing on earth still keeps up Hell.

Nor have we yet quite purg’d the Christian land;

Still idols here like calves at Bethel stand.

And though Pan’s death long since all oracles broke,

Yet still in rhyme the fiend Apollo spoke:

Nay with the worst of heathen dotage we

(Vain men!) the monster Woman deify;

Find stars, and tie our fates there in a face,

And Paradise in them by whom we lost it, place.

What different faults corrupt our Muses thus

Wanton as girls, as old wives fabulous!

Thy spotless Muse, like Mary, did contain

The boundless Godhead; she did well disdain

That her eternal verse employ’d should be

On a less subject than eternity;

And for a sacred mistress scorn’d to take

But her whom God himself scorn’d not his spouse to make.

It (in a kind) her miracle did do;

A fruitful mother was, and virgin too.

How well, blest swan, did fate contrive thy death;

And make thee render up thy tuneful breath

In thy great mistress’ arms! thou most divine

And richest offering of Loretto’s shrine!

Where like some holy sacrifice t’ expire

A fever burns thee, and Love lights the fire.

Angels (they say) brought the fam’d chapel there,

And bore the sacred load in triumph through the air.

‘Tis surer much they brought thee there, and they,

And thou, their charge, went singing all the way.

Pardon, my Mother Church, if I consent

That angels led him when from thee he went,

For even in error sure no danger is

When join’d with so much piety as his.

Ah, mighty God, with shame I speak’t, and grief,

Ah that our greatest faults were in belief!

And our weak reason were even weaker yet,

Rather than thus our wills too strong for it.

His faith perhaps in some nice tenents might

Be wrong; his life, I’m sure, was in the right.

And I myself a Catholic will be,

So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee.

Hail, bard triumphant! and some care bestow

On us, the poets militant below!

Oppos’d by our old enemy, adverse chance,

Attack’d by envy, and by ignorance,

Enchain’d by beauty, tortured by desires,

Expos’d by tyrant Love to savage beasts and fires.

Thou from low earth in nobler flames didst rise,

And like Elijah, mount alive the skies.

Elisha-like (but with a wish much less,

More fit thy greatness, and my littleness)

Lo here I beg (I whom thou once didst prove

So humble to esteem, so good to love)

Not that thy spirit might on me doubled be,

I ask but half thy mighty spirit for me;

And when my Muse soars with so strong a wing,

‘Twill learn of things divine, and first of thee to sing.

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External links

Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus

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Poems in English 

• Ballade Of Roulette poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of Queen Anne poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of Old Plays poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of Worldly Wealth poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of True Wisdom poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of The Voyage To Cythera poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of The Tweed poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of The Summer Term poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of The Southern Cross poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of The Royal Game Of Golf poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of The Muse poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of The Midnight Forest poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of The Dream poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of The Dead Cities poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of The Bookworm poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of Sleep poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of Roulette poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of Queen Anne poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of Old Plays poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang
• Ballade Of His Books poem – Andrew Lang poems by Andrew Lang

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

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Doska or the Board – write anything

Search engines:

Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)

Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.

Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees

Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.

Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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