While thus Heaven's highest counsels, by the low
Footsteps of their effects, he trac'd too well,
He toss'd his troubled eyes-embers that glow
Now with new rage, and wax too hot for hell;
With his foul claws he fenc'd his furrow'd brow,
And gave a ghastly shriek, whose horrid yell
Ran trembling through the hollow vault of night.

The felicity and copiousness of Crashaw's language are, perhaps, better seen from his translations than from his original poems; and did our space permit, we should, therefore, be happy to introduce, entire, his version of Music's Duel, from the Latin of Strada: it is seldom that, in our poetical pilgrimage, so sweet and luxurious a strain of pure description and sentiment greets us as it contains.

While residing at Cambridge, Crashaw published a volume of Latin poems and epigrams, in one of which occurs the well-known conceit relative to the sacred miracle of water being turned into wine—

The conscious water saw its God and blush'd.

In 1646, his English poems appeared under the title of Steps to the Temple, The Delights of the Muses, and Carmen Dco Nostro. The greater part of the volume consists of religious poetry, much of which, though deficient, occasionally, in taste and judgment, indicates genius of a very high order. No poet of his day is so rich in 'barbaric pearl and gold,' the genuine ore of poetry, as he. It is, therefore, deeply to be regretted that his life had not been longer, more calm and fortunate-realizing his own exquisite lines

A happy soul that all the way

To heaven, hath a summer's day.

Of the two beautiful similes which the following lines contain, the first reminds us of a passage in Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying, and the other, of one of Shakspeare's best sonnets :

I've seen, indeed, the hopeful bud

Of a ruddy rose, that stood,

Blushing to behold the ray

Of the new-saluted day;

His tender top not fully spread ;
The sweet dash of a shower new shed,
Invited him no more to hide

Within himself the purple pride
Of his forward flower, when lo,

While he sweetly 'gan to show

His swelling glories, Auster spied him;

Cruel Auster thither hied him,

And with the rush of one rude blast

Sham'd not spitefully to waste

All his leaves so fresh and sweet,

And lay them trembling at his feet.

I've seen the morning's lovely ray
Hover o'er the new-born day,
With rosy wings, so richly bright,
As if he scorn'd to think of night,
When a ruddy storm, whose scowl
Made Heaven's radiant face look foul,
Call'd for an untimely night

To blot the newly-blossom'd light.

The following Hymn will form an appropriate close for our brief sketch of this deeply interesting poet

HYMN TO THE NAME OF JESUS.

I sing the Name which none can say,
But touch'd with an interior ray;
The name of our new peace; our good;
Our bliss, and supernatural blood;

The name of all our lives and loves:
Hearken and help, ye holy doves!

The high-born brood of day; you bright
Candidates of blissful light,

The heirs elect of love; whose names belong

Unto the everlasting life of song;

All ye wise souls, who in the wealthy breast
Of this unbounded Name build your warm nest.
Awake, my glory! soul (if such thou be,
And that fair word at all refer to thee);
Awake and sing,

That they convene and come away

To wait at the love-crowned doors of that illustrious day.

Gasp for thy golden show'rs, 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 thy 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 swarms about it.

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 flow'ry 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

Forever 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, on 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.

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 striv'd 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 serv'd 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-enthron'd thee in thy rosy nest,

With blush of thine own blood thy day adoring:

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.