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Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

Richard Crashaw (c. 1613–1649)

31. Prayer

An Ode which was præfixed to a little Prayer-book given to a young Gentle-woman


LO here a little volume, but great Book

A nest of new-born sweets;

Whose native fires disdaining

To ly thus folded, and complaining

Of these ignoble sheets,

Affect more comly bands

(Fair one) from the kind hands

And confidently look

To find the rest

Of a rich binding in your Brest.

It is, in one choise handfull, heavenn; and all

Heavn’s Royall host; incamp’t thus small

To prove that true schooles use to tell,

Ten thousand Angels in one point can dwell.

It is love’s great artillery

Which here contracts itself, and comes to ly

Close couch’t in their white bosom: and from thence

As from a snowy fortresse of defence,

Against their ghostly foes to take their part,

And fortify the hold of their chast heart.

It is an armory of light

Let constant use but keep it bright,

You’l find it yeilds

To holy hands and humble hearts

More swords and sheilds

Then sin hath snares, or Hell hath darts.

Only be sure

The hands be pure

That hold these weapons; and the eyes

Those of turtles, chast and true;

Wakefull and wise;

Here is a freind shall fight for you,

Hold but this book before their heart;

Let prayer alone to play his part,

But ô the heart

That studyes this high Art

Must be a sure house-keeper

And yet no sleeper.

Dear soul, be strong.

Mercy will come e’re long

And bring his bosom fraught with blessings,

Flowers of never fading graces

To make immortall dressings

For worthy soules, whose wise embraces

Store up themselves for Him, who is alone

The Spouse of Virgins and the Virgin’s son.

But if the noble Bridegroom, when he come

Shall find the loytering Heart from home;

Leaving her chast aboad

To gadde abroad

Among the gay mates of the god of flyes;

To take her pleasure and to play

And keep the devill’s holyday;

To dance th’sunshine of some smiling

But beguiling

Spheares of sweet and sugred Lyes,

Some slippery Pair

Of false, perhaps as fair,

Flattering but forswearing eyes;

Doubtlesse some other heart

Will gett the start

Mean while, and stepping in before

Will take possession of that sacred store

Of hidden sweets and holy ioyes.

Words which are not heard with Eares

(Those tumultuous shops of noise)

Effectuall wispers, whose still voice

The soul it selfe more feeles then heares;

Amorous languishments; luminous trances;

Sights which are not seen with eyes;

Spirituall and soul-peircing glances

Whose pure and subtil lightning flyes

Home to the heart, and setts the house on fire

And melts it down in sweet desire

Yet does not stay

To ask the windows leave to passe that way;

Delicious Deaths; soft exalations

Of soul; dear and divine annihilations;

A thousand unknown rites

Of ioyes and rarefy’d delights;

A hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces,

And many a mystick thing

Which the divine embraces

Of the deare spouse of spirits with them will bring

For which it is no shame

That dull mortality must not know a name.

Of all this store

Of blessings and ten thousand more

(If when he come

He find the Heart from home)

Doubtlesse he will unload

Himself some other where,

And poure abroad

His pretious sweets

On the fair soul whom first he meets.

O fair, ô fortunate! O riche, ô dear!

O happy and thrice happy she

Selected dove

Who ere she be,

Whose early love

With winged vowes

Makes hast to meet her morning spouse

And close with his immortall kisses.

Happy indeed, who never misses

To improve that pretious hour,

And every day

Seize her sweet prey

All fresh and fragrant as he rises

Dropping with a baulmy Showr

A delicious dew of spices;

O let the blissfull heart hold fast

Her heavnly arm-full, she shall tast

At once ten thousand paradises;

She shall have power

To rifle and deflour

The rich and roseall spring of those rare sweets

Which with a swelling bosome there she meets

Boundles and infinite

Bottomles treasures

Of pure inebriating pleasures

Happy proof! she shal discover

What ioy, what blisse,

How many Heav’ns at once it is

To have her God become her Lover.