MOTHER'S armes or FATHER's knee.
Farewell house, & farewell home!
SHE'S for the Moores, & MARTYRDOM.

SWEET, not so fast! lo thy fair Spouse
Whom thou seekst with so swift vowes,
Calls thee back, & bidds thee come
T'embrace a milder MARTYRDOM.

Blest powres forbid, Thy tender life
Should bleed upon a barbarous knife;
Or some base hand have power to race
Thy Brest's chast cabinet, & uncase
A soul kept there so sweet, ô no ;
Wise heavn will never have it so.
THOU art Love's victime; & must dy
A death more mysticall & high.
Into love's armes thou shalt let fall
A still-surviving funerall.

And turn love's souldiers, upon THEE
To exercise their archerie.

O how oft shalt thou complain
Of a sweet & subtle PAIN;
Of intolerable JOYES;

Of a DEATH, in which who dyes
Loves his death, and dyes again;
And would for ever so be slain.

And lives, & dyes; and knowes not why

To live, But that he thus may never leave to Dy.

How kindly will thy gentle HEART

Kisse the sweetly-killing DART!

And close in his embraces keep

100

When These thy DEATHS, so numerous,

Shall all at last dy into one,

And melt thy Soul's sweet mansion;

Like a soft lump of incense, hasted
By too hott a fire, & wasted

Into perfuming clouds, so fast

Shalt thou exhale to Heavn at last

In a resolving SIGH, and then

O what? Ask not the Tongues of men.
Angells cannot tell, suffice,

Thy selfe shall feel thine own full joyes
And hold them fast for ever.

There

So soon as thou shalt first appear,
The Moon of maidens starrs, thy white
MISTRESSE, attended by such bright
Soules as thy shining self, shall come
And in her first rankes make thee room;
Where 'mongst her snowy family

110

120

Immortall wellcomes wait for thee.

O what delight, when reveal'd LIFE shall stand

And teach thy lipps heav'n with his hand;

On which thou now maist to thy wishes
Heap up thy consecrated kisses.

What joyes shall seize thy soul, when she
Bending her blessed eyes on thee

(Those second Smiles of Heav'n) shall dart
Her mild rayes through thy melting heart!
Angels, thy old freinds, there shall greet thee
Glad at their own home now to meet thee.

All thy good WORKES which went before
And waited for thee, at the door,

Shall own thee there; and all in one
Weave a constellation

Of CROWNS, with which the KING thy spouse
Shall build up thy triumphant browes.

All thy old woes shall now smile on thee
And thy paines sitt bright upon thee.
All thy SUFFRINGS be divine.

TEARES shall take comfort, & turn gemms
And WRONGS repent to Diademms.
Ev'n thy Deaths shall live; & new

Dresse the soul that erst they slew.

Thy wounds shall blush to such bright scarres
As keep account of the LAMB's warres.

Those rare WORKES where thou shalt leave writt

Love's noble history, with witt

Taught thee by none but him, while here

They feed our soules, shall cloth THINE there.
Each heavnly word by whose hid flame
Our hard Hearts shall strike fire, the same
Shall flourish on thy browes, & be

130

140

150

160

Both fire to us & flame to thee;
Whose light shall live bright in thy FACE
By glory, in our hearts by grace.

Thou shalt look round about, & see
Thousands of crown'd Soules throng to be
Themselves thy crown; sons of thy vowes
The virgin-births with which thy soveraign spouse
Made fruitfull thy fair soul; Goe now
And with them all about thee bow
To Him. Put on (hee'l say) put on
(My rosy love) That thy rich zone
Sparkling with the sacred flames

Of thousand soules, whose happy names
Heav'n keeps upon thy score (Thy bright
Life brought them first to kisse the light
That kindled them to starrs,) and so
Thou with the LAMB, thy lord, shalt goe;
And whereso'ere he setts his white

Stepps, walk with HIM those wayes of light
Which who in death would live to see,

Must learn in life to dy like thee.

A

Richard Crashaw.

Regeneration.

Ward, and still in bonds, one day
I stole abroad,

It was high-spring, and all the way

Primros'd, and hung with shade;
Yet, was it frost within,

And surly winds

Blasted my infant buds, and sinne

Like Clouds ecclips'd my mind.

170

180

Storm'd thus; I straight perceiv'd my spring

Meere stage, and show,

My walke a monstrous, mountain'd thing
Rough-cast with Rocks, and snow;
And as a Pilgrims Eye

Far from reliefe,

Measures the melancholy skye

Then drops, and rains for griefe,

So sigh'd I upwards still, at last

'Twixt steps, and falls

I reach'd the pinacle, where plac'd
I found a paire of scales,

I tooke them up and layd

In th'one late paines,

The other smoake, and pleasures weigh'd
But prov'd the heavier graines;

With that, some cryed, Away; straight I
Obey❜d, and led

Full East, a faire, fresh field could spy,
Some call'd it, Jacobs Bed;

A Virgin-soile, which no

Rude feet ere trod,

ΤΟ

20

30

40