Nor could thy friends take their last sad farewell, But danger and infectious death

Maliciously seiz'd on that breath

Where life, spirit, pleasure always us'd to dwell.

But happy thou, ta'en from this frantic age,
Where ignorance and hypocrisy does rage!
A fitter time for heaven no soul ere chose,
The place now only free from those.
There 'mong the blest thou dost for ever shine,
And wheresoe'er thou cast thy view

Upon that white and radiant crew,

See'st not a soul cloth'd with more light than thine.

And if the glorious saints cease not to know
Their wretched friends who fight with life below;
Thy flame to me does still the same abide,
Only more pure and rarified.

There whilst immortal hymns thou dost rehearse,
Thou dost with holy pity see

Our dull and earthly poesy,

Where grief and misery can be joined with verse.

THE CHRONICLE. A BALLAD.

Margarita first possest,

If I remember well, my breast,
Margarita first of all;

But when awhile the wanton maid
With my restless heart had played,
Martha took the flying ball.

Martha soon did it resign

To the beauteous Catharine.
Beauteous Catharine gave place
(Though loth and angry, she to part
With the possession of my heart)

To Elisa's conquering face.

Elisa till this hour might reign

Had she not evil counsels ta'en.
Fundamental laws she broke,

And still new favourites she chose,
Till up in arms my passions rose,
And cast away her yoke.

Mary then and gentle Ann

Both to reign at once began.

Alternately they sway'd,

And sometimes Mary was the fair,
And sometimes Ann the crown did wear,
And sometimes both I obey'd.

Another Mary then arose

And did rigorous laws impose.
A mighty tyrant she!

Long, alas, should I have been,
Under that iron-sceptered Queen,

Had not Rebecca set me free.

When fair Rebecca set me free,

'Twas then a golden time with me.

But soon those pleasures fled,

For the gracious Princess died

In her youth and beauty's pride,

And Judith reigned in her stead.

One month, three days, and half an hour Judith held the sovereign power. Wondrous beautiful her face,

But so weak and small her wit,

That she to govern was unfit,

And so Susanna took her place.

But when Isabella came

Arm'd with a resistless flame And th' artillery of her eye; Whilst she proudly marched about Greater conquests to find out,

She beat out Susan by the by.

But in her place I then obeyed

Black-ey'd Bess, her viceroy-maid, To whom ensu'd a vacancy, Thousand worse passions then possest The interregnum of my breast.

Bless me from such an anarchy !

Gentle Henriette then

And a third Mary next began,

Then Joan, and Jane, and Audria.
And then a pretty Thomasine,
And then another Katharine,

And then a long et cætera.

But should I now to you relate,

The strength and riches of their state,
The powder, patches, and the pins,

The ribbons, jewels, and the rings,
The lace, the paint, and warlike things
That make up all their magazines;

If I should tell the politic arts

To take and keep men's hearts, The letters, embassies, and spies, The frowns, and smiles, and flatteries, The quarrels, tears, and perjuries,

Numberless, nameless mysteries!

And all the little lime-twigs laid

By Matchavil the waiting-maid; I more voluminous should grow (Chiefly if I like them should tell All change of weathers that befell) Than Holinshed or Stow.

But I will briefer with them be,

Since few of them were long with me.
An higher and a nobler strain

My present Emperess dost claim,
Heleonora, first o' the name;

Whom God grant long to reign!

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 employed 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 shrine1
Where like some holy sacrifice t'expire

A fever burns thee, and love lights the fire.

Angels (they say) brought the famed 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!

Opposed by our old enemy, adverse chance,
Attacked 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.

1 Crashaw became a Roman Catholic, and died a canon of Loretto, 1650.