Richard Crashaw*

Richard Crashaw (c.1613—1649) is an English poet who was influenced by the Metaphysical poets, and by Spanish and Italian poetry — particularly the Italian Giambattista Marino. The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry says that Crashaw “was revived early in the twentieth century as a 'Metaphysical' poet and as a member of the 'School of Donne'. In some ways that classification was advantageous to his status, because he gained a degree of recognition by riding on Donne's coat-tails in the great wave of popularity.” The great disadvantage, however, is that Crashaw’s verse has less in common with Donne than the other Metaphysical poets, and was therefore judged harshly.

Because Crashaw was a Catholic sympathiser, he fled to France in 1644 to avoid persecution by Oliver Cromwell's Puritans. There he converted to Catholicism. His friend Abraham Cowley found him living in poverty in Paris, and introduced him to Henrietta Maria, Charles I's queen, who sent him to Rome.

This is an extremely truncated version of the poem which appears in his book Steps to the Temple. It is spoken by “the three kings” having the following stanzas alternately voiced by the various magi.

from A Hymn for the Epiphany

Look up, sweet Babe, look up and see!
For love of thee,
Thus far from home
The East is come
To seek herself in thy sweet eyes.

We who strangely went astray,
Lost in a bright
Meridian night;

A darkness made of too much day;

Beckoned from far
By thy fair star,
Lo, at last have found our way.

To thee, thou Day of Night! thou East of West!
Lo, we at last have found the way
To thee, the world's great universal East,
The general and indifferent day.

All-circling point! all-centring sphere!
The world's one round eternal year ...

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Richard Crashaw: first post, second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.

Richard Crashaw*

Richard Crashaw (c.1613—1649) dedicated himself to become a writer of Christian poetry in 1633 after having read George Herbert’s book The Temple, which had recently appeared. Crashaw’s first poetry collection Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber, published just one year later, was written in Latin. He completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Cambridge, where he became friends with the poet, Abraham Cowley.

Curiously, Crashaw was raised in a distinctly anti-Catholic family, but became a Catholic himself, well after his father’s death. In Rome, through an introduction by the queen, he became friends with Cardinal Giovanni Battista Maria Pallotta, and served as his secretary from 1646 to 1649; dismayed with those close to the cardinal, he denounced their behaviour, which led to the cardinal sending Crashaw elsewhere. There is suspicion that when Crashaw died, a couple weeks later, that he had been poisoned by those who had become his enemies.

His book Steps to the Temple. Sacred Poems, With Other Delights of the Muses was published in 1646; an extended edition appeared in 1648.

But Men Loved Darkness Rather Than Light

The world's light shines, shine as it will,
The world will love its darkness still.
I doubt though when the world's in hell,
It will not love its darkness half so well.

The Recommendation

These houres, and that which hovers o’re my End,
Into thy hands, and hart, lord, I commend.

Take Both to Thine Account, that I and mine
In that Hour, and in these, may be all thine.

That as I dedicate my devoutest Breath
To make a kind of Life for my lord’s Death,

So from his living, and life-giving Death,
My dying Life may draw a new, and never fleeting Breath.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Richard Crashaw: first post, third post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.