Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Richard Crashaw (c. 1613–1649)

The Flaming Heart

[Upon the book and picture of the Seraphical Saint Theresa, as she is usually expressed with a Seraphim beside her.]
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O THOU undaunted daughter of desires!

By all thy dower of lights and fires;

By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;

By all thy lives and deaths of love;

By thy large draughts of intellectual day,

And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;

By all thy brim-fill’d bowls of fierce desire,

By thy last morning’s draught of liquid fire;

By the full kingdom of that final kiss

That seiz’d thy parting soul, and seal’d thee His;

By all the Heav’n thou hast in Him

(Fair sister of the seraphim!)

By all of Him we have in thee;

Leave nothing of myself in me.

Let me so read thy life, that I

Unto all life of mine may die.