Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

II. Love’s Nature

Wishes for the Supposed Mistress

Richard Crashaw (c. 1613–1649)

WHOE’ER she be,

That not impossible She

That shall command my heart and me:

Where’er she lie,

Locked up from mortal eye

In shady leaves of destiny:

Till that ripe birth

Of studied Fate stand forth,

And teach her fair steps tread our earth;

Till that divine

Idea take a shrine

Of crystal flesh, through which to shine:

—Meet you her, my Wishes,

Bespeak her to my blisses,

And be ye called, my absent kisses.

I wish her beauty

That owes not all its duty

To gaudy tire, or glistering shoe-tie:

Something more than

Taffata or tissue can,

Or rampant feather, or rich fan.

A face that’s best

By its own beauty drest,

And can alone commend the rest:

A face made up

Out of no other shop

Than what Nature’s white hand sets ope.

Sidneian showers

Of sweet discourse, whose powers

Can crown old Winter’s head with flowers.

Whate’er delight

Can make day’s forehead bright

Or give down to the wings of night.

Soft silken hours,

Open suns, shady bowers;

’Bove all, nothing within that lowers.

Days, that need borrow

No part of their good morrow

From a fore-spent night of sorrow:

Days, that in spite

Of darkness, by the light

Of a clear mind are day all night.

Life that dares send

A challenge to his end,

And when it comes, say, “Welcome, friend.”

I wish her store

Of worth may leave her poor

Of wishes; and I wish—no more.

Now, if Time knows

That Her, whose radiant brows

Weave them a garland of my vows;

Her that dares be

What these lines wish to see:

I seek no further, it is She.

’T is She, and here

Lo! I unclothe and clear

My wishes’ cloudy character.

Such worth as this is

Shall fix my flying wishes,

And determine them to kisses.

Let her full glory,

My fancies, fly before ye;

Be ye my fictions:—but her story.