William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.
The WeeperRichard Crashaw (c. 16131649)
T
The primrose’s pale cheek to deck:
The dew no more will sleep
Nuzzled in the lily’s neck:
Much rather would it tremble here
And leave them both to be thy tear.
Steals from the amber-weeping tree,
Makes Sorrow half so rich
As the drops distill’d from thee:
Sorrow’s best jewels lie in these
Caskets of which Heaven keeps the keys.
In her brightest majesty,
—For she is a Queen—
Then is she drest by none but thee:
Then, and only then, she wears
Her richest pearls—I mean thy tears.
When they red with weeping are
For the sun that dies,
Sits Sorrow with a face so fair:
Nowhere but here did ever meet
Sweetness so sad, sadness so sweet.
Takes up among the stars a room,
And Heaven will make a feast,
Angels with their bottles come,
And draw from these full eyes of thine
Their Master’s water, their own wine.
Still thy tears do fall and fall.
Does night lose her eyes?
Still the fountain weeps for all.
Let night or day do what they will,
Thou hast thy task, thou weepest still.