Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, UPON THE DUKE OF YORKE HIS BIRTH A PANEGYRICKE, by RICHARD CRASHAW


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

UPON THE DUKE OF YORKE HIS BIRTH A PANEGYRICKE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Brittaine, the mighty oceans lovely bride
Last Line: This rurall wreath dares be thy sacrifice.
Variant Title(s): To The Queen, Upon Her Numerous Progenie, A Panegyrick


Britain! the mighty Oceans lovely bride!
Now stretch thy self, fair Isle, and grow; spread wide
Thy bosome, and make room. Thou art opprest
With thine own glories, and art strangely blest
Beyond thy self: For (lo) the Gods, the Gods
Come fast upon thee; and those glorious ods
Swell thy full honours to a pitch so high
As sits above thy best capacitie.
Are they not ods? and glorious? that to thee
Those mightie Genii throng, which well might be
Each one an ages labour? that thy dayes
Are gilded with the union of those rayes
Whose each divided beam would be a Sunne

To glad the sphere of any nation?
Sure, if for these thou mean'st to find a seat
Th'hast need, O Britain, to be truly Great.
And so thou art; their presence makes thee so:
They are thy greatnesse. Gods, where-e're they go,
Bring their Heav'n with them: their great footsteps place
An everlasting smile upon the face
Of the glad earth they tread on. While with thee
Those beams that ampliate mortalitie,
And teach it to expatiate, and swell
To majestie and fulnesse, deign to dwell,
Thou by thy self maist sit, blest Isle, and see
How thy great mother Nature dotes on thee.
Thee therefore from the rest apart she hurl'd,
And seem'd to make an Isle, but made a World.
Time yet hath dropt few plumes since Hope turn'd Joy,
And took into his arms the princely Boy,
Whose birth last blest the bed of his sweet Mother,
And bad us first salute our Prince a brother.
Bright Charles! thou sweet dawn of a glorious day!
Centre of those thy Grandsires (shall I say,
Henry and James? or, Mars and Phebus rather?
If this were Wisdomes God, that Warres stern father,
'Tis but the same is said: Henry and James
Are Mars and Phebus under diverse names.)
O thou full mixture of those mighty souls
Whose vast intelligences tun'd the Poles
Of peace and warre; thou, for whose manly brow
Both lawrels twine into one wreath, and woo
To be thy garland: see, sweet Prince, O see,
Thou, and the lovely hopes that smile in thee,
Art ta'n out and transcrib'd by thy great Mother:
See, see thy reall shadow; see thy Brother,
Thy little self in lesse: trace in these eyne
The beams that dance in those full starres of thine.
From the same snowie Alabaster rock
Those hands and thine were hew'n; those cherries mock
The corall of thy lips: Thou wert of all
This well-wrought copie the fair principall.

Justly, great Nature, didst thou brag, and tell
How ev'n th'hadst drawn that faithfull parallel,
And matcht thy master-peice. O then go on,
Make such another sweet comparison.
Seest thou that Marie there? O teach her Mother
To shew her to her self in such another.
Fellow this wonder too; nor let her shine
Alone; light such another starre, and twine
Their rosie beams, that so the morn for one
Venus may have a Constellation.

These words scarce waken'd Heaven, when (lo) our vows
Sat crown'd upon the noble Infants brows.
Th'art pair'd, sweet Princesse: In this well-writ book
Read o're thy self; peruse each line, each look.
And when th'hast summ'd up all those blooming blisses,
Close up the book, and clasp it with thy kisses.
So have I seen (to dresse their mistresse May)
Two silken sister-flowers consult, and lay
Their bashfull cheeks together: newly they
Peep't from their buds, show'd like the garden's Eyes
Scarce wak't: like was the crimson of their joyes;
Like were the tears they wept, so like, that one
Seem'd but the others kind reflexion.

And now 'twere time to say, Sweet Queen, no more.
Fair source of Princes, is thy pretious store
Not yet exhaust? O no. Heavens have no bound,
But in their infinite and endlesse Round
Embrace themselves. Our measure is not theirs;
Nor may the pov'rtie of mans narrow prayers
Span their immensitie. More Princes, come:
Rebellion, stand thou by; Mischief, make room:
Warre, Bloud, and Death (Names all averse from Joy)
Heare this, We have another bright-ey'd Boy:
That word's a warrant, by whose vertue I
Have full authoritie to bid you Dy.
Dy, dy, foul misbegotten Monsters; Dy:
Make haste away, or e'r the world's bright Eye
Blush to a cloud of bloud. O farre from men
Fly hence, and in your Hyperborean den
Hide you for evermore, and murmure there

Where none but Hell may heare, nor our soft aire
Shrink at the hatefull sound. Mean while we bear
High as the brow of Heaven, the noble noise
And name of these our just and righteous joyes,
Where Envie shall not reach them, nor those eares
Whose tune keeps time to ought below the spheres.
But thou, sweet supernumerary Starre,
Shine forth; nor fear the threats of boyst'rous Warre.
The face of things has therefore frown'd a while
On purpose, that to thee and thy pure smile
The world might ow an universall calm;
While thou, fair Halcyon, on a sea of balm
Shalt flote; where while thou layst thy lovely head,
The angry billows shall but make thy bed:
Storms, when they look on thee, shall straight relent;
And Tempests, when they tast thy breath, repent
To whispers soft as thine own slumbers be,
Or souls of Virgins which shall sigh for thee.
Shine then, sweet supernumerary Starre;
Nor feare the boysterous names of Bloud and Warre:
Thy Birthday is their Death's Nativitie;
They've here no other businesse but to die.

But stay; what glimpse was that? why blusht the day?
Why ran the started aire trembling away?
Who's this that comes circled in rayes that scorn
Acquaintance with the Sun? what second morn
At midday opes a presence which Heavens eye
Stands off and points at? Is't some Deity
Stept from her throne of starres, deignes to be seen?
Is it some Deity? or i'st our Queen?
'Tis she, 'tis she: Her awfull beauties chase
The Day's abashed glories, and in face
Of noon wear their own Sunshine. O thou bright
Mistresse of wonders! Cynthia's is the night;
But thou at noon dost shine, and art all day
(Nor does thy Sun deny't) our Cynthia.
Illustrious sweetnesse! in thy faithfull wombe,
That nest of Heroes, all our hopes find room.

Thou art the Mother-Phenix, and thy brest
Chast as that Virgin honour of the East,
But much more fruitfull is; nor does, as she,
Deny to mightie Love a Deitie.
Then let the Eastern world brag and be proud
Of one coy Phenix, while we have a brood,
A brood of Phenixes; while we have Brother
And Sister-Phenixes, and still the Mother.
And may we long! Long mayst Thou live t'increase
The house and family of Phenixes.
Nor may the life that gives their eye-lids light
E're prove the dismall morning of thy night:
Ne're may a birth of thine be bought so dear
To make his costly cradle of thy beer.
O mayst thou thus make all the year thine own,
And see such names of joy sit white upon
The brow of every moneth! And when th'hast done,
Mayst in a son of His find every son
Repeated, and that son still in another,
And so in each child often prove a Mother.
Long mayst Thou, laden with such clusters, lean
Upon thy Royall Elm, fair Vine! And when
The Heav'ns will stay no longer, may thy glory
And name dwell sweet in some Eternall story!

Pardon, bright Excellence, an untun'd string,
That in thy eares thus keeps a murmuring.
O speake a lowly Muses pardon, speak
Her pardon, or her sentence; onely break
Thy silence. Speak, and she shall take from thence
Numbers, and sweetnesse, and an influence
Confessing Thee. Or if too long I stay,
O speak Thou, and my Pipe hath nought to say:
For see Apollo all this while stands mute,
Expecting by thy voice to tune his Lute.

But Gods are gracious; and their Altars make
Pretious the off'rings that their Altars take.
Give then this rurall wreath fire from thine eyes,
This rurall wreath dares be thy Sacrifice.





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