Many a sullen storm,
For which coarse man seems much the fitter born,
Rain'd on thy bed
And harmless head;
And now, as fresh and cheerful as the light,
Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing
Unto that Providence, whose unseen arm
Curb'd them, and cloth'd thee well and warm."
How softly the image of the little bird again tempers the thought of death
in his ode to the memory of the departed:
"He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know
At first sight if the bird be flown;
But what fair dell or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown."
But we must leave this fair garden of the poet's fancies. The reader will
find there many a flower yet untouched.
* * * * *
Richard Crashaw was the contemporary of the early years of Vaughan; for,
alas! he died young--though not till he had transcribed for the world the
hopes, the aspirations, the sorrows of his troubled life. He lived but
thirty-four years--the volume of his verses is not less nor more than the
kindred books of the brother poets with whom we are now associating his
memory.
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