The powerful imagery in the poem An Hymne of the Nativity by Richard Crashaw ( 1613?-1649 ) is alive and evocative. A Puritan, Crashaw converted to Catholicism and became secretary to an Italian cardinal. Though he lived to be disappointed by "the wickedness of Rome itself and by the iniquities he detected in his master's own entourage" ( Quennell 1973:133 ) , his disenchantment with Catholics, unlike that of the Reformers, did not extend to the tenets of their doctrine, as his poetry in praise of the Blessed Virgin demonstrates. He conjures up a tranquil picture of celestial peace in the rough stable where Christ was nourished by his mother with
. . . two-sister-seas of Virgin-Milk
with many a rarely-temper'd kiss
that breathes at once both maid and mother
warms in the one, cools in the other.
( 87-90 )
Thus he movingly pictures the passionate tenderness of the young mother who, as she passes her on from one breast to the other, rains kisses on Christ's fave, providing her infant with emotional bonding while dispensing the life-giving nourishment of her mother's milk. By drawing attention to Mary's emotional as well as physical succour of her Son, Crashaw reveals her contribution to Christ's total wellbeing in a way which erases Milton's apathetic picture of her as a passive wetnurse.
Crashaw's poem On the Assumption must surely rank as one of the seventeenth century's foremost praise poems to the Virgin Mary, proclaiming as it does Mary's bodily and spiritual entry into heaven in ringing tones, with distinct overtones of bridal splendour, expressed in images from The Song of Songs :
ON THE ASSUMPTION
Hark! she is call'd, the parting houre is come.
Take thy Farewell, poore world! heav'n must goe home
A peece of Heav'nly Earth; purer and brighter
than the chast stars, whose choice lamps come to light her
While through the Christall orbes, clearer than they
She climbes; and makes a farre more milky way.
She's called. Harke how the dear imortall Dove
Sighes to his silver mate. Rise up, my Love,
Rise up my faire, my spotlesse one,
The winters past, the Rain is gone:
the spring is come, the Flow'rs appeare,
No sweets but thou are wanting here.
Come away, my love,
Come away, my dove,
Cast off delay:
The Court of heav'n is come,
To waite upon thee home;
( 1-17 )
According to Cousins ( 1991: 151 ) these lines imply that Crashaw "interprets the Assumption as a celebration of Mary's unique role in the redemptive pattern of history".
The poet contrasts the impoverishment of the poore world ( 2 ) at Mary's departure with the enrichment of heaven by her arrival. He describes her journey in measured, dignified stages - there is no time pressure, no flight into Egypt, but the glorious return body and soul of the created being to the Creator Whom she bore. Thus the choice lamps of the chast stars ( 4 ) light her way while she rises through the Christall orbes (5), which could refer to the Eyes of Christ watching her progress from Heaven but whose literal meaning is
"the concentric hollow spheres supposed to surround the earth and carry the planets and stars with them in their revolution" ( Martz 1963 : 314 ) . The poet's use of quotations from the Song of Songs, surely one of the most glorious elements of the Old Testament, raises the expectancy to fever pitch at the thought of the splendid reunion about to take place between Mary and her Son.
This poem has something in common with George Herbert's Ana- ( Mary/Army ) gram. Though the economy of words ( eighteen in all ) in the couplet contrasts with Crashaw's composition, it has a similarly splendid Old Testament ring.
Herbert's anagram could be cited as a classic example of the poet as a person who has the ability to evoke a response from the human heart by his handling of words, as we have seen. In similar manner, Crashaw finishes the saga of Mary's earthly life by superimposing the beauty of her soul upon her body and describing her departure into orbit to her heavenly destination with Biblical grandeur.
Dr Luky Whittle
Edited by Catherine Nicolette
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