Richard Crashaw

Crashaw

VI. RICHARD CRASHAW
HEAR'ST thou, my soul, what serious things

Psalm and Sibyl together

Crashaw pairs biblical prophecy (Psalms) with pagan prophecy (the Sibyls). This was a common Renaissance move to suggest that divine truth appears across traditions, not just in scripture alone.

Both the Psalm and Sibyl sings
Of a sure Judge, from whose sharp ray
The world in flames shall fly away!
2.
O that Fire! before whose face

Repetitive 'O' addresses

The stanza opens with four consecutive 'O' exclamations—each one naming a different aspect of Judgment Day (Fire, Eyes, Trump, book). This isn't decoration; it's the rhetorical structure of apostrophe building emotional intensity through accumulation.

Heaven and earth shall find no place:
O those Eyes! whose angry light
Must be the day of that dread night.
3.
O that Trump! whose blast shall run
An even round with th' circling Sun,

Trump as instrument

The 'Trump' (trumpet) follows the sun's circuit around the earth. Crashaw is using cosmology—the trumpet's blast mirrors the sun's daily orbit—to suggest Judgment Day is as inevitable and regular as celestial motion.

And urge the murmuring graves to bring
Pale mankind forth to meet his King.
4.
Horror of Nature, Hell, and Death!
When a deep groan from beneath
Shall cry, "We come, we come!" and all
The caves of night answer one call.
5.
O that book! whose leaves so bright
Will set the world in severe light.
O that Judge! whose hand, whose eye
None can endure, yet none can fly.
6.
Ah then, poor soul! what wilt thou say?
And to what patron choose to pray,
When stars themselves shall stagger, and
The most firm foot no more shall stand?
7.
But Thou giv'st leave, dread Lord, that we

Shift from terror to mercy

Stanza 7 marks the turn: 'But Thou giv'st leave'—suddenly the dread Lord becomes a refuge. The poem moves from fear of judgment to claiming shelter *in* the judge himself. This is the emotional hinge of the entire poem.

Take shelter from Thyself in Thee;
And with the wings of Thine own dove
Fly to Thy sceptre of soft love!
8.
Dear [Lord], remember in that day
Who was the cause Thou cam'st this way;
Thy sheep was strayed, and Thou wouldst be
Even lost Thyself in seeking me!
9.

The shepherd economics

Stanza 9 uses commercial language ('cost,' 'price,' 'loss') to argue that Christ's investment in redemption shouldn't be wasted on damnation. Mercy becomes a logical necessity, not just sentiment.

Shall all that labor, all that cost
Of love, and even that loss, be lost?

The shepherd economics

Stanza 9 uses commercial language ('cost,' 'price,' 'loss') to argue that Christ's investment in redemption shouldn't be wasted on damnation. Mercy becomes a logical necessity, not just sentiment.

And this loved soul judged worth no less
Than all that way and weariness?
10.
Just Mercy, then, Thy reckoning be
With my price, and not with me;
'Twas paid at first with too much pain
To be paid twice, or once in vain.
11.
Mercy, my Judge, mercy I cry,
With blushing cheek and bleeding eye;

Bodily shame made visible

'The conscious colors of my sin / Are red without, and pale within'—sin becomes a physical blush and internal paleness. Crashaw makes guilt anatomical, visible on the body itself.

The conscious colors of my sin
Are red without, and pale within.
12.
O let Thine own soft bowels pay
Thyself, and so discharge that day!
If Sin can sigh, Love can forgive,
O, say the word, my soul shall live!
13.
Those mercies which Thy Mary found,

Mary as precedent

Mary Magdalene (the penitent sinner) becomes the speaker's model for mercy. By naming her, Crashaw claims the same redemptive possibility—if she found mercy, so can 'I.'

Or who Thy cross confess'd and crowned,
Hope tells my heart the same loves be
Still alive, and still for me.
14.
Though both my prayers and tears combine,
Both worthless are, for they are mine;
But Thou Thy bounteous self still be,
And show Thou art by saving me.
15.
O when Thy last frown shall proclaim
The flocks of goats to folds of flame,
And all Thy lost sheep found shall be,
Let "Come ye blessed" then call me!
16.
When the dread “ITE” shall divide
Those limbs of death from Thy left side,
Let those life-speaking lips command
That I inherit Thy right hand!
17.
O, hear a suppliant heart all crush'd,
And crumbled into contrite dust!
My hope, my fear—my Judge, my Friend!
Take charge of me, and of my end!
Source

Reading Notes

Crashaw's Baroque Excess as Theological Strategy

Crashaw (1612-1649) wrote during the English Civil War, a period of violent religious division. He converted to Catholicism and fled England, eventually dying in exile. This poem's emotional intensity—the breathless apostrophes, the sensory overload of fire and trumpets and groaning graves—isn't just Baroque aesthetics; it's a theological argument. By overwhelming the reader with the terror of Judgment Day, Crashaw forces a crisis: *what will save you?* The answer comes in stanza 7 with shocking simplicity: mercy. But that mercy only becomes believable because he's made the alternative so vivid.

Notice how the poem's structure mirrors this logic. Stanzas 1-6 are all questions and horrors: 'what wilt thou say?' The speaker offers no answers, only mounting dread. Then stanza 7 pivots with 'But'—a single word that reverses everything. The rest of the poem is argument: *Christ paid the price, Christ seeks the lost, Christ's love is still alive.* Crashaw isn't describing salvation; he's defending it against the speaker's own despair.

The Language of Debt and Redemption

Starting in stanza 8, Crashaw switches to economic language: 'price,' 'cost,' 'paid,' 'reckoning,' 'discharge.' This isn't accidental—it's how medieval and Renaissance theology worked. Redemption was literally a transaction: Christ's suffering paid a debt to God that humanity couldn't pay. By using commercial vocabulary, Crashaw makes the abstract concrete. He's not saying 'God loves you'; he's saying 'God already bought you, so damnation would be a waste of His investment.'

This reaches its peak in stanza 10: 'Just Mercy, then, Thy reckoning be / With my price, and not with me.' The speaker is asking God to 'charge' the redemption to Christ's account, not his own. It's a legal move disguised as prayer. And crucially, stanza 11 follows with bodily shame—'blushing cheek and bleeding eye'—because medieval theology insisted that *feeling* the debt (contrition) was part of the transaction. You can't just accept mercy intellectually; your body has to participate in the shame and relief.