Classic Poem

cowley: Hope, whose weak being ruined is
Alike if it succeed and if it miss;
Whom ill and good doth equally confound,
And both the horns of Fate's dilemma wound;
Vain shadow! that doth vanish quite
Both at full noon and perfect night.
The Fates have not a possibility
Of blessing thee.
If things then from their ends we happy call,
'Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.

crashaw: Dear Hope! Earth's dowry and Heaven's debt,
The entity of things that are not yet.
Subtlest but surest being! thou by whom
Our nothing hath a definition.
Fair cloud of fire, both shade and light,
Our life in death, our day in night.
Fates cannot find out a capacity
Of hurting thee;
From thee their thin dilemma with blunt horn
Shrinks, like the sick moon at the wholesome morn.

cowley: Hope, thou bold taster of delight,
Who, instead of doing so, devour'st it quite;
Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'st us poor,
By clogging it with legacies before.
The joys which we entire should wed
Come deflowered virgins to our bed.
Good fortunes without gain imported be,
So mighty custom's paid to thee.
For joy, like wine, kept close doth better taste:
If it take air before, its spirits waste.

crashaw: Thou art Love's legacy under lock
Of Faith, the steward of our growing stock.
Our crown-lands lie above, yet each meal brings
A seemly portion for the sons of kings.
Nor will the virgin joys we wed
Come less unbroken to our bed
Because that from the bridal cheek of bliss
Thou thus steal'st down a distant kiss:
Hope's chaste kiss wrongs no more joy's maidenhead,
Than spousal rites prejudge the marriage-bed.
Fair Hope! our earlier Heaven! by thee
Young Time is taster to Eternity.
The generous wine with age grows strong, not sour,
Nor need we kill thy fruit to smell thy flower.
Thy golden head never hangs down
Till in the lap of Love's full noon
It falls and dies: Oh no, it melts away
As doth the dawn into the day,
As lumps of sugar lose themselves, and twine
Their subtle essence with the soul of wine.

cowley: Hope, Fortune's cheating lottery,
Where for one prize an hundred blanks there be;
Fond archer Hope, who tak'st thine aim so far
That still or short or wide thine arrows are.
Thine empty cloud the eye itself deceives
With shapes that our own fancy gives:
A cloud which gilt and painted now appears
But must drop presently in tears.
When thy false beams o'er Reason's light prevail,
By ignes fatui, not North stars, we sail.

crashaw: Fortune, alas, above the world's law wars;
Hope kicks the curled heads of conspiring stars.
Her keel cuts not the waves, where our winds stir,
And Fate's whole lottery is one blank to her.
Her shafts and she fly far above,
And forage in the fields of light and love,
Sweet Hope! kind cheat! fair fallacy! by thee
We are not where or what we be,
But what and where we would be; thus art thou
Our absent presence, and our future now.

cowley: Brother of Fear! more gaily clad,
The merrier fool of the two, yet quite as mad.
Sire of Repentance! child of fond Desire,
That blows the chymic's and the lover's fire,
Still leading them insensibly on
With the strange witchcraft of Anon.
By thee the one doth changing Nature through
Her endless labyrinths pursue,
And the other chases woman, while she goes
More ways and turns than hunted Nature knows.

crashaw: Faith's sister! nurse of fair Desire!
Fear's antidote! a wise and well-stayed fire,
Tempered 'twixt cold despair and torrid joy,
Queen Regent in young Love's minority.
Though the vexed chymic vainly chases
His fugitive gold through all her faces,
And loves more fierce, more fruitless fires assay
One face more fugitive than all they,
True Hope's a glorious huntress, and her chase
The God of Nature in the field of Grace.