English, possibly distasteful even to the colder English mind; but it is certainly not "swooning" or "languishing," as Gilfillan once complained—largely, one infers, because he imagined Catholic mysticism to be a swooning and languishing thing. Crashaw's nature, in every fibre, was as sensitive to each passing emotion as the strings of the harp to its master's touch: and, once struck, the note vibrated indefinitely. Il avait les défauts de ses qualités, in the familiar phrase.
Crashaw was very rarely autobiographical, yet the seal of his individuality is stamped on all his verse. Indeed, as being part of his own life and personality, his poems occupy a place quite apart from their position in literary history. He, in his own day, was often misunderstood; and it is still the easiest thing for unsympathetic minds to misunderstand the poetry he has left. Paradoxical it may sound, but is none the less true, that we must love the poet a little before we can greatly appreciate him. Strength and weakness were his, doubtless; but strength predominated alike in the man and in his work. However extravagant his fancies, they are patently the flashes of a mind rushed on by the whirlwind of unbounded imagination—never the mock-heroics of a mere rhetorician. And the reason of all this is simple enough: Richard Crashaw was fundamentally, consummately, sincere. When his verse soars up to heights celestial, among fragrant nests of seraphim and fair adoring saints, his own soul breathes through the ecstasy. Cannot we hear his voice ringing down the ages, as he appeals with characteristic self-abnegation to his beloved Teresa?
Oh, thou undaunted daughter of desires,
By all thy dower of lights and fires;
