This is the language of devotional rapture common to the extremes of the religious world—­Methodism and Roman Catholicism.  Every one has heard the ardent hymn by Newton—­“The Name of Jesus,” and that stirring anthem, “The Coronation of Christ”—­few have read the eloquent production of the canon of Loretto, a canticle from the flaming heart of Rome, addressed “To the name above every name, the name of Jesus.”

        “Pow’rs of my soul, be proud! 
        And speak loud
    To all the dear-bought nations this redeeming name;
    And in the wealth of one rich word proclaim
    New smiles to nature.

* * * * *

    Sweet name, in thy each syllable
    A thousand blest Arabias dwell;
    A thousand hills of frankincense,
    Mountains of myrrh, and beds of spices,
    And ten thousand paradises,
    The soul that tastes thee takes from thence,
    How many unknown worlds there are
    Of comforts, which thou hast in keeping! 
    How many thousand mercies there
    In Pity’s soft lap lie asleeping!”

Crashaw’s invitations to holiness breathe the very gallantry of piety.  He addresses “the noblest and best of ladies, the Countess of Denbigh,” who had been his patroness in exile, “persuading her to resolution in religion.”

    “What heaven-entreated heart is this
    Stands trembling at the gate of bliss.

* * * * *

    What magic bolts, what mystic bars
    Maintain the will in these strange wars! 
    What fatal, what fantastic bands
    Keep the free heart from its own hands! 
    So, when the year takes cold, we see
    Poor waters their own prisoners be;

    Fetter’d and lock’d up fast, they lie
    In a sad self-captivity;
    Th’ astonish’d nymphs their floods’ strange fate deplore,
    To see themselves their own severer shore.

* * * * *

    Disband dull fears; give Faith the day;
    To save your life, kill your delay;
    It is Love’s siege, and sure to be
    Your triumph, though his victory.”

His poem, “The Weeper,” shoots the prismatic hues of the rainbow athwart the veil of fast-falling tears: 

        “Hail sister springs,
      Parents of silver-footed rills! 
        Ever bubbling things! 
      Thawing crystal! snowy hills! 
    Still spending, never spent; I mean
    Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene.

* * * * *

        “Every morn from hence,
      A brisk cherub something sips,
        Whose soft influence
      Adds sweetness to his sweetest lips;
    Then to his music, and his song
    Tastes of this breakfast all day long.

        “Not in the evening’s eyes,
      When they red with weeping are
        For the sun that dies,
      Sits sorrow with a face so fair. 
    Nowhere but here did ever meet
    Sweetness so sad, sadness so sweet.