New Year'S Day.[37]

Rise, thou best and brightest morning! Rosy with a double red; With thine own blush thy cheeks adorning, And the dear drops this day were shed.

All the purple pride, that laces The crimson curtains of thy bed, Guilds thee not with so sweet graces, Nor setts thee in so rich a red.

Of all the fair-cheek't flowrs that fill thee, None so fair thy bosom strowes, As this modest maiden lilly Our sins haue sham'd into a rose.

Bid thy golden god, the sun, Burnisht in his best beames rise, Put all his red-ey'd rubies on; These rubies shall putt out their eyes.

Let him make poor the purple East, Search what the world's close cabinets keep, Rob the rich births of each bright nest That flaming in their fair beds sleep.

Let him embraue his own bright tresses With a new morning made of gemmes; And wear, in those his wealthy dresses, Another day of diadems.

When he hath done all he may To make himselfe rich in his rise, All will be darknes to the day That breakes from one of these bright eyes.

And soon this sweet truth shall appear, Dear Babe, ere many dayes be done; The Morn shall come to meet Thee here, And leaue her own neglected sun.

Here are beautyes shall bereaue him Of all his eastern paramours. His Persian louers all shall leaue him, And swear faith to Thy sweeter powres; Nor while they leave him shall they lose the sun, But in Thy fairest eyes find two for one.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

St. ii. line 1,

'All the purple pride that laces;'

the reference is to the empurpled lighter and lace- (or gauze-) like clouds of the morning. The heavier clouds are the 'crimson curtains,' the 'purple laces' the fleecy, lace-like, and empurpled streakings of the lighter and dissolving clouds, which the Poet likens to the lace that edged the coverlet, and possibly other parts of the bed and bedstead. SHAKESPEARE describes a similar appearance with the same word, but uses it in the sense of inter or cross lacing, when he makes Juliet say (iii. 5),

'look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East.'

So too in stanza v. 'each sparkling nest,' the flame-coloured clouds are intended. 'Nest,' like 'bud,' is a favourite word with CRASHAW, and he uses it freely. In 1648 edition, st. iii. line 2 reads 'showes;' stanza v. line 2, 'cabinets;' stanza viii. line 5, 'and meet;' stanza ix. 'paramours' = lovers, wooers, not as now signifying loose love. G.

IN THE GLORIOVS EPIPHANIE OF OVR LORD GOD: