To The Qveen'S Maiesty.[39]

MADAME, 'Mongst those long rowes of crownes that guild your race, These royall sages sue for decent place: The day-break of the Nations; their first ray, When the dark World dawn'd into Christian Day, And smil'd i' th' Babe's bright face; the purpling bud And rosy dawn of the right royall blood; Fair first-fruits of the Lamb! sure kings in this, They took a kingdom while they gaue a kisse. But the World's homage, scarse in these well blown, We read in you (rare queen) ripe and full-grown. For from this day's rich seed of diadems Does rise a radiant croppe of royalle stemms, A golden haruest of crown'd heads, that meet And crowd for kisses from the Lamb's white feet: In this illustrious throng, your lofty floud Swells high, fair confluence of all high-born bloud: With your bright head, whole groues of scepters bend Their wealthy tops, and for these feet contend. So swore the Lamb's dread Sire: and so we see't, Crownes, and the heads they kisse, must court these feet. Fix here, fair majesty! May your heart ne're misse To reap new crownes and kingdoms from that kisse; Nor may we misse the ioy to meet in you The aged honors of this day still new. May the great time, in you, still greater be, While all the year is your epiphany; While your each day's deuotion duly brings Three kingdomes to supply this day's three kings.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

In 1648 the title is 'To the Queene's Majestie upon his dedicating to her the foregoing Hymne, viz. "A Hymne for the Epiphanie,"' which there precedes, but in 1652 follows, the dedicatory lines to the Queen. 1648 furnishes these variations: line 7 misprints 'down' for 'dawn:' line 11 reads 'deare' for 'rare:' line 14 'royall' for 'golden:' line 18 corrects our text's misprint of 'whose' for 'whole,' which I have accepted: line 20 reads 'great' for 'dread.'

In line 3 we read

'Those royall sages sue for decent place.'

We know that the King on Twelfth-day presented gold, frankincense and myrrh, and so perhaps did the Queen. But these gifts were not presented to the magi-kings, and CRASHAW seems to sue on behalf of 'these royall sages.' The explanation doubtless is that this was a verse-letter to the Queen, enclosing as a gift his Epiphany Hymn 'sung as by the three Kings.'

In line 5 'the purpling bud,' &c. requires study. Led by the (erroneous) punctuation (face,) I supposed this clause to refer to the 'Babe.' But would our Poet have said that the 'dawn of the world smiled on the Babe's face,' and in the same breath have called the face a 'rosy dawn'? Looking to this, and his rather profuse employment of 'bud,' I now believe the clause to be another description of the kings, and punctuate (face;). The rhythm of the passage is certainly improved thereby and made more like that of CRASHAW, and the words 'right royall blood,' which may be thought to become difficult, can be thus explained. The races of the heathen kings were not 'royal,' their authority being usurped and falsely derived from false gods, and the kingly blood first became truly royal when the kings recognised the supreme sovereignty of the King of kings and the derivation of their authority from Him, and when they were in turn recognised by Him. Hence the use of the epithet 'purpling,' the Christian or Christ-accepting kings being the first who were truly 'born in the purple,' or 'right royall blood.'

In lines 15-18, as punctuated in preceding editions, the Poet is made to arrange his words after a fashion hardly to be called English, and to jumble his metaphors like a poetaster or 4th of July orator in America. But both sense and poetry are restored by taking the (!) after 'blood' as at least equal to (:), and by replacing 'whose' by 'whole,' as in 1648. This seems to us restoration, not change. Even thus read, however, the passage is somewhat cloudy; but the construction is--the groves of sceptres of your high-born ancestors bend with you their wealthy tops, when you bow down your head. Our Poet is fond of inversions, and they are sometimes more obscure than they ought to be. Line 20 = Psalm i., and cf. Philip. ii. 11. G.