Crashaw's Poetical Works

Steps to the Temple and The Delights of the Muses by Richard Crashaw, from The Poems: English, Latin and Greek, edited by LC Martin, 123 pages

One of the greatest of the poets of the 17th century Metaphysical school, Crashaw wrote verse in English, Latin, and Greek.  The English Civil War forced him to flee Cambridge, where he taught and served as an Anglican priest.  In exile in France and Italy, he wrote his most celebrated works, collected and published in a single volume as Steps to the Temple and The Delights of the Muses, with the religious poetry found under the former title and the secular poetry under the latter.

These poems are rougher and less mannered than those of Donne, but this lends them a certain spontaneous feel which may be better appreciated today.  The opening poem of The Delights of the Muses, "Musicks Duell", which tells the story of a battle between a musician and a nightingale, is particularly memorable.