"The Flaming Heart"

O thou undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dow'r of lights and fires,
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove,
By all thy lives and deaths of love,
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large than they,
By all thy brim-fill'd bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire,
By the full kingdom of that final kiss
That seiz'd thy parting soul and seal'd thee his,
By all the heav'ns thou hast in him,
Fair sister of the seraphim!
By all of him we have in thee,
Leave nothing of my self in me:
Let me so read thy life that I
Unto all life of mine may die.

~from Richard Crashaw's "The Flaming Heart" in honor of St. Teresa of Jesus

Here are the "Maxims" of the Holy Mother.

Stephanie Mann has a post on the metaphysical English Catholic poet, Richard Crashaw.
Share