From “Two Went Up to the Temple” Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber (1634)
Two went to pray? O rather say
One went to brag, th’ other to pray:
One stands up close and treads on high,
Where th’ other dares not send his eye.
One nearer to God’s altar trod,
The other to the altar’s God.
Richard Crashaw (1613-1649) was an English priest and metaphysical poet. He was a fellow of Peterhouse College, Cambridge and vicar of Little St. Mary’s, which became a center for High Church Anglican devotion during the reign of King Charles I. He fled to the Continent during the English Civil War, and converted to Roman Catholicism, dying in Italy after several years of great suffering and poverty.
