Therefore I bear
    This winter-tide as bravely as I may,
    Patiently waiting for the bright spring day
  That cometh with thee, Dear.

  ’Tis the May light
    That crimsons all the quiet college gloom,
    May it shine softly in thy sleeping room,
  And so, dear wife, good night!

This is, of course, addressed to the spirit of the unknown future wife.  It is pretty, though it is only the work of a young student.  But some one hundred years before, another student—­a very great student, Richard Crashaw,—­had a fancy of the same kind, and made verses about it which are famous.  You will find parts of his poem about the imaginary wife in the ordinary anthologies, but not all of it, for it is very long.  I will quote those verses which seem to me the best.

WISHES

  Whoe’er she be,
  That not impossible She,
  That shall command my heart and me;

  Where’er she lie,
  Locked up from mortal eye,
  In shady leaves of Destiny;

  Till that ripe birth
  Of studied Fate stand forth,
  And teach her fair steps to our earth;

  Till that divine
  Idea take a shrine
  Of crystal flesh, through which to shine;

  Meet you her, my wishes,
  Bespeak her to my blisses,
  And be ye called my absent kisses.

The poet is supposing that the girl whom he is to marry may not as yet even have been born, for though men in the world of scholarship can marry only late in life, the wife is generally quite young.  Marriage is far away in the future for the student, therefore these fancies.  What he means to say in short is about like this: 

“Oh, my wishes, go out of my heart and look for the being whom I am destined to marry—­find the soul of her, whether born or yet unborn, and tell that soul of the love that is waiting for it.”  Then he tries to describe the imagined woman he hopes to find: 

  I wish her beauty
  That owes not all its duty
  To gaudy ’tire or glist’ring shoe-tie.

  Something more than
  Taffeta or tissue can;
  Or rampant feather, or rich fan.

  More than the spoil
  Of shop or silk worm’s toil,
  Or a bought blush, or a set smile.

  A face that’s best
  By its own beauty drest
  And can alone command the rest.

  A face made up
  Out of no other shop
  Than what nature’s white hand sets ope.

  A cheek where grows
  More than a morning rose
  Which to no box his being owes.

* * * * *

  Eyes that displace
  The neighbor diamond and outface
  That sunshine by their own sweet grace.

  Tresses that wear
  Jewels, but to declare
  How much themselves more precious are.

  Smiles, that can warm
  The blood, yet teach a charm
  That chastity shall take no harm.