Richard Crashaw

Richard Crashaw (c. 1612–1649) was an English poet often linked with the Metaphysical writers. Educated at Charterhouse and later at Pembroke College, Cambridge, he became a fellow of Peterhouse. His early religious lyrics were gathered in *Steps to the Temple* (1646), and his best-known poem, “The Flaming Heart,” celebrates the ecstatic spirituality of St Teresa of Ávila. During the upheavals of the English Civil War, Crashaw lost his Cambridge post and left England. He converted to Roman Catholicism and spent his final years on the Continent, supported by Catholic patrons. He died in Loreto, Italy, in 1649.