WHITE AND RED are for Crashaw the primary colors of poetry. Mr.
Warren has observed that one cannot survey Crashaw's imagery "with-
out perceiving how the whole forms a vaguely defined but persistently
felt series of interrelations. There are things red -- fire, blood, rubies,
roses, wine -- and things white -- tears, lilies, pearls, diamonds: symbols
of love and passion; symbols of contrition, purity, innocence." ¹ There
are indeed two groups of things opposed in color and opposed in sym-
bolic values; their member images recur with almost tedious frequency
in the poetry. This chapter will examine these images and symbols and
clarify their interrelations, vaguely felt and persistently defined, by a
judicious rearranging and supplementing of Mr. Warren's list of things
white and red. So there are flowers -- lilies and roses -- and there are
gems -- pearls or diamonds and rubies -- and there are liquids -- tears or
water and blood or wine. After an excursus into sources, the follow-
ing pages will notice first the flowers and then the gems. The most
conspicuous set of color images is that involving the liquids; as it is ex-
tensive and as it has its own integrity, it appears separately in Chapter
V. There are other white substances and liquids -- snow, silver, milk,
cream, crystal -- but they do not regularly stand in color opposition and
they may conveniently be noticed in the poems as they occur; there is
fire, which is red only occasionally and which does not stand in color
opposition. ² There is, however, one other thing white and red -- the
blush; it neatly and appropriately combines the two colors. Finally
there are many adjectives of color which Crashaw uses to expand the
pattern. In line after line, he joins substantives and attributives in a
manner which demonstrates unmistakably that he is thinking in terms
of the white and red contrast and of its symbolic values.

To speak of sources for the white/red color distinction is perhaps to
mislead; it is more nearly accurate to trace traditions or to cite sug-
gestions. The white/red contrast was very much in the air when Cra-

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