Steps to the Temple, Delights of the Muses and Other Poems

While his father was a strict Puritan, his parent's death during his childhood left Richard Crashaw without familial guidance, and he went on to become one of the most florid and fiery poets Roman Catholicism has known. He converted to Catholicism while in Paris, where he was staying as a result of his expulsion from Cambridge due to the British civil wars. There he wrote and lived an ascetic life of poverty and misery; his college friend Abraham Cowley saved him by finding him a patron and a job. Crashaw worked for Cardinal Palotta in Rome for a time; after complaining about the immorality of Palotta's servants, was probably poisoned by one of them.