Henry Vaughan (1622 – 1695)
Welsh Metaphysical poet and a doctor, the twin brother of the philosopher Thomas Vaughan.
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When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair,
Forms turn to musick, clouds to smiles and air;
Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours
Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers.
Bright pledge of peace and sun-shine! the sure tye
Of thy Lord's hand, the object of his eye.
When I behold thee, though my light be dim,
Distant, and low, I can in thine see Him
Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne,
And mindes the covenant 'twixt all and One.
I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light.
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv'n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow moved; in which the world
And all her train were hurled.
Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just!
Shining nowhere but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
Tempests and windes and winter-nights
Vex not, that but One sees thee grow,
That One made all these lesser lights.
If those bright joys He singly sheds
On thee, were all met in one crown,
Both sun and stars would hide their heads ;
And moons, though full, would get them down.
I will on thee as on a comet look,
A comet, the sad world's ill-boding book;
Thy light as luctual and stain'd with woes
I'll judge, where penal flames sit mixt and close.
But though some think thou shin'st but to restrain
Bold storms, and simply dost attend on rain;
Yet I know well, and so our sins require,
Thou dost but court cold rain, till rain turns fire.
They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit lingering here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.
As men are killed by fighting, the truth is lost in disputing.
Dear Night! this world's defeat;
The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb;
The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat
Which none disturb!
Christ's progress, and His prayer-time;
The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.
Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven.
I see them walking in an air of glory
Whose light doth trample on my days,
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.
And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.
Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch
At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb;
Keep clean, be as fruit, earn life, and watch
Till the white-wing’d reapers come!
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move.
There is in God — some say —
A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that Night! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim!
Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span
Where weeping Virtue parts with man;
Where love without lust dwells, and bends
What way we please without self-ends.
I cannot reach it, and my striving eye
Dazzles at it, as at eternity.
When yet I had not walk'd above
A mile or two from my first Love,
And looking back, at that short space
Could see a glimpse of His bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to every sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
Still young and fine! but what is still in view
We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new.
Happy those early days, when I
Shined in my angel-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race.
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