Henry Vaughan Quotes
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!
I saw Eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm as it was bright.
And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep. So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted dreams, And into glory peep.
Death, and darkness get you packing, Nothing now to man is lacking, All your triumphs now are ended, And what Adam marred, is mended.
The skin and shell of things Though fair are not Thy wish nor prayer but got My meer despair of wings.
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!
Man is the shuttle, to whose winding quest And passage through these looms God ordered motion, but ordained no rest.
The sun doth shake Light from his locks, and, all the way Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.
Affliction is a mother, Whose painful throes yield many sons, Each fairer than the other.
Mornings are mysteries; the first world's youth, Man's resurrection, and the future's bud Shroud in their births.
Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven.
Prayer is The world in tune, A spirit-voyce, And vocall joyes, Whose Eccho is heaven's blisse.
I played with fire, did counsel spurn, Made life my common stake; But never thought that fire would burn, O that a soul could ache.
Still young and fine! but what is still in view We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new.
If thou canst but thither, There grows the flower of Peace, The Rose that cannot wither, Thy fortress and thy ease.
Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move, And when this dust falls to the urn In that state I came, return.
