Henry Vaughan Quotes

My soul, there is a country Far beyond the stars Where stands a wingèd sentry All skillful in the wars: There, above noise and danger, Sweet Peace is crowned with smiles, And One born in a manger Commands the beauteous files.

Why should I not love childhood still? Why, if I see a rock or shelf, Shall I from thence cast down myself? Or by complying with the world, From the same precipice be hurled? Those observations are but foul, Which make me wise to lose my soul. <p> And yet the practice worldlings call Business, and weighty action all, Checking the poor child for his play, But gravely cast themselves away.

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.

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. <p> An age of mysteries! which he Must live that would God's face see Which angels guard, and with it play, Angels! which foul men drive away.

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 cannot reach it, and my striving eye Dazzles at it, as at eternity. <p> Were now that chronicle alive, Those white designs which children drive, And the thoughts of each harmless hour, With their content too in my pow'r, Quickly would I make my path even, And by mere playing go to heaven.

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!

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!

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.

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.

Happy those early days, when I Shined in my angel-infancy! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race.

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.

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!

As men are killed by fighting, the truth is lost in disputing.