Henry Vaughan Poems

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by Vaughan, Henry

 1 Awake, glad heart! get up and sing!
2 It is the birth-day of thy King.
3 Awake! awake!
4 The Sun doth shake
5 Light from his locks, and all the way
6 Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

7 Awake, awake! hark how th' wood rings;
8 Winds whisper, and the busy springs
9 A concert make;
10 Awake! awake!
11 Man is their high-priest, and should...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 Love, the world's life! What a sad death
Thy absence is to lose our breath
At once and die, is but to live
Enlarged, without the scant reprieve
Of pulse and air: whose dull returns
And narrow circles the soul mourns.
But to be dead alive, and still
To wish, but never have our will:
To be possessed, and yet to miss;
To wed a true but absent...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 They are all gone into the world of light! 
And I alone sit ling'ring here; 
Their very memory is fair and bright, 
And my sad thoughts doth clear. 

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove, 
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest 
After the sun's remove. 

I see them walking...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 1 I walk'd the other day, to spend my hour,
2 Into a field,
3 Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield
4 A gallant flow'r;
5 But winter now had ruffled all the bow'r
6 And curious store
7 I knew there heretofore.

8 Yet I, whose search lov'd not to peep and peer
9 I' th' face of things,
10 Thought with my self,...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 1.

Award, and still in bonds, one day 
I stole abroad, 
It was high-spring, and all the way 
Primros'd, and hung with shade; 
Yet, was it frost within, 
And surly winds 
Blasted my infant buds, and sin 
Like clouds eclips'd my mind.

2.

Storm'd thus; I straight perceiv'd my spring 
Mere stage, and show, 
My walk a monstrous, mountain's thing 
Rough-cast with...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 Silence, and stealth of days! 'tis now 
Since thou art gone, 
Twelve hundred hours, and not a brow 
But clouds hang on. 
As he that in some cave's thick damp 
Lockt from the light, 
Fixeth a solitary lamp, 
To brave the night, 
And walking from his sun, when past 
That glim'ring ray 
Cuts through the heavy mists in haste...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 1 

Bright shadows of true Rest! some shoots of bliss, 
Heaven once a week; 
The next world's gladness prepossest in this; 
A day to seek; 
Eternity in time; the steps by which 
We Climb above all ages; Lamps that light 
Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich, 
And full redemption of the whole week's flight. 

2...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 BODY

1 Farewell! I go to sleep; but when
2 The day-star springs, I'll wake again. 

SOUL 

3 Go, sleep in peace; and when thou liest
4 Unnumber'd in thy dust, when all this frame
5 Is but one dram, and what thou now descriest
6 In sev'ral parts shall want a name,
7 Then may his peace be with thee, and each dust
8 Writ...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 1 O joys! infinite sweetness! with what flow'rs
2 And shoots of glory my soul breaks and buds!
3 All the long hours
4 Of night, and rest,
5 Through the still shrouds
6 Of sleep, and clouds,
7 This dew fell on my breast;
8 Oh, how it bloods
9 And spirits all my earth! Hark! In what rings
10 And hymning circulations the quick world
11 Awakes...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 Peace? and to all the world? sure, One
And He the Prince of Peace, hath none.
He travels to be born, and then
Is born to travel more again.
Poor Galilee! thou canst not be
The place for His nativity.
His restless mother's called away,
And not delivered till she pay.
A tax? 'tis so still! we can see
The church thrive in her misery;
And like her Head...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 My God, how gracious art thou! I had slipt 
Almost to hell, 
And on the verge of that dark, dreadful pit 
Did hear them yell, 
But O thy love! thy rich, almighty love 
That sav'd my soul, 
And checkt their fury, when I saw them move, 
And heard them howl; 
O my sole comfort, take no more these ways,...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 this time has finished me. 
I feel like the German troops
whipped by snow and the communists
walking bent
with newspapers stuffed into
worn boots. 
my plight is just as terrible.
maybe more so. 
victory was so close
victory was there. 
as she stood before my mirror
younger and more beautiful than
any woman I had ever known
combing yards and yards of red hair
as I watched her....Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 1 Happy those early days, when I
2 Shin'd in my angel-infancy!
3 Before I understood this place
4 Appointed for my second race,
5 Or taught my soul to fancy ought
6 But a white, celestial thought;
7 When yet I had not walk'd above
8 A mile or two from my first love,
9 And looking back (at that short space)
10 Could see a glimpse...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 1 Unfold! unfold! Take in His light,
2 Who makes thy cares more short than night.
3 The joys which with His day-star rise,
4 He deals to all but drowsy eyes;
5 And (what the men of this world miss)
6 Some drops and dews of future bliss.

7 Hark! how his winds have chang'd their note,
8 And with warm whispers call thee out.
9...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 Sure thou didst flourish once! and many springs, 
Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers, 
Pass'd o'er thy head; many light hearts and wings, 
Which now are dead, lodg'd in thy living bowers. 

And still a new succession sings and flies; 
Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot 
Towards the old and still enduring skies, 
While the...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 So stick up ivy and the bays,
And then restore the heathen ways.
Green will remind you of the spring,
Though this great day denies the thing.
And mortifies the earth and all
But your wild revels, and loose hall.
Could you wear flowers, and roses strow
Blushing upon your breasts' warm snow,
That very dress your lightness will
Rebuke, and wither at the ill.
The brightness of this...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 1 With what deep murmurs through time's silent stealth
2 Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat'ry wealth
3 Here flowing fall,
4 And chide, and call,
5 As if his liquid, loose retinue stay'd
6 Ling'ring, and were of this steep place afraid;
7 The common pass
8 Where, clear as glass,
9 All must descend
10 Not to an end,
11 But quicken'd by this deep and rocky...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 1 They are all gone into the world of light!
2 And I alone sit ling'ring here;
3 Their very memory is fair and bright,
4 And my sad thoughts doth clear.

5 It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
6 Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
7 Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,
8 After the sun's remove.

9 I see...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 How rich, O Lord! how fresh thy visits are! 
'Twas but just now my bleak leaves hopeless hung 
Sullied with dust and mud; 
Each snarling blast shot through me, and did share 
Their youth, and beauty, cold showers nipt, and wrung 
Their spiciness and blood; 
But since thou didst in one sweet glance survey 
Their sad decays, I flourish,...Read more of this...

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by Vaughan, Henry

 Hail sacred shades! cool, leavy House! 
Chaste treasurer of all my vows, 
And wealth! on whose soft bosom laid 
My love's fair steps I first betrayed: 
Henceforth no melancholy flight, 
No sad wing, or hoarse bird of night, 
Disturb this air, no fatal throat 
Of raven, or owl, awake the note 
Of our laid echo, no voice dwell 
Within...Read more of this...

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