Henry Vaughan Quotes

Henry Vaughan's verses drift into mystery, inviting readers to ponder faith, life and death.

39 quotes

1. 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.

2. There is in God, some say, A deep but dazzling darkness.

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

4. But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness.

5. Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move.

6. I cannot reach it, and my striving eye Dazzles at it, as at eternity.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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!

11. 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.

12. My soul, there is a country Far beyond the stars Where stands a winged 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.

13. 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!

14. The skin and shell of things Though fair are not Thy wish nor prayer but got My meer despair of wings.

15. Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the just.

16. A ward, and still in bonds, one day I stole abroad; It was high spring, and all the way Primrosed and hung with shade; Yet was it frost within, And surly winds Blasted my infant buds, and sin Like clouds eclipsed my mind.

17. 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.

18. Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie Of thy Lord's hand, the object of His eye! When I behold thee, though my light be dim, Distinct, and low, I can in thine see Him Who looks upon thee from His glorious throne, And minds the covenant between all and One.

19. Yet never sleep the sun up. Prayer shou'd Dawn with the day. There are set, awful hours 'Twixt heaven and us. The manna was not good After sun-rising; far day sullies flowres. Rise to prevent the sun; sleep doth sin glut, And heaven's gate opens when the world's is shut.

20. Sure thou did'st nourish once! and many springs, Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers, Passed 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 low violet thrives at their root.

21. The sun doth shake Light from his locks, and, all the way Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

22. If thou canst but thither, There grows the flower of Peace, The Rose that cannot wither, Thy fortress and thy ease.

23. 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!

24. Affliction is a mother, Whose painful throes yield many sons, Each fairer than the other.

25. 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.

26. Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven.

27. Still young and fine! but what is still in view We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new.

28. Man is the shuttle, to whose winding quest And passage through these looms God ordered motion, but ordained no rest.

29. Some syllables are swords.

30. Man hath still either toys or care: But hath no root, nor to one place is tied, but ever restless and irregular, about this earth doth run and ride. He knows he hath a home, but scarce knows where; He says it is so far, that he has quite forgot how to go there.

31. 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. 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.

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

33. Mornings are mysteries; the first world's youth, Man's resurrection, and the future's bud Shroud in their births.

34. 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.

35. Prayer is The world in tune, A spirit-voyce, And vocall joyes, Whose Eccho is heaven's blisse.

36. Caesar had perished from the world of men, had not his sword been rescued by his pen.

37. Death, and darkness get you packing, Nothing now to man is lacking, All your triumphs now are ended, And what Adam marred, is mended.

38. I saw Eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm as it was bright.

39. 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.