Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
And, as it works, the industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.

How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers!

HENRY VAUGHAN (1622-1695) was a Welshman, and was educated at Jesus College, Oxford. He studied first law and then medicine, and began to practise as a physician about 1645. In 1646 he published a small volume entitled 'Poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal Englished'. Another volume, ‘Olor. Iscanus: a Collection of some select Poems and Translations,' was probably written in 1647, but was not published until 1651, when it was printed by his brother. Vaughan fell much under the influence of George Herbert, and in 1650 appeared 'Silex Scintillans: or Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations', which was followed by a second part in 1655. He also wrote a small volume of devotion in prose: The Mount of Olives. In 1678 Thalia Rediviva was published, and with it several other poems by Vaughan and a few pieces by his twin-brother, Thomas.

THE NIGHT

JOHN III. 2

THROUGH that pure virgin shrine,

That sacred veil drawn o'er Thy glorious noon,
That men might look and live, as glow-worms shine
And face the moon :

Wise Nicodemus saw such light

As made him know his God by night.

Most blest believer he!

Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes
Thy long-expected healing wings could see
When Thou didst rise!

And, what can never more be done,
Did at midnight speak with the Sun!

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Oh, who will tell me where

He found Thee at that dead and silent hour?
What hallowed solitary ground did bear
So rare a flower;

Within whose sacred leaves did lie
The fullness of the Deity?

No mercy-seat of gold,

No dead and dusty cherub, nor carved stone,
But His own living works did my Lord hold,
And lodge alone,

Where trees and herbs did watch and peep
And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.

Dear Night! this world's defeat;

The stop to busy fools; care's cheek 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.

God's silent, searching flight;

When my Lord's head is filled with dew, and all
His locks are wet with the clear drops of night;

His still, soft call;

His knocking-time; the soul's dumb-watch,
When spirits their fair kindred catch.

Where all my loud, evil days

Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent,
Whose peace but by some angel's wing or voice

Is seldom rent;

Then I in heaven all the long year

Would keep, and never wander here.

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But living where the sun

Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire
Themselves and others, I consent and run

To every mire ;

And by this world's ill-guiding light
Err more than I can do by night.

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.

Oh, for that Night! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim.

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THOMAS TRAHERNE (1636 ?-1674) appears to have been the son of 'John Traherne Shoemaker' of Hereford. Little is known of his life. It is probable that he was of Welsh descent, but the only accounts of his youth are to be found in the poetic descriptions of childhood, of which his writings are full. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, entered the ministry, and was appointed 'clerk' at Crendenhill, Herefordshire, in 1657. Among his prose works are Centuries of Meditations (from which is taken the extract printed in this book), Roman Forgeries, a controversial pamphlet directed against the Church of Rome, and a treatise on Christian Ethics. In 1667 he became chaplain to Sir Orlando, afterwards Lord Bridgman, and it was at his patron's house at Teddington that he died. His poems were not published until long after his death, and for almost two centuries he was practically forgotten.

DUMBNESS

SURE Man was born to meditate on Things,
And to contemplate the Eternal Springs

Of God and Nature, Glory, Bliss, and Pleasure,

That Life and Love might be his Heavenly Treasure:
And therefore speechless made at first, that he

Might in himself profoundly busied be;

And not vent out, before he hath taken in
Those antidotes that guard his soul from sin.

Wise Nature made him deaf too, that he might
Not be disturbed, while he doth take delight
In inward things, nor be depraved with tongues,
Nor injured by the errors and the wrongs
That mortal words convey.

This, my dear friends, this was my blessed case;
For nothing spake to me but the fair face
Of Heaven and Earth, before myself could speak.
I then my bliss did, when my silence, break.

Then did I dwell within a world of light,
Distinct and separate from all men's sight,

Where I did feel strange thoughts, and such things see
That were, or seemed, only revealed to me.
There saw I all the world enjoyed by one;
There was I in the world myself alone;
No business serious seemed but one; no work
But one was found-and that in me did lurk.
D'ye ask me what? It was with clearer eyes
To see all creatures full of deities,
Especially one's self; and to admire

The satisfaction of all true desire :

"Twas to be pleased with all that God hath done;
"Twas to enjoy even all beneath the sun :
"Twas with a steady and immediate sense
To feel and measure all the excellence
Of things; 'twas to inherit endless treasure,
And to be filled with everlasting pleasure;
To reign in silence, and to sing alone,

To see, love, covet, have, enjoy, and praise in one;
To prize and to be ravished; to be true,

Sincere, and single in a blessed view

Of all His gifts. Thus was I pent within
A fort impregnable to any sin,

Until the avenues being open laid,

Whole legions entered, and the forts betrayed;
Before which time a pulpit in my mind,

A temple and a teacher I did find,

With a large text to comment on.

No ear

But
eyes themselves were all the hearers there,
And every stone and every star a tongue,
And every gale of wind a curious song.
The Heavens were an oracle, and spake
Divinity. The Earth did undertake

The office of a priest; and I being dumb
(Nothing besides was dumb), all things did come
With voices and instructions; but when I
Had gained a tongue, their power began to die.