Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Henry Vaughan (16221695)The Night
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 | 5 |
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; | 10 |
And, what can never more be done, | |
Did at midnight speak with the Sun! | |
O who will tell me where | |
He found Thee at that dead and silent hour! | |
What hallow’d solitary ground did bear | 15 |
So rare a flower; | |
Within whose sacred leaves did lie | |
The fulness of the Deity! | |
No mercy seat of gold, | |
No dead and dusty cherub, nor carved stone, | 20 |
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; | 25 |
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; | 30 |
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, | 35 |
When spirits their fair kindred catch. | |
Were 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; | 40 |
Then I in heaven all the long year | |
Would keep, and never wander here. | |
But living where the sun | |
Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire | |
Themselves and others, I consent and run | 45 |
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 | 50 |
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! | |