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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse  »  38. The World

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

Henry Vaughan (1621–1695)

38. The World

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 mov’d, In which the world

And all her train were hurl’d;

The doting Lover in his queintest strain

Did their Complain,

Neer him, his Lute, his fancy, and his flights,

Wits sour delights,

With gloves, and knots the silly snares of pleasure

Yet his dear Treasure

All scatter’d lay, while he his eys did pour

Upon a flowr.

The darksome States-man hung with weights and woe

Like a thick midnight-fog mov’d there so slow

He did nor stay, nor go;

Condemning thoughts (like sad Ecclipses) scowl

Upon his soul,

And Clouds of crying witnesses without

Pursued him with one shout.

Yet dig’d the Mole, and lest his ways be found

Workt under ground,

Where he did Clutch his prey, but one did see

That policie,

Churches and altars fed him, Perjuries

Were gnats and flies,

It rain’d about him bloud and tears, but he

Drank them as free.

The fearfull miser on a heap of rust

Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust

His own hands with the dust,

Yet would not place one peece above, but lives

In feare of theeves.

Thousands there were as frantick as himself

And hug’d each one his pelf,

The down-right Epicure plac’d heav’n in sense

And scornd pretence

While others slipt into a wide Excesse

Said little lesse;

The weaker sort slight, triviall wares Inslave

Who think them brave,

And poor, despised truth sate Counting by

Their victory.

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,

And sing, and weep, soar’d up into the Ring,

But most would use no wing.

O fools (said I,) thus to prefer dark night

Before true light,

To live in grots, and caves, and hate the day

Because it shews the way,

The way which from this dead and dark abode

Leads up to God,

A way where you might tread the Sun, and be

More bright than he.

But as I did their madnes so discusse

One whisper’d thus,

This Ring the Bride-groome did for none provide

But for his bride.