Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
VI. ConsolationHappy are the dead
Henry Vaughan (16211695)I
Into a field,
Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield
A gallant flower:
But winter now had ruffled all the bower
And curious store
I knew there heretofore.
In the face of things,
Thought with myself, there might be other springs
Beside this here,
Which, like cold friends, sees us but once a year;
And so the flower
Might have some other bower.
I digged about
That place where I had seen him to grow out;
And by and by
I saw the warm recluse alone to lie,
Where fresh and green
He lived of us unseen.
Did I there strow;
But all I could extort was, that he now
Did there repair
Such losses as befell him in this air,
And would erelong
Come forth most fair and young.
And, stung with fear
Of my own frailty, dropped down many a tear
Upon his bed;
Then, sighing, whispered, Happy are the dead!
What peace doth now
Rock him asleep below!
From a poor root
Which all the winter sleeps here under foot,
And hath no wings
To raise it to the truth and light of things,
But is still trod
By every wandering clod!
And warm the dead!
And by a sacred incubation fed
With life this frame,
Which once had neither being, form, nor name!
Grant I may so
Thy steps track here below,
Thy sacred way;
And by those hid ascents climb to that day
Which breaks from thee,
Who art in all things, though invisibly:
Show me thy peace,
Thy mercy, love, and ease.
Lead me above,
Where light, joy, leisure, and true comforts move
Without all pain:
There, hid in thee, show me his life again
At whose dumb urn
Thus all the year I mourn.