Henry Vaughan: Verses about Happiness

Joy of my life while left me here!
And still my love!
How in thy absence thou dost steer
Me from above!
A life well led
This truth commends,
With quick or dead
It never ends.

Stars are of mighty use; the night
Is dark, and long;
The road foul; and where one goes right,
Six may go wrong.
One twinkling ray,
Shot o'er some cloud,
May clear much away,
And guide a crowd.

God's saints are shining lights: who stays
Here long must pass
O'er dark hills, swift streams, and steep ways
As smooth as glass;
But these all night,
Like candles, shed
Their beams, and light
Us into bed.

They are, indeed, our pillar-fires,
Seen as we go;
They are that city's shining spires
We travel to:
A swordlike gleam
Kept man for sin
First
out
; this beam
Will guide them
in.

Hither thou com'st: the busy wind all night
Blew through thy lodging, where thy own warm wing
Thy pillow was. Many a sullen storm
(For which coarse man seems much the fitter born)
Rained on thy bed
And harmless head.

And now, as fresh and cheerful as the light,
Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing
Unto that Providence, whose unseen arm
Curbed them, and clothed thee well and warm.
All things that be, praise Him, and had
Their lesson taught them when first made.

So hills and valleys into singing break;
And though poor stones have neither speech nor tongue,
While active winds and streams both run and speak,
Yet stones are deep in admiration.
Thus praise and prayer here beneath the sun
Make lesser mornings, when the great are done.

For each inclosed spirit is a star
Enlight'ning his own little sphere,
Whose light, though fetched and borrowed from far,
Both mornings makes and evenings there.

But as these birds of light make a land glad,
Chirping their solemn matins on each tree,
So in the shades of night some dark fowls be,
Whose heavy notes make all that hear them sad.

The turtle then in palm trees mourns,
While owls and satyrs howl:
The pleasant land to brimstone turns,
And all her streams grow foul.

Brightness and mirth, and love and faith, all fly,
Till the day-spring breaks forth again from high.

AS Time one day by me did pass,
Through a large dusky glass
He held, I chanc'd to look,
And spied his curious book
Of past days, where sad Heav'n did shed
A mourning light upon the dead.

Many disorder'd lives I saw,
And foul records, which thaw
My kind eyes still, but in
A fair, white page of thin
And ev'n, smooth lines, like the sun's rays,
Thy name was writ, and all thy days.

O bright and happy kalendar !
Where youth shines like a star
All pearl'd with tears, and may
Teach age the holy way ;
Where through thick pangs, high agonies,
Faith into life breaks, and Death dies.

As some meek night-piece which day quails,
To candle-light unveils :
So by one beamy line
From thy bright lamp, did shine
In the same page thy humble grave,
Set with green herbs, glad hopes and brave.

Here slept my thought's dear mark ! which dust
Seem'd to devour, like rust ;
But dust—I did observe—
By hiding doth preserve ;
As we for long and sure recruits,
Candy with sugar our choice fruits.

O calm and sacred bed, where lies
In death's dark mysteries
A beauty far more bright
Than the noon's cloudless light ;
For whose dry dust green branches bud,
And robes are bleach'd in the Lamb's blood.

Sleep, happy ashes !—blessed sleep !—
While hapless I still weep ;
Weep that I have outliv'd
My life, and unreliev'd
Must—soullesse shadow !—so live on,
Though life be dead, and my joys gone.

1 I walk'd the other day, to spend my hour,
2 Into a field,
3 Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield
4 A gallant flow'r;
5 But winter now had ruffled all the bow'r
6 And curious store
7 I knew there heretofore.

8 Yet I, whose search lov'd not to peep and peer
9 I' th' face of things,
10 Thought with my self, there might be other springs
11 Besides this here,
12 Which, like cold friends, sees us but once a year;
13 And so the flow'r
14 Might have some other bow'r.

15 Then taking up what I could nearest spy,
16 I digg'd about
17 That place where I had seen him to grow out;
18 And by and by
19 I saw the warm recluse alone to lie,
20 Where fresh and green
21 He liv'd of us unseen.

22 Many a question intricate and rare
23 Did I there strow;
24 But all I could extort was, that he now
25 Did there repair
26 Such losses as befell him in this air,
27 And would ere long
28 Come forth most fair and young.

29 This past, I threw the clothes quite o'er his head;
30 And stung with fear
31 Of my own frailty dropp'd down many a tear
32 Upon his bed;
33 Then sighing whisper'd, "happy are the dead!
34 What peace doth now
35 Rock him asleep below!"

36 And yet, how few believe such doctrine springs
37 From a poor root,
38 Which all the winter sleeps here under foot,
39 And hath no wings
40 To raise it to the truth and light of things;
41 But is still trod
42 By ev'ry wand'ring clod.

43 O Thou! whose spirit did at first inflame
44 And warm the dead,
45 And by a sacred incubation fed
46 With life this frame,
47 Which once had neither being, form, nor name;
48 Grant I may so
49 Thy steps track here below,

50 That in these masques and shadows I may see
51 Thy sacred way;
52 And by those hid ascents climb to that day,
53 Which breaks from Thee,
54 Who art in all things, though invisibly!
55 Shew me thy peace,
56 Thy mercy, love, and ease,

57 And from this care, where dreams and sorrows reign,
58 Lead me above,
59 Where light, joy, leisure, and true comforts move
60 Without all pain;
61 There, hid in thee, shew me his life again,
62 At whose dumb urn
63 Thus all the year I mourn.