Poetry Room: The World by Henry Vaughan (1621 - 1695)

The World

BY HENRY VAUGHAN

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 quaintest strain

       Did there complain;

Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,

       Wit’s sour delights,

With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure,

       Yet his dear treasure

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

       Upon a flow’r.

The darksome statesman hung with weights and woe,

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

       He did not stay, nor go;

Condemning thoughts (like sad eclipses) scowl

       Upon his soul,

And clouds of crying witnesses without

       Pursued him with one shout.

Yet digg’d the mole, and lest his ways be found,

       Work’d under ground,

Where he did clutch his prey; but one did see

       That policy;

Churches and altars fed him; perjuries

       Were gnats and flies;

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

       Drank them as free.

The fearful 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 piece above, but lives

       In fear of thieves;

Thousands there were as frantic as himself,

       And hugg’d each one his pelf;

The downright epicure plac’d heav’n in sense,

       And scorn’d pretence,

While others, slipp’d into a wide excess,

       Said little less;

The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave,

       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 madness so discuss

       One whisper’d thus,

“This ring the Bridegroom did for none provide,

       But for his bride.”

(painting by Fabrizio Clerici)