Now, if Time knows That her, whose radiant brows Weave them a garland of my vows; Her, whose just bays My future hopes can raise, A trophy to her present praise; Her, that dares be What these lines wish to see: I seek no further, it is she.. Henry Vaughan 1621-1695 THE RETREATE (From Silex Scintillans, Part I., 1050) Happy those early dayes, when I Before I taught my tongue to wound But felt through all this fleshly dresse O how I long to travell back, And tread again that ancient track! That shady City of Palme trees. 40 But ah! my soul with too much stay Is drunk, and staggers in the way! Yet pay less arrows than they owe. ... Some men a forward motion love, DEPARTED FRIENDS (From the same, Part II., 1655) They are all gone into the world of light! And I alone sit ling'ring here! 50 Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear. Silk, in Crashaw's time applied to a soft, thin, silken fabric. It glows and glitters in my cloudy brest Like stars upon some gloomy grove, 30 5 Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest After the Sun's remove. 1 Aught. That which her slender waist confin'd, Shall now my joyful temples bind; No monarch but would give his crown, His arms might do what this has done.. It was my heaven's extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer,1 My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move. A narrow compass, and yet there Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair: Give me but what this riband bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round." 10 1 This well-worn pun is characteristically Elizabethan. Pale that which encompasses (i.e., the girdle) as well as the fence of the deer-park. There, on beds of violets blue, 5 When we for age could neither read nor write, 10 And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, While the cock, with lively din, Right against the eastern gate Where the great Sun begins his state 60 Robed in flames and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight; 1 Uncouth means here unknown, strange, remote. Named. And every shepherd tells his tale3 Under the hawthorn in the dale. Straight mine eye hath caught new pleas ures, Whilst the landskip round it measures: Of herbs, and other country messes, To the tanned haycock in the mead. To many a youth and many a maid Dancing in the checkered shade, And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holyday, 70 75 80 85 00 With store of ladies, whose bright eyes 8 Rain influence, and judge the prize In saffron robe, with taper clear, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, And ever, against eating cares, a 125 130 135 140 90 That Orpheus' self may heave his head From golden slumber on a bed 95 Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear 9 Such strains as would have won the ear Of Pluto to have quite set free His half-regained Eurydice." These delights if thou canst give, 150 Till the livelong daylight fail: Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, 100 With stories told of many a feat, How Faery Mab the junkets' eat. She was pinched and pulled, she said; 105 When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, is shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-labourers could not end; Then lies him down the lubber fiend, 110 And, stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, And crop-full out of doors he flings, Ere the first cock his matin rings. Hail, divinest Melancholy! Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, 115 By whispering winds soon lulled asleep. Towered cities please us then, To hit the sense of human sight, And the busy hum of men, Where throngs of knights and barons bold, In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, 120 |