C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Vaughan

Affliction is a mother,

Whose painful throes yield many sons,

Each fairer than the other.

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams

Call to the soul when man doth sleep,

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,

And into glory peep.

As great a store

Have we of books as bees of herbs or more.

Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie

Of thy Lord’s hand, the object of His eye!

When I behold thee, though my light bedim,

Distinct and low, I can in thine see Him

Who looks upon thee from His glorious throne,

And minds the covenant between all and One.

Bright shadows of true rest! some shoots of bliss;

Heaven once a week;

The next world’s gladness prepossest in this;

A day to seek;

Eternity in time; the steps by which

We climb above all ages: lamps that light

Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich

And full redemption of the whole week’s flight.

But felt through all this fleshly dresse

Bright shootes of everlastingnesse.

Mornings are mysteries; the first world’s youth,

Man’s resurrection, and the future’s bud

Shroud in their births.

Sure thou did’st flourish once! and many springs,

Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers,

Passed o’er thy head; many light hearts and wings,

Which now are dead, lodg’d in thy living bowers.

And still a new succession sings and flies;

Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot

Towards the old and still-enduring skies;

While the low violet thrives at their root.

The rising winds

And falling springs,

Birds, beasts, all things

Adore him in their kinds.

Thus all is hurl’d

In sacred hymns and order, the great chime

And symphony of nature.

Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch

At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb;

Keep clean, be as fruit, earn life, and watch

Till the white-wing’d reapers come.

’Twas so; I saw thy birth. That drowsy lake

From her faint bosom breath’d thee, the disease

Of her sick waters, and infectious ease.

But now at even,

Too gross for heaven,

Thou fall’st in tears, and weep’st for thy mistake.

When first thy eyes unveil, give thy soul leave

To do the like; our bodies but forerun

The spirit’s duty. True hearts spread and heave

Unto their God, as flow’rs do to the sun.

Give him thy first thoughts then; so shalt thou keep

Him company all day, and in him sleep.

When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair,

Forms turn to music, clouds to smiles and air;

Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours

Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers.

Bright pledge of peace and sunshine!

Bright pledge of peace and sunshine.

Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the just.

Some syllables are swords.

To God, thy country, and thy friend be true.

Where God is, all agree.

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