HENRY VAUGHAN (1622-1695)

THE RETREAT

Happy those early days, when I
Shined in my angel-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy ought
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first love,
And looking back - at that short space
Could see a glimpse of His bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense,
A several sin to every sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.

O how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain,
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence the enlightened spirit sees
That shady city of palm trees.
But ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
Some men a forward motion love,

But I by backward steps would move;
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return.

FROM THE WORLD

I saw Eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright;

ΙΟ

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FROM ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL

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Of these the false Achitophel1 was first, 150
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close 2 designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,3
Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace: 155
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay

And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity,

Pleased with the danger, when the waves went

high,

He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his

wit.

162

Great wits are sure to madness near allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else, why should he, with wealth and honour
blest,

Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? 166
Punish a body which he could not please,
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won
To that unfeathered two-legg'd thing, a son. 170

530

A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed
Of the true old enthusiastic breed:
'Gainst form and order they their power em-
ploy,

Nothing to build and all things to destroy.
But far more numerous was the herd of such
Who think too little and who talk too much.
These out of mere instinct, they knew not
why,
Adored their fathers' God and property,
And by the same blind benefit of Fate
The Devil and the Jebusite did hate:
Born to be saved even in their own despite,
Because they could not help believing right. 540

536

1 the Earl of Shaftesbury 2 3 secret intellect 4 overfilled their enemies, the Catholics

545

Such were the tools; but a whole Hydra1 more
Remains of sprouting heads too long to score.
Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;
In the first rank of these did Zimri2 stand,
A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drink-
ing,

551

Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.

Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy!

Railing and praising were his usual themes, 555 And both, to show his judgment, in extremes: So over violent or over civil

That every man with him was God or Devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; Nothing went unrewarded but desert. 560 Beggared by fools whom still he found too late,

He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laughed himself from Court; then sought
relief

By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief:
For spite of him, the weight of business fell 565
On Absalom and wise Achitophel;
Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.

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By sovereign power, her company disdained,
Grinned as they passed, and with a glaring eye
Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity.
'Tis true she bounded by and tripped so light,
They had not time to take a steady sight;
For truth has such a face and such a mien
As to be loved needs only to be seen.

The bloody Bear, an Independent beast 35
Unlicked to form,2 in groans her hate expressed.
Among the timorous kind the quaking Hare
Professed neutrality, but would not swear.
Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use,3 39
Mimicked all sects and had his own to choose;
Still when the Lion looked, his knees he bent,
And paid at church a courtier's compliment.
The bristled Baptist Boar, impure as he,
But whitened with the foam of sanctity,
With fat pollutions filled the sacred place, 45
And mountains levelled in his furious race:
So first rebellion founded was in grace.
But, since the mighty ravage which he made
In German forests had his guilt betrayed,
With broken tusks and with a borrowed name,
He shunned the vengeance and concealed the
shame,

51

So lurked in sects unseen. With greater guile
False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil;
The graceless beast by Athanasius first
Was chased from Nice, then by Socinus
nursed,

His impious race their blasphemy renewed, 56 And nature's king through nature's optics · viewed;

Reversed they viewed him lessened to their eye,

Nor in an infant could a God descry.
New swarming sects to this obliquely tend, 60
Hence they began, and here they all will end.

*

But if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher 316 Than matter put in motion may aspire; Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay,

So drossy, so divisible are they

As would but serve pure bodies for allay,1 320 Such souls as shards 2 produce, such beetle things

As only buzz to heaven with evening wings, Strike in the dark, offending but by chance, Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance. They know not beings, and but hate a name; To them the Hind and Panther are the same.

And seems to shake the spheres.

CHORUS

With ravished ears

The monarch hears,

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Assumes the god,

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician

sung,

Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.

The jolly god in 'triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums ;50
Flushed with a purple grace

He shows his honest face:

Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he

1 a celebrated Athenian musician (d. 357 B.C.), said to have improved the cithara by adding one string to it 2 fabled to have been Alexander's father 3 disguised uplifted in shining spirals Olympias, mother of Alexander

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