All thy sorrows here shall shine, All thy sufferings be divine; Tears shall take comfort and turn gems, And wrongs repent to diadems. Even thy deaths shall live, and new Those rare works where thou shalt leave writ Thou shalt look round about and see Made fruitful thy fair soul, go now And with them all about thee, bow 150 160 170 180 An apology for the foregoing hymn, as having been Thus have I back again to thy bright name I know, that in my weak and worthless song 10 By all thy mysteries that here lie hid, Where flows such wine as we can have of none 20 30 40 The Flaming Heart 1 Upon the book and picture of the seraphical Saint Teresa, O heart, the equal poise of love's both parts, | O thou undaunted daughter of desires! By all of him we have in thee, A song Lord, when the sense of thy sweet grace Sends up my soul to seek thy face, 10 20 ,30 Thy blessed eyes breed such desire O love, I am thy sacrifice. Be still triumphant, blessed eyes; Though still I die, I live again, 10 So gainful is such loss of breath, Still live in me this loving strife HENRY VAUGHAN The Introduction and Notes are at page 1025 The Author's preface to the following hymns. That this kingdom hath abounded with those ingenious persons which in the late notion are termed wits is too well known. Many of them having cast away all their fair portion of time in no better employments than a delibérate search or excogitation of idle words, and a most vain insatiable desire to be reputed poets, leaving behind them no other monuments of those excellent abilities conferred upon them but such as they may, with a predecessor of theirs, term parricides, and a soul-killing issue; for that is the Βραβείον, and laureate crown, which idle poems will certainly bring to their unrelenting authors. And well it were for them if those willingly-studied and wilfullypublished vanities could defile no spirits but their own; but the case is far worse. These vipers survive their parents, and for many ages after, like epidemic diseases, infect whole generations, corrupting always and unhallowing the best-gifted souls and the most capable vessels, for whose sanctification and welfare the glorious Son of God laid down his life and suffered the precious blood of his blessed and innocent heart to be poured out. ... Divers persons of eminent piety and learning (I meddle not with the seditious and schismatical) have, long before my time, taken notice of this malady; for the complaint against vicious verse, even by peaceful and obedient spirits, is of some antiquity in this kingdom. And yet, as if the evil consequence attending this inveterate error werè but a small thing, there is sprung very lately another prosperous device to assist it in the subversion of souls. Those that want the genius of verse fall to translating, and the people are, every term, plentifully furnished with various foreign vanities; so that the most lascivious compositions of France and Italy are here naturalized and made English; and this, as it is sadly observed, with so much favor and success that nothing takes, as they rightly phrase it, like a romance. It is a sentence of sacred authority that he that is dead is freed from sin, because he cannot in that state, which is without the body, sin any more; but he that writes idle books makes for himself another body, in which he always lives, and sins after death as fast and as foul as ever he did in his life; which very consideration deserves to be a sufficient antidote against this evil disease. And here, because I would prevent a just censure by my free confession, I must remember that I myself have for many years together languished of this very sickness, and it is no long time since I have recovered. But, blessed be God for it, I have by his saving assistance suppressed my greatest follies, and those which escaped from me are, I think, as innoxious as most of that vein use to be; besides they are interlined with many virtuous and some pious mixtures. What I speak of them is truth; but let no man mistake it for an extenuation of faults, as if I intended an apology for them, or myself, who am conscious of so much guilt in both as can never be expiated without special sorrows, and that cleansing and precious effusion of my almighty Redeemer; and if the world will be so charitable as to grant my request, I do here must humbly and earnestly beg that none would read them. The suppression of this pleasing and prevailing evil lies not altogether in the power of the magistrate, for it will fly abroad in manuscripts when it fails of entertainment at the press. The true remedy lies wholly in their bosoms who are the gifted persons, by a wise exchange of vain and vicious subjects for divine themes and celestial praise. ... The first that with any effectual success attempted a diversion of this foul and overflowing stream was the blessed man, Mr. George Herbert, whose holy life and verse gained many pious converts (of whom I am the least) and gave the first check to a most flourishing and admired wit of his time. FROM Poems, 1646 To Amoret gone from him Fancy and I last evening walked, We sat and marked how everything Whilst he was here, now checked her streams; Were taught less noise and smoother grace, Whisp'ring the banks their discontent; 10 |