Henry Vaughan

Sweet, harmless lives
(on whose holy leisure Waits innocence and pleasure),
Whose leaders to those pastures, and clear springs, Were patriarchs, saints, and kings,
How happened it that in the dead of night You only saw true light,...

Hail sacred shades
cool, leavy House
Chaste treasurer of all my vows,
And wealth

False life, a foil and no more,
Wilt thou be gone
Thou foul deception of all
That would not have the true come on

Unfold
unfold
Take in His light, Who makes thy cares more short than night
The joys which with His day-star rise, He deals to all but drowsy eyes; And (what the men of this world miss) Some drops and dews of future bliss...

With what deep murmurs through time's silent
Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat'ry wealth Here flowing fall, And chide, and call,
As if his liquid, loose retinue
Ling'ring, and were of this steep place afraid; The common pass Where...

Whatever 'tis, whose beauty here below Attracts thee thus and makes thee stream and flow, And wind and curl, and wink and smile, Shifting thy gate and guile; Though thy close commerce nought at all imbars My present search, for eagles eye not star...

So stick up ivy and the bays,
And then restore the heathen ways
Green will remind you of the spring,
Though this great day denies the thing