While the slow years' bright line about is laid,
I patiently expect, though much distrest
By busy longing and a love-sick breast.
I wish they may outshine all other days;
Or, when they come, so recompense delays
As to outlast the summer hours' bright length;
Or that fam'd day, when stopp'd by divine strength
The sun did tire the world with his long light,
Doubling men's labours, and adjourning night.
As the bright sky with stars, the field with flow'rs,
The years with diff'ring seasons, months and hours,
God hath distinguished and mark'd, so He
With sacred feasts did ease and beautify
The working days: because that mixture may
Make men--loth to be holy ev'ry day--
After long labours, with a freer will,
Adore their Maker, and keep mindful still
Of holiness, by keeping holy days:
For otherwise they would dislike the ways
Of piety as too severe. To cast
Old customs quite off, and from sin to fast
Is a great work. To run which way we will,
On plains is easy, not so up a hill.
Hence 'tis our good God--Who would all men bring
Under the covert of His saving wing--
Appointed at set times His solemn feasts,
That by mean services men might at least
Take hold of Christ as by the hem, and steal
Help from His lowest skirts, their souls to heal.
For the first step to heaven is to live well
All our life long, and each day to excel
In holiness; but since that tares are found
In the best corn, and thistles will confound
And prick my heart with vain cares, I will strive
To weed them out on feast-days, and so thrive
By handfuls, 'till I may full life obtain,
And not be swallow'd of eternal pain.
16. [PAULINUS (?). CARM. APP. I.]
Come, my true consort in my joys and care!
Let this uncertain and still wasting share
Of our frail life be giv'n to God. You see
How the swift days drive hence incessantly,
And the frail, drooping world--though still thought gay[69]--
In secret, slow consumption wears away.
All that we have pass from us, and once past
Return no more; like clouds, they seem to last,
And so delude loose, greedy minds. But where
Are now those trim deceits? to what dark sphere
Are all those false fires sunk, which once so shin'd,
They captivated souls, and rul'd mankind?
He that with fifty ploughs his lands did sow,
Will scarce be trusted for two oxen now;
His rich, loud coach, known to each crowded street,
Is sold, and he quite tir'd walks on his feet.
Merchants that--like the sun--their voyage made
From East to West, and by wholesale did trade,
Are now turn'd sculler-men, or sadly sweat
In a poor fisher's boat, with line and net.
Kingdoms and cities to a period tend;
Earth nothing hath, but what must have an end;
Mankind by plagues, distempers, dearth and war,
Tortures and prisons, die both near and far;
Fury and hate rage in each living breast,
Princes with princes, States with States contest;
An universal discord mads each land,
Peace is quite lost, the last times are at hand.
But were these days from the Last Day secure,
So that the world might for more years endure,
Yet we--like hirelings--should our term expect,
And on our day of death each day reflect.
For what--Therasia--doth it us avail
That spacious streams shall flow and never fail,
That aged forests hie to tire the winds,
And flow'rs each Spring return and keep their kinds!
Those still remain: but all our fathers died,
And we ourselves but for few days abide.
This short time then was not giv'n us in vain,
To whom Time dies, in which we dying gain,
But that in time eternal life should be
Our care, and endless rest our industry.
And yet this task, which the rebellious deem
Too harsh, who God's mild laws for chains esteem,
Suits with the meek and harmless heart so right
That 'tis all ease, all comfort and delight.
"To love our God with all our strength and will;
To covet nothing; to devise no ill
Against our neighbours; to procure or do
Nothing to others, which we would not to
Our very selves; not to revenge our wrong;
To be content with little, not to long
For wealth and greatness; to despise or jeer
No man, and if we be despised, to bear;
To feed the hungry; to hold fast our crown;
To take from others naught; to give our own,"
--These are His precepts: and--alas!--in these
What is so hard, but faith can do with ease?
He that the holy prophets doth believe,
And on God's words relies, words that still live
And cannot die; that in his heart hath writ
His Saviour's death and triumph, and doth yet
With constant care, admitting no neglect,
His second, dreadful coming still expect:
To such a liver earthy things are dead,
With Heav'n alone, and hopes of Heav'n, he's fed,
He is no vassal unto worldly trash,
Nor that black knowledge which pretends to wash,
But doth defile: a knowledge, by which men
With studied care lose Paradise again.
Commands and titles, the vain world's device,
With gold--the forward seed of sin and vice--
He never minds: his aim is far more high,
And stoops to nothing lower than the sky.
Nor grief, nor pleasures breed him any pain,
He nothing fears to lose, would nothing gain,
Whatever hath not God, he doth detest,
He lives to Christ, is dead to all the rest.
This Holy One sent hither from above
A virgin brought forth, shadow'd by the Dove;
His skin with stripes, with wicked hands His face
And with foul spittle soil'd and beaten was;
A crown of thorns His blessed head did wound.
Nails pierc'd His hands and feet, and He fast bound
Stuck to the painful Cross, where hang'd till dead,
With a cold spear His heart's dear blood was shed.
All this for man, for bad, ungrateful man,
The true God suffer'd! not that suff'rings can
Add to His glory aught, Who can receive
Access from nothing, Whom none can bereave
Of His all-fulness: but the blest design
Of His sad death was to save me from mine:
He dying bore my sins, and the third day
His early rising rais'd me from the clay.
To such great mercies what shall I prefer,
Or who from loving God shall me deter?
Burn me alive, with curious, skilful pain,
Cut up and search each warm and breathing vein;
When all is done, death brings a quick release,
And the poor mangled body sleeps in peace.
Hale me to prisons, shut me up in brass,
My still free soul from thence to God shall pass.
Banish or bind me, I can be nowhere
A stranger, nor alone; my God is there.
I fear not famine; how can he be said
To starve who feeds upon the Living Bread?
And yet this courage springs not from my store,
Christ gave it me, Who can give much, much more
I of myself can nothing dare or do,
He bids me fight, and makes me conquer too.
If--like great Abr'ham--I should have command
To leave my father's house and native land,
I would with joy to unknown regions run,
Bearing the banner of His blessed Son.
On worldly goods I will have no design,
But use my own, as if mine were not mine;
Wealth I'll not wonder at, nor greatness seek,
But choose--though laugh'd at--to be poor and meek.
In woe and wealth I'll keep the same staid mind,
Grief shall not break me, nor joys make me blind:
My dearest Jesus I'll still praise, and He
Shall with songs of deliv'rance compass me.
Then come, my faithful consort! join with me
In this good fight, and my true helper be;
Cheer me when sad, advise me when I stray,
Let us be each the other's guide and stay;
Be your lord's guardian: give joint aid and due,
Help him when fall'n, rise, when he helpeth you,
That so we may not only one flesh be,
But in one spirit and one will agree.
FOOTNOTES:
[69] The original has _gry_.
From _Hermetical Physic_: translated from Henry Nollius (1655).
1. [HORACE. EPIST. I. 1, 14-5.]
Where'er my fancy calls, there I go still,
Not sworn a slave to any master's will.
2. [INCERTI.]
There's need, betwixt his clothes, his bed and board,
Of all that Earth and Sea and Air afford.
3. [INCERTI.]
With restless cares they waste the night and day,
To compass great estates, and get the sway.
4. [JUVENAL. SATIRE XV. 160-164.]
Whenever did, I pray,
One lion take another's life away?
Or in what forest did a wild boar by
The tusks of his own fellow wounded die?
Tigers with tigers never have debate;
And bears among themselves abstain from hate
5. [JUVENAL. SATIRE XV. 169-171.]
[Some] esteem it no point of revenge to kill,
Unless they may drink up the blood they spill:
Who do believe that hands, and hearts, and heads,
Are but a kind of meat, etc.
6. [INCERTI.]
The strongest body and the best
Cannot subsist without due rest.
From Thomas Powell's _Cerbyd Fechydwiaeth_ (1657).
1. [THE LORD'S PRAYER.]
Y Pader, pan trier, Duw-tri a'i dododd
O'i dadol ddaioni,
Yn faen-gwaddan i bob gweddi,
Ac athrawieth a wnaeth i ni.
Ol[or] Vaughan.
From Thomas Powell's _Humane Industry_ (1661).
1. [CAMPION. EPIGR. I. 151.]
Time's-Teller wrought into a little round,
Which count'st the days and nights with watchful sound;
How--when once fix'd--with busy wheels dost thou
The twice twelve useful hours drive on and show;
And where I go, go'st with me without strife,
The monitor and ease of fleeting life.
2. [GROTIUS. LIB. EPIGR. II.]
The untired strength of never-ceasing motion,
A restless rest, a toilless operation,
Heaven then had given it, when wise Nature did
To frail and solid things one place forbid;
And parting both, made the moon's orb their bound,
Damning to various change this lower ground.
But now what Nature hath those laws transgress'd,
Giving to Earth a work that ne'er will rest?
Though 'tis most strange, yet--great King--'tis not new:
This work was seen and found before, in you.
In you, whose mind--though still calm--never sleeps,
But through your realms one constant motion keeps:
As your mind--then--was Heaven's type first, so this
But the taught anti-type of your mind is.
3. [JUVENAL. SATIRE III.]
How oft have we beheld wild beasts appear
From broken gulfs of earth, upon some part
Of sand that did not sink! How often there
And thence, did golden boughs o'er-saffron'd start!
Nor only saw we monsters of the wood,
But I have seen sea-calves whom bears withstood;
And such a kind of beast as might be named
A horse, but in most foul proportion framed.
4. [MARTIAL. EPIGR. I. 105.]
That the fierce pard doth at a beck
Yield to the yoke his spotted neck,
And the untoward tiger bear
The whip with a submissive fear;
That stags do foam with golden bits.
And the rough Libyc bear submits
Unto the ring; that a wild boar
Like that which Calydon of yore
Brought forth, doth mildly put his head
In purple muzzles to be led;
That the vast, strong-limb'd buffles draw
The British chariots with taught awe,
And the elephant with courtship falls
To any dance the negro calls:
Would not you think such sports as those
Were shows which the gods did expose?
But these are nothing, when we see
That hares by lions hunted be, etc.
NOTES TO VOL. II.
POEMS WITH THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL ENGLISHED.
Most of the poems in this volume of 1646 appear to belong to Vaughan's
sojourn as a law-student in London: that, however, on the Priory Grove
must have been written after he had retired to Wales on the outbreak of
the Civil War.
P. 5. To my Ingenious Friend, R. W.
It is probable that this is the R. W. of the Elegy in _Olor Iscanus_ (p.
79). On the attempts to identify him, see the note to that poem. The
_Poems_ of 1646 must have been published while his fate was still
unknown.
_Pints i' th' Moon or Star._ These are names of rooms, rather than of
inns. _Cf._ Shakespeare, 1 _Henry IV._, ii. 4, 30, "Anon, anon, sir!
Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon."
P. 6. _Randolph._
The works of Randolph here referred to are his comedy _The Jealous
Lovers_, his pastoral _Amyntas; or, The Impossible Dowry_, and the
following verses _On the Death of a Nightingale_:--
"Go, solitary wood, and henceforth be
Acquainted with no other harmony
Than the pie's chattering, or the shrieking note
Of boding owls, and fatal raven's throat.
Thy sweetest chanter's dead, that warbled forth
Lays that might tempests calm, and still the north,
And call down angels from their glorious sphere,
To hear her songs, and learn new anthems there.
That soul is fled, and to Elysium gone,
Thou a poor desert left; go then and run.
Beg there to want a grove, and if she please
To sing again beneath thy shadowy trees,
The souls of happy lovers crowned with blisses
Shall flock about thee, and keep time with kisses."
P. 8. Les Amours.
Lines 22-24 are misprinted in the original; they there run:--
"O'er all the tomb a sudden spring:
If crimson flowers, whose drooping heads
Shall curtain o'er their mournful heads:"
P. 10. To Amoret.
The Amoret of these _Poems_ may or may not be the Etesia of _Thalia
Rediviva_; and she may or may not have been the poet's first wife. _Cf._
_Introduction_ (vol. i, p. xxxiii).
_To her white bosom._ _Cf._ _Hamlet_, ii. 2, 113, where Hamlet addresses
a letter to Ophelia, "in her excellent white bosom, these."
P. 12. Song.
The MS. variant readings to this and to two of the following poems are
written in pencil on a copy of the _Poems_ in the British Museum, having
the press-mark 12304, a 24. There is no indication of their author, or
of the source from which they are taken.
P. 13. To Amoret.
_The vast ring._ _Cf._ _Silex Scintillans_ (vol. i., pp. 150, 284).
P. 18. _A Rhapsodis._
_The Globe Tavern._ This appears to have been near, or even a part of,
the famous theatre. There exists a forged letter of George Peele's, in
which it is mentioned as a resort of Shakespeare's, but there is no
authentic allusion to it by name earlier than an entry in the registers
of St. Saviour's, Southwark, for 1637. An "alehouse" is, however,
alluded to in a ballad on the burning of the old Globe in 1613. (Rendle
and Norman, _Inns of Old Southwark_, p. 326.)
_Tower-Wharf to Cymbeline and Lud_; that is, from the extreme east to
the extreme west of the City. Statues of the mythical kings of Britain
were set up in 1260 in niches on Ludgate. They were renewed when the
gate was rebuilt in 1586. It stood near the Church of St. Martin's,
Ludgate.
_That made his horse a senator_; _i.e._ Caligula. _Cf._ Suetonius Vit.
Caligulae, 55: "_Incitato equo, cuius causa pridie circenses, ne
inquietaretur, viciniae silentium per milites indicere solebat, praeter
equile marmoreum et praesepe eburneum praeterque purpurea tegumenta ac
monilia e gemmis, domum etiam et familiam et suppellectilem dedit, quo
lautius nomine eius invitati acciperentur; consulatum quoque traditur
destinasse._"
_he that ... crossed Rubicon_, _i.e._ Julius Caesar.
P. 21. To Amoret.
The third stanza is closely modelled on Donne; _cf._ Introduction (vol.
i., p. xxi). The curious reader may detect many other traces of Donne's
manner of writing in these _Poems_ of 1646.
P. 23. To Amoret Weeping.
_Eat orphans ... patent it._ The ambition of a courtier under the
Stuarts was to get the guardianship of a royal ward, or the grant of a
monopoly in some article of necessity. Dr. Grosart quotes from Tustin's
_Observations; or, Conscience Emblem_ (1646): "By me, John Tustin, who
hath been plundered and spoiled by the patentees for white and grey
soap, eighteen several times, to his utter undoing."
P. 26. Upon the Priory Grove, his usual Retirement.
Mr. Beeching, in the _Introduction_ (vol. i., p. xxiii), states
following Dr. Grosart, that the Priory Grove was "the home of a famous
poetess of the day, Katherine Phillips, better known as 'the Matchless
Orinda.'" Vaughan was certainly a friend of Mrs. Phillips (_cf._ pp.
100, 164, 211, with notes), whose husband, Colonel James Phillips, lived
at the Priory, Cardigan; but she was not married until 1647.
Miss Morgan points out that there is still a wood on the outskirts of
Brecon which is known as the Priory Grove. It is near the church and
remains of a Benedictine Priory on the Honddu.
P. 28. Juvenal's Tenth Satire Translated.
This translation has a separate title-page; _cf._ the _Bibliography_
(vol. ii., p. lvii).
OLOR ISCANUS.
This volume, published in 1651, contains, besides the poems here
reprinted, some prose translations from Plutarch and other writers. The
separate title-pages of these are given in the _Bibliography_ (vol. ii.,
p. lviii): the incidental scraps of verse in them appear on pp. 291-293
of the present volume. The edition of 1651 has, besides the printed
title-page, an engraved title-page by the well-known engraver, who may
or may not have been a kinsman of the poet, Robert Vaughan. It
represents a swan on a river shaded by trees. The _Olor Iscanus_ was
reissued with a fresh title-page in 1679.
P. 52. Ad Posteros.
On the account of Vaughan's life here given, see the _Biographical note_
(vol. ii., p. xxx).
_Herbertus._ Matthew Herbert, Rector of Llangattock. Cf. the poem to him
on p. 158, with its note.
_Castae fidaeque ... parentis_, _i.e._, perhaps, his mother the Church.
_Nec manus atra fuit._ Dr. Grosart omitted the _fuit_, together with the
final _s_ of the preceding line. In this he is naively followed by Mr.
J. R. Tutin, in his selection of Vaughan's _Secular Poems_.
P. 53. To the ... Lord Kildare Digby.
Lord Kildare Digby was the eldest son of Robert, first Baron Digby, in
the peerage of Ireland. He succeeded to the title in 1642. He was about
21 at the time of this dedication, and died in 1661 (Dr. Grosart)
The date of the dedication is 17th of December, 1647. A volume was
therefore probably prepared for publication at that date, and
afterwards, as we learn from the publisher's preface, "condemned to
obscurity," and given surreptitiously to the world. At the same time, as
Miss Morgan points out to me, some of the poems in _Olor Iscanus_ must
be of later date than 1647. The death of Charles I. is apparently
alluded to in the lines _Ad Posteros_, and certainly in the "since
Charles his reign" of the _Invitation to Brecknock_ (p. 74). This event
took place on January 30th, 1648/9. The _Epitaph upon the Lady
Elizabeth_ (p. 102), again, cannot be earlier than her death on
September 8th, 1650.
P. 54. The Publisher to the Reader.
_Augustus vindex._ The lives of Vergil attributed to Donatus and others
relate that the poet, in his will, directed that his unfinished _Aeneid_
should be burnt. Augustus, however, interfered and ordered its
publication.
P. 57. Commendatory Verses.
These are signed by _T. Powell, Oxoniensis_; _I. Rowlandson,
Oxoniensis_; and _Eugenius Philalethes, Oxoniensis_. Thomas Powell, one
of the Powells of Cantreff, in Breconshire, was born in 1608. He
matriculated from Jesus College on January 25th, 1627/8, took his B.A.
in 1629 and his M.A. in 1632, and became a Fellow of the College. He was
Rector of Cantreff and Vicar of Brecknock, but was ejected by the
Commissioners for the Propagation of the Gospel and went abroad. At the
Restoration he returned to Cantreff and was made D.D. and Canon of St.
David's. But for his death, on the 31st December, 1660, he would
probably have become Bishop of Bristol. He was the author of several
books of no great importance. He appears to have been a close friend of
Vaughan, who addresses various poems to him, and contributed others to
his books. See _Olor Iscanus_, pp. 97, 159; _Thalia Rediviva_, pp. 178,
200, 267; _Fragments and Translations_, pp. 323-326. Powell, in return,
wrote commendatory poems to both the _Olor Iscanus_ and the _Thalia
Rediviva_.
_I. Rowlandson._ This may have been John Rowlandson, of Queen's College,
Oxford, who matriculated the 17th October, 1634, aged 17, took his B.A.
in 1636, and his M.A. in 1639. Either he or his father, James
Rowlandson, also of Queen's College, was sequestered by the Westminster
Assembly to the vicarage of Battle, Sussex, in 1644. He left it shortly
after and "returned to his benefice from whence he was before thence
driven by the forces raised against the parliament." (_See_ Addl. MS.
15,669, f. 17). There was also another James Rowlandson, son of James
Rowlandson, D.D., Canon of Windsor, who matriculated from Queen's
College on the 9th November, 1632, aged 17, and took his B.A. in
1637.--G. G.
_Eugenius Philalethes._ The author's brother, Thomas Vaughan. See the
_Biographical Note_ (vol. ii., p. xxxiii).
P. 39. _that lamentable nation_, _i.e._ the Scotch.
P. 61. Olor Iscanus.
_Ausonius._ The famous schoolmaster, rhetorician and courtier of the
early fourth century, was born at Bordeaux. One of his most famous poems
is the _Mosella_ (Idyll X), a description of the river and its fish.
_Castara_, Lucy, daughter of William Herbert, Lord Powys, and wife of
the Worcestershire poet, William Habington, who celebrated her in his
poems under that name. The _Castara_ was published in 1634.
_Sabrina_, the tutelar nymph of the Severn. _Cf._ the invocation of her
in Milton's "Comus."
_May the evet and the toad._ This passage is imitated from W. Browne's
_Britannia's Pastorals_, Bk. I., Song 2, II., 277 _sqq._:
"May never evet nor the toad
Within thy banks make their abode!
Taking thy journey from the sea,
May'st thou ne'er happen in thy way
On nitre or on brimstone mine,
To spoil thy taste! this spring of thine
Let it of nothing taste but earth,
And salt conceived, in their birth
Be ever fresh! Let no man dare
To spoil thy fish, make lock or ware;
But on thy margent still let dwell
Those flowers which have the sweetest smell.
And let the dust upon thy strand
Become like Tagus' golden sand.
Let as much good betide to thee,
As thou hast favour show'd to me."
G. G.
_flames that are ... canicular. Cf. A Dialogue between Sir Henry Wotton
and Mr. Donne_ (Poems of John Donne, _Muse's Library_, Vol. I., p. 79):
"I'll never dig in quarry of a heart
To have no part,
Nor roast in fiery eyes, which always are
Canicular."
P. 65. The Charnel-house.
_Kelder_, a caldron; cf. J. Cleveland, _The King's Disguise_:
"The sun wears midnight; day is beetle-brow'd,
And lightning is in kelder of a cloud."
_A second fiat's care._ The allusion is to _Genesis_ i. 3: "And God
said, Let there be light (in the Vulgate, _Fiat lux_), and there was
light"; _cf._ Donne, _The Storm_ (_Muses' Library_, II. 4):
"Since all forms uniform deformity
Doth cover; so that we, except God say
Another _Fiat_, shall have no more day."
P. 70. To his Friend ----.
Miss Morgan thinks that the "friend" of this poem, whose name is shown
by the first line to have been James, may perhaps be identified with the
James Howell of the _Epistolae Ho-Elianae_. Howell had Vaughans amongst
his cousins and correspondents, but these appear to have been of the
Golden Grove family.
P. 73. To his retired Friend--an Invitation to Brecknock.
_her foul, polluted walls._ Miss Morgan quotes a statement from Grose's
_Antiquities_ to the effect that the walls of Brecknock were pulled down
by the inhabitants during the Civil War in order to avoid having to
support a garrison or stand a siege.
_the Greek_, _i.e._ Hercules when in love with Omphale.
_Domitian-like_: _Cf._ Suetonius, _Vita Domitiani_, 3: "_Inter initia
principatus cotidie secretum sibi horarum sumere solebat, nec quicquam
amplius quam muscas captare ac stilo praeacuto configere._"
_Since Charles his reign._ This poem must date from after the execution
of Charles I., on January 30, 1648/9. It would appear therefore that
Vaughan was living in Brecknock and not at Newton about the time that
the _Olor Iscanus_ was published.
P. 77. Monsieur Gombauld.
The writer referred to is John Ogier de Gombauld (1567-1666). His prose
tale of _Endymion_ was translated by Richard Hurst in 1637. _Ismena_ and
_Diophania_ who was metamorphosed into a myrtle, are characters in the
story. _Periardes_ is a hill in Armenia whence the Euphrates takes its
course.
P. 79. An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. W., slain in the late unfortunate
differences at Routon Heath, near Chester.