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Henry Vaughan Quotes

1621–1695 Wales

Henry Vaughan (17 April 1621 – 23 April 1695) was a Welsh Metaphysical poet and a doctor, the twin brother of the philosopher Thomas Vaughan.

Wales
Physicians
Poets
Translators

Also known as: Vaughan, Henry

Random Henry Vaughan quote

27 quotes

Quickly would I make my path even,
And by mere playing go to heaven.

Silex Scintillans (1655)

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.

Silex Scintillans (1655)

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!

Silex Scintillans (1655)

An age of mysteries! which he
Must live that would God's face see
Which angels guard, and with it play,
Angels! which foul men drive away.

Silex Scintillans (1655)

Those observations are but foul,
Which make me wise to lose my soul.

Silex Scintillans (1655)

Tempests and windes and winter-nights
Vex not, that but One sees thee grow,
That One made all these lesser lights.

Silex Scintillans (1655)

I cannot reach it, and my striving eye
Dazzles at it, as at eternity.

Silex Scintillans (1655)

The sun doth shake
Light from his locks, and, all the way
Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven.

Silex Scintillans (1655)

Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move.

Silex Scintillans (1655)

As men are killed by fighting, the truth is lost in disputing.

Preface to Hermetical Physick of Henry Nollus (1655)

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

Why should I not love childhood still?

Silex Scintillans (1655)

Thou can'st not die. Here thou art more than safe
Where every book is thy epitaph.

Sir Thomas Bodley's Library: Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

Despatch necessities; life hath a load
Which must be carried on — and safely may;
Yet keep these cares without thee; let the heart
Be God's alone; and choose the better part.

Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just!
Shining nowhere but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!

Silex Scintillans (1655)

When I behold thee, though my light be dim,
Distant, and low, I can in thine see Him
Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne,
And mindes the covenant 'twixt all and One.

Silex Scintillans (1655)

Still young and fine! but what is still in view
We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new.

Silex Scintillans (1655)

They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit lingering here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.

Silex Scintillans (1655)

There is in God — some say —
A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that Night! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim!

Silex Scintillans (1655)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Henry Vaughan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.