The World
Henry Vaughan

I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv’n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world
And all her train were hurl’d.
The doting lover in his quaintest strain
Did there complain;
Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights
Wit’s sour delights;
With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure,
Yet his dear treasure,
All scatter’d lay, while he his eyes did pour
Upon a flow’r.

The darksome statesman, hung with weights and woe,
Like a thick midnight-fog, mov’d there so slow,
He did nor stay, nor go;
Condeming thoughts - like sad eclipses - scowl
Upon his soul,
And clouds of crying witnesses withough
Pursued him with one shout.
Yet digg’d the mole, and lest his way be found,
Work’d under ground,
Where he did clutch his prey; but one did see
That policy:
Churches and altars fed him; perjuries
Were gnats and flies;
It rain’d about him blood and tears, but he
Drank them as free.

The fearful miser on a heap of rust
Sate pining all his life there, did scare trust
His own hands with the dust,
Yet would not place one piece above, but lives
In fear of thieves.
Thousands there were as frantic as himself
And hugg’d each one his pelf;
The downright epicure plac’d heav’n in sense,
And scorn’d pretence;
While others, slipp’d into a wide excess,
Said little less;
The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave,
Who think them bravr;
And poor, despised Truth sate counting by
Their victory.

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing, and weep, soar’d up into the ring;
But most would use no wing.
O fools – said I – thus to prefer dark night
Before true light!
To live in grots and caves, and hate the day
Because it shows the way;
The way, which from this dead and dark abode
Leads up to God;
A way where you might tread the sun, and be
More bright than he!
But as I did their madness so discuss,
One whisper’d thus,
“This ring the Bridegroom did for none provide,
But for His bride.”

Victoria --> I found this poem in a particularly interesting anthology. This is one of the only poems that actually stirred feeling within me, and I read it more than 2 times the time I found it. I really enjoyed the imagery used by Vaughan here.