Henry Vaughan Men Quotations

Death, and darkness get you packing, Nothing now to man is lacking, All your triumphs now are ended, And what Adam marred, is mended.

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!

Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span Where weeping Virtue parts with man; Where love without lust dwells, and bends What way we please without self-ends. 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.

Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move, And when this dust falls to the urn In that state I came, return.

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

Man hath still either toys or care: But hath no root, nor to one place is tied, but ever restless and irregular, about this earth doth run and ride. He knows he hath a home, but scarce knows where; He says it is so far, that he has quite forgot how to go there.

Man is the shuttle, to whose winding quest And passage through these looms God ordered motion, but ordained no rest.

For each inclosed spirit is a star Enlightening his own little sphere

Bright shadows of true rest! some shoots of bliss; Heaven once a week; The next world's gladness prepossest in this; A day to seek; Eternity in time; the steps by which We climb above all ages: lamps that light Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich And full redemption of the whole week's flight.

Mornings are mysteries; the first world's youth, Man's resurrection, and the future's bud Shroud in their births.

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!