Whose wealth's their flock, whose wit to be
Well read in their simplicity.

Yet when young April's husband show'rs
Shall bless the fruitful Maia's bed,
We'll bring the first-born of her flow'rs,

To kiss Thy feet, and crown Thy head:

To Thee, dread Lamb, Whose love must keep
The shepherds more than they the sheep.

To Thee, meek Majesty, soft King

Of simple graces and sweet loves,

Each his pair of silver doves:

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Each of us his lamb will bring,

Till burnt at last, in fire of Thy fair eyes,
Ourselves become our own best sacrifice!

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Before 1643.

1646.

THE FLAMING HEART

UPON THE BOOK AND PICTURE OF THE SERAPHICAL SAINT TERESA, AS
SHE IS USUALLY EXPRESSED WITH A SERAPHIM BESIDE HER

Well-meaning readers, you that come as friends
And catch the precious name this piece pretends,

Make not too much haste to admire

That fair-cheeked fallacy of fire.
That is a seraphim, they say,
And this the great Teresia.

Readers, be ruled by me, and make
Here a well-placed and wise mistake:
You must transpose the picture quite,
And spell it wrong to read it right;
Read him for her, and her for him,
And call the saint the seraphim.

Painter, what didst thou understand

To put her dart into his hand?

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See, even the years and size of him

Shows this the mother seraphim.

This is the mistress flame; and, duteous, he

Her happy fireworks, here, comes down to see.

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O, most poor-spirited of men!

Had thy cold pencil kissed her pen,
Thou couldst not so unkindly err

To show us this faint shade for her.

20

Why, man, this speaks pure mortal frame,

And mocks with female frost love's manly flame:

One wouldst suspect thou meantst to print
Some weak, inferior woman saint.

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But had thy pale-faced purple took

Fire from the burning cheeks of that bright book,
Thou wouldst on her have heaped up all

Since his the blushes be and hers the fires:

Fair youth, shoots both thy shaft and thee.

Say, all ye wise and well-pierced hearts

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That live and die amidst her darts,

What is 't your tasteful spirits do prove
In that rare life of her and love?

Say and bear witness: sends she not

A seraphim at every shot?

What magazines of immortal arms there shine!
Heav'n's great artillery in each love-spun line.
Give, then, the dart to her who gives the flame;
Give him the veil who gives the shame.

But if it be the frequent fate

Of worst faults to be fortunate;

If all's prescription, and proud wrong
Hearkens not to an humble song;

For all the gallantry of him,

Give me the suff'ring seraphim.

His be the bravery of all those bright things,

The glowing cheeks, the glistering wings,
The rosy hand, the radiant dart;

Leave her alone the flaming heart.

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Leave her that, and thou shalt leave her,

Not one loose shaft, but Love's whole quiver,

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For in Love's field was never found

A nobler weapon than a wound.

Love's passives are his activ'st part;
The wounded is the wounding heart.

O, heart! the equal poise of Love's both parts,
Big alike with wound and darts,

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Live in these conquering leaves! live all the same,
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame!
Live here, great heart, and love, and die, and kill,

And bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer still!
Let this immortal life, where'er it comes,
Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms;

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Let mystic deaths wait on 't, and wise souls be

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The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.
O, sweet incendiary! show here thy art,
Upon this carcass of a hard, cold heart;
Let all thy scattered shafts of light, that play
Among the leaves of thy large books of day,
Combined against this breast, at once break in
And take away from me myself and sin!
This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be,
And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me.
O, thou undaunted daughter of desires!

By all thy dow'r of lights and fires,

By all the eagle in thee, all the dove,

By all thy lives and deaths of love,

By thy large draughts of intellectual day,

And by thy thirsts of love more large than they,

By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire,

By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire,

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By the full kingdom of that final kiss

That seized thy parting soul and sealed thee his.
By all the heav'ns thou hast in him,

Fair sister of the seraphim,

By all of him we have in thee,

Leave nothing of myself in me!
Let me so read thy life that I
Unto all life of mine may die!

Before 1643.

1646.

HENRY VAUGHAN

THE RETREAT

Happy those early days, when I
Shined in my angel infancy;
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white celestial thought;
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first Love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of His bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flow'r
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy

Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispence

A sev'ral sin to ev'ry sense,

But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.

O, how I long to travel back,

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20

And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain
Where first I left my glorious train,
From whence th' enlightened spirit sees
That shady City of Palm Trees;

25

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 moved, in which the World

And all her train were hurled.

The doating lover in his quaintest strain

Did there complain;

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