Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FAIR AND YOUNG LIGHT! MY GUIDE TO HOLY, by HENRY VAUGHAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FAIR AND YOUNG LIGHT! MY GUIDE TO HOLY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
Last Line: This world but laughs at those who weep
Alternate Author Name(s): Silurist
Subject(s): Love


Fair and young light! my guide to holy
Grief and soul-curing melancholy;
Whom living here I did still shun
As sullen night-ravens do the sun,
And led by my own foolish fire,
Wander'd through darkness, dens, and mire.

How am I now in love withal
That I term'd then mere bonds and thrall,
And to Thy name ''" which still I keep ''"
Like the surviving turtle, weep!
O bitter curs'd delights of men!
Our souls' diseases first, and then

Our bodies'; poisons that intreat
With fatal sweetness, till we eat;
How artfully do you destroy,
That kill with smiles and seeming joy!
If all the subtilties of vice
Stood bare before unpractic'd eyes,

And every act she doth commence
Had writ down its sad consequence,
Yet would not men grant their ill fate
Lodged in those false looks, till too late.
O holy, happy, healthy heaven,
Where all is pure, where all is even,

Plain, harmless, faithful, fair, and bright,
But what Earth breathes against thy light!
How blest had men been, had their sire
Liv'd still in league with thy chaste fire;
Nor made life through her long descents
A slave to lustful elements!

I did once read in an old book,
Soil'd with many a weeping look,
"That the seeds of foul sorrows be
The finest things that are, to see."
So that fam'd fruit, which made all die,
Seem'd fair unto the woman's eye.
If these supplanters in the shade
Of Paradise could make man fade.

How in this world should they deter
This world, their fellow-murderer!
And why then grieve we to be sent
Home by our first fair punishment,
Without addition to our woes
And ling'ring wounds from weaker foes,

Since that doth quickly freedom win,
"For he that's dead is fled from sin"?
O that I were winged and free,
And quite undress'd just now with thee,
Where freed souls dwell by living fountains
On everlasting, spicy mountains!
Alas! my God! take home Thy sheep;
This world but laughs at those that weep.





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