The Thursday Poem

Young Woman Reading by a Window - Delphin Enjolras


From The Night

Through the pure Virgin-shrine,
That sacred veil drawn o'er thy glorious noon
That men might look and live as Glow-worms shine,
And face the Moon:
Wise Nocodemus saw such light
As made him know his God by night.

Were all my loud, evil days
Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark Tent,
Whose peace but by some Angels wing or voice
Is seldom rent;
Then I in Heaven all the long year
Would keep, and never wander here.

But living where the Sun
Doth all lthings wake, and where all mix and tyre
Themselves and others, I consent and run
To ev'ry myre,
And by this world's ill-guiding light,
Err more then I can do by night.

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.

Henry Vaughan
(17th April 1622 - 23rd April 1695)

from the book: Poem for the Day One