Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume IIVaughan, Henry
General
Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II
Vaughan, Henry
Poetry
How oft have we beheld wild beasts appear
From broken gulfs of earth, upon some part
Of sand that did not sink! How often there
And thence, did golden boughs o'er-saffron'd start!
Nor only saw we monsters of the wood,
But I have seen sea-calves whom bears withstood;
And such a kind of beast as might be named
A horse, but in most foul proportion framed.
4. [MARTIAL. EPIGR. I. 105.]
That the fierce pard doth at a beck
Yield to the yoke his spotted neck,
And the untoward tiger bear
The whip with a submissive fear;
That stags do foam with golden bits.
And the rough Libyc bear submits
Unto the ring; that a wild boar
Like that which Calydon of yore
Brought forth, doth mildly put his head
In purple muzzles to be led;
That the vast, strong-limb'd buffles draw
The British chariots with taught awe,
And the elephant with courtship falls
To any dance the negro calls:
Would not you think such sports as those
Were shows which the gods did expose?
But these are nothing, when we see
That hares by lions hunted be, etc.
NOTES TO VOL. II.
POEMS WITH THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL ENGLISHED.
Most of the poems in this volume of 1646 appear to belong to Vaughan's
sojourn as a law-student in London: that, however, on the Priory Grove
must have been written after he had retired to Wales on the outbreak of
the Civil War.
P. 5. To my Ingenious Friend, R. W.
It is probable that this is the R. W. of the Elegy in _Olor Iscanus_ (p.
79). On the attempts to identify him, see the note to that poem. The
_Poems_ of 1646 must have been published while his fate was still
unknown.
_Pints i' th' Moon or Star._ These are names of rooms, rather than of
inns. _Cf._ Shakespeare, 1 _Henry IV._, ii. 4, 30, "Anon, anon, sir!
Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon."
P. 6. _Randolph._
The works of Randolph here referred to are his comedy _The Jealous
Lovers_, his pastoral _Amyntas; or, The Impossible Dowry_, and the
following verses _On the Death of a Nightingale_:--
"Go, solitary wood, and henceforth be
Acquainted with no other harmony
Than the pie's chattering, or the shrieking note
Of boding owls, and fatal raven's throat.
Thy sweetest chanter's dead, that warbled forth
Lays that might tempests calm, and still the north,
And call down angels from their glorious sphere,
To hear her songs, and learn new anthems there.
That soul is fled, and to Elysium gone,
Thou a poor desert left; go then and run.
Beg there to want a grove, and if she please
To sing again beneath thy shadowy trees,
The souls of happy lovers crowned with blisses
Shall flock about thee, and keep time with kisses."
P. 8. Les Amours.
Lines 22-24 are misprinted in the original; they there run:--
"O'er all the tomb a sudden spring:
If crimson flowers, whose drooping heads
Shall curtain o'er their mournful heads:"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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