Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist Part 37

5. [JUVENAL. SATIRE XV. 169-171.]

[Some] esteem it no point of revenge to kill, Unless they may drink up the blood they spill: Who do believe that hands, and hearts, and heads, Are but a kind of meat, etc.

6. [INCERTI.]

The strongest body and the best Cannot subsist without due rest.

From Thomas Powell's _Cerbyd Fechydwiaeth_ (1657).

1. [THE LORD'S PRAYER.]

Y Pader, pan trier, Duw-tri a'i dododd O'i dadol ddaioni, Yn faen-gwaddan i bob gweddi, Ac athrawieth a wnaeth i ni.

Ol[or] Vaughan.

From Thomas Powell's _Humane Industry_ (1661).

1. [CAMPION. EPIGR. I. 151.]

Time's-Teller wrought into a little round, Which count'st the days and nights with watchful sound; How--when once fix'd--with busy wheels dost thou The twice twelve useful hours drive on and show; And where I go, go'st with me without strife, The monitor and ease of fleeting life.

2. [GROTIUS. LIB. EPIGR. II.]

The untired strength of never-ceasing motion, A restless rest, a toilless operation, Heaven then had given it, when wise Nature did To frail and solid things one place forbid; And parting both, made the moon's...o...b..their bound, d.a.m.ning to various change this lower ground.

But now what Nature hath those laws transgress'd, Giving to Earth a work that ne'er will rest?

Though 'tis most strange, yet--great King--'tis not new: This work was seen and found before, in you.

In you, whose mind--though still calm--never sleeps, But through your realms one constant motion keeps: As your mind--then--was Heaven's type first, so this But the taught anti-type of your mind is.

3. [JUVENAL. SATIRE III.]

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 courts.h.i.+p falls To any dance the negro calls: Would not you think such sports as those Were shows which the G.o.ds 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 Isca.n.u.s_ (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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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:"

P. 10. To Amoret.