Top 38 Quotes & Sayings by Henry Vaughan

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Welsh poet Henry Vaughan.

Last updated on April 15, 2025.

Henry Vaughan was a Welsh metaphysical poet, author and translator writing in English, and a medical physician. His religious poetry appeared in Silex Scintillans in 1650, with a second part in 1655. In 1646 his Poems, with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished was published. Meanwhile he had been persuaded by reading the religious poet George Herbert to renounce "idle verse". The prose Mount of Olives and Solitary Devotions (1652) show his authenticity and depth of convictions. Two more volumes of secular verse followed, ostensibly without his sanction, but it is his religious verse that has been acclaimed. He also translated short moral and religious works and two medical works in prose. In the 1650s he began a lifelong medical practice.

Welsh - Poet | April 17, 1622 - April 28, 1695

Source: Wikipedia

Man hath still either toys or care: But hath no root, nor to one place is tied, but ever restless and irregular, about this earth doth run and ride. He knows he hath a home, but scarce knows where; He says it is so far, that he has quite forgot how to go there.

Henry Vaughan

They are all gone into the world of light, and I alone sit lingering here.

Henry Vaughan

So stick up ivy and the bays, and then restore the heathen ways, green will remind you of the Spring, though this great day denies the thing, and mortifies the earth, and all, but your wild revels, and loose hall.

Henry Vaughan

Caesar had perished from the world of men, had not his sword been rescued by his pen.

Henry Vaughan

Should poor souls fear a shade or night, Who came sure from a sea of light? Or since those drops are all sent back So sure to thee, that none doth lack, Why should frail flesh doubt any more That what God takes, He'll not restore?

Henry Vaughan

Dear Night! this world's defeat; The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb; The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat Which none disturb! Christ's progress, and His prayer-time; The hours to which high Heaven cloth chime.

Henry Vaughan

Prayer is The world in tune, A spirit-voyce, And vocall joyes, Whose Eccho is heaven's blisse.

Henry Vaughan

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep. So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted dreams, And into glory peep.

Henry Vaughan

The skin and shell of things Though fair are not Thy wish nor prayer but got My meer despair of wings.

Henry Vaughan

Sure thou did'st nourish once! and many springs, Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers, Passed o'er thy head; many light hearts and wings, Which now are dead, lodg'd in thy living bowers. And still a new succession sings and flies; Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot Towards the old and still-enduring skies; While the low violet thrives at their root.

Henry Vaughan

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 flower My gazing soul would dwell an hour And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity.

Henry Vaughan

I played with fire, did counsel spurn, Made life my common stake; But never thought that fire would burn, O that a soul could ache.

Henry Vaughan

Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the just.

Henry Vaughan

For each inclosed spirit is a star Enlightening his own little sphere

Henry Vaughan

But felt through all this fleshly dresse Bright shootes of everlastingnesse.

Henry Vaughan

Man is the shuttle, to whose winding quest And passage through these looms God ordered motion, but ordained no rest.

Henry Vaughan

My soul, there is a country Far beyond the stars Where stands a wingèd sentry All skillful in the wars: There, above noise and danger, Sweet Peace is crowned with smiles, And One born in a manger Commands the beauteous files.

Henry Vaughan

A ward, and still in bonds, one day I stole abroad; It was high spring, and all the way Primrosed and hung with shade; Yet was it frost within, And surly winds Blasted my infant buds, and sin Like clouds eclipsed my mind.

Henry Vaughan

Bright shadows of true rest! some shoots of bliss; Heaven once a week; The next world's gladness prepossest in this; A day to seek; Eternity in time; the steps by which We climb above all ages: lamps that light Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich And full redemption of the whole week's flight.

Henry Vaughan

Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move, And when this dust falls to the urn In that state I came, return.

Henry Vaughan

Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just! Shining nowhere but in the dark; What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, Could man outlook that mark!

Henry Vaughan

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

Early, as well as late, Rise with the sun, and set in the same bowers

Henry Vaughan

Some syllables are swords.

Henry Vaughan

Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven.

Henry Vaughan

I saw Eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm as it was bright.

Henry Vaughan

Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span Where weeping Virtue parts with man; Where love without lust dwells, and bends What way we please without self-ends. An age of mysteries! which he Must live that would God's face see Which angels guard, and with it play, Angels! which foul men drive away.

Henry Vaughan

Still young and fine! but what is still in view We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new.

Henry Vaughan

As men are killed by fighting, the truth is lost in disputing.

Henry Vaughan

When first thy eyes unveil, give thy soul leave To do the like; our bodies but forerun The spirit's duty. True hearts spread and heave Unto their God, as flow'rs do to the sun. Give him thy first thoughts then; so shalt thou keep Him company all day, and in him sleep.

Henry Vaughan

Death, and darkness get you packing, Nothing now to man is lacking, All your triumphs now are ended, And what Adam marred, is mended.

Henry Vaughan

If thou canst but thither, There grows the flower of Peace, The Rose that cannot wither, Thy fortress and thy ease.

Henry Vaughan

As great a store Have we of books as bees of herbs or more.

Henry Vaughan

Affliction is a mother, Whose painful throes yield many sons, Each fairer than the other.

Henry Vaughan

Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie Of thy Lord's hand, the object of His eye! When I behold thee, though my light be dim, Distinct, and low, I can in thine see Him Who looks upon thee from His glorious throne, And minds the covenant between all and One.

Henry Vaughan

Yet never sleep the sun up. Prayer shou'd Dawn with the day. There are set, awful hours 'Twixt heaven and us. The manna was not good After sun-rising; far day sullies flowres. Rise to prevent the sun; sleep doth sin glut, And heaven's gate opens when the world's is shut.

Henry Vaughan

The sun doth shake Light from his locks, and, all the way Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

Henry Vaughan