THE DWELLING-PLACE
by Henry Vaughan

      What happy, secret fountain,
      Fair shade or mountain,
Whose undiscovered virgin glory
Boasts it this day, though not in story,
Was then thy dwelling ?  Did some cloud,
Fixed to a tent, descend and shroud
My distressed Lord ?   Or did a star
Beckoned by thee, though high and far,
In sparkling smiles haste gladly down
To lodge light, and increase her own ?
My dear, dear God !   I do not know
What lodged thee then, nor where, nor how ;
But I am sure, thou dost now come
Oft to a narrow, homely room,
Where thou too hast, but the least part,
My God, I mean my sinful heart.



A Treasury of Seventeenth-Century English Verse. H. J. Massingham, Ed.
London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1931. 224-225.



Backto Works of Henry Vaughan


Site copyright ©1996-2000 Anniina Jokinen. All Rights Reserved.
Created by Anniina Jokinen on July 21, 2000.