Silex Scintillans or Sacred Poems and Priuate Eiaculations: By Henry Vaughan |
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| 3. |
| Mans fall, and Recovery. |
 | Silex Scintillans |  |
24
Mans fall, and Recovery.
Farewell you Everlasting hills! I'm CastHere under Clouds, where stormes, and tempests blast
This sully'd flowre
Rob'd of your Calme, nor can I ever make
Transplanted thus, one leafe of his t'awake,
But ev'ry houre
He sleepes, and droops, and in this drowsie state
Leaves me a slave to passions, and my fate;
Besides I've lost
A traine of lights, which in those Sun-shine dayes
Were my sure guides, and only with me stayes
(Unto my cost,)
One sullen beame, whose charge is to dispense
More punishment, than knowledge to my sense;
Two thousand yeares
I sojourn'd thus; at last Jeshuruns king
Those famous tables did from Sinai bring;
These swell'd my feares,
Guilts, trespasses, and all this Inward Awe,
For sinne tooke strength, and vigour from the Law.
Yet have I found
A plenteous way, (thanks to that holy one!)
To cancell all that e're was writ in stone,
His saving wound
Wept bloud, that broke this Adamant, and gave
To sinners Confidence, life to the grave;
This makes me span
My fathers journeys, and in one faire step
O're all their pilgrimage, and labours leap,
For God (made man,)
Reduc'd th' Extent of works of faith; so made
Of their Red Sea, a Spring; I wash, they wade.
As by the offence of one, the fault came on all men to condemnation; So by the Righteousness of one, the benefit abounded towards all men to the Justification of life.
Rom. Cap. 18. ver. 19.
| Silex Scintillans | |