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Title: Monsieur Gombauld
Author: Henry Vaughan [
More Titles by Vaughan]
I've read thy soul's fair nightpiece, and have seen
Th' amours and courtship of the silent Queen,
Her stoln descents to Earth, and what did move her
To juggle first with Heav'n, then with a lover,
With Latmos' louder rescue, and--alas!--
To find her out a hue and cry in brass;
Thy journal of deep mysteries, and sad
Nocturnal pilgrimage, with thy dreams clad
In fancies darker than thy cave, thy glass
Of sleepy draughts; and as thy soul did pass
In her calm voyage what discourse she heard
Of spirits, what dark groves and ill-shap'd guard
Ismena led thee through, with thy proud flight
O'er Periardes, and deep, musing night
Near fair Eurotas' banks; what solemn green
The neighbour shades wear, and what forms are seen
In their large bowers, with that sad path and seat
Which none but light-heel'd nymphs and fairies beat;[1]
Their solitary life, and how exempt
From common frailty, the severe contempt
They have of man, their privilege to live
A tree, or fountain, and in that reprieve
What ages they consume, with the sad vale
Of Diophania, and the mournful tale,
Of th' bleeding vocal myrtle; these and more
Thy richer thoughts, we are upon the score
To thy rare fancy for, nor dost thou fall
From thy first majesty, or ought at all
Betray consumption; thy full vig'rous bays
Wear the same green, and scorn the lean decays
Of style, or matter. Just so have I known
Some crystal spring, that from the neighbour down
Deriv'd her birth, in gentle murmurs steal
To their next vale, and proudly there reveal
Her streams in louder accents, adding still
More noise and waters to her channel, till
At last swoln with increase she glides along
The lawns and meadows in a wanton throng
Of frothy billows, and in one great name
Swallows the tributary brooks' drown'd fame.
Nor are they mere inventions, for we
In th' same piece find scatter'd philosophy
And hidden, dispers'd truths that folded lie
In the dark shades of deep allegory;
So neatly weav'd, like arras, they descry
Fables with truth, fancy with history.
So that thou hast in this thy curious mould
Cast that commended mixture wish'd of old,
Which shall these contemplations render far
Less mutable, and lasting as their star,
And while there is a people or a sun,
Endymion's story with the moon shall run.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] So Grosart, for the heat of the original.
[The end]
Henry Vaughan's poem: Monsieur Gombauld
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