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Title: To Etesia (for Timander); The First Sight
Author: Henry Vaughan [
More Titles by Vaughan]
What smiling star in that fair night
Which gave you birth gave me this sight,
And with a kind aspect tho' keen
Made me the subject, you the queen?
That sparkling planet is got now
Into your eyes, and shines below,
Where nearer force and more acute
It doth dispense, without dispute;
For I who yesterday did know
Love's fire no more than doth cool snow,
With one bright look am since undone,
Yet must adore and seek my sun.
Before I walk'd free as the wind
And if but stay'd--like it--unkind;
I could like daring eagles gaze
And not be blinded by a face;
For what I saw till I saw thee,
Was only not deformity.
Such shapes appear--compar'd with thine--
In arras, or a tavern-sign,
And do but mind me to explore
A fairer piece, that is in store.
So some hang ivy to their wine,
To signify there is a vine.
Those princely flow'rs--by no storms vex'd--
Which smile one day, and droop the next,
The gallant tulip and the rose,
Emblems which some use to disclose
Bodied ideas--their weak grace
Is mere imposture to thy face.
For Nature in all things, but thee,
Did practise only sophistry;
Or else she made them to express
How she could vary in her dress:
But thou wert form'd, that we might see
Perfection, not variety.
Have you observ'd how the day-star
Sparkles and smiles and shines from far;
Then to the gazer doth convey
A silent but a piercing ray?
So wounds my love, but that her eyes
Are in effects the better skies.
A brisk bright agent from them streams
Arm'd with no arrows, but their beams,
And with such stillness smites our hearts,
No noise betrays him, nor his darts.
He, working on my easy soul,
Did soon persuade, and then control;
And now he flies--and I conspire--
Through all my blood with wings of fire,
And when I would--which will be never--
With cold despair allay the fever,
The spiteful thing Etesia names,
And that new-fuels all my flames.
[The end]
Henry Vaughan's poem: To Etesia (for Timander); The First Sight
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