Quote#Time
Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span
Quote byHenry Vaughan · 1621–1695
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Silex Scintillans (1655), "Childhood".
English (original)
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
More from Henry Vaughan
Happy those early days, when I Shined in my angel-infancy! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race.
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!
As men are killed by fighting, the truth is lost in disputing.
Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven.
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 doth chime.
My gazing soul would dwell an hour, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity; Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, Or had the black art to dispense