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The
Brownstone Journal >>
Issues >> Vol.
VIII Spring 1999
A Treatment of Themes: The Influence
of George Herbert on Henry Vaughan
Erica Zimmer (CAS XX) is a senior
in the University Professors program, majoring in literature
and classical studies. This essay is part of her senior thesis.
She would like to thank both of her advisors as well as family,
friends, and everyone else who made it possible.
Henry Vaughan (1622-1695) was born in Wales and
studied in England in late 1630s and early 1640s. He was forced
to flee London at the outbreak of the English Civil War. While
in retreat at his home in Wales. Vaughan published several volumes
of poetry. The 1646 Poems With the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal Englished
was a collection of poems dedicated to (and taking as their
subject) his secular mistress, Amoret. Although Vaughan publlished
another secular collection, Olor Iscanus, in 1651, his 1650
Silex Scintillans represented a dramatic departure from his
eartlier themes. Whereas Vaughan’s earlier works concerned themselves
mainly with professions of love to Amoret. Silex Scintillans
eschews this previous mode and devotes itself instead to love
of God.
Summary
Herbert is universally acknowledged as the chief influence upon
Vaughan's spiritual works. However, while Vaughan borrows from
his predecessor in countless instances of word, phrase, and
topic, a major transition Herein effects in Vaughan's verse
comes about in the change of theme to which Herbert's poems
inspire him. One may perceive marked differences in the two
poets' approaches through a comparison of poems from which Vaughan
borrows similar titles and/or subjects. While Herbert's prayer-poems
are marked by a control of form that underscores their speaker's
familiar though respectful relationship to his God, Vaughan's
overtures to his Maker rely on no such surety. Instead, his
poems express uncertainty and frustration coupled with an imaginative
longing to transcend this world of darkness. Whereas Herbert
conveys his experience by likening it to one of many images,
Vaughan imagines himself as that image and explores the implications
of that identification. Though the two poets may make use of
similar images, Herbert more often makes use of them through
simile. while Vaughan more consistently relies upon metaphor.
Although Vaughan dedicates much of his early verse to worldly
contemplation, the onset of the Civil War brings about an almost
complete reversal of theme. Earlier titles such as ''To Amoret
Weeping'' and ''Upon the Priorie Grove'' give way to ''The Retreat,''
''Vanity of Spirit'' and ''Rules and Lessons,'' among others.
Whereas the “Amoret'' items describe a devoted lover's wooing
of his courtly mistress, the overall content and progression
of Silex Scintillans presents a paradigm by which man may make
his journey up to God. As Vaughan indicates in both the Mount
of Olives and Silex Scintillans, one should attribute this thematic
change to the influence of George Herbert. Not only does ''Man
in Darkness'' recommend the earlier poet's ''incomparable prophetic
poems'' as fruits of a ''blessed Patter[n] of a holy life in
the British Church,'' but the 1655 ''Preface'' to Silex Scintillans
credits him as ''the first, that with any effectual success
attempted a diversion of [the] foul and overflowing stream''
that secular verse had become. Although Vaughan's verse owes
immeasurable debts to Herbert, the themes the later poet borrows
are often subtly shifted in a manner that may reflect the different
nature of Vaughan's spiritual experience. In many poems where
the two poets share a theme or title, Vaughan takes up the subject
of spiritual experience his mentor explores through a simile
and makes of it a metaphor for his own, more immediate meditations.
This tendency may spring from the disappearance of Vaughan's
Church, for the elder poet never experienced the separation
from God's physical house that would have made an awareness
of immanence in other contexts necessary.
While Vaughan follows Herbert in depicting a spiritual progression,
the earlier poet's observations present man as enjoying a more
personal relationship with his Heavenly father. Poems such as
“The Collar” and “Love (III)” show Herbert's speaker as familiar
enough with his Savior to engage in the conversation of man's
prayer and God’s answer. As his poems frequently conclude with
the admonition or reply of his heavenly Father, one may assume
that Herbert felt a strong connection with his Lord. This close
relationship reinforces Herbert's reliance upon prayer as a
path by which man may approach the Divine. Although Herbert's
speakers at times rebel against God's proffered guidance, they
return to a state of communion by confessing their sins end
accepting the path of faith. The poet’s conception of God as
an imposing but approachable Father may influence the manner
in which he presents his poetic subject, for the broachable
though vast distance he perceives between himself and God gives
him a definite location in which to find his Lord. As Herbert
did not live to see the Puritan dissolution of the Anglican
Church, his awareness of God’s presence would have remained
strong through the affirmation of that physical monument.
As Bennet comments, “Herbert may have made Vaughan a poet, but
he did not make him in his own image.” While Vaughan finds his
type of a progressive devotional manual in Herbert's Temple.
Silex Scintillans presents the journey's stages in a manner
that draws upon a more independent, isolated spiritual experience.
Although his speakers engage in prayer, the majority of Vaughan's
poems lack Herbert’s conviction that these vocal offerings are
heard. To turn one's focus from this world to the next is only
the first step towards a communion that remains elusive. Though
''Regeneration'' presents Vaughan's speaker as receiving an
answer to his inquiry through the wind as God's breath, his
poems more often depict man as engaged in a disheartening journey
rarely enlightened by intimations of Divine immanence. While
Vaughan takes great notice of sounds, Herbert more often than
Vaughan perceives the answer that signifies God's presence.
In Vaughan, man receives infrequent ''glances'' of Heaven's
attention, but for the most part the things of this world distract
man from his perceptions of the Divine. Even if man attempts
to remain focused, in the world's darkness he often perceives
little light. Vaughan's elaborations of central images often
turn upon the world's longing after the divine light that seldom
illuminates it. Although Herbert alludes to the difficulties
man encounters when tempted by the things of this world, his
poems do not often demonstrate the pervasive conviction of the
world's corruption that Vaughan's poems display.
Although Herbert experiences internal anguish due to his human
unwillingness to obey God in all things, his poems also relate
the joy that comes when man feels the Lord's action in his life.
As in his poems Vaughan appears to experience such feelings
only rarely, his work turns on the conviction that one must
endure the events of this world. The Mount of Olives shows Vaughan's
firm grounding in this world and his awareness of the world's
limitations. Although ''the world abounds with these Manuals,
and triumphs over them,''' Vaughan wishes to present his readers
with a treatise more useful and substantial to those who cannot
achieve the transcendent glory granted those divines. He professes
not to ''envie their frequent Extasies, and raptures to the
third heaven'' but ''onely wish them real, and that their actions
did not tell the world, they are rapt into some other place.”
Hence he composes for those who ''are yet in the body, and...
have need of these helps.'' In Vaughan's spiritual poetry, however,
this awareness of the divide between worldly existence and heavenly
glory may influence his portrayal of the world's darkness. While
Herbert, like Vaughan, desires to spend his time in contemplation
of the divine, as a parson more assured of his Church's established
place, his anguish centers more upon man's failings and less
upon the world’s corruption.
Whereas Herbert's verse dwells upon the problems man encounters
in devoting himself wholly to the ways of Christ. Vaughan's
sees these difficulties as symptomatic of a profound gulf between
the human and divine realms. The light-darkness imagery of his
poems creates chiaroscuro effects that emphasize the contrast
between the two. His poems speak of man on earth as existing
in a land of ''darkness'' where any action, unless guided by
an awareness of the divine light, leads man farther and farther
away from the path “up to God.” Given this guiding perception,
his speaker's feel anguish not only at their own failings, as
do Herbert’s, but also because the two realms' sharp separation
prevents any experience of true divine communion in this life.
While his speakers have occasional intimations of Divine immanence,
the majority of Vaughan's work expresses the frustrations felt
in this land of darkness that continues in its state due both
to the actions of most men and to the essential inadequacy of
man's perceptions. Without the mediating influence of the Church,
man is forced to explore the world for spiritual guidance, but
the nature of this world and the distraction such action presents
for man make such a quest largely fruitless.
Prohibited Passions: Herbert's “The British Church” and Vaughan
's “The Brittish Church”
With imagery and metaphors that anticipate Vaughan's later
use of the devotional imagery influenced by the Bible, Herbert's
''The British Church'' presents his affirmation of the Anglican
via media between Catholic and Calvinist practices. After taking
as his metaphorical subject the ''lady'' of ''Lady Day,'' from
which both he and the Anglican Church marked the year's inception,
Herbert praises her “fine aspect in fit array” (line 7) by comparing
it with the ''Outlandish looks'' of those extremes Anglican
practice attempted to reconcile. Whereas on one side, the wanton
“She on the hills” (representing the Catholic Church) has gone
to a demonstrative extreme, the demure ''She in the valley''
engages in an opposite shortcoming by failing to display her
beauties in any context. By contrast, the Anglican Church presents
a middle way “[b]oth sweet and bright” between these practices.
In presenting her as one ''neither too mean, nor yet too gay''
(line 8), Herbert shows that above all the Church's other merits,
her virtue of moderation is supreme.
While Herbert metaphorically elaborates upon the characteristics
of both extremes, his poem attests to the manner in which, for
Herbert, the English Church stands serene above her sisters.
Though the “wanto[n]” (Catholic) “she” kisses her “painted shrines”
in accordance with her nature. Herbert holds that this ''She
. . . Allureth in all hope to be / By her preferr’d” (lines
l3- 15). Conversely, although ''she in the valley is so shie
/ Of dressing, that her hair doth lie / About her ears'' (lines
l 9-21), Herbert implies that her avoidance of any demonstrative
practice becomes in the end as great an evil as the former's
courting by lascivious display. Poetically, both extremes merit
their just reward, for just as the first figure’s face ''ev’n
. . . by kissing shines / For her reward'' (lines l6-l7), so
does the ''she'' who ''wholly goes on th’ other side / And nothing
wears'' (lines 22-3) appear by implication to gain that same
''nothing'' by her self-denial. In the final stanza, the caesurae
of the first, second and fourth lines provide pauses through
which Herbert asserts his Church's pre-eminence. Although ''mean''
in this case is a noun, the alliteration of “misse” and “mean”
connects two words that, when taken together, suggest misdirection
(lines 24-5). At the poem's close, Herbert returns to the theme
of permanence with the ending declaration ''And long may be''
(line 26). His concluding rhyme of ''And none but thee'' (line
30) clinches his affirmation of the Anglican Church's chosen
status. While tensions between religious factions may have run
high in Herbert's time, his ''British Church'' displays little
evidence of the discontent.
In Herbert's “The British Church,” his parallel placement of
the similar letters of “dearest Mother” / “double-moat[ed]”
by both the Catholic and Puritan churches (lines 25-28) visually
stresses the Anglican Church's location between them, as well
as her seeming security against either side's advances. In contrast,
Vaughan's ''The Brittish Church'' presents its subject as having
been rent by the strife of factions above which she previously
stood serene. His dramatic opening, ''Ah! he is fled!'' introduces
the theme of Divine absence that pervades Silex Scintillans.
Unlike many of Vaughan's other poems, however, ''The Brittish
Church'' intimates an awareness of the reason for Christ's departure.
After likening the plots ''hatchl[ed]'' by earthly combatants
to ''mists, and shadows,'' (line 2), the speaker implores a
figure outside the poem:
“Haste, hast my dear,
The Soldiers here
Cast in their lots again.
That seamless coal
The Jews touched not.
These dare divide, and stain.”
(lines 5- 10)
Vaughan's invocation of a ''he'' instead of the ''she'' found
in Herbert's composition signals to one familiar with both poems
the differing perspective of its speaker, although that speaker's
identity remains vague at first. After the first stanza's references
to the Crucifixion indicate that ''he'' is Christ, however,
the second stanza's echoes of the Song of Solomon reveal the
speaker as the ''Brittish Church'' herself. In Herbert's poem,
the Church as ''lady'' stands solidly in the middle of Catholic
and Protestant extremes. In Vaughan's poem, this balance has
been upset, and the consequences are disastrous. The speaker
refers to ''mists'' and ''shadows'' to convey the darkness he
feels to have fallen over his faith's light. Through reference
to the ''Souldiers'' who cast lots for the cloak of Christ,
the speaker echoes the manner in which the encroaching parties
of the English Civil War have ''divide[d] I'd stain[ed]'' the
purity and unity that was once the Anglican Church (line 10).
Additionally, the second stanza makes further use of Biblical
references to convey the damage done to the Church as Vaughan
had known it. As she feels that Christ may have fled the earth
because the “clouds” of those who cast the earlier “mists” and
“shadows” (lines l3-14), her words qualify the exhortation of
“O get thee wings!”' with the realization that her prayer may
perhaps not be heard. However, to strengthen the appeal to her
beloved, she calls attention to her “ravish’d looks / Slain
flock, and pillag'd fleeces” (lines l6-18). While the “fleeces”
and “flocks” of which the Church speaks take their immediate
source from the Song of Solomon, they also suggest the depiction
of Christ as a shepherd found in Psalm 23. Whether one conceives
of Christ as a lover or a shepherd, however, with His departure,
the “flocks” He once tended have been thrown into death and
disorder. By implication, events will only return to their former
state with the refund of the beloved – Christ to His Church,
the Bridegroom to his Bride, the “young roe” to his “mounts
of spices” (lines 19-20). Vaughan's violent treatment of the
Song of Solomon images reflects the disorder and barrenness
of the Church in his time. Although her members cannot ascend
as a body to the heavenly realm, the “wings” of the second stanza
by which the “he” would return to earth suggest that the commerce
of “flight” up to God may have been the only recourse for those
who sought a via media of peace amid civil, political and religious
strife.
Vaughan’s “The British Church” illustrates the dramatic reversal
of fortune the Anglican Church had endured since the time of
Herbert’s death. Whereas the earlier poet's composition expresses
a quiet “joy” and confidence that one later perceives to stem
from the Church’s place and stability, Vaughan's opening reflects
the despair that has come to her remaining faithful. Where Herbert
stands outside the Church and observes her virtuous characteristics
and relationship to others, Vaughan speaks from within the ruined
Church herself. In this poem, Vaughan takes his theme from an
image of Herbert's work and places himself in the object's position
to emphasize his more immediate relationship to the pain she
endures. His allusion to the estrangement between lover and
beloved in the Song of Solomon further indicates the desolation
he perceives within an institution that had once enjoyed a privileged
relationship with its metaphorical beloved.
Although Herbert appears to have become apprehensive as to the
state of the Church in his final years, his feelings were limited
to those of foreboding, as he died some years before the conflict's
outbreak. His successor, however, reached his “years of discretion”
just as the Civil War broke out. While Vaughan’s earlier verse
addresses the conflict indirectly, his later work demonstrates
a serious preoccupation with the effects of the War, in terms
of both its personal cost and its enforced spiritual aridity
for many. This maturity of outlook, coupled with the influence
of Herbert and Vaughan's own involvement in the War, would have
influenced the later poet to turn from the “lascivious fictions”
to meditation upon more serious themes. That Vaughan himself
linked this maturation of theme to a maturity of years may be
seen in the “Preface” to Silex Scintillans, where he characterizes
the continued composition of secular verse as “an inexcusable
desertion of pious sobriety” and persistence in that vein as
“a wilful despising of Gods sacrd exhortations.”
Devotion in Practice: Shifting Sights and Solaces
In his comments, Vaughan demonstrates his desire to be useful
to others by aiding their devotional practice. Since he presents
the majority of Herbert's followers as lacking this resolution,
one may infer the centrality of this purpose to the “conversion”
evident in Vaughan’s work. While many others have attempted
to follow Herbert's model, Vaughan states that even “the most
inclinable Reader” will find “scarce . . . any nourishment or
help to devotion” within their lines (lines 32-34). Besides
their “differing spirits and qualifications,” the others have
“aimed more at verse, than perfection” (lines 29- 31). While
Vaughan was born into and remained a loyal member of the Anglican
Church, the violent upheaval of the Civil Wars sent many Anglicans
into hiding for fear of practicing their faith. Additionally,
since “[b]y 1650 Vaughan's earthly Church of England had in
fact vanished,” the poet’s publication of numerous tracts and
devotional manuals would have encouraged piety in the remaining
Anglican faithful. As much of Vaughan's spiritual verse appears
to reflect his attitude towards the events of his day, one might
also link his vituperative condemnation of secular verse to
a conviction that events in that realm had become progressively
more corrupt and represented as never before a threat to the
stability of life as he knew it. Since he admits that “for many
years” he himself “languished of this very sickness” in composition,
he argues by implication that this factor no longer motivates
his compositions. Although the poet feels that many of his earlier
“follies” are “interlined with many virtuous, and some pious
mixtures,” he professes to “most humbly and earnestly beg that
none would read” these earlier compositions.
This shift in emphasis represents one of Herbert’s fundamental
influences upon the later poet. However, although the two poets
share a concern with spiritual subjects, the different way each
portrays man's relationship to God characterizes his own verse.
Whereas Herbert presents God and Christ as “friend[s]”' or relations
who exert influence upon him personally, Vaughan feels the effects
of god's presence only intermittently. Although Christ once
walked the earth in human form, Vaughan’s work attests to man's
need to turn away from this world so that he may come into contact
with the Divine. His speakers feel the immanence of the heavenly
realm only by a process of active devotion. Additionally, however,
though Vaughan’s speakers may devote themselves to the Divine,
this resolve does not automatically bring with it rewards of
self- improvement. In the manner of a secular beloved, the higher
Being must recognize those devoted to Him on earth and intimate
his approval by granting glimpses of heavenly illumination.
While Vaughan dales not always follow the mode of his master,
this deficiency does not make of him an inferior poet, but rather
one of different focus and experience. As Bennett observes,
Vaughan’s intellect appears to have labored somewhat in drawing
the sort of parallels and conceits found in the work of such
poets as Donne. However, such an exercise on Vaughan's part
does not comprise the main object of his verse, though imitations
of Herbert may be found in the majority of his spiritual compositions.
To search Vaughan for the sort of correspondences others made
popular imposes a framework that obscures comprehension of the
poet’s own peculiarly “metaphysical” nature. Throughout both
his secular and spiritual works. Vaughan perceives correspondences
between the relationships of man's life to the stages in the
individual's journey up to God. The persistence of themes and
images from his earlier work in later contexts indicates that
the frame of his observations was well suited to the imaginative
perception of relations between the human and the divine.
Light from the beloved's eyes: Herbert's “The Glance”
In using the topos of light shining frond the beloved's eyes
to describe the manner in which man becomes aware of God's immanence,
Vaughan draws not only upon his secure background but also upon
a thematic precedent found in Herbert's “The Glance.” However,
although Herbert's poem also elaborates the affective power
of a heavenly glance, the effects he describes differ substantially
from those found in Vaughan’s work. Although the two glances
serve similar functions, their effects illustrate the varying
proximity that Herbert and Vaughan feel to their Creator. In
his representation of God as a beloved figure, Vaughan repeatedly
uses metaphors of sight to convey the manner in which God intimates
Himself to man. Whereas Vaughan's verse repeatedly mentions
the “glance” of God as raying “vitall fire” into the beloved's
soul both to purge and purify it, however, the speaker of Herbert's
“The Glance” describes God's “sweet and gracious eye” (line
1) as effecting “a sugred strange delight'' (line 5) by its
“look” (line 3). While Vaughan’s speaker feels the effects of
the “Ray” through his eye, Herbert becomes aware of God at work
within him through his sense of taste, a metaphorical context
appropriate to Herbert's representation of ultimate communion
as taking place in the heavenly banquet of the Eucharist.
In a manner Vaughan often imitates, Herbert's enjambment and
punctuation parallel the actions of his speaker's state. The
enjambment of the first stanza causes the speaker's voice to
run through the lines in a manner that reflects the disorder
commonly found in one who lives in “youth and night” (line 2).
Consciousness of the heavenly glance, however, pauses the speaker
in mid-ramble and brings him up short: “To look upon me, who
before did lie / Weltering in sinne” (line 4). The strong stop
of the semicolon after “sinne” both pauses to contemplate the
gravity of his state and allows the poem to turn on a different
note. The active verbs “swing and sway” of the “storm” within
his “soul” (lines 10-l2) both assert their effects upon the
speaker and faintly hearken back to the influence exercised
by Amoret upon the heavens, where her “brighter eye” might have
“sway[ed]” heaven's order. However, in this case the heavenly
authority actively asserts itself over the influence of an earthbound
emotion. In the stanza's closing couplet, the poem's measured
pace through punctuation reflects greater “controll” of the
subject described. The repetition of the vowel, “soul, controll”
(line 15) as an end-rhyme to the previous line asserts the speaker's
ability to exercise control over himself, though always with
God's aid.
Although Herbert describes the glance only indirectly through
the metaphor of light, its effects prove “powerfull” in the
stanza’s ending lines. Seemingly, he upon whom it falls is “open’d,
and seal’d up again” in a manner that may have suggested lo
Vaughan the “sealed up” state of the hortus conclusus. In Herbert,
however, “The Glance” opens its speaker to a state of simple,
joyful “mirth,” not one of passionate love such as Vaughan professes
to desire. This difference reflects the individuality of the
two poets’ relations to the Divine, for whereas Herbert converses
easily with God despite feelings of inner conflict, Vaughan’s
speakers continually lament the lack of divine presence in the
world. Similarly, where Herbert speaks of “full-ey’d love” as
bringing about “wonders” to “feel.” Vaughan’s poems passionately
desire this state of intense communion, although man cannot
endure it physically. The 1655 “Cock-crowing” emphasizes man's
confinement within his physical state when it laments that “This
veyle thy full-ey’d love denies / And onely gleams and fractions
spies” (lines 4 l-42). Additionally, with a touch Vaughan echos
in describing the “shin[e]” of his “Angell-infancie” (“Regeneration,”
line 2), Herbert’s speaker emphasizes this glance's rejuvenating
effects. Although “originall” may be taken in its contextual
sense of “first spoken of,” as God is the source of all things,
the “sweet originall joy / Sprung from thine eye” (line 14)
also echoes the childhood states of “sweet[ness]” and “mirth”
previously invoked.
While Herbert at times intimates the Lord's presence through
visual meditations upon aspects of the physical Church, his
poems ultimately present Christ as proffering himself to man
through the implied Eucharist of ''Love'' found in the Church
service itself. However, whatever their sensual terms, the two
poets share the idea that effects of glances “Vouchsaf’d” by
God far surpass those felt from any human source. In the Temple,
“The Glance” follows “Bitter-sweet”: here, Herbert plays upon
the idea of the heavenly glance as effecting a “sugred strange
delight” in the one who beholds it (line 5). As any sensation
sent from heaven far surpasses its earthly counterparts, the
speaker describes the delight he feels as “Passing all cordials
made by any art” (line 6). In a similar fashion, Vaughan describes
the heavenly light as “all-surprizing” and unendurable without
a “veile” over its glory.
“Visits” or “Returns”?: Herbert's “The Flower” and Vaughan’s
“Unprofitableness”
In Vaughan’s “Unprofitableness,” the poet subtly shifts an image
borrowed from his master. While Herbert's “The Flower” suggests
at points that one might read man into the flower it describes,
the poem’s ending separates Man from the flower, which is used
as a symbol of God's presence in this life. Although the two
poems begin with similar phrases, their meditations extend in
subtly different directions. After Herbert's speaker exclaims
“How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean / Are Thy returns” (
lines l-2), he likens quality of these “returns” to those of
“the flowers in the spring.” Through the simile, Herbert brings
the flowers into a context of elaboration while still preserving
his speaker’s voice as distinctly human. The seasonal progression
parallels the progression of feeling that the speaker perceives.
Though he has experienced coldness and grief, in retrospect,
the cycle of departure and return seems natural since God returns
after the time of absence.
That Herbert's speaker implicitly expects God’s presence is
seen in his use of the word “returns” (line 2), which is both
the substantive noun and the unifying action upon which the
whole stanza turns. While in context, “returns” describes the
cyclical processes upon which the poem will elaborate, the term
also contrasts with Vaughan’s later use of “visits” in “Unprofitableness.”
While Vaughan’s word choice implies impermanence. Herbert's
term affirms the recurrence of God's presence in his life. Although
during the time of absence, he has experienced “frosts” (line
4) and their metaphorical counterpart, “Grief” (line 5). “The
Flower” emphasizes the wonder its speaker feels at evidence
of the return of God to his life. The speaker professes incredulity
that his “shrivel’d heart / Could have recovered greennesse”
(lines 8-9) after the seemingly deathlike state similar to that
of a flower's return to its “mother-root” (line 11). This evocation
of the ''death'' one feels when deprived of God’s presence is
evident in Anthony Low's statement that “The flower, as in other
Herbert poems, is a symbol of evanescence: its root is ever
in the grave.”
As his feelings of deprivation continually turn to those of
the “fresh[ness]” of God's returns, Herbert's speaker views
his time of darkness more philosophically than will Vaughan's.
Visually, the poem appears regular, but a voicing of its lines
reveals the agitated movement, anguish and change contained
within it. While the varied rhythms, stresses and tones of Herbert's
lines make characterization of its rhythmic pattern difficult,
the poem remains unified through its end-rhyme. In the tumult
of rhythmic change, strong alliterations such as “growing and
groning” (line 25) and “Lord of Love” (line 43) emphasize the
recurrence of these elements in the cycle described. The recurrence
of a regular rhyming structure links the verses with one another
despite the great variety they contain.
While Herbert’s speaker dwells in the worldly realm of cyclical
processes, this location does not present the dejection it will
for Vaughan's later speaker. The voice of Herbert's poem speaks
in retrospect as one who has experienced the return of the Lord's
presence. The “tempests” of which he speaks have battered him
with both their human tears and worldly winds. “Nor doth my
flower / Want a spring-showre / My sinnes and I joining together”
the speaker comments (lines 27-29). The “showres” of tears come
when man becomes conscious of his sin. As he has endured the
forceful humiliations of being struck down by God's anger, however,
the speaker is able to view the stages of his life as a natural
progression of the worldly cycle and an inadequate cause for
the grief he felt. The pride of one who “grow[s] in a straight
line / Still upwards bent, as if heav’n were [his] own” (lines
30-31) should as a matter of course “decline”: “What frost to
that?” the speaker inquires (lines 32-33). “After so many deaths,”
in “age [he] bud[s] again,” once more “smell[s] the dew and
rain / And relish[es] versing'' (lines 37-40) in the latest
incarnation of a progression that establishes above all the
essential wonder he feels at the “Killing and quickning, bringing
down to hell / And up to heaven in an hour” (lines 16-l7) of
God’s ultimate, wise progression. At the end of his days, the
speaker has come to realize that “we are but flowers that glide”
and that God “has a garden for us, where to bide” (lines 44-46).
Any transgressive action by one “Who would be more” thus “Forfeits
[his] paradise by [his] pride” (lines 46-48).
In contrast to Herbert's “The Flower,” Vaughan’s “Unprofitableness”
echoes the love-sick desolation of his 1646 “An Elegy” by reworking
in a spiritual context the animating effect of love bestowed
upon an otherwise ''hopeless'' subject. In contrast to Herbert's
simile, Vaughan metaphorically presents his speaker as a flower
whose “bleak leaves hopeles hung / Sullyed with dust and mud”
(lines 2-3). Until God's recent glance, the speaker states,
“Each snarling blast shot through me, and did share / Their
Youth, and beauty” (lines 3-4). The elaboration shows that the
same degenerative forces that Herbert mentions in “The Flower”
have stripped the garden of the qualities best nurtured by the
breath of God. As in the hortus conclusus of Song of Solomon,
when the beloved returns, his flower may again thrive. However,
the speaker’s invocation of the “rich . . . fresh . . .visits”
of God indicate the speaker's impression that God's presence
is only temporary. The assonance of “bleak leaves” connects
the adjective even more fully with the noun to emphasize the
desolation of man's existence, as well as all that attaches
to him, and the clipped utterances of “dust” and “mud” parallel
the uninspired nature of man’s state.
As is seen throughout the imagery of Vaughan's verse, God's
glance restores fruitfulness. With “one sweet glance,” the Creator
“survey[s] / Their sad decays” and renews the whole, allowing
the speaker to breathe once again “all perfumes, and spice”
(line 9). As an emblem of devotion, “all the day” the newly-favored
one “wear[s]” in his “bosome a full Sun,” a “store” which “Hath
one became from [heavenly] Eys” (lines 11-l2). Vaughan relates
the effects of both the “Cold Showres” and God's glance to the
imagery of Song of Songs. Whereas in the period prior to the
heavenly “visit,” “Cold Showres nipt, and wrung / Their spiciness
and bloud,” (lines 5-6), with “one sweet glance,” God's “survey”
allows him to “flourish once more.” The internal rhyme of “survey”
and “decays,” links the terms of God's glance and man’s condition.
The rising momentum at the end of the previous line overshadows
the later “decays,” and the fresh sound of “flourish”signals
a new start for the poem's speaker. In terms of Vaughan's use
of the garden topos to signal his internal condition. God’s
action has renewed his speaker through one through “one became
from [His] eyes.” As the Biblical hortus conclusus is brought
into fruition through the effects of the wind, Vaughan’s use
here of the convention of light from the beloved’s eyes represents
a departure from the Biblical tradition and a use of his own
imagery to represent God's presence.
Although God's influence makes man's likeness to a heavenly
garden possible, more often his poor state is one of desolation.
As Vaughan writes that he has yet to let one leaf “fall” upon
the “wreath” of his Maker (lines 14-15), one may assume that
the flower by which he metaphorically represents himself undergoes
processes of regeneration similar to those observed throughout
nature. Despite the great gifts which the highest beloved has
seen fit to bestow, the speaker remains unworthy, for he has
not yet let “one poor leaf ...fall” to wait upon the divine's
“wreath,” a decoration which suggests the “crowns,” “Bayes,”
and garlanded wreaths given to glorify the beloved. The relationship
of man as flower to God as garland here suggests that in order
to requite his Creator's gifts, man would have to contribute
aspects of himself to his beloved God. Although the human /
divine relationship demands this level of devotion, man struggles
to give so much of himself. The caesura and dramatic punctuation
of line l3 indicate the disruption and anguish that thoughts
of his inadequacy bring the speaker. After the poem turns to
thoughts of man's unworthiness, the unorthodox grammatical structure
of “What one poor leaf did ever I yet fall / To wait upon thy
wreath?” (lines 14-15) preserves the lines’ iambic rhythm. Vaughan’s
choice of “yet” instead of “let” subtly emphasizes the fact
that the “thankless weed” (line l6) has so far refrained from
the tribute proper to God. While Vaughan's mind may glimpse
dimly the manner in which he should act, to write pious verse
without any reference to his former mode appears to have presented
Vaughan with great difficulties. Although he seems to have felt
a desire to abjure secular poetic devices, to abandon his former
mode completely appears to have required more than this effort
of will. The verse-forms in Silex Scintillans exhibit characteristics
of both Herbert’s “simple style” and Vaughan's earlier secular
work, though the later poet supplies secular topoi to a spiritual
context. As Kermode writes, it appears to have been difficult
for Vaughan to change over completely to the “true unfeigned
versed” of Herbert’s example. No matter how great his desire
to follow Herbert’s (and, ultimately, Christ’s) example, Vaughan
himself lack's the practice that would allow such compositions
to flow freely from his pen. While his spirit may conform itself
to the precepts of humility he espouses, as a poet he struggles
with the difficulties of composing verse that reflects his inner
state.
Although no listing of sources and influences may account for
the final form of any artistic creation, changes in Vaughan’s
work demonstrate his desire to model verse on the patterns,
rhythms and questions of Herbert’s poems. This tendency, however,
must be tempered with an awareness of the difficulties Vaughan
professes to have encountered in composing “true, unfeigned
verse” after the model of Herbert. The 1655 “Anguish” attests
to Vaughan's difficulties, for “‘tis an easie thing / To write
and sing; / But to write true, unfeigned verse / Is very hard!”
(lines l3-l6) While he may apprehend Herbert’s simpler style
as best, his “spirit” still requires “leave / To act as well
as to conceive!” (lines l8-l9) While he may have wished to eschew
completely the conventions and trappings of his earlier work,
he appear to have extricated himself less than fully from the
tradition in which he matured. Vaughan's continued use of images
borrowed from Herbert's work demonstrates that the change in
theme the earlier poet brings about, coupled with his effect
upon Vaughan's form, constitutes his greatest influence upon
the later pat's devotional work. TBJ
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bennett, Joan. Four Metaphysical Poets: Donne, Herbert,
Vaughan, Crashaw. Vintage Books. New York, 1960. Vintage
Books, New York, 1960.
Herbert, George. The Works of George Herbert, in Prose
and Verse. Edited by F.E. Hutchinson. Clarendon Press,
Oxford, 1967.
Hutchinson, F.E. Henry Vaughan: A Life and Interpretation.
Oxford University Press, (Ely House), London, 1971.
Kermode, Frank. "The Private Imagery of Henry Vaughan."
Review of English Studies. New Series, Vol. I, No. 3 (1950),
pp. 206-225.
Low, Anthony. Love's Architecture: Devotional Modes in
Seventeenth-Century English Poetry. New York Universtiy
Press, New York, 1978.
Martz, Louis L. The Paradise Within; Studies in Vaughan,
Traherne and Milton. Yale University Press, New Haven and
London, 1964.
Martz, Louis L. The Poetry of Meditation: A Study in English
Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century. Yale University
Press, New Haven and London, 1954.
Post, Jonathan F.S. Henry Vaughan; The Unfolding Vision.
Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1982.
Vaughan, Henry. The Works of Henry Vaughan. Second Edition.
Edited by L.C. Martin. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1957.
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