Henry Vaughan - metaphysical poet
Created | Updated Aug 8, 2006
I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright,
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years
Driv'n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov'd, In which the world
And all her train were hurl'd;
- Henry Vaughan, opening of "The World."
Henry Vaughan and his twin brother Thomas were born on April 17, 1622. They grew up in Llansantffraed, Breconshire, Wales.
At the age of 16, the brothers left home to study at Oxford. In 1640, Henry went to London for two years to study law, whereas his brother Thomas pursued the career of an alchemist and Hermetic1 philosopher. The outbreak of the Civil War forced Henry to return home, where he served as secretary to the Circuit Chief Justice of the Great Sessions until in 1645 he joined the Royalist forces at Chester, where he briefly fought for Charles I.
It is assumed that he married Catherine Wise by 1646, who gave birth to a son and three daughters.
His first volume of poetry, Poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal, Englished, was published in 1646. It was followed by a second one in 1647. At this time, his poetry was rather secular, "idle verse", as he'd later label it.
Influenced by the poetry of George Herbert2, Henry Vaughan "converted" and turned towards religion. He started to borrow phrases and even titles of poems from Herbert and modelled his own poetry on Herbert's.
Imitatio, as this procedure was called, has nothing to do with modern plagiarism - in fact, it was considered a useful way to practise and refine one's poetical skills. Reading both Vaughan's and Herbert's poems, one will soon conclude that Vaughan had indeed found his own voice, so that, despite the borrowings, his lines are not at all similar to those of Herbert.
The works he wrote after his "conversion", Silex Scintillans ("The Glittering Flint", 1650), which perhaps is his best known collection of poetry, and Mount of Olives: or Solitary Devotions (1652) are concerned with religious issues linked with themes like Neoplatonism3 and mysticism. They set him in the metaphysical tradition of Donne, Herbert and Crashaw.
One recurrent motif of Silex Scintillans is pilgrimage and the longing for the union with the divine Creator at the Last Day. A modification of this motif is the wish to return to the innocent days of childhood.
In both his worldly and religious poems, sensitivity to nature and the countryside are traces of Henry Vaughan's Welsh heritage. To emphasise this heritage, he referred to himself as "the Silurist".4
Henry Vaughan was introduced to Hermetic philosophy by his brother Thomas. The influence of this rather esoteric brand of Neoplatonism becomes obvious for example in the poem "Cock-crowing" (Silex Scintillans), in which Vaughan talks of a "magnetism" working in the birds, that makes them wait for the sun and sing at the break of day. According to Vaughan, there is a similar magnetism at work in his soul, invoking a strong desire to become one with God.
Two more volumes of secular poetry were published, and also some translations of several religious, moral, and medical works. Without having received much formal education, Henry Vaughan began to practice medicine in the 1650s and continued to do so until the end of his life.
After the death of his first wife, probably around 1655, he married his sister, Elizabeth, with whom he had another son and three daughters.
Also in 1655, another edition of Silex Scintillans was published with an added second part.
Aged 73, Henry Vaughan died on April 23, 1695 and was buried in Llansantffraed churchyard.
His poetry may not have received much acclaim during his lifetime, yet his unique reflections on nature seem to have had their influence on later readers, among them, the Romantic poet William Wordsworth.
The 20th century saw a revival of the interest in the metaphysical works of the 17th century, and with it, the poetry of Henry Vaughan was rediscovered and widely praised.
1This term refers to Hermes Trismegistus, an ancient Graeco-Egyptian mythological figure who was assumed to be the "inventor" of alchemy21593 - 1633, poet and priest of Welsh origin3In general terms, a school of philosophers that followed the teachings of Plato and Plotinus.4 The Silures were an ancient Celtic tribe from Wales, who resisted the Roman Invasion.
