Anglo-Welsh mystic metaphysical poet and doctor Henry Vaughan was born on 17 April 1621 at Newton by Usk in the Llansantffraed (St. Bridget's) parish of Brecknockshire,on in a house in the hamlet of Scethrog, in the parish of Llansantffraed., the eldest known child of Thomas Vaughan (c. 1586–1658) of Tretower and Denise Jenkin (born c. 1593), the only daughter and heir of David and Gwenllian Morgan of Llansantffraed.
Vaughan had a younger twin brother, Thomas Vaughan,.who was to become the famous mystical poet and alchemist Eugene Philathese.He also had a younger brother called William. Not much is known of his childhood, but is believed to have gone with his brother in 1638 to study at Jesus college, Oxford. His brother finished his course but Hry did not and was taken by his father to London where it is thought he studied at the Inn of Court at the same time as the mighty Oliver Cromwell was studying at Lincolns Inn. Henry was not called to the bar.
Henry grew up in a time of religious and political upheaval, having suffered the loss of his brother in the Civil War and the closure of his own place of worship, Llansantfraed Church where his twin brother was rector. From 1642 until the battle of Naseby on 14th June, 1645, Henry was a clerk to the judge, Sir Marmaduke LLoyd. He became a strong Royalist supporter, but whether he actually saw any armed combat is speculative. Henry wrote a poem in 1646 to being a captive at Raglan, which fell to the great Cromwellian army on 19th August 1646, shortly before the end of the Civil War.
At the end of the war Henry returned home to concentrate on writing poems and began translating many important philosophical works. He was fluent in Welsh and English, although he mostly used the former. He also knew Latin, Greek, German and French.
By 1646, he had married Catherine Wise with whom he reared a son, Thomas, and three daughters, Lucy, Frances, and Catherine. In 1647 Henry Vaughan and his family decided to live in the country. It was here he wrote Olor Iscanus, the (Swan of Usk) which lay unpublished until 1651.After his wife's death he married her sister Elizabeth who also bore him a son and three daughters.
In 1646 he published a translation of Iuvenal's " Tenth Satyre", along with 14 other poems, and in 1650 saw him publish his best known collection "Silex Scinillans", which was a volume of 122 sacred poems he had written and compiled wen he was only 22 or 23. Poetry was very much in the air, a time when people seemed to actually breath it. The collection featured a mystical philosophy influenced by the hermeticism of his twin brother Thomas.
It is on the title page of the collection that Vaughan refers to himself as a 'Silurist'. The Silures were natives of the regions arond the rivers Wye and Usk, including parts of Herefordshre, Monmouthshire, Breconshire and Glamorgan. The name Siluria came from a corruption of Seisyllwg. The people were a hardy race ,ruled by princes, the most famous of whom was Caractacus, whose seat was said to be at Isca Siluram, known now as Carleon, belived to have been the seat of King Arthur. Patriots of this area became known as the Silurists, which is where Henry Vaughan took his name.
Henry Vaughan suffered a prolonged and painful sickness in the period before the publication of his Silex Scintillans .This experience seemed to him to be an encounter with death and a wake-up call to his "misspent youth". He believed he had been spared to make amends. He described his previous work as foul and "corrupt literature".
Around this time, he adopted the saying "moriendo, revixi", meaning "by dying, I gain new life". And fllowing a religious conversion turned his attention to devotional verse. He attributed his conversion largely to reading the work of George Herbert. who provided a model for Vaughan's newly founded spiritual life and literary career, in which he displays "spiritual quickening and the gift of gracious feeling" derived from Herbert. Vaughan elaborated on personal loss in two well-known poems, "The World" and "They Are All Gone into the World of Light.
They are all Gone into the World of Light - Henry Vaughan
They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit ling’ring here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.
It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,
After the sun’s remove.
I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days:
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.
O holy Hope! and high Humility,
High as the heavens above!
These are your walks, and you have show’d them me
To kindle my cold love.
Dear, beauteous Death!
the jewel of the just,
Shining nowhere, but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust
Could man outlook that mark!
He that hath found some fledg’d bird’s nest,
may know At first sight, if the bird be flown;
But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
And yet as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul, when man doth sleep:
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes
And into glory peep.
If a star were confin’d into a tomb,
Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that lock’d her up, gives room,
She’ll shine through all the sphere.
O Father of eternal life, and all
Created glories under thee!
Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall Into true liberty.
Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still as they pass,
Or else remove me hence unto that hill,
Where I shall need no glass.
The following year, 1651, Olor Iscanus, or The Swan of Usk, a collection of secular poetry with four prose translations, was published. Named for the river Usk which flows near his hometown, Olor Iscanus contains "rhapsodic passages about natural beauty,"
‘Tis day, my crystal Usk; now the sad night
Resigns her place as tenant to the light.
See the amazed mists begin to fly
And the victorious sun hath got the sky.
How shall I recompense thy streams, that keep
Me and my soul awakened when others sleep’?
Extract from On the River Usk - Henry Vaughan -
Around this time he also became interested in medicine, especially the causes of diseases and their relation to the different schools of philosophy. He began to believe in to different kinds of diseases, the diseases of the soul and the diseases of the body. times !
In 1665 at the age of only 34 came the second part of "Silex Scinillans" completed after a serious illness and a religious conversion, being completely different to the first part, and dealt chiefly with the concerns of metaphysics. Included were large references to medicine which had been found in previous works by John Donne and George Herbert.
In the late 1640's he started practicing medicine in an area near Brecon. Here again their is not much evidence as to where or how he actually got his medical degree, he had M.D caved on his tombstone anyway, and like plenty of this era there is an air of mystery about it all. In 1673 he was to writ to his cousin sayin "My profession is in Physics which I have practiced now for many years with good success ( I thank God ), and a repute big enough for a person of greater parts than myself".
In 1655 Vaughan published "Hermetical Physick, or, the right way to preserve, and restore Health".It contained physics based on the "principles of true philosophy" as was the "Physick Of Hermes".It was a tranlation of the work of one Henry Nollius.
The Hermeticists related the causes of all diseases to the powers pf philosophy, especially the astrological ones, so Hermeticism has been regarded as an esoteric religion, full of counter signs, fantastic beiefs and exotic rites, though based on doctrine and demandind spiritual preparation. Fantastic really ,in an age where belief in superstition was rife, religious fundamentalism nothing new ,one had to be careful what one believed. The Hemetcisists also thought that where some diseases were caused by gods, others caused by fire, and that pregnancy was due to impregnation by a star, unbelievable perhaps, but even today belief in fantasticals all around, an age where some peoples absolute truths are still being fought for.
The most famous of the Hermetical Physicists at this time was Henry's brother, Thomas, who died in year of the great fire of London. His death recorded in true Hermetical fashion when " as twere suddenly when he was operating strong mercurie, some of which by chance getting up into his nose marched him off".
The Hermetical Physicians, Henry included believed they could cure diseases which the Galenists could not including epilepsies. Their basic message though were for the prevention of diseases. Several ideas were -
1.Lead a pious and wholly righteous life.
2.Follow after sobriety.
3.Eat not greedily and drink not immoderately.
4.Eat simple foods.
5.Eat only one type of food and drink at each meal.
6.Eat only foods to which you are used.
7.Use antidotes freely.
8.Change habitation if the air is contagious.
9.Use not too frequently the permission of marriage.
Vaughan was perhaps attracted to the Hermeticists by their principle not to accept anything at its face value, but to critisize even the most accepted of theories by testing it with experiment. He was convinced that to be a successful physician one must be addicted to no particular school, but must be prepared to learn from all. Fair enough I say. I too like to learn, at the foot of mystics like Henry Vaughan, there will always be great questions to ask after all.
The themes of religion, spirituality and nature are celebrated in his poetry and Vaughan began writing secular poems but following a religious conversion turned his attention to devotional verse. He attributed his conversion largely to reading the work of George Herbert. who provided a model for Vaughan's newly founded spiritual life and literary career, in which he displays "spiritual quickening and the gift of gracious feeling" derived from Herbert. Vaughan elaborated on personal loss in two well-known poems, "The World" and "They Are All Gone into the World of Light.
They are all Gone into the World of Light - Henry Vaughan
They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit ling’ring here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.
It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,
After the sun’s remove.
I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days:
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.
O holy Hope! and high Humility,
High as the heavens above!
These are your walks, and you have show’d them me
To kindle my cold love.
Dear, beauteous Death!
the jewel of the just,
Shining nowhere, but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust
Could man outlook that mark!
He that hath found some fledg’d bird’s nest,
may know At first sight, if the bird be flown;
But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
And yet as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul, when man doth sleep:
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes
And into glory peep.
If a star were confin’d into a tomb,
Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that lock’d her up, gives room,
She’ll shine through all the sphere.
O Father of eternal life, and all
Created glories under thee!
Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall Into true liberty.
Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still as they pass,
Or else remove me hence unto that hill,
Where I shall need no glass.
Henry Vaughan was acclaimed less in his lifetime than after his death, on 23 April 1695 aged 74, but his work has become more celebrated since death, as there was a significant revival of love for the 17th-century metaphysical poets during the 20th century.
He was buried in the churchyard of St Bride's, Llansantffraed, Powys, where he had spent most of his life, and was buried in a quiet corner under a yew tree.On his gravestone are his coat of arms consisting of a chevron between three boys heads, each with a snakes entwined about the neck. Included on the stone are words in Latin from Vaughan's poem, " The Mount of Olives ".
The grave is visited by enthusiasts and has been the inspiration for other poets, including John Donne, WIlliam Wordsworth, Tennyson, Siegfried Sassoon, Roland Mathias and Brian Morris. He died a Welsh poet with an English tonque.In the words of Siegfried Sassoon-
Here sleeps the Silurist; the loved physician;
The face that left no portraiture behind;
The skull that housed white angels and had vision
Of daybreak through the gateways of the mind.
Here faith and mercy, wisdom and humility
(Whose influence shall prevail for evermore)
Shine, And this lowly grave tells Heaven's tranquillity
And here stand I, a suppliant at the door.
The following is a poem by Henry Vaughan that looks to the past and a speaker’s better days. He expresses his desire to return to a time when everything was simpler than it is today. He sees this past as his “angel infancy,” where he is pure and untroubled. In the end, he alludes to his own death and how that’s the only way he’s going to make it back to this period of happiness.
The Retreat - Henry Vaughan
Happy those early days, when I
Shined in my angel-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white celestial thought;
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first love
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;When on some gilded cloud, or flower,
My gazing soul would dwell an hour
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tonque to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to every sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness
O how I longed to travel back,
And tread again in that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence the enlightened spirit sees
That shady City of Palm-tress.
But ah!! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way.
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move,
And when this dust falls to the urn
In that state I came, return.
I will end this post with a short simple poem with a simple message,poem called "Peace”that was included in Henry Vaughan’s 1650 collection of religious poems entitled “Silex Scintillans” (“The Flaming Flint”). It runs as follows:
My soul, there is a country
Afar beyond the stars,
Where stands a winged sentry
All skilful in the wars:
There above noise and danger
Sweet Peace sits crowned with smiles,
And One born in a manger
Commands the beauteous files.
He is thy gracious friend And
— O my soul, awake!
– Did in pure love descend
To die here for thy sake.
If thou canst get but thither,
There grows the flower of Peace,
The Rose that cannot wither,
Thy fortress, and thy ease.
Leave then thy foolish ranges
For none can thee secure, But one who never changes,
Thy God, thy life, thy cure.
FURTHER READING
Bennett, Mrs. J. (Frankau) 1953. 4 Metaphysical Poets; Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw, Cambridge University Press.
