Henry Vaughan (Генри Воэн)

Retirement

Fresh fields and woods! the Earth's fair face,
God's foot-stool, and man's dwelling-place.
I ask not why the first Believer
Did love to be a country liver?
Who to secure pious content
Did pitch by groves and wells his tent;
Where he might view the boundless sky,
And all those glorious lights on high;
With flying meteors, mists and show'rs,
Subjected hills, trees, meads and flow'rs;
And ev'ry minute bless the King
And wise Creator of each thing.
I ask not why he did remove
To happy Mamre's holy grove,
Leaving the cities of the plain
To Lot and his successless train?
All various lusts in cities still
Are found; they are the thrones of ill;
The dismal sinks, where blood is spill'd,
Cages with much uncleanness fill'd.
But rural shades are the sweet fense
Of piety and innocence.
They are the Meek's calm region, where
Angels descend and rule the sphere,
Where heaven lies leiger, and the dove
Duly as dew, comes from above.
If Eden be on Earth at all,
'Tis that, which we the country call.

Henry Vaughan’s other poems:

  1. The Relapse
  2. The Revival
  3. The Nativity
  4. Death
  5. The Evening-Watch

Poems of other poets with the same name (Стихотворения других поэтов с таким же названием):

  • William Cowper (Уильям Купер) Retirement (“Hackney’d in business, wearied at that oar”)
  • Anne Brontë (Энн Бронте) Retirement (“O, let me be alone a while”)
  • Robert Anderson (Роберт Андерсон) Retirement (“Near a murmuring rill, in a cottage of thatch”)
  • Henry Timrod (Генри Тимрод) Retirement (“My gentle friend! I hold no creed so false”)




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