Metaphysical poets, selected poems Contents
- Social / political context
- Religious / philosophical context
- Literary context: ideas and innovations
- Aire and Angels
- A Hymn to God the Father
- A Hymn to God, my God, in my Sicknesse
- A Nocturnall upon St. Lucies day
- At the Round Earth's Imagin'd Corners
- A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Synopsis of Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Commentary on Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Language and tone in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Structure and versification in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Imagery and symbolism in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Themes in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- A Valediction: of Weeping
- Batter my heart
- Death be not Proud
- Elegie XIX: Going to Bed
- Elegie XVI: On his Mistris
- Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
- Lovers' Infiniteness
- Oh my blacke Soule!
- Satyre III: 'On Religion'
- Show me Deare Christ
- Since She Whom I Lov'd
- Song: Goe, and catche a falling starre
- The Anniversarie
- The Dreame
- The Extasie
- The Flea
- The Good-morrow
- The Sunne Rising
- This is my playes last scene
- Twicknam Garden
- What if this present
- Aaron
- Affliction I
- Death
- Discipline
- Easter Wings
- Jordan I
- Jordan II
- Life
- Love II
- Man
- Prayer I
- Redemption
- The Church-floore
- The Collar
- Vertue
- Hymn in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
- Hymn to St Teresa
- St Mary Magdalene, or the Weeper
- To the Countesse of Denbigh
- Ascension - Hymn
- Man
- Regeneration
- The Night
- The Retreate
- The Water-fall
- A Dialogue between Soul and Body
- On a Drop of Dew
- The Coronet
- The Definition of Love
- The Garden
- The Mower Against Gardens
- The Mower to the Glo-Worms
- The Mower's Song
- The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Faun
- The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers
- To his Coy Mistress
- Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax
- An Elegie upon the Death of the Deane of Paul's Dr John Donne
- To a Lady that Desired I would Love her
The Night
This is a poem from the earlier (1650) edition of Silex Scintillans. Like many of Vaughan's poems, it is a meditation on a Bible verse. This poem focuses on John 3:2, taken from the account of a night-time meeting between Jesus and a Jewish religious leader called Nicodemus. The poem is partly about Nicodemus and his search for enlightenment at night and partly about the night itself and its spiritual significance. It highlights the paradox paradox of the night being a time of spiritual light, sight and revelation.
More on light: see Big Ideas > Light; see also Big Ideas > Apocalypse, Revelation, the End Times, the Second Coming
Nicodemus
The first part (the first four stanzas) centres on Nicodemus. The phrase ‘pure Virgin-shrine' evokes the figure of Jesus who was believed to have been carried within the womb of the Virgin Mary at the Incarnation (John 1:1-5; John 1:50-14), as a shrine was believed to contain the holy presence of a saint. The image is again one of light, as in Ascension - Hymn: we cannot bear to look directly at the sun, but we can view the moon.
In his discussion with Nicodemus in John 3:19-21, Jesus talks about spiritual darkness and blindness and later in the same Gospel, there is a longer discussion about light (John 9:35-41). The biblical imagery chimes in naturally with Vaughan's own preferred imagery. Malachi 4:2 is then quoted in terms of Christ being the fulfilment of the predicted messenger (Malachi 3:1). Christ is the ‘Sun', and Vaughan cannot resist the Sun/Son of God) play on words, also seen in Donne's Good Friday 1613. Riding Westward.
The reference in Stanza 3 to flower and ‘sacred leafs' may be a reference to the clover-leaf image that St Patrick used to illustrate the way in which the Trinity is believed to be three persons in one. Stanza 4 points out that the meeting was not held in some sacred space like the Temple. The ‘mercy-seat' was the holiest part of the Jewish Temple (Exodus 25:20 AV; Hebrews 9:5 AV). They met amid ‘trees and herbs', in nature itself, which for Vaughan becomes sacred just because of the presence of Christ, the Son of God.
Night
The second section, consisting of the next four stanzas, is a meditation on night itself. The apostrophe to night in stanza 5 is quite Shakespearean in its language. ‘Christs progress' refers to Jesus spending time in prayer at night. The first edition of the poem quoted Mark 1:35 and Luke 21:37 to show this. In stanza 6, the night is Christ's ‘knocking time', which refers to Revelation 3:20 and the image of Christ knocking at the door of the human heart. Only in the silence of the night can this knocking be heard.
Vaughan's mystical tendencies can be seen in his references to ‘The day of Spirits', ‘When Spirits their fair kinred (kindred, relatives) catch' and ‘unhaunted'. This ties in with Ascension-Hymn, but perhaps owes more too Welsh popular beliefs than Christian theology.
Final prayer
Night is the natural time of meditation. The day (stanza 8) is just too busy. The Sun now is referred to as ‘this worlds ill-guiding light': we cannot see truly in the business of the day. The poem concludes with a final prayer in stanza 9. At the heart of God is ‘A deep but dazzling darkness'. This is not his perception (‘some say'); nevertheless it chimes in exactly with his imagery of light. This is the final oxymoron, enshrining the paradox that light can only be seen in darkness. The final plea for invisibility is the mystic's plea not to have to live in this world, but to be able to live in a purely spiritual world.
- Read through Vaughan's The Night
- Why is the night ‘this worlds defeat' and ‘Gods silent, searching flight'?
- Can you explain the oxymoron of ‘dazzling darkness'?
- Examine the stanza form
- What can you say about how it works?
- How do you welcome the night?
- Have you ever received revelation then that you don't think you would have received during the day?
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