THE NIGHT.
John, Cap, 3. Ver 2.
Henry Vaughan
THROUGH that pure virgin shrine,
That sacred veil drawn o'er Thy glorious noon,
That men might look and live, as glow-worms shine,
And face the moon :
Wise Nicodemus saw such light
As made him know his God by night.
Most blest believer he !
Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes
Thy long-expected healing wings could see
When Thou didst rise !
And, what can never more be done,
Did at midnight speak with the Sun !
O who will tell me, where
He found Thee at that dead and silent hour ?
What hallow'd solitary ground did bear
So rare a flower ;
Within whose sacred leaves did lie
The fulness of the Deity ?
No mercy-seat of gold,
No dead and dusty cherub, nor carv'd stone,
But His own living works did my Lord hold
And lodge alone ;
Where trees and herbs did watch and peep
And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.
Dear Night ! this world's defeat ;
The stop to busy fools ; cares check and curb ;
The day of spirits ; my soul's calm retreat
Which none disturb !
Christ's* progress, and His prayer-time ;
The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.
God's silent, searching flight ;
When my Lord's head is fill'd with dew, and all
His locks are wet with the clear drops of night ;
His still, soft call ;
His knocking-time ; the soul's dumb watch,
When spirits their fair kindred catch.
Were all my loud, evil days
Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent,
Whose peace but by some angel's wing or voice
Is seldom rent ;
Then I in Heaven all the long year
Would keep, and never wander here.
But living where the sun
Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire
Themselves and others, I consent and run
To ev'ry mire ;
And by this world's ill-guiding light,
Err more than I can do by night.
There is in God—some say—
A deep, but dazzling darkness ; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that Night ! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim !
* St. Mark, cap. I, ver. 35. St. Luke, cap. 21, ver. 37.
What I love about this poem is the metaphysical conceit that centers around Nicodemus seeking Jesus by night. It suggests either a zeitgeist or the dissemination of the teachings of St. John of the Cross. What is particularly lovely is the couplet:
"And, what can never more be done,
Did at midnight speak with the Sun !"
Thus Nicodemus was privileged, in a special way, to speak with the Source of Light under the cover of darkness. The brilliance of eternity comes only under the cloak of night, with the deadening of all the sensate world and the concentration on the things of God.
Once again, in an interesting trope, we see the day turned into darkness, and the darkness that blinds the senses and provides us with real and certain knowledge of God, becoming the true purveyor of eternity:
"And by this world's ill-guiding light,
Err more than I can do by night."
And there is the final turn, the last stanza that wraps it all together and makes the conceit meaningful. It has within it an absolutely lovely turn of phrase, "There is in God--some say--/A deep, but dazzling darkness." St. John of the Cross says that true knowledge of God is darkness to the intellect because God cannot be comprehended by the senses nor by the intellect. The divide that separated us from Him in the fall separated us so thoroughly that we cannot by our own lights see Him in His glory--we can only make out the barest outline. But in the darkness of the intellect, the Light of God shines brilliantly and the knowledge of Him is made secure. Thus Vaughn concludes:
"There is in God—some say—
A deep, but dazzling darkness ; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that Night ! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim !"
That I might live invisible and dim in the light of eternity and not in the false light, which is really darkness, that I draw around myself when I pretend to greater knowledge than I have!
