Monday, February 27, 2023

The Night



                           John 3.2

      Through that pure virgin shrine,
That sacred veil drawn o’er Thy glorious noon,
That men might look and live, as glowworms 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 hallowed 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 carved 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; care’s 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 filled 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 every 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!

-- Henry Vaughan (1621-1695) Welsh poet and devout Anglican through the English Civil War and Commonwealth

Image: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Study of Nicodemus

Scripture Link: John 3:1-17, 2 Lent A

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