Quite spent with thoughts, I left my cell and lay <br />Where a shrill spring tuned to the early day. <br />I begged here long, and groaned to know <br />Who gave the clouds so brave a bow, <br />Who bent the spheres, and circled in <br />Corruption with this glorious ring; <br />What is His name, and how I might <br />Descry some part of His great light. <br />I summoned nature: pierced through all her store, <br />Broke up some seals which none had touched before: <br />Her womb, her bosom, and her head <br />Where all her secrets lay abed, <br />I rifled quite; and having passed <br />Through all her creatures, came at last <br />To search myself, where I did find <br />Traces and sounds of a strange kind. <br />Here of this mighty spring I found some drills, <br />With echoes beaten from the eternal hills; <br />Weak beams and fires flashed to my sight, <br />Like a young east, or moonshine night, <br />Which showed me in a nook cast by <br />A piece of much antiquity, <br />With hieroglyphics quite dismembered, <br />And broken letters scarce remembered. <br />I took them up and, much joyed, went about <br />To unite those pieces, hoping to find out <br />The mystery; but this ne'er done, <br />That little light I had was gone: <br />It grieved me much. At last, said I, <br />Since in these veils my eclipsed eye <br />May not approach Thee (for at night <br />Who can have commerce with the light?), <br />I'll disapparel, and to buy <br />But one half glance, mist gladly die.<br /><br />Henry Vaughan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/vanity-of-spirit/
