The Flaming Heart
(d) Henry Vaughan (1622–95) was born in Wales, and was descended from an ancient family. He went to London to study law, then turned to medicine, and practiced at Brecon. His books include Poems (1646), Olor Iscanus (1647), Silex Scintillans (1650), and Thalia Rediviva (1678).
Vaughan’s love-poems, though they are often prettily and sometimes beautifully phrased, are inferior to his religious pieces, especially those in Silex Scintillans. His religious fervor is nobly imaginative, and strikes out lines and ideas of astonishing strength and beauty. His regard for nature, moreover, has a closeness and penetration that sometimes (for example, in The Retreat) suggests Wordsworth.
(e) Thomas Carew (1595–1645) was born in Kent, educated at Oxford, and studied law in the Middle Temple. He attained to some success as a courtier, but later died in obscurity. The date of his death is uncertain, but it was probably 1645.
His Poems (1640) show his undoubted lyrical ability. The pieces are influenced by Donne and Jonson, but they have a character of their own. The fancy is warmly colored, though it is marred by license and bad taste. We quote a lyric which can be taken as representative of the best of its kind. Its fancy is too rich and beautiful to be called fantastic, and its golden felicity of diction is rarely equaled.
Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose,
For in your beauty’s orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
Ask me no more whither do stray