God Calls to Us in the Night

Joshua Reynolds, The Child Prophet Samuel in Prayer

Joshua Reynolds, Samuel in Prayer (1776)

Spiritual Sunday

My basketball player who is writing an essay about Henry Vaughan (see my post on him and the poem “Cock Crowing” here) has me thinking about light and dark imagery in the poetry of this 17th century mystical Anglican. Usually Vaughan associates God with light, as in “Cock Crowing” and “The World” (which I write about here). But in “The Night,” he complicates the symbolism. God is still described as light, but he is also “a deep and dazzling darkness.”

The poem is inspired by the story of Nicodemus (John 3:1-2), a Pharisee who secretly sought out Jesus at night, telling him, “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God.” Vaughan envies Nicodemus, who could do “what can never more be done”—which is to say, “at midnight speak with the Sun!” The sun/son pun is used throughout 17th century religious verse to capture the glory of the son of God.

The night, as Vaughan describes it in the poem, is a time when Jesus withdrew into a place of prayer.  The darkness is like a “virgin-shrine” or a “calm and unhaunted . . . dark tent.” This is in contrast with the daytime where, Vaughan observes, “all mix and tire themselves and others” and “I consent and run to every mire.” Yeah, it sounds like my life too.

You can read the poem after the break:

The Night

By 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 hallowed solitary ground did bear
So rare a flower,
Within whose sacred leaves did lie
The fullness 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.
Oh for that night, where I in him
Might live invisible and dim.

I love the nature imagery in this poem. Worshippers are glowworms (fireflies), lit up inside by God’s holy presence. Jesus is a rare night flower, “within whose sacred leaves did lie the fullness of the deity.” Jesus’s head is wet with night dew, his “still, soft call” letting us know that he is there for us.  With this image, perhaps Vaughan has in mind the child Samuel, who heard God calling to him in the middle of the night. The words also echo the “still small voice” that Elijah heard (1 Kings 19:11-12):

And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.

It can be hard to hear God when life is swirling around us and we are being “busy fools.” In the quiet of the night, however, we may catch that still soft call.

Added note:

The Norton Anthology of British Literature points to another evocative allusion, one that thrills me deeply, in the image of Jesus’s locks “wet with the clear drops of night.”  It is from that most sensual of all books in the Bible, The Song of Solomon (5:2):

I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.

As Christians like Vaughan read this passage, we the church are the bride of Christ.  Jesus, our beloved, knocks on our door–the night is “knocking time”–and it is up to us to respond.

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