Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE JEWS by HENRY VAUGHAN

Poet Analysis

First Line: WHEN THE FAIR YEAR
Last Line: THE LOST SON BY THE NEWLY FOUND.
Subject(s): JEWS; JUDAISM;
When the fair year
Of your deliverer comes,
And that long frost which now benumbs
Your hearts shall thaw; when angels here
Shall yet to man appear,
And familiarly confer
Beneath the oak and juniper:
When the bright @3Dove@1
Which now these many, many springs
Hath kept above,
Shall with spread wings
Descend, and living waters flow
To make dry dust, and dead trees grow;

O then that I
Might live, and see the olive bear
Her proper branches! which now lie
Scattered each where,
And without root and sap decay
Cast by the husbandman away.
And sure it is not far!
For as your fast and foul decays
Forerunning the bright morning-star,
Did sadly note his healing rays

Would shine elsewhere, since you were blind,
And would be cross, when God was kind:
So by all signs
Our fullness too is now come in,
And the same Sun which here declines
And sets, will few hours hence begin
To rise on you again, and look
Towards old Mamre and Eshcol's brook.
For surely he
Who loved the world so, as to give
His only Son to make it free,
Whose spirit too doth mourn and grieve
To see man lost, will for old love
From your dark hearts this veil remove.

Faith sojourned first on earth in you,
You were the dear and chosen stock:
The Arm of God, glorious and true,
Was first revealed to be your rock.

You were the @3eldest@1 child, and when
Your stony hearts despised love,
The @3youngest@1, ev'n the Gentiles then
Were cheered, your jealousy to move.

Thus, righteous Father! dost thou deal
With brutish men; thy gifts go round
By turns, and timely, and so heal
The lost son by the newly found.



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