The Complete Poems

Although he wrote some secular verse in suitably fashionable modes, Henry Vaughan is chiefly valued for his religious poetry. Less worldly than Donne or Herbert, to whom he is indebted, Vaughan wrote poetry both mysterious and richly suggestive. His approach to Christianity, however, cannot be given precise and indisputable definition, as he was strongly influenced by hermeticism and other prevailing currents of mysticism. In addition, his response to nature marks him out from his contemporaries and, in some respects, prefigures nineteenth-century romanticism. This is the most comprehensively annotated edition of Vaughan's complete poems yet to appear and, for the first time, makes a serious attempt to unravel the host of biblical allusions which suffuse his work. - Back cover.… (more)