LIGHT

OF

LIGHT.

original: "Lumen de Lumine." This title refers to a central alchemical and mystical concept where the "Light of Nature" is derived from the Divine Light.

Now had the Night spent her black stage, and all
Her beauteous, twinkling flames grew sick
and pale.
Her Scene of shades, and silence fled; and Day
Drest the young East in Roses: where each Ray
Falling on Sables, made the Sun and Night
Kiss in a Checker of mixed Clouds, and Light.
The "Sables" refers to the black colors of mourning or darkness; the "Checker" describes the dappled, interlocking patterns of light and shadow at dawn.

I Think it were more plain,
and to some capacities
more pleasing, if I should
express myself in this pop-
ular, low Dialect. Vaughan is signaling his choice to write in common English ("low dialect") rather than the academic Latin usually reserved for such esoteric subjects, making the work more accessible to the reader. It was
about the Dawning or
Daybreak, when tired
with a tedious solitude, and those pensive
Thoughts which attend it, after much Loss
and