¤ milky moon ¤

I've been reading a lot of 17th-century poetry and I noticed how it shares a lot of themes with Divers. There is definitely that metaphysical aspect to the album.

For example, "Make Hay" is cut from the same cloth as Herrick's, "To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time".

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.

Other poems that I noticed were Donne's "The Sun Rising" and Vaughn's "The World".

There is this conceit of the eternal ring introduced at the start of "The World":

I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright,
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years
Driv'n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov'd, In which the world
And all her train were hurl'd;
[...]

Vaughn then sketches some characters found in said World, and the poem ends thus

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing, and weep, soar'd up into the Ring,
But most would use no wing.
O fools (said I,) thus to prefer dark night
Before true light,
To live in grots, and caves, and hate the day
Because it shews the way,
The way from which this dead and dark abode
Leads up to God,
A way where you might tread the Sun, and be
More bright than he.
But as I did their madness so discusse
One whisper'd thus,
This Ring the Bride-groome did for none provide
But for his bride.

Flying, sun, stars, light, dark, time, eternity, marriage, visions. Sounds about right!

Insightful, thanks for sharing!