Henry Vaughan listens to a bird on a stone in a stream

What the stones marvel at

Henry Vaughan (1621/22–1695) was a Welsh poet and physician. In The Bird he listens to a bird singing after a night of storms. The poem moves out from this one creature to the hills and valleys and down to the stones beside the stream.

Who speaks in the landscape?

The bird has slept outdoors with its own wing for a pillow. Its song sounds to the speaker like an early prayer of thanks. Wind and water can join in. A running stream gives the image of a speaking landscape an audible basis.[1]

So hills and valleys into singing break;
And though poor stones have neither speech nor tongue,
While active winds and streams both run and speak,
Yet stones are deep in admiration.[1]

Wonder without a voice

At the stones the comparison reaches a limit. Vaughan expressly leaves them without a tongue. At just this point the verse turns from sound to wonder. In the religious imagination of the poem a silent stone can take part in praise as fully as the bird whose song first caught the speaker’s ear.[1]