Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just!
Shining nowhere but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!

Henry Vaughan (1621–1695), the Welsh “metaphysical” poet, wrote intensely devotional verse in the wake of personal illness, civil-war upheaval, and a midlife religious reawakening. These lines come from his poem “Death: A Dialogue,” in which Death is addressed not as a terror but as a paradoxical gift for the righteous—an entry into divine mystery. Vaughan’s sacred poetry, especially in the collection *Silex Scintillans* (“The Flaming Flint”), repeatedly treats darkness, concealment, and mortality as conditions through which spiritual truth becomes visible. The speaker’s apostrophe to “beauteous death” reflects a Christian contemplative tradition that imagines death as the threshold to beatific knowledge rather than mere extinction.

The speaker praises death as “the jewel of the just,” reversing ordinary fear by casting death as a precious ornament reserved for the righteous. The image “Shining nowhere but in the dark” suggests that death’s value is apprehended only when life’s lights fail—when worldly certainty dims and the soul confronts ultimate realities. The closing question—what “mysteries” lie beyond dust—frames death as a boundary that both hides and promises revelation. Vaughan’s characteristic metaphysical tension is at work: death is simultaneously obscurity (“dark,” “dust”) and illumination (“shining,” “jewel”), implying that spiritual insight depends on surrendering earthly perspective.