a
very rude progress from youthful poesy if he felt and thought aright.
There was a sterner change in store, however, and it came to him with the
monition, "Physician, heal thyself!" He was prostrated by severe bodily
disease, and thenceforth his spirit was bowed to the claims of the unseen
world. The "light amorist" found a higher inspiration. He turned his
footsteps to the Temple and worshipped at the holy altar of Herbert. His
poetry becomes religious. "Sparks from the Flint" is the title which he
gives his new verses, "Silex Scintillans." After that pledge to holiness
given to the world, he survived nearly half a century, dying at the mature
age of seventy-three--a happy subject of contemplation in the bosom of his
Welsh retirement, passing quietly down the vale of life, feeding his
spirit on the early-gathered harvest of wit, learning, taste, feeling,
fancy, benevolence and piety.

Of such threads was the life of our poet spun.

His verse is light, airy, flying with the lark to heaven. Hear him with
"his singing robes" about him:

"I would I were some bird or star,
Flutt'ring in woods, or lifted far
Above this inn
And road of sin!
Then either star or bird should be
Shining or singing still to thee."

In this song of "Peace"--

"My soul, there is a country
Afar beyond the stars,
Where stands a winged sentry
All skillful in the wars.
There, above noise and danger,
Sweet peace sits crown'd with smiles,
And one born in a manger
Commands the beauteous files.
He is thy gracious friend,
And (oh, my soul awake!)
Did in pure love descend,
To die here for thy sake.
If thou canst get but thither,
There grows the flower of peace,
The rose that cannot wither,
Thy fortress and thy ease.
Leave, then, thy foolish ranges;
For none can thee secure,
But one, who never changes--
Thy God, thy Life, thy Cure."

Or in that kindred ode, full of "intimations of immortality received in
childhood," entitled, "The Retreat:"

"Happy those early days, when I
Shin'd in my angel infancy!
Before I understood this place,
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walkt above
A mile or two from my first love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of his bright f