ace;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A sev'ral sin to ev'ry sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
Oh how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence th' enlight'ned spirit sees
That shady city of palm-trees.
But, ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move;
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return."

Here is a picture of the angel-visited world of Eden, not altogether
destroyed by the Fall, when

"Each day
The valley or the mountain
Afforded visits, and still Paradise lay
In some green shade or fountain.
Angels lay lieger here: each bush and cell,
Each oak and highway knew them;
Walk but the fields, or sit down at some well,
And he was sure to view them."

Vaughan's birds and flowers gleam with light from the spirit land. This is
the opening of a little piece entitled "The Bird:"

"Hither thou com'st. The busy wind all night
Blew through thy lodging, where thy own warm wing
Thy pillow was. Many a sullen storm,
For which coarse man seems much the fitter born,
Rain'd on thy bed
And harmless head;
And now, as fresh and cheerful as the light,
Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing
Unto that Providence, whose unseen arm
Curb'd them, and cloth'd thee well and warm."

How softly the image of the little bird again tempers the thought of death
in his ode to the memory of the departed:

"He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know
At first sight if the bird be flown;
But what fair dell or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown."

But we must leave this fair garden of the poet's fancies. The reader will
find there many a flower yet untouched.

* * * * *

Richard Crashaw was the contemporary of the early years of Vaughan; for,
alas! he died young--though not till he had transcri