dour in
the grass, of glory in the flower," says Wordsworth.

Wordsworth's poem is the profounder in its philosophy, as well as far the
grander and lovelier in its poetry; but in the moral relation, Vaughan's
poem is the more definite of the two, and gives us in its close, poor as
that is compared with the rest of it, just what we feel is wanting in
Wordsworth's--the hope of return to the bliss of childhood. We may be
comforted for what we lose by what we gain; but that is not a recompense
large enough to be divine: we want both. Vaughan will be a child again.
For the movements of man's life are in spirals: we go back whence we
came, ever returning on our former traces, only upon a higher level, on
the next upward coil of the spiral, so that it is a going back and a
going forward ever and both at once. Life is, as it were, a constant
repentance, or thinking of it again: the childhood of the kingdom takes
the place of the childhood of the brain, but comprises all that was
lovely in the former delight. The heavenly children will subdue kingdoms,
work righteousness, wax valiant in fight, rout the armies of the aliens,
merry of heart as when in the nursery of this world they fought their
fancied frigates, and defended their toy-battlements.

Here are the beginning and end of another of similar purport:

CHILDHOOD.

I cannot reach it; and my striving eye
Dazzles at it, as at eternity.
Were now that chronicle alive,
Those white designs which children drive,
And the thoughts of each harmless hour,
With their content too in my power,
Quickly would I make my path even,
And by mere playing go to heaven.

* * * * *

An age of mysteries! which he
Must live twice that would God's face see;
Which angels guard, and with it play--
Angels which foul men drive away.

How do I study now, and scan
Thee more than e'er I studied man,
And only see, through a long night,
Thy edges and thy bordering light!
O for thy centre and mid-day!
For sure that is the narrow way!

Many a true thought comes out by the help of a fancy or half-playful
exercise of the thinking power. There is a good deal of such fancy in the
following poem, but in the end it rises to the height of the purest and
best mysticism. We must not forget that the deepest man can utter, will
be but the type or symbol of a something deeper yet, of which he can
perceive only a doubtful glimmer. This will