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.
Let any one who is well acquainted with Wordsworth's grand ode--that on
the _Intimations of Immortality_--turn his mind to a comparison between
that and this: he will find the resemblance remarkable. Whether _The
Retreat_ suggested the form of the _Ode_ is not of much consequence, for
the _Ode_ is the outcome at once and essence of all Wordsworth's
theories; and whatever he may have drawn from _The Retreat_ is glorified
in the _Ode_. Still it is interesting to compare them. Vaughan believes
with Wordsworth and some other great men that this is not our first stage
of existence; that we are haunted by dim memories of a former state. This
belief is not necessary, however, to sympathy with the poem, for whether
the present be our first life or no, we have come from God, and bring
from him conscience and a thousand godlike gifts.--"Happy those early
days," Vaughan begins: "There was a time," begins Wordsworth, "when the
earth seemed apparelled in celestial light." "Before I understood this
place," continues Vaughan: "Blank misgivings of a creature moving about
in worlds not realized," says Wordsworth.
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