So when that day and hour shall come,
In which thyself will be the sun,
Thou'lt find me drest and on my way,
Watching the break of thy great day.
I do not think that description of the dawn has ever been surpassed. The
verse "All expect some sudden matter," is wondrously fine. The water
"dead and in a grave," because stagnant, is a true fancy; and the
"acquainted elsewhere" of the running stream, is a masterly phrase. I
need not point out the symbolism of the poem.
I do not know a writer, Wordsworth not excepted, who reveals more delight
in the visions of Nature than Henry Vaughan. He is a true forerunner of
Wordsworth, inasmuch as the latter sets forth with only greater
profundity and more art than he, the relations between Nature and Human
Nature; while, on the other hand, he is the forerunner as well of some
one that must yet do what Wordsworth has left almost unattempted,
namely--set forth the sympathy of Nature with the aspirations of the
spirit that is born of God, born again, I mean, in the recognition of the
child's relation to the Father. Both Herbert and Vaughan have thus read
Nature, the latter turning many leaves which few besides have turned. In
this he has struck upon a deeper and richer lode than even Wordsworth,
although he has not wrought it with half his skill.
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