In any history of the
development of the love of the present age for Nature, Vaughan, although
I fear his influence would be found to have been small as yet, must be
represented as the Phosphor of coming dawn. Beside him, Thomson is cold,
artistic, and gray: although larger in scope, he is not to be compared
with him in sympathetic sight. It is this insight that makes Vaughan a
mystic. He can see one thing everywhere, and all things the same--yet
each with a thousand sides that radiate crossing lights, even as the airy
particles around us. For him everything is the expression of, and points
back to, some fact in the Divine Thought. Along the line of every ray he
looks towards its radiating centre--the heart of the Maker.
I could give many instances of Vaughan's power in reading the heart of
Nature, but I may not dwell upon this phase. Almost all the poems I give
and have given will afford such.
I walked the other day, to spend my hour,
Into a field,
Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield
A gallant flower;
But winter now had ruffled all the bower
And curious store
I knew there heretofore.
Yet I whose search loved not to peep and peer
I' th' face of things,
Thought with myself, there might be other springs
Besides this here,
Which, like cold friends, sees us but once a year;
And so the flower
Might have some other bower.
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