I have no room for poems often quoted, therefore not for that lovely one beginning "They are all gone into the world of light;" but I must not omit _The Retreat_, for besides its worth, I have another reason for presenting it. THE RETREAT. Happy those early days when I Shined in my angel-infancy! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy ought But a white, celestial thought; When yet I had not walked above A mile or two from my first love, And, looking back, at that short space Could see a glimpse of his bright face; 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 several sin to every sense; But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness. O 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 the enlightened 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. 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. "A white celestial thought," says Vaughan: "Heaven lies about us in our infancy," says Wordsworth. "A mile or two off, I could see his face," says Vaughan: "Trailing clouds of glory do we come," says Wordsworth. "On some gilded cloud or flower, my gazing soul would dwell an hour," says Vaughan: "The hour of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower," says Wordsworth.