Sure, it was so. Man in those early days Was not all stone and earth; He shined a little, and by those weak rays, Had some glimpse of his birth. He saw Heaven o’er his head, and knew from whence He came condemned hither, And, as first Love draws strongest, so from hence His mind sure progressed thither.” Henry Vaughan, _Silex Scintillans_. Mr. Reed also quotes a passage from Vaughan’s poem _Childehood_; but a more apposite passage may be found in _The Retreate_, in _Silex Scintillans_. Happy those early dayes, when I Shined in my Angell-infancy! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy ought But a white celestiall thought; When yet I had not walkt 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 Flowre_ My gazing soul would dwell an houre, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity; … But felt through all this fleshly dresse Bright _shootes_ of everlastingnesse. The extent of Wordsworth’s debt to Vaughan has been discussed a good deal. There was no copy of the _Silex Scintillans_ in the Rydal Mount sale-catalogue. I believe that he had read _The Retreate_, and forgotten it more completely perhaps than Coleridge forgot Sir John Davies’ _Orchestra, a Poem on Dancing_, when he wrote _The Ancient Mariner_. The following may be added from _The Friend_ (the edition of 1818), vol. i. p. 183:--“To find no contradiction in the union of old and new to contemplate the Ancient of Days with feelings as fresh as if they then sprang forth at his own fiat, this characterizes the minds that feel the riddle of the world, and may help to unravel it! To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood, to combine the child’s sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every day, for perhaps 40 years, had rendered familiar, With sun and moon and stars throughout the year And man and woman---- This is the character and privilege of genius, and one of the marks which distinguish genius from talent.”--ED. [310] Compare the Atman of the Vedanta Philosophy.--ED. [311] See vol. ii. p. 292.--ED. [312] 1820. … has … 1807. [313] Compare _The Idle Shepherd Boys_, ll. 28-30 (vol. ii. p. 138).--ED. [314] 1807. Even yet more gladness, I can hold it all. MS. [315] 1836. While the Earth herself … 1807. … itself … 1827. The text of 1832 returns to that of 1807. [316] 1836. … pulling 1807. [317] Where is it gone, … MS. [318] 1807. … beholds it … MS.