His movements are sometimes grand, sometimes awkward.

Herbert is always gracious--I use the word as meaning much more than _graceful_.
The following poem will instance Vaughan's fine mysticism and odd embodiment: COCK-CROWING.
Father of lights! what sunny seed, What glance of day hast thou confined Into this bird?
To all the breed This busy ray thou hast assigned; Their magnetism works all night, And dreams of Paradise and light.
Their eyes watch for the morning hue; Their little grain,[143] expelling night, So shines and sings, as if it knew The path unto the house of light: It seems their candle, howe'er done, Was tined[144] and lighted at the sun.
If such a tincture, such a touch, So firm a longing can empower, Shall thy own image think it much To watch for thy appearing hour?
If a mere blast so fill the sail, Shall not the breath of God prevail?
O thou immortal Light and Heat, Whose hand so shines through all this frame, That by the beauty of the seat, We plainly see who made the same! Seeing thy seed abides in me, Dwell thou in it, and I in thee.
To sleep without thee is to die; Yea, 'tis a death partakes of hell; For where thou dost not close the eye, It never opens, I can tell: In such a dark, Egyptian border The shades of death dwell and disorder Its joys and hopes and earnest throws, And hearts whose pulse beats still for light, Are given to birds, who but thee knows A love-sick soul's exalted flight?
Can souls be tracked by any eye But his who gave them wings to fly?
Only this veil, which thou hast broke, And must be broken yet in me; This veil, I say, is all the cloak And cloud which shadows me from thee.
This veil thy full-eyed love denies, And only gleams and fractions spies.
O take it off.

Make no delay, But brush me with thy light, that I May shine unto a perfect day, And warm me at thy glorious eye.
O take it off; or, till it flee, Though with no lily, stay with me.
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.