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A MOUNT OF VISION--HENRY VAUGHAN.
We have now arrived at the borders of a long, dreary tract, which,
happily for my readers, I can shorten for them in this my retrospect.
From the heights of Henry Vaughan's verse, I look across a stony region,
with a few feeble oases scattered over it, and a hazy green in the
distance. It does not soften the dreariness that its stones are all laid
in order, that the spaces which should be meadows are skilfully paved.
Henry Vaughan belongs to the mystical school, but his poetry rules his
theories. You find no more of the mystic than the poet can easily govern;
in fact, scarcely more than is necessary to the highest poetry. He
develops his mysticism upwards, with relation to his higher nature alone:
it blossoms into poetry. His twin-brother Thomas developed his mysticism
downwards in the direction of the material sciences--a true effort still,
but one in which the danger of ceasing to be true increases with
increasing ratio the further it is carried.
They were born in South Wales in the year 1621. Thomas was a clergyman;
Henry a doctor of medicine. Both were Royalists, and both suffered in the
cause--Thomas by expulsion from his living, Henry by imprisonment. Thomas
died soon after the Restoration; Henry outlived the Revolution.
Henry Vaughan was then nearly thirty years younger than George Herbert,
whom he consciously and intentionally imitates. His art is not comparable
to that of Herbert: hence Herbert remains the master; for it is not the
thought that makes the poet; it is the utterance of that thought in
worthy presence of speech. He is careless and somewhat rugged. If he can
get his thought dressed, and thus made visible, he does not mind the
dress fitting awkwardly, or even being a little out at elbows. And yet he
has grander lines and phrases than any in Herbert. He has occasionally a
daring success that strikes one with astonishment. In a word, he says
more splendid things than Herbert, though he writes inferior poems. His
thought is profound and just; the harmonies in his soul are true; its
artistic and musical ear is defective. 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:
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