StoryTitle("caps", "The Retreat ") ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Happy those early days, when I ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Shin'd in my Angel-infancy! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Before I understood this place ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Appointed for my second race, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Or taught my soul to fancy aught ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But a white celestial thought: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "When yet I had not walk'd above ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A mile or two from my first Love, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And looking back—at that short space— ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Could see a glimpse of His bright face: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "When on some gilded cloud, or flow'r, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My gazing soul would dwell an hour, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And in those weaker glories spy ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Some shadows of eternity: ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Before I taught my tongue to wound ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My Conscience with a sinful sound, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Or had the black art to dispense ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A several sin to ev'ry sense, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But felt through all this fleshly dress ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Bright shoots of everlastingness. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "O how I long to travel back, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And tread again that ancient track! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That I might once more reach that plain ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Where first I left my glorious train; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From whence th' enlighten'd spirit sees ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That shady City of Palm-trees. ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But ah! my soul with too much stay ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Is drunk, and staggers in the way! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Some men a forward motion love, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But I by backward steps would move; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And when this dust falls to the urn, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In that state I came, return.", "") ?>
Poet("Henry Vaughan", "1621–1695") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>