We fall by course of Nature's law, not force
Of thunder, or of Jove ...
... on our heels a fresh perfection treads,
A power more strong in beauty, born of us
And fated to excel us, as we pass

In glory that old Darkness ...
... for 'tis the eternal law
That first in beauty should be first in might.

This is true mysticism, the mysticism Keats shares with Burke and
Carlyle, the passionate belief in continuity of essence through
ever-changing forms.




Chapter III

Nature Mystics



Vaughan and Wordsworth stand pre-eminent among our English poets in
being almost exclusively occupied with one theme, the mystical
interpretation of nature. Both poets are of a meditative, brooding cast
of mind; but whereas Wordsworth arrives at his philosophy entirely
through personal experience and sensation, Vaughan is more of a mystical
philosopher, deeply read in Plato and the mediæval alchemists. The