constant comparison of natural with spiritual processes is, on the
whole, the most marked feature of Vaughan's poetry. If man will but
attend, he seems to say to us, everything will discourse to him of the
spirit. He broods on the silk-worm's change into the butterfly
(_Resurrection and Immortality_); he ponders over the mystery of the
continuity of life as seen in the plant, dying down and entirely
disappearing in winter, and shooting up anew in the spring (_The Hidden
Flower_); or, while wandering by his beloved river Usk, he meditates
near the deep pool of a waterfall on its mystical significance as it
seems to linger beneath the banks and then to shoot onward in swifter
course, and he sees in it an image of life beyond the grave. The seed
growing secretly in the earth suggests to him the growth of the soul in
the darkness of physical matter; and in _Affliction_ he points out that
all nature is governed by a law of periodicity and contrast, night and
day, sunshine and shower; and as the beauty of colour can only exist by
contrast, so are pain, sickness, and trouble needful for the development
of man. These poems are sufficient to illustrate the temper of Vaughan's
mind, his keen, reverent observation of nature in all her moods, and his
intense interest in the minutest happenings, because they are all
manifestations of the one mighty law.

Vaughan appears to have had a more definite belief in pre-existence than
Wordsworth, for he refers to it more than once; and _The Retreate_,
which is probably the best known of all his poems and must have
furnished some suggestion for the _Immortality Ode_, is based upon it.
Vaughan has occasionally an almost perfect felicity of mystical
expression, a power he shares with Donne, Keats, Rossetti, and
Wordsworth. His ideas then produce their effect through the medium of
art, directly on the feelings. The poem called _Quickness_ is perhaps
the best example of this peculiar quality, which cannot be analysed but