In that state I came, return.”

The second form of this idea appears in Vaughan’s poem called “Corruption.” Man is represented as enjoying the happiness of innocence in the garden of Eden, where he was in close touch with the beauties of heaven. Here he had a glimpse of his heavenly birth; but when, by reason of sin, he was forced to leave that place, he found earth and heaven no longer friendly.

“Sure, it was so. Man in those early days

Was not all stone and earth;

He shin’d a little, and by those weak rays

Had some glimpse of his birth.

He saw heaven o’er his head, and knew from whence

He came, condemnèd, hither;

And, as first love draws strongest, so from hence

His mind sure progress’d thither.