"I would I were some bird or star,
Flutt'ring in woods, or lifted far
Above this inn
And road of sin!
Then either star or bird should be
Shining or singing still to thee."

In this song of "Peace"—

"My soul, there is a country
Afar beyond the stars,
Where stands a winged sentry
All skillful in the wars.
There, above noise and danger,
Sweet peace sits crown'd with smiles,
And one born in a manger
Commands the beauteous files.
He is thy gracious friend,
And (oh, my soul awake!)
Did in pure love descend,
To die here for thy sake.
If thou canst get but thither,
There grows the flower of peace,
The rose that cannot wither,
Thy fortress and thy ease.
Leave, then, thy foolish ranges;
For none can thee secure,
But one, who never changes—
Thy God, thy Life, thy Cure."

Or in that kindred ode, full of "intimations of immortality received in childhood," entitled, "The Retreat:"

"Happy those early days, when I
Shin'd in my angel infancy!
Before I understood this place,
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walkt above
A mile or two from my first love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A sev'ral sin to ev'ry sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
Oh how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence th' enlight'ned spirit sees
That shady city of palm-trees.
But, ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move;
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return."

Here is a picture of the angel-visited world of Eden, not altogether destroyed by the Fall, when

"Each day
The valley or the mountain
Afforded visits, and still Paradise lay
In some green shade or fountain.
Angels lay lieger here: each bush and cell,
Each oak and highway knew them;
Walk but the fields, or sit down at some well,
And he was sure to view them."

Vaughan's birds and flowers gleam with light from the spirit land. This is the opening of a little piece entitled "The Bird:"

"Hither thou com'st. The busy wind all night
Blew through thy lodging, where thy own warm wing
Thy pillow was. Many a sullen storm,
For which coarse man seems much the fitter born,
Rain'd on thy bed
And harmless head;
And now, as fresh and cheerful as the light,
Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing
Unto that Providence, whose unseen arm
Curb'd them, and cloth'd thee well and warm."

How softly the image of the little bird again tempers the thought of death in his ode to the memory of the departed: