by Henry Vaughan
The primary theme of Henry Vaughan's "The Retreat" is encapsulated within the title. whereas the majority check up on the globe and their lives and need to stay moving forward, the speaker of this literary composition desires to maneuver backward, a minimum of in terms of his spirituality. The speaker clearly believes that he was nighest to God once he was born than at the other time throughout his life. the rationale for that, he says, is that he has adult to line his thoughts on things apart from God and has developed his sinful nature. This literary composition could be a meditation regarding sin and worldly issues entering into the approach of man's earliest association to God.
The first half the literary composition is one terribly long sentence expressing joy regarding those terrific time period of the speaker's life.
Happy those early days! after I
Shined in my angel infancy.
These days were happy, he continues, as a result of he had not nevertheless "taught [his] soul to fancy" something apart from "a white, celestial thought." He goes on to present a lot of samples of why that life was a much better one. He was still shut enough to his "first love" that he might "see a glimpse of His bright face" once he checked out a number of God's creation, sort of a flower or a cloud. Back then his "gazing soul" would ponder such things, and his thoughts would often direct him to heaven. But of course that was all part of an earlier time, a time
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to every sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
The second half of the poem is similar to the first, but instead of just thinking about the happiness of those "early days," the speaker expresses a deep longing to go back to them.
O, how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
He wants to, as the title suggests, retreat to a better and more enlightened time in his life, a time when he was closer to God. Unfortunately, he cannot do that because his soul has been here on earth too long and is too connected to the pleasures of this world. He is no longer able to go back because the earthly desires of his soul get in the way.
It is clear that the speaker believes that one is closest to God in childhood, when the connection is closer, or perhaps the separation is less. As we grow older, that connection grows more tenuous and that separation is wider. Even worse, both of these things are caused by our own choices to succumb to temptation and sin. By the time we are adults, the connection is non-existent and the separation has become an uncrossable chasm. This is the speaker's truth, and he is not happy with himself for letting his earth-bound desires get in the way of more spiritual things, like his connection to God and his more eternal-minded thoughts.
He knows that he may be alone in this kind of thinking, and the last lines of the poem are the best reflection of his theme. The speaker says:
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.
Unlike those who look to the future with anticipation and always want to move forward with their lives, this speaker wants nothing more than to move backward, returning to that earlier state of closeness with God. He wants, as the title says, to retreat.
No comments:
Post a Comment