SOURCE: "On the Poems of Henry Vaughan," in On the Poems of Henry Vaughan: Characteristics and Intimations, Richard Cobden-Sanderson, 1927, pp. 7-49.

Blunden was associated with the Georgians, an early twentieth-century group of English poets who reacted against the prevalent contemporary mood of disillusionment and the rise of artistic modernism by seeking to return to the pastoral, nineteenth-century poetic traditions associated with William Wordsworth. In this regard, much of Blunden's poetry reflects his love of the sights, sounds, and ways of rural England. As a literary critic and essayist, he often wrote of the lesser-known figures of the Romantic era and of the pleasures of English country life. In the following excerpt, he praises Vaughan's metaphysical nature poetry in superlative terms, judging Vaughan superior to George Herbert in poetic accomplishment. Upon publication, Blunden's essay drew critical scorn from T. S. Eliot.

Wherever the question of the survival of the...