Of such threads was the life of our poet spun.

His verse is light, airy, flying with the lark to heaven.  Hear him with “his singing robes” about him: 

    “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.”