The Retreat

The  Retreat

Henry Vaughan

 

Happy those early days! when I

Shined 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 walked 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 several sin to every sense,

But felt through all this fleshly dress

Bright shoots of everlastingness.

O, 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’ enlightened 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.

 

Short Question

Q.  Bring out the center theme of The Retreat

Ans:The Retreat communicates Vaughan's grieving for the glad days of his youth. At the point when he was a youngster, he was near God. He was then ready to see the eminent glimmer in the objects of Nature. In any case, the more he develops the more he has been denied of that divine light. He is currently without the blamelessness of adolescence. Along these lines, the artist longs to return to paradise in this way he has come.

R.  Bring out the appropriateness of the title of The Retreat.

Ans: The word 'Retreat' signifies 'retirement to a spot for rest'. The Retreat mostly communicates the writer's profound want to return to his youth wherefrom he has come on the grounds that in his youth he delighted in the organization with God. His unique home is paradise. So he needs to return to paradise where he needs to see the train of edges once more. Rather than going ahead, the writer needs to have a retreat to his youth. So the title is suitable.

Q. “Happy those early days…” – which days are referred to here? Why were those days happy to the poet?

Ans: The days of the innocent childhood are referred to here.

The days of the childhood were happy to the poet because then the poet enjoyed the sweet company with God. Then he was able to perceive the celestial light in the ordinary objects of nature. Then everything was beautiful. So those days of early childhood were happy to the poet.

Q. “Before I understood this place

Appointed for my second race.” –When is this place referred to here? What do you mean by ‘second race’?

Ans: ‘This place’ refers to the earth. Vaughan here alludes to the Platonic concept of ideal life. According to Plato, this life on earth is a mere reflection of the ideal life in heaven. On the other words, before birth the soul of man has its existence in heaven. After birth, it descends to the earth in the form of human being. The first race was the race of race of the souls. The ‘second race’ refers to the race of human beings on the earth.

Q.“And looking back, at that short space,

Could see a glimpse off His bright face.” Explain the poet’s meaning.

Ans: In this childhood the poet Henry Vaughan enjoyed the company with God. He was then very close to God. He could perceive the celestial light even in the ordinary objects of Nature. In those days, the poet could see the face of God whenever he looked back. But as he has grown up, he has been deprived of that heavenly light.

Q. Bring out at least two conceits from The Retreat and explain them?

Ans: The child is spoken to have a country walk with his father . This child always enjoys the company of his father whose face he sees all the time. Secondly, God is considered as the ‘First lover’ by the poet. Infact, before our birth our soul has God as its first lover. Those who conceits are well conceived by the poet Henry Vaughan.

Q. What does Vaughan mean by “Sidney city of Palm trees”?

Ans: This implies paradise is liberated from any sort of affliction or inconvenience. Harmony reigns in paradise. The Jews considered paradise as a 'study city of Palm trees' in The consuming desert of Arabia and Palestine. Along these lines, this is especially a Jewish origination. Be that as it may, this likewise alludes to the Biblical record of the demise of Mosses. Greenflies were allowed one sight of the plain Jericho which was the city of the Palm trees. The writer intends to express that in returning to paradise he will again have a flat out euphoria and harmony.

Q. “Some men a forward motion love

But I by backward steps would move” ----Why does the poet want to go backward? Explain the poet’s meaning.

Ans: Instead of going forward, the poet Henry Vaughan wants to have a retreat to his childhood because in his childhood he was very close to God. Then he could perceive the glory of God even in the ordinary objects of Nature. But the more he grows up the more he has been deprived of the celestial beauty of the childhood. So, the poet prefers to go back to his childhood to go forward.

 

 How does the poet glorify his childhood days in his  poem “The Retreat”

=> The present is always filled with remembrance of things past or the exception of future themes.

                        “The Retreat” of Henry Vaughan has sought to recapture the innocence of childhood . The Retreat scans almost to anticipate the eighteenth century Rousseau an thought desiring to live a child to grow according to his instinet, “Let child  mature to in the child: A jewel from the casket of silex scimtillans  dazzles to celebrate the innocence of childhood and the corrupting influence of maturity.”

                         “Seems all that teach is ill

                    Why should I not love childhood still?”

                            The poem begins with the characteristic lament for the lost childhood days,

                                “Happy those early days, when I

Shin’d  in my Angel-infancy!”

                                The word “angel-infancy ” refers to that period of life which is marked of innocence and ignorance. The theme is here a retrospection of the degeneration and degradation of his personal life in contrast to what he had been during his childhood. The memory of that phrase of life and the agony of the poet’s loss of childhood vision of heavenly glory. It may be said, felton the same level as that for the lose of Eden. In “The Retreat”, Vaughan glorifies those lost early childhood days when heaven did not seem to be far”A mile , or two” and the poet “could see glimpse of His bright face; when on some glinded could or flower.”

 

                    The poet’s “gazing soul would dwell on hour”

Speaking significantly this is a psychology journey in its extreme form in which the poet seeks extinction of the flesh so that the soul is released and made one with the divine source once again. The Poet wants to go back to the city of palm trees or heaven. He finds “weaker glory spy some shadows of eternity”. In experienced with the way of the world appointed for “the second race” and his “soul with too much stay

          Is drunk and staggers in the way”.

He could only think of white and celestial beauties. He finds the reflection of the universal beauty in the particular thinks of physical beauty that is to say, he tries to graduate to the understanding of the Universal Beauty of God.

 

                                        Thus, merged in the wider consciousness of separation from his true home, he reminiscences his childhood days when everything appeared as bathed in angelic glory  and now he regrets over the loss of celestial vision intensifying the impulse to retreat towards infancy , “o how I long to travel back”.

                        We can conclude with David Daiches, “In such a poem as “The Retreat” Vaughan tries to recapture the innocence of infancy.” The mundane world was relieved by occasional private glimpses of eternity, but it was a sad fate on the whole to be cut off behind the temporal curtain.