The Retreat (Summary & Explanation)

The Retreat is one of Henry Vaughan’s best-known metaphysical poems. This poem explores how the poet is derailed from purity as a grown-up man and his longing for returning to the blissful state of everlastingness. The Retreat glorifies the stage of infancy as the purest state of a man’s life. Before beginning a reader should take note of the use of the word “retreat” in the title. Through Vaughan’s selection of this metaphysical conceit, it takes on two different meanings. The first, that of hiding or getting away from one’s life, and the other as a reference to a place of happiness. He is seeking out both a return to the past and a retreat to a happier time. The two coincide with the speaker in this poem.

 

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.

Summary:- The Retreat by Henry Vaughan describes a speaker’s desire to escape to the past where he was a younger, purer, and generally happier human being. The poem begins with the speaker mourning for the lost days of his childhood. He longs to return to a time when he was in his “angel infancy” and had yet to be influenced by the dark forces of the world. It would be a time in which he had yet to stray far from his home or realize the struggle that would take him over internally. In the present day, he worries about his own emotions and his sinful nature. He is concerned over his own being in a way that was not even considered when he was young. In the last lines, the speaker describes the end of his life and how he will return to the dust of the earth. This will be the penultimate ending for a man who longs for his previous life.

The Retreat is a thirty-two line poem that is contained within one stanza of text. The poet has chosen to utilize a structured and consistent pattern of rhyme. It follows the scheme of aabbccdd… and so on, throughout the entire text. So, the overall poem is written in rhyming couplets. For example, in the first two lines “I” imperfectly rhymes with “infancy”. In the following lines, “place” and “race” rhyme together. There is no specific stanza division in the text. There is only a shift in mood and thought-process in line 21. Besides, the overall poem is composed of alternative iambic and trochaic meter that resonates with the mood of the speaker.

This poem begins with a rhetorical exclamation. In the second line, readers can find a metaphor in the phrase, “my angel infancy”. It compares the quality of angels to that of a child. Moving on, there are some more metaphors such as “second race”, “shadows of eternity”, “shoots of everlastingness”, etc. Those metaphors are also examples of metaphysical conceits. Vaughan uses metonymy in the usage of the word “white”. It is a symbol of purity and innocence. Readers can find alliteration in the phrase “short space”. Here, the repetition of the “s” sound creates a rhyming. In the line “Could see a glimpse of His bright face,” Vaughan alludes to the creator, God. In the last section, the lines “Some men a forward motion love;/ But I by backward steps would move” contain a paradox. The last two lines of the poem contain anticipation.

In the sense of conclusion, ‘The Retreat’ taps on the themes of corruption, childhood, and loss of innocence. The main theme of the poem deals with the blissful state of infancy. In this stage, the soul is close to the creator. As the body matures, it sheds off the heavenly qualities and gets corrupted. In this way, Vaughan introduces the theme of spiritual corruption. This type of corruption is caused by worldliness, carnal desires, and materialism. Last but not least, the loss of innocence is another important aspect of this poem. Due to this loss, the speaker realizes the importance of divinity. For this reason, he expresses his concern for backward movement in order to reach the state of purity again.