Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move.

These lines contrast worldly ambition—valuing “forward motion” as progress, advancement, and novelty—with a deliberately countercultural desire to move “by backward steps.” In Vaughan’s devotional imagination, “backward” suggests return: to origins, to innocence, to earlier spiritual clarity, or to God rather than to public success. The couplet also hints at the paradox of Christian time: true progress may look like retreat from pride, a turning back from distraction, or a recovery of what modern striving has lost. The plain, epigrammatic form sharpens the moral choice: one direction is common (“some men”), the other is solitary (“I”).