Hanson IS a metaphysical poet?
Taxman,
I was kidding. A little.
What's glaringly absent from VDH's piece is necessarily rigorous metrics and medial pauses.
I'm still kidding.
He's a very fine writer, though too much the military historian to be a poet. But every now and again we can glimpse a style (see Raleigh) and purpose (see Gardner) that might qualify him as a poet.
It seems to me when I read pieces like this that his personal philosophy is that of a metaphysicist. And for that he can even be excused his occasional ill temper.