Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; and that I, so long 150 160 ODE. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD. THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heaven is bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, As to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, 10 20 30 And with the heart of May Thou child of joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My head hath its coronal, - The fulness of your bliss, I feel - I feel it all. Oh evil day! if I were sullen While earth herself is adorning, And the children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm; I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! - But there's a tree, of many, one, A single field which I have looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone: The pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? 50 Where is it now, the glory and the dream? Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 60 Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home. Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close 40 But he beholds the light, and whence it flows; The youth who daily farther from the east Is on his way attended ; At length the man perceives it die away, Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; The homely nurse doth all she can To make her foster-child, her inmate man, And that imperial palace whence he came. See where, 'mid work of his own hand, he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, With light upon him from his father's eyes! A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song; To dialogues of business, love, or strife. Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride The little actor cons another part, 66 Filling from time to time his humorous stage " With all the persons, down to palsied age, That life brings with her in her equipage, As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation. 90 100 80 70 Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thou best philosopher, who yet doth keep Mighty prophet, seer blest! On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction; not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest; Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal nature |