ODE. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD. The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. I. 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. By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 2. The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose, The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are 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 past away a glory from the earth. 3. 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, And with the heart of May Doth every Beast keep holiday;— Thou Child of Joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy! 4. Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call The heavens laugh with you in your jubilec; My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel-I feel it all. 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? Where is it now, the glory and the dream? 5. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: And cometh from afar: But trailing clouds of glory do we come Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 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, 6. Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And even with something of a Mother's mind, And no unworthy aim, The homely Nurse doth all she can To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came. 7. Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, With light upon him from his father's eyes! 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; Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage' Were endless imitation. 8. Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep On whom those truths do rest, Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, The thought of our past years in me doth breed For that which is most worthy to be blest; 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 Moving about in worlds not realised, Those shadowy recollections, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy ! |