If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams That on the banks of this delightful stream 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, The earth, and every common sight, 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. II. 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; That there hath past away a glory from the earth. III. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, 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! IV. 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. This sweet May-morning, 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, Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? V. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, 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, VI. 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. VII. Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, 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' With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, That Life brings with her in her equipage; As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation. VIII. 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, Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? IX. O joy that in our embers 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:- The song of thanks and praise; Moving about in worlds not realised, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, |