CXXI ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD 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; But yet I know, where'er I go, 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; Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every Beast keep holiday ;— Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy IV Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call 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 And the Children are culling 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! T Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But He beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, And by the vision splendid 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, at his feet, some little plan or chart, A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: Then will he fit his tongue To dialogues of business, love, or strife; But it will not be long Ere this be thrown aside, The little Actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage' Were endless imitation, VIII Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep On whom those truths do rest, |