ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, To me did seem Apparell'd 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! 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 1 go, That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth. 336 Ode on Immortality 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, Doth Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy! Ye blesséd creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; My heart is at your festival, The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all. O evil day! if I were sullen This sweet May morning; And the children are pulling In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm :- -But there's a tree, of many, one, A single field which I have look'd upon, Ode on Immortality 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? Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, 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, Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; The homely nurse doth all she can Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, 337 338 Ode on Immortality A six years' darling of a pigmy size! 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. Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep On whom those truths do rest A Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, Ode on Immortality Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, O joy! that in our embers 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, 339 With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Fallings from us, vanishings, Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts, before which our mortal nature Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Uphold us-cherish and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being |