XIV. ODE. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD. The Child is Father of the Man; Bound each to each by natural piety. See Vol. I. page 3. 1. 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. It is not now as it hath been of yore; Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, - The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 2. The Rainbow comes and goes, 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 passed away a glory from the earth. 3. 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, And all the earth is gay; 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 Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; My head hath it's coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel I feel it all. Oh evil day! if I were sullen While the Earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning, And the Children are pulling, 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? 5. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: And cometh from afar : Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close But He beholds the light, and whence it flows, The Youth, who daily farther from the East And by the vision splendid 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, 7. Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, See, where mid work of his own hand he lies, |