THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH ISDOM and Spirit of the Universe! THE WISDOM and Spinat art the Eternity of thought! And giv'st to forms and images a breath By day or starlight, thus from my first dawn William Wordsworth ODE INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD I HERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, TH The earth, and every common sight, 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. II 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. III Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound As to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: And I again am strong: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; No more shall grief of mine the season wrong: I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, 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 The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; 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, 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 further 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; The homely Nurse doth all she can 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" VIII Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, Broods like the day, a Master o'er a Slave, |