316 INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. II. The rainbow comes and goes, The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Are beautiful and fair; 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, As to the tabour's sound, 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 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; INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss I feel, I feel it all. O evil day! if I were sullen, And the children are culling On every side, 317 In a thousand valleys far and wide, But there's a tree, of many one, 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 : 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 Must travel, still is Nature's priest, 318 INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 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, 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; But it will not be long, Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride The little actor cons another part; INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 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, IX. O, joy! that in our embers 319 INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 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, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized; Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy ! Hence, in a season of calm weather, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, |