WORDSWORTH.

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.
It is not now as it has been of yore ;-
Turn wheresoe'er I may,

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,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief;
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong.

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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

IV.

Ye blessed 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,

My head hath its 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:-

Give themselves up to jolity,

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!

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I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
But there's a tree, of many, one,

A single field which I have look'd upon,

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?

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V.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

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