WORDSWORTH. SONNET. ADIEU, Rydalian laurels! that have grown On this fair mount, a Poet of your own, One who ne'er ventured for a Delphic crown To cheer the itinerant on whom she pours ODE. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY, FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD. "The child is father of the man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety." THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and spring, 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. The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare: 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. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, As to the tabor'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, 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! Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other made; 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. 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? Where is it now, the glory and the dream? 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 But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, 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. 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: Then will he fit his tongue 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,— 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, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, Is something that doth live, The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest; Delight and liberty, the simple creed |