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 Shep herd-boy! IV Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call 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. This sweet May morning, And the Children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, -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? V Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, And cometh from afar: Ode on the Intimations of Immortality 373 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 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, 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; Filling from time to time his "humorous stage" Were endless imitation. 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, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? IX O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers The thought of our past years in me doth breed Ode on the Intimations of Immortality 375 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; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence, in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither And see the children sport upon the shore, X Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! As to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright Though nothing can bring back the hour Which having been must ever be; In the faith that looks through death, ΧΙ And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks, which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they: The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. |