O DE

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.

ODE.

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.

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 passed away a glory from the earth.

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.
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,

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 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 vallies 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, 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?

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,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home: