I, loving freedom, and untried; No sport of every random gust, Thy timely mandate, I deferred The task, in smoother walks to stray; But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. Through no disturbance of my soul, Or strong compunction in me wrought, My hopes no more must change their name, Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And fragrance in thy footing treads ; Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong; And the most ancient Heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. To humbler functions, awful Power! And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live! ODE ON 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. 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, 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! IV. Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel-I feel it all. 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 :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? V. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: And cometh from afar : Not in entire forgetfulness, 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 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, To dialogues of business, love, or strife; 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. |