Will no one tell me what she sings?- Or is it some more humble lay, Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang 99. 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. 1. THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;- The things which I have seen I now can see no more. II. The Rainbow comes and goes, The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare, Are beautiful and fair; 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; The fulness of your bliss, I feel-I feel it all. O evil day! if I were sullen This sweet May-morning, And the Children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm :- -But there's a Tree, of many, one, 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, And not in utter nakedness, 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; 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, See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, 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; Ere this be thrown aside, The little Actor cons another part; 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, Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, |