ODE. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD. The Child is Father of the Man; See page 73. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: And cometh from afar: 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 A length the Man perceives it die away, 6. 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. 7. Behold the child among his new-born blisses, And this hath now his heart, f dialogues of business, love, or strife; But it will not be long Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride The ittle Actor cons another part; Were endless imitation. 8. Thou, whose rior semblance doth belie Thou best Philopher, who yet dost keep Mighty Prophet! Seer blest! The thought of our past years in me doth breed For that which is most worthy to be blest The song of thanks and praise; But for those first affections Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence in a season of calm weather Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither, Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts to-day What though the radiance which was once so bright See "THE EXCURSION," Book IV. "Alas! the endowment of Immortal Power," &c., [and Note 5 of Notes to "THE EXCURSION."-H. R.} I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitualsway I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, The Clouds that gather round the setting sun NOTES. 1803-6 [See also the passage in "THE EXCURSION," Book IX: | to one whose authority is almost without appeal in all -Ah! why in age Do we revert so fondly to the walks Of childhood - but that there the soul discerns Of her own native vigour - thence can hear and the passage in "THE PRELUDE," Book V: Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne There was never yet the child of any promise (so far as the theoretic faculties are concerned) but awaked to the sense of beauty with the first gleam of reason; and I suppose there are few, among those who love Nature otherwise than by profession and at second-hand, who look not back to their youngest and least learned days as those of the most intense, superstitious, insatiable, and beatific perception of her splendours. And the bitter decline of this glorious feeling, though many note it not, partly owing to the cares and weight of manhood, which leave them not the time nor the liberty to look for their lost treasure, and partly to the human and divine affections which are appointed to take its place, yet has formed the subject, not indeed of lamentation, but of holy thankfulness for the witness it bears to the immortal origin and end of our nature, questions relating to the influence of external things upon the pure human soul. Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise, Moving about in worlds not realized. And if it were possible for us to recollect all the unaccountable and happy instincts of the careless time, and to reason upon them with the maturer judgment, we might arrive at more right results than either the philosophy or the sophisticated practice of art has yet attained. But we lose the perceptions before we are capable of methodizing or comparing them." Ruskin's "Modern Painters," Vol. II., p. 36., Part. III., Ch. v., Sect. 1. 66 * Etenim qui velit acutius indagare causas propensæ in antiqua sæcula voluntatis, mirum ni conjectura incidat aliquando in commentum illud Pythagore, docentis, animarum nostrarum non tum fieri initium, cum in hoc mundo nascimur: immo ex ignota quadam regione venire eas, in sua quamque corpora; neque tam penitus Lethæo potu imbui, quin permanet quasi quidam anteactæ ætatis sapor; hunc autem excitari identidem, et nescio, quo sensu percipi, tacito quidem illo et obscuro, sed percipi tamen. Atque hac ferme sententia extat summi hac memoria Poeta nobilissimum carmen; nempe non aliam ob causam tangi pueritiæ recordationem exquisita illa ac pervagata dulcedine, quam propter debilem quendam prioris ævi Deique proprioris sensum. Quamvis autem hanc opinionem vix ferat divinæ philosophiæ ratio, fatemur tamen eam eatenus ad verum accedere, qua sanctum aliquod et grave tribuit memoriæ et caritati puerilium annorum. Nosinet certe infantes novimus quam prope tetigerit Divina benignitas: quis porro scit, an omnis illa temporis anteacti dulcedo habeat quandam significationem Illius Præsentiæ ?" KEBLE;"Prælectiones De Poetica Vi Medica," p. 788, Præl. xxxix. The following passages from the writings of a sacred poet of the 17th century-Henry Vaughan-have an interest as touching the same subject to which the imaginative meditations of this Ode are devoted: Were now that chronicle alive, Those white designs which children drive, And the thoughts of each harmless hour, With their content too in my pow'r, Quickly would I make my path even And by meer playing go to Heaven. * Dear harmless age! the short, swift span Where weeping virtue parts with man; Where love without lust dwells, and bends What way we please without self ends. An age of mysteries! which he Must live twice that would God's face see; Which angels guard, and with it play, Angels! which foul men drive away. How do I study now and scan For sure that is the narrow way! p. 171-2. "Sacred Poems," by Henry Vaughan, 1650. Reprint, 1847.-H. R.] THE PRELUDE; OR, GROWTH OF AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM. ADVERTISEMENT. THE following Poem was commenced in the beginning of the year 1799, and completed in the summer of 1805. The design and occasion of the work are described by the Author in his Preface to the EXCURSION, first published in 1814, where he thus speaks: — "Several years ago, when the Author retired to his native mountains with the hope of being enabled to con struct a literary work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him for such an employment. "As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record, in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them. The First Book of the First Part of the RECLUSE still remains in manuscript; but the Third Part was only planned. The materials of which it would have been formed have, however, been incorporated, for the most part, in the Author's other Publications, written subsequently to the EXCURSION. The Friend, to whom the present Poem is addressed, was the late SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, who was resident in Malta, for the restoration of his health, when the greater part of it was composed. Mr. Coleridge read a considerable portion of the Poem while he was abroad; and his feelings, on hearing it recited by the Author (after his return to his own country) are recorded in nis Verses, addressed to Mr. Wordsworth, which will be found in the "Sibylline "That work, addressed to a dear friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the Leaves," p. 197, ed. 1817, or "Poetical Works, by S. T. Coleridge," Vol. I., p. 206. RYDAL MOUNT, July 13th, 1850.* [* In connecting "THE PRELUDE" with the Author's "Poetical Works," it is proper to add that it was published as a posthumous poem. William Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, on Tuesday the 23d of April, 1850: on the 7th of the same month he had completed his 80th year. author's intellect is deeply indebted, has been long finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it, was a determination to compose a philosophical Poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society, and to be entitled the Recluse;' as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement. "The preparatory Poem is biographical, and conducts the history of the Author's mind to the point when he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two works have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the Ante-chapel has to the body of a Gothic Church. Continuing this allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his minor pieces, which have been long before the public, when they shall be properly arranged, will be Composed on the Night after his recitation of a Poem on the found by the attentive reader to have such connection with the main work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices." Such was the Author's language in the year 1814. It will thence be seen, that the present poem was intended to be introductory to the RECLUSE, and that the RECLUSE, if completed, would have consisted of Three Parts. Of these, the Second Part alone, viz., the EXCURSION, was finished, and given to the world by the Author. Coleridge's poem, referred to in the above advertisement, is here inserted for the convenience of the reader, and as a fit introduction to "THE PRELUDE."-H. R.] TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Growth of an Individua! Mind. FRIEND of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good! |