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WORDSWORTH.

ODE.

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.
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!

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,
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.

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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 jolity,

And with the heart of May

Doth every beast keep holiday!

Thou child of joy,

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Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shepherd boy!

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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 look'd 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?

V.

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,

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