Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality

Ode: Intimations of Immortality

Text

The child is father of the man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

(Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up")

      1)      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 hath been of yore;—

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day.

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

       2)      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.

       3)      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.

        4)      Ye blessèd 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 Earth herself is adorning,

This sweet May-morning,

And the Children are culling

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,

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?

       5)      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:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

      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,

A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!

See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,

With light upon him from his father's eyes!

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,

Some fragment from his dream of human life,

Shaped by himself with newly-learned art

A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,

And unto this he frames his song:

Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;

But it will not be long

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"

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

That Life brings with her in her equipage;

As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation.

     8)      Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

Thy Soul's immensity;

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep

Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,

Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—

Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest,

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,

In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;

Thou, over whom thy Immortality

Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave,

A Presence which is not to be put by;

Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The years to bring the inevitable yoke,

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?

Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,

And custom lie upon thee with a weight,

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

      9)      O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,

That Nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest;

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise

But for those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realised,

High instincts before which our mortal Nature

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:

But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,

Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather

Though inland far we be,

Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the Children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

      10)  Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young Lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,

Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts to-day

Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be;

In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

      11)  And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

Is lovely yet;

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

v  The full title of the poem is “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.”

v  It is a poem by William Wordsworth, completed in 1804 and published in ‘Poems, in Two Volumes (1807)’

v  It is an irregular Pindaric ode consisted of two parts.

v  The first part consists of 4 stanzas completed on 27 March 1802.

v  The second part consists of 7 additional stanzas completed in early 1804.

v  It was edited and reworked to the version that is currently known, Ode: Intimations of Immortality in 1815.

v  It can be divided into three sections.

F The first four stanzas discuss death, and the loss of youth and innocence.

F The second four stanzas describe how age causes man to lose sight of the divine.

F The final three stanzas express hope that the memory of the divine allow us to sympathize with our fellow man.

v  The poem relies on the concept of Pre-existence, the idea that the soul existed before the body, to connect children with the ability to witness the divine within nature.

v  As children mature, they become worldlier and lose this divine vision.

Summary:

Stanza 1:   

v  In his childhood, the meadow, grove, stream, the earth and every common object appeared to Wordsworth clothed with heavenly beauty.

v  The splendid beauty he saw in Nature appeared to him as vivid and life-like as in a dream.

v  Now he does not find that divine glory in Nature.

v  Wherever he turns and sees in night or day he does not find the former splendor in the objects.

Stanza 2:

v  The rainbow had a special fascination to Wordsworth; it comes and goes; still the rose is lovely.

v  The moon shines brightly in the cloudless sky; the stars reflect in the water are beautiful.

v  The bright rays of the sun glorious.

v  Now he finds that divine glory has passed away from the earth.

Stanza 3:

v  The birds are singing joyous song; the young lambs are leaping to the tune of the little drum.

v  The poet feels lonely; he grieves over the loss of heavenly glory which he experienced in his childhood.

v  He again feels strong when he notices the joy of Nature.

v  He hears the loud noise of the waterfalls rushing down from the top of the hill; it sounds like the blowing of a trumpet.

v  He does not like to spoil the joy of the season with his grief; he hears a number of sounds of animals, birds, waterfalls etc.

v  The wind comes to him from the calm fields; the whole earth and sea are full of joy with the spirit of spring season.

v  He asks the shepherd boy to shout playfully around him so that he also may share his happiness.

Stanza 4:

v  The lambs and shepherd boy are blessed; Wordsworth has heard the sounds made by them in their fullest joy.

v  The heavens seem to share their happiness; Wordsworth wants to share their happiness.

v  He wants to become one with these objects of Nature in their joyous moments; the whole earth is rejoicing but he is gloomy.

v  In the month of May the earth seems to be adorned with beautiful flowers.

v  Children are plucking flowers from the valleys far and wide; the sun shines brightly.

v  The baby leaps on his mother’s arm; the poet hears the sound of joy around him.

v  But a tree or a piece of green field speaks of something which he has lost; Pansy also speaks of the charm which he has lost.  

v  Where has gone the divine light of the inner vision and glory in the objects of Nature.

“Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?”

Stanza 5:

v  This second section is a brief account of growth of man and the loss of the vision; it is based on the Platonic philosophy of pre-existence and the realm of the pure idea.

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting”

v  Our birth is a temporary forgetfulness as in sleep; before coming to the earth, the soul lived in heaven; it does not cease to exist with death; it goes to back to heaven and comes from there.

v  When the child comes to this world, it does not completely forget its pre-natal existence.

v  Even after the sun is set, the clouds still retain its glory. Likewise, the child after his birth, retains traces of divine vision.

v  In our childhood, we have clear vision of heaven; but as we grow the anxieties and worries of the earth the vision of heaven become fainter and fainter.

v  The youth goes farther and farther away from the heaven; as he grows the celestial light that on Nature always goes with him.

v  In manhood, the heavenly glory completely vanishes away; it is replaced by the sober light of earthly life.

Stanza 6:

v  The earth is full of her own pleasures; she has strong feelings which belong to he own nature.

v  The earth has maternal affections for the child; it makes the child fall in love with earthly things.

v  This is not unworthy aim; the earth is the simple nurse; it does the best she can.

v  This makes her foster child a temporary inhabitant of earth to forget heaven from where he came.

Stanza 7:

v  The child is among his newly found joys; the child is six year old and small in size.

v  He arranges the toys according to his imaginations.

v  The mother kisses the child; it disturbs his playing with the toys.

v  The father also looks at the child; his eyes are beaming with love.

v  The child arranges the toys according to some idea of what he dreams of human life.

v  The child has just learned to arrange the play things; sometimes he tries to imitate a marriage, a festival, mourning or a funeral.

v  Some other times he may be engrossed in some other things; sometimes he speaks about some business, love or strife.

v  But soon the child shifts to some other object with a feeling of new joy and pride.

v  Like an actor the child assumes various roles and imitates various actions.

v  In the whole vocation, the child imitates all the characters that he sees around him at one time being an old man and at another time another.

Stanza 8:

v  The outward appearance of the child gives a wrong idea about the greatness of the soul.

v  The child is the best philosopher who has the vision of heaven.

v  The grown up man is blind to see heaven; but the child is able to see them.

v  The child is not deaf but he is deaf to the external temptations.

v  He continually possesses the divine visions

v  He is a great seer of truths who has a vision of unseen things.

v  He has an instinctive perception of truth, which the grownups have been labouring to find out.

v  We are enveloped with spiritual and physical darkness; but the child is enveloped with divinity like day light.

v  The child is mastered and cannot get rid of the idea of immortality.

v  He is small in stature but mighty in glory; he enjoys the heaven-born freedom.

v  Then why the child desires and strives to be grown-up? He invites the cares and anxieties of life which are bound to curse.

v  He is ignorant of his blissful state and puts an end to his celestial happiness; soon he carries the load of worldly cares and anxieties.

v  They press him down with great burden as frost lies upon soil.

Stanza 9:

v  In the mature years, the glow of childhood is seen; the spark of boyhood is covered with ashes of the old age.

v  The divine influence is wholly extinct; something of its still exists.

v  Our human nature has recollections of the short-lived heavenly memories.

v  The thoughts of the past years produce feelings of gratefulness to God.

v  This gratefulness to God is not for the blessings such as delight and liberty enjoyed in childhood but for all his moods full of eager curiosity or calmly receptive, with the heart full of new hopes.

v  The poet sings this hymn for the sake of persistent doubts about the reality of existence.

v  The feeling we have that external visible and tangible objects seem to fall away and vanish as unreal.

v  The vague doubts about the reality of objects are not understood by the person who moves in a mysterious world.

v  The realisation of the reality of this earth and our existence upon it shocks our moral nature.

v  The poet is grateful for the early impressions of childhood.

F They are the vague remembrances of our previous existence in heaven.

F They are the guiding light of human life.

F They are the real source of all knowledge.

F They enable us to see the reality of things.

F They have the power to convert the noise and fury of our life into eternal calm.

v  The divine memories do not disappear altogether. Neither indifference nor the fret and fever of life, neither in manhood nor in boyhood not everything that spoils our joys.

v  When man is advanced in years, the soul has the glimpse of the sea of immortality which helped us to come to this world.

v  In a moment, our soul can recollect the experiences of childhood.

v  In our imagination, we can enjoy childhood hearing the mighty sound of the waves of eternity.

Stanza 10:

v  Wordsworth wants the birds to sing a joyous song and the young lamb to leap to the sound of the tabor.

v  In imagination, the poet would join this singing and playing crowd and feel the jollity of the spring.

v  What does it matter, if the heavenly light that was enjoyed in childhood is now seen no more?

v  The radiance was bright once was taken out from our sight.

v  The poet does not want to feel sorry for the loss of the vision of childhood.

v  Nothing can bring back the beauty in the grass and in the flower.

v  Instead of lamenting for the loss of childhood visions, he wishes to find strength in what has remained behind.

v  The first sympathy felt for Nature in childhood remains in memory.

v  He wishes to have soothing thoughts that arise out of human sufferings.

v  He would seek strength in the faith about the immortality of the soul and there is life beyond death and in the mature years the mind would become philosophical.

Stanza 11:

v  Wordsworth addresses the objects of Nature not to anticipate any separation between Nature and his heart; in his heart, he owns the influence of nature.

v  He has given up only that particular kind of pleasure which he used to feel in his childhood.

v  Still he loves the brooks which ran swiftly and innocent brightness of the dawn more than he did in his childhood.

v  But now his love for Nature gives gloomy meaning; the clouds that gather round the setting sun fill him with sober ideas.

v  Always the poet has been conscious about the mortal nature of man; this consciousness made him gloomy in his thoughts.

v  The poet thanks the human heart which makes life worth living; human heart is capable of feeling, sympathy, joy and fear.

v  The most ordinary flower fills him with thoughts so deep that they cannot be expressed even by tears.