| THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and
stream, |
|
| The earth, and every common sight, |
|
| To
me did seem |
|
| Apparell'd in celestial light, |
|
| The glory and the freshness of a dream. |
5 |
| 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. |
|
| |
| The rainbow
comes and goes, |
10 |
| 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; |
15 |
| The sunshine is a glorious birth; |
|
| But yet I know, where'er I go, |
|
| That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth. |
|
| |
| Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, |
|
| And while the young lambs bound |
20 |
| 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; |
25 |
| 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 |
30 |
| 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 |
35 |
| Shepherd-boy! |
|
| |
| 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, |
40 |
| My head hath its coronal, |
|
| The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all. |
|
| O evil day! if I
were sullen |
|
| While Earth
herself is adorning, |
|
| This
sweet May-morning, |
45 |
| 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:— |
50 |
| 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 |
55 |
| Doth
the same tale repeat: |
|
| Whither is fled the visionary gleam? |
|
| Where is it now, the glory and the dream? |
|
| |
| Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: |
|
| The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, |
60 |
| 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 |
65 |
| 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, |
70 |
| 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; |
75 |
| At length the Man perceives it die away, |
|
| And fade into the light of common day. |
|
| |
| 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, |
80 |
| 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. |
85 |
| |
| 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! |
90 |
| See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, |
|
| Some fragment from his dream of human life, |
|
| Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art; |
|
| A wedding or a festival, |
|
| A mourning or a funeral; |
95 |
| 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 |
100 |
| 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, |
105 |
| That Life brings with her in her equipage; |
|
| As if his whole
vocation |
|
| Were endless
imitation. |
|
| |
| Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie |
|
| Thy soul's
immensity; |
110 |
| 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! |
115 |
| 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, |
120 |
| A presence which is not to be put by; |
|
| To
whom the grave |
|
| Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight |
|
| Of day or the
warm light, |
|
| A place of thought where we in waiting lie; |
125 |
| 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? |
130 |
| 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! |
|
| |
| O joy! that in
our embers |
|
| Is something
that doth live, |
135 |
| 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— |
140 |
| 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; |
145 |
| But for those obstinate questionings |
|
| Of sense and outward things, |
|
| Fallings from us, vanishings; |
|
| Blank misgivings of a Creature |
|
| Moving about in worlds not realized, |
150 |
| 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, |
155 |
| 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, |
160 |
| 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! |
165 |
| 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, |
170 |
| And see the children sport upon the shore, |
|
| And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. |
|
| |
| Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! |
|
| And let the
young lambs bound |
|
| As to the
tabor's sound! |
175 |
| 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 |
180 |
| 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; |
185 |
| 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, |
190 |
| In years that bring the philosophic mind. |
|
| |
| 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 relinquish'd one delight |
195 |
| To live beneath your more habitual sway. |
|
| I love the brooks which down their channels fret, |
|
| Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they; |
|
| The innocent brightness of a new-born Day |
|
| Is
lovely yet; |
200 |
| 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, |
205 |
| 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. |
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