Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (164 page)

Was dear to me, and from this cause it came    330
That now to Nature’s finer influxes
My mind lay open, to that more exact
And intimate communion which our hearts
Maintain with the minuter properties
Of objects which already are beloved,
And of those only. Many are the joys
Of youth, but oh! What happiness to live
When every hour brings palpable access
Of knowledge, when all knowledge is delight,
And sorrow is not there. The seasons come    340
And every season brought a countless store
Of modes and temporary qualities
Which but for this most watchful power of love
Had been neglected, left a register
Of permanent relations, else unknown:
Hence life, and change, and beauty, solitude
More active even than “best society,”
Society made sweet as solitude
By silent inobtrusive sympathies
And gentle agitations of the mind    350
From manifold distinctions, difference
Perceived in things where to the common eye
No difference is: and hence from the same source
Sublimer joy; for I would walk alone
In storm and tempest or in starlight nights
Beneath the quiet heavens, and at that time
Would feel whate’er there is of power in sound
To breathe an elevated mood by form
Or image unprofaned: and I would stand
Beneath some rock listening to sounds that are    360
The ghostly language of the ancient earth
Or make their dim abode in distant winds.
Thence did I drink the visionary power.
I deem not profitless these fleeting moods
Of shadowy exaltation, not for this,
That they are kindred to our purer mind
And intellectual life, but that the soul
Remembering how she felt, but what she felt
Remembering not, retains an obscure sense
Of possible sublimity to which    370
With growing faculties she doth aspire,
With faculties still growing, feeling still
That whatsoever point they gain, they still
Have something to pursue
And not alone
In grandeur and in tumult, but no less
In tranquil scenes, that universal power
And fitness in the latent qualities
And essences of things, by which the mind
Is moved with feelings of delight, to me    380
Came strengthened with the superadded soul,
A virtue not its own. My morning walks
Were early; oft before the hours of school
I traveled round our little lake, five miles
Of pleasant wandering, happy time more dear
For this, that one was by my side, a Friend
Then passionately loved; with heart how full
Will he peruse these lines, this page, perhaps
A blank to other men, for many years
Have since flowed in between us, and, our minds    390
Both silent to each other, at this time
We live as if those hours had never been.
Nor seldom did I lift our cottage latch
Far earlier, and before the vernal thrust
Was audible, among the hills I sat
Alone upon some jutting eminence
At the first hour of morning when the vale
Lay quiet in an utter solitude.
How shall I trace the history, where seek
The origin of what I then have felt?    400
Oft in those moments such a holy calm
Did overspread my soul that I forgot
The agency of sight, and what I saw
Appeared like something in myself — a dream,
A prospect in my mind. ‘Twere long to tell
What spring and autumn, what the winter-snows
And what the summer-shade, what day and night,
The evening and the morning, what my dreams
And what my waking thoughts supplied, to nurse
That spirit of religious love in which    410
I walked with nature. But let this at least
Be not forgotten, that I still retained
My first creative sensibility,
That by the regular action of the world
My soul was unsubdued. A plastic power
Abode with me, a forming hand, at times
Rebellious, acting in a devious mood,
A local spirit of its own, at war
With general tendency, but for the most
Subservient strictly to the external things    420
With which it communed. An auxiliary light
Came from my mind which on the setting sun
Bestowed new splendor, the melodious birds,
The gentle breezes, fountains that ran on
Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed
A like dominion, and the midnight storm
Grew darker in the presence of my eye.
Hence my obeisance, my devotion hence,
And hence my transport.
Nor should this perchance    430
Pass unrecorded, that I still had loved
The exercise and produce of a toil
Than analytic industry to me
More pleasing, and whose character, I deem,
Is more poetic, as resembling more
Creative agency: I mean to speak
Of that interminable building reared
By observation of affinities
In objects where no brotherhood exists
To common minds. My seventeenth year was come,    440
And whether from this habit rooted now
So deeply in my mind, or from excess
Of the great social principle of life
Coercing all things into sympathy,
To unorganic natures I transferred
My own enjoyments, or, the power of truth
Coming in revelation, I conversed
With things that really are. I at this time
Saw Blessings Spread around me like a sea.
Thus did my days pass on, and now at length    450
From Nature and her overflowing soul
I had received so much that all my thoughts
Were steeped in feelings; I was only then
Contented when with bliss ineffable
I felt the sentiment of being spread
O’er all that moves, and all that seemeth still,
O’er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought
And human knowledge, to the human eye
Invisible, yet liveth to the heart,    460
O’er all that leaps, and runs, and shouts and sings
Or beats the gladsome air, o’er all that glides
Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself
And might depth of waters: wonder not
If such my transports were, for in all things
I saw one life and felt that it was joy.
One song they sang, and it was audible,
Most audible ten when the fleshy ear,
O’ercome by grosser prelude of that strain,
Forgot its functions, and slept undisturbed.    470
If this be error, and another faith
Find easier access to the pious mind,
Yet were I grossly destitute of all
Those human sentiments which make this earth
So dear, if I should fail with grateful voice
To speak of you, ye mountains! and ye lakes
And sounding cataracts! ye mists and winds
That dwell among the hills where I was born.
If, in my youth, I have been pure in heart,
If, mingling with the world, I am content    480
With my own modest pleasures, and have lied
With God and Nature communing, removed
From little enmities and low desires,
The gift is yours: if in these times of fear,
This melancholy waste of hopes o’erthrown,
If, ‘mid indifference and apathy
And wicked exultation, when good men
On every side fall off we know not how
To selfishness disguised in gentle names
Of peace, and quiet, and domestic love,
Yet mingled, not unwillingly, with sneers    490
On visionary minds, if in this time
Of dereliction and dismay I yet
Despair not of our nature, but retain
A more than Roman confidence, a faith
That fails not, in all sorrow my support,
The blessing of my life, the gift is yours
Ye Mountains! thine, O Nature! Thou hast fed
My lofty speculations, and in thee
For this uneasy heart of ours I find
A never-failing principle of joy    500
And purest passion.
Thou, my Friend, wast reared
In the great city mid far other scenes,
But we, by different roads, at length have gained
The self-same bourne. And from this cause to thee
I speak unapprehensive of contempt,
The insinuated scoff of coward tongues,
And all that silent language which so oft
In conversation betwixt man and man
Blots from the human countenance all trace    510
Of beauty and of love. For thou hast sought
The truth in solitude, and thou art one,
The most intense of Nature’s worshippers,
In many things my brother, chiefly here
In this my deep devotion.
Fare thee well!
Health and the quiet of a healthful mind
Attend thee! seeking oft the haunts of men
But yet more often living with thyself
And for thyself, so haply shall thy days    520
Be many and a blessing to mankind.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

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 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!
   
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 Shepherd-boy!
  
35
Ye blesséd 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,
  
40
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;
   
And the children are culling
  
45
     
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!
  
50
 
 
— 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:
  
55
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,
   
Hath had elsewhere its setting
  
60
     
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:
  
65
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;
  
70
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,
  
75
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,
     
And no unworthy aim,
  
80
   
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.
Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
  
85
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,
  
90
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,
  
95
   
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,
  
100
   
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;
  
105
   
As if his whole vocation
   
Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
   
Thy soul’s immensity;
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
  
110
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
  
115
Which we are toiling all our lives to find;
Thou, over whom thy immortality
Broods like the day, a master o’er a slave,
A presence which is not to be put by;
   
To whom the grave
  
120
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;
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,
  
125
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
  
130
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

   
O joy! that in our embers
   
Is something that doth live,
   
That Nature yet remembers
   
What was so fugitive!
  
135
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,
  
140
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,
  
145
 
Fallings from us, vanishings,
 
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts, before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
  
150
 
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;
  
155
 
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,
  
160
     
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,
  
165
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.
  
170

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,
  
175
   
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
  
180
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,
  
185
   
In the soothing thoughts that spring
   
Out of human suffering,
   
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
  
190
Forbode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquish’d one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway;
I love the brooks which down their channels fret
  
195
Even more than when I tripp’d 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
  
200
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
  
205
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order