Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Intimations of Immortality

Ever since I first read William Wordsworth's poem "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" I have felt especially drawn to the deep understanding of "Life" expressed in this extract from what is quite a long poem. The words seem to "fit" with some hidden wish (or hope) that this is true. I sometimes think that we (I?) need to "reconnect" with our true selves, rather than being sidetracked by the Siren song of the easy pleasures that abound around us.

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.

                                                                                               William Wordsworth.
All in all, to me, this is a splendid poem.

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