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When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go,

The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.

The tempest crackles on the leads,

And, ringing, spins from brand and mail;
But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.

I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.

A maiden knight-to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.

I muse on joy that will not cease,
Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,

Whose odours haunt my dreams,
And, stricken by an angel's hand,
This mortal armour that I wear,
This weight and size, this heart and eyes,
Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air.

The clouds are broken in the sky,
And thro' the mountain-walls

A rolling organ-harmony

Swells up, and shakes and falls.

Then move the trees, the copses nod,

Wings flutter, voices hover clear: "O just and faithful knight of God! Ride on the prize is near.'

So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;
By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide,
Until I find the holy Grail.

ODE.

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLEC

TIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

The Child is Father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

I.

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HERE 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 whereso'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:

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!

IV.

Ye blessed 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?

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,

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.

VI.

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.

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