"Ode: Intimations of Immortality" by William Wordsworth (read by Toby Jones)

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 your turn where so air I may by night or day the things which I have seen I now can see no more 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 ere I go that there hath passed away a glory from the earth now while the bird the sing a joyous song and while the young lambs bound as to the table a 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 ye blessed creatures I have heard the call he to each other make I see the heav'n laugh with you in your Jubilee my heart is at your festival my head hath its coronal the fullness 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 earth is but asleep and are forgetting the soul that rises with us our life star hath had elsewhere it's 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 father 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 died away and fade into the light of common day earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own yearning 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 behold the child among his newborn Bliss's a six years darling of a pygmy sized see we're mid work of his own hand he lies fretted by sally's 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 comes another part filling from time to time his humorous stage with all the persons down to poles heed age that life brings with her in her equipage as if his whole vocation were endless imitation now whose exterior semblance stuff Balai thy Souls immensity thou best philosopher who yet dost keep thy heritage thou i among the blind that deaf and silent readest the eternal deep haunted forever by the eternal mind mighty prophet seer blessed 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 or 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 beings height why with such earnest pains dust thou provoke the years to bring the inevitable yoke thus blindly with thy blessedness and strife fall soon thy soul shall have her earthly Freight and custom lie upon me with a weight heavy as frost and deep almost as life 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 Mead of breed perpetual benediction not indeed for that which is most worthy to be blessed 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 raised the songs of thanks and praise but for those obstinate questioning of sense and outward things 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 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 norm and endeavor 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 vivir and see the children's sport upon the shore and hear the mighty waters rollin evermore Singh he birds sing sing a joyous song and let the young lands bound as to the tables sound we in thought will join your throng he let pipe and ye that play ye that through your hearts today feel the gladness of the May what though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight though nothing can bring back the hour of Splendor 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 and holy fountains Meadows hills and groves for bowed knots any severing of our loves yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might I only have relinquished one denied 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 newborn day is lovely yet the clouds that gap around the Setting Sun to take a sober coloring from an eye that have kept watch or man's mortality another race have 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 and do often lie too deep for tears

Channel: Zsuzsanna Uhlik

Views: 1,042

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Keywords: p-isforpoetry, Ode: Intimations of Immortality, William Wordsworth, Wordsworth, Toby Jones

Id: P3OqKwqUb4U

Length: 12min 51sec (771 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 21 2020