The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep, Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every beast keep holiday;- Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy IV. Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; My head hath it's coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel-I feel it all. While the earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning, And the children are pulling, 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, Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? V. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: Not in entire forgetfulness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, The youth, who daily farther from the East Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away 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. 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, A mourning or a funeral, And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: 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 cons another part, Filling from time to time his humorous stage And life brings with her in her equipage, Were endless imitation. VII. Thou whose exterior semblance doth belie Thou best philosopher who yet dost keep On whom those truths do rest, Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, VIII. O joy! that in our embers The thought of our past years in me doth breed For that which is most worthy to be blest; 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; But for those obstinate questionings Moving about in worlds not realised, High instincts before which our mortal nature 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 Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy ! Hence, in a season of calm weather, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither, IX. Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! As to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Yet that through your hearts to-day What though the radiance which was once so bright 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, In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be, In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. X. And O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves, Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; 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 new-born day Is lovely yet; The clouds that gather round the setting sun That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; |