Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

by William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth is a well-known poet who has written poetry that has comforted and helped untold numbers of people in their most difficult times. The Ode: Intimations of Eternity; From Recollections of Early Childhood is one of the most sweetly innocent poems ever written in the English language, and it comes from a phase of his career that has received great praise.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Literature, 19th Century, Romanticism, 18th Century, School

18 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1807

About the author

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads.

Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years, which the poet revised and expanded a number of times. The work was posthumously titled and published, prior to which, it was generally known as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

Reviews

[Théo d'Or]

" There was a time when

meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth , and every common

sight

To me did seem

Apparalled in celestial light.



O, joy ! that in our embers

Is something that doth live

That Nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive ! "

[Victor López · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was once asked during an employment interview by a college provost early in my career what was the most influential book I had ever read. I did not hesitate and answered the works of William Wordsworth, especially "Intimations of Immortality." He looked at me with an inscrutable expression for a moment and went on to other questions. It was one of the few times that I have interviewed and did not get a job offer--doubtless my answer had little or nothing to do with that, but if asked the same question today, I would still offer the same answer. The answer may have signaled that I was a hopeless romantic and somewhat of an anachronism at best, or worse, that I could not think of a better answer and spurted our the first thing that came to mind. Be that as it may, this is my favorite piece of literature and it has not lost its ability to move me or to influence the way I still view the world these many years and countless other books later. The ode is widely available in countless books and collections, including this one as well as free from the Project Gutenberg. Wherever you find it, it is highly recommended!

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Today is World Poetry Day and my commitment this day (and to my life) is to keep reading poetry. I am a multilingual person and thus can and do admire many authors in different languages. But to me, the one poem that speaks to my soul so intensely is Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood. If one poem would be so intense as to encompass God, the multiverses and all of our lives, this one would be it. It was famously read at Margaret Thatcher's funeral. And most possibly will be present on mine. I love this poem. 'Tis all! Happy World Poetry Day for all those who read and love poetry. In every language in this marvellous world! May 'the meanest flower that blows', keep giving us 'thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears!' Evoe! 🌺❤️

[jeanne whitesides · Rating 5 out of 5]

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

[Carlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this years ago after Penny Dreadful introduced it to me. Still love it to this day. Wordsworth is indeed a man after my own heart.

It's a long poem, but I come back to it all the time. And after I've read it again I feel like I'm sighing, letting go of a breath I didn't know I was holding.

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very sad and even melancholy poem about life and its many stages and particular what is lost and left behind.

[Descending Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poem that's as beautiful as it is moving.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

“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 yore ; —
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no
more.”
—
“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!”
—
“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?”
—
“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.”
—
“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,
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,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art”
—
“That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted forever by the eternal mind, —
Mighty prophet ! Seer blest!
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 o'er 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 being's height,
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,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!”
—
“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”
—
“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 thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.”
—
“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
Ye that through your hearts to-day
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”

[Leilani · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not read this edition, but an online version.
It is too melancholy for me. I cannot agree with its sentiment.

[Serena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for University.
Pending Review

[Hawraa Khudier · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Our birth is but a sleep and forgetting
The soul that rises with us our life's " start "

[Katrien · Rating 5 out of 5]

ik wil dit volledig getatoeëerd op mij

[Vigneswara Prabhu · Rating 4 out of 5]

What though the radiance which was once so bright-Be now for ever taken from my sight

I remember a time, when, we were Incarnations that could breathe fire, and make battlements out of decayed ruminations. Every path led to a new world, every turn a new adventure, every flitting shadow a new adversary.

We lived in the now and present, and days stretched to ages. Summers were endless. Spirits Unbound.

Then something happened. We became concerned with debts and possessions and wanting. Concerned with our own mortality. Concerned of what others think of us.

But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

We became much less, self-constrained with the rules and precedent of the world, the real world around us. That part of us, was boxed in, within showy garments and social norms. And in time, the mirror showed to us a Stranger in a strange land.

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Actors in a stage not of our choosing. vested in matters decided for us by someone else. Is this what we, the collective we, have become.

Those shadowy recollections...master-light of all our seeing

And yet is this not how things were to be, for whence does one realize the value of something? Is it not once it is lost from their grasp?

Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea...
...And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

I often dream of the ocean, having born and brought up besides her. Wishing to seek the depths of her bosom. To let her sweep me in her embrace and wash away all the miasma of worry and Concern.

It brings a great calm to my mind, the sight of the endless ocean. It soothes the grains of my mind, the eternal lapping of waves to the shores and by my feet. If nothing else, I guess one has to be grateful, to be living in a time, where we can still enjoy the joys of nature, lest one day they turn toxic by our own hands.

[Sarar · Rating 5 out of 5]

"That dreamlike vividness and splendor which invest objects of sight in childhood , having regarded it as presumptive evidence of a prior of existence , I think it right to protest against a conclusion which has given pain to some good and pious persons, that I meant it to inculcate such a belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith, as more than an element in our instincts of immortality.
the fall of Man presents an analogy in its favor.
Plato held the doctrine that the soul is immortal and exists separately from the body both before birth and after death. But while the Ode proposes that the soul only gradually loses “the vision splendid” after birth, Plato maintained the contrary: that the knowledge of the eternal ideas , which the soul had acquired by direct acquaintance , is totally lost at the instant of birth and must be gradually recollected by philosophical discipline in the course of this life.
Wordsworth’s metaphorical use of the concept of preexistence in his poem resembles the view of Neo-Platonists that glory of the unborn soul is gradually quenched by its descent into darkness of matter .

Wordsworth’s apparent claim for the preexistence of the soul violated the Christian belief that the soul , although it survives after death , doesn’t exist before the birth of an individual. His claim that he used preexistence not as a doctrine but as a postulate enabling him to deal “ as a poet” with general human experience, that the passing of youth involves the loss of freshness and radiance investing everything he sees."


here's a link to share the poem with you
http://www.4shared.com/office/BCxbFUi...

[Shaunaly Higgins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel such a deep connection to this poem because of Wordworth's love of nature but more importantly, the spiritual aspect that I found to be embedded throughout the work. Wordworth's Ode is about loss and grief of an earlier, more purer existence as we leave the magical, divine-like stage of our infancy and grow into humans obsessed with earthy materials, leaving us questioning our soul's purpose and why is it that we seem to loose our true Self in the process of growing up?

Wordsworth saw nature in a way that others simply could not see or perhaps refused to see because the magic of our connection to divinity continually fades (or does it), as we grow.

Humans have the tendency to became so lost in their materialistic and ego driven bubble of adulthood that we tend to loose the essence of our true beauty and become lost within ourselves. How is it, and why is it that we seem to loose our connection to the divine just because the years begin to pass?

It's not difficult to think of our childhoods and recall certain memories that may grant access to a plethora of joyous and magical memories filled with love and laughter but even as an adult, one has the capacity to connect to the purest experience of nature and to the divine if we just took the time to look inward and do so.

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience". - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

[Angie Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite lines: "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: the soul that rises with us, our life's Star, hath had elsewhere it's setting, and comets 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..."

[Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only one of my favorite of Wordsworth's, but one of my favorite poems, plain and simple.

[Padmanabha Reddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Often termed as immortality ode or the Great Ode, this poem of Wordsworth brings out the inner philosopher that he is. Although criticized by many poets including his best friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge who writes Dejection: An Ode almost as a response to this poem. Like Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth focusses on the sublime and discovering the true nature of the human self. But unlike Tintern Abbey, this poem is written in the form of an ode, an ancient Greek classical form of poetry which were written to be sung in festivals. As the title mentions, he remembers his childhood and talks how an individual changes over time as he ages. Written in irregular Pindaric form of an ode, it is split into three movements: the first four stanzas discuss death, and the loss of youth and innocence; the second four stanzas describe how age causes man to lose sight of the divine, and the final three stanzas express hope that the memory of the divine allow us to sympathise with our fellow man.

The poem relies on the concept of pre-existence, that children are the best philosophers who have the most inquisitive nature and the soul existed before the creation to aid them to connect with nature. In another poem by him, he writes – “child is the father to a man” which seems perplexing at the beginning but starts making sense when we look carefully at the meaning of the very line that he wrote. Every person gets old and then he would be behaving the same way as the child. Now, the person’s child has to take care of him just like he did when the child was young. Also, it points out to the nature of the child – he is inquisitive and has a lot to teach to his elders. William Blake talks about innocence and experience; if you have experience then no longer are you innocent as you now know everything that comes forward. These are the two sides of human consciousness which go hand in hand.

We also notice this by remembering our childhood, just the way Wordsworth is doing in the poem; when we are children, the days are really long but as we age, the time seems to run fast even though the measurement is still the same. Wordsworth argues that this happens because of repetition or mimesis if we like to bring in Aristotle. Empiricist philosopher John Locke argues that the human brain is in the state of “tabula rasa” or blank slate when he/she is born and then learns by experience which often is caused through imitation. He says that children lose their divine radiance and light as they grow and gain experience. But later argues that the memory now is far better than the original as we now know what it really is. In the poem he writes about his despair that he is not able to feel the same way when compared to his childhood.

According to Wordsworth, the greatest advantage children have over adults is that they don’t know the concept of death and mortality and the moment they learn it, they start losing their divine light and become more like adults who don’t have an intimate sublime with immortality. Adults have run out of things they need to explore but children don’t have the problem. Wordsworth mentions God in the poem but he neither defines God nor tries to tell that God is separate from nature. Loss of innocence comes from experience but an imaginative recovery of what was lost and what you imagine is in some ways superior to its original experience because the original experience is unreflecting.

This poem’s narrative seems a non-Christian rendering of Christian experience. It’s replacing creation, fall, and redemption. Overall, this poem is highly philosophic, similar yet very different from Tintern Abbey. Give it a read, you won’t be disappointed.

[Wesley De Sena · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Intimations of Immortality" by William Wordsworth is a timeless masterpiece that captures the essence of human existence and the transcendent beauty of nature. Wordsworth's lyrical poetry transports readers into a realm of profound introspection, where the fleeting moments of childhood innocence and wonder are juxtaposed with the complexities of adulthood. The poem explores the notion of immortality not as a physical existence but as a spiritual awakening, a recognition of the eternal truths that lie beyond the material world. Wordsworth's rich imagery and evocative language invite readers to contemplate the mysteries of life and the interconnectedness of all living beings. Each stanza is imbued with a sense of awe and reverence for the natural world, celebrating its transformative power and its ability to awaken the soul to higher truths. Through his exploration of memory, nostalgia, and the passage of time, Wordsworth invites readers to embrace the fleeting beauty of the present moment while acknowledging the eternal truths that lie beyond. "Intimations of Immortality" is not merely a poem but a profound meditation on the human condition, offering solace and inspiration to readers across generations.

[anna!!]

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.

every other poet can pack it up and go home

[Rabbia Riaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its a poem of eleven stanzas which describes firstly the loss of innocence and divine sight of a child when he gets indulge in his toys from the soft lap of its mother.Wordsworth says that one should never loose his divine sight when he has a lot of responsibilities of his life rather he should try to maintain it.At the end of the poem he shows hope that if,in the contemporary time period,we focus on nature and our childhood memories we can regain the divine sight.
The poem exactly matches his theory of "spontaneous overflow of emotions in tranquillity". Simple and rythmic language of the poem makes it beautiful.

[Toon Pepermans · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll agree with Byron here

[thewanderingjew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life is fleeting. Some things remain after us because we leave legacies behind, but like the trees and the sunrises, we are temporary! Life is a thing of beauty.

[Anny Veddes · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderful. you see, as someone unsullied by earthly genealogy, it's nice to hear it from another orphan ;)

[Gedi௨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ode to the 👶’s social learning by observation of 🌎

[Red · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poems are gifts. First you make a little progress in life and next comes the poem

[Olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[evie lane · Rating 1 out of 5]

i think my english teacher hates me

[Wesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible precursor to my favorite poems and poems, like The Wasteland, Wallace Stevens, and John Ashbery.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading romantic poetry gave me vivid and dramatic dreams at night. It really inspires me.