ODE; INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD – CRITICAL ANALYSIS (WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)

This post is about the line by line analysis of Ode; Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood written by William Wordsworth. In this post you will find out the complete summary of the poem in an easy to understand language. Moreover you will find some extra information about the poet as well as the poem in this post which you will certainly find helpful. Let us find the line by line analysis of Ode; Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood written by William Wordsworth.

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.

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.

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 blessèd 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 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?

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-learn{e}d 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 cons another part;

Filling from time to time his “humorous stage”

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

That Life brings with her in her equipage;

As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

Thy Soul’s immensity;

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep

Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,

That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,

Haunted for ever 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!

O 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 me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed

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

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realised,

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, nor mad endeavour,

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 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 for ever taken from my sight,

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 soothing thoughts that spring

Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquished one delight

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

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

ABOUT THE POET

William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who had helped to change the Romantic Age in English Literature. He was born in Cockermouth, U.K., on 7^th April 1770.

He took his last breathe on 23^rd April 1850, at Rydal Mount and Gardens, U.K.

He married Mary Hutchinson and had three children, named Dora, Catherine Wordsworth, and Anne Caroline Wordsworth.

He was one of the founders of English Romanticism and is always remembered by the readers and also a poet with epistemological speculation. Wordsworth’s first poetic study began when he was a kid in grammar school. William Wordsworth is always best known for his ‘Lyrical Ballads’, ‘The Prelude’, and many more.

ODE INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

Here, the poem, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality ”, is one of the famous poems of William Wordsworth and is also a short lyrics poem which also makes it easy to understand and feel the real meaning of the poem in a vast way.

This poem, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality ”, is alike other poems of that era which speaks about the inspiration for nature. The speaker in this poem describes the feeling of joy upon seeing a simple childhood v/s adulthood.

ABOUT THE POEM

The poem, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality “,  was being published during the year 1815, by William Wordsworth.

It has been expanded with the different title, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality “, from Recollections of Early Childhood.

The term, ‘Intimations’ means, a type of hint or any action of being something known. It can be a type of indirect suggestions given to people.

Here, in this poem, the ultimate death has been personified. The poem has been concluded by Wordsworth that even the poet had lost all his joyous visions, he thinks the world.

 Whereas, at the latter part of the poem, he changes his tone of emphasising regarding expressing his thanks end just merely giving a word of thanks on seeing the glorious world.

ODE INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE POEM

THEME:

There are Several themes in this poem but the main theme that can be described in accordance to the poem is —

1. Intimations of Immortality
2. Nature and Man
3. Childhood and Adulthood
4. Love for Nature

1.Intimations of Immortality : On this theme, the poet wants to express his feelings for the world. According to Wordsworth, as every child follow what he or she sees since they grew up, he or she is a part of life play. Every child in their life intimates what they watch. the green session of human life leads to teach them how to survive in this world.

2. Nature and Man : The poet feels every memories of his childhood belongs to the natural enchantment. all the natural beauty he enhanced in his whole life rather than the mainly conspiracies. In this poem, the  the poet highlights two different rt portraits infinite love of the poet for his natural world and on the other side, the worries and confusions for the men who are on gradual process Off for getting the real purpose of their life.

ODE INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

3.Childhood and Adulthood : In this poem, the speaker reflects the drastic change  that comes to every human’s life since childhood to adulthood. People slowly changes and tends to forget adoring the beautiful natural world and grew up to an  ignorant person. the poet begins the poem respecting the passing of time and changing of the world. He tries to recall all the memories of his childhood which had a vast difference now with his present adult play.

4.Love and Nature : I this poem, the poet, William Wordsworth, reflects his great care for the nature. He loves the beautiful nature and wants to endear it. He sometimes feels bad on knowing gradual passing away of time. He misses those childhood memories and wants to adore them throughout his life.

FORM AND STRUCTURE:

The poem, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality “, which had been written by one of the great poet, named William Wordsworth, is said to be consisting of 11 different Ode Stanzas. It also consists of different rhyming schemes. It is based on iambic tetrameter format. This poem forms couplets,  which means, it has a rhyming scheme every after one line.

for example,

But yet I know, where’er I go,

LITERARY DEVICES :

This poem, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality “, by William Wordsworth, Has several literary devices, which portraits the poem to a different angle. This poem contains- Alliteration, Metaphor, Anaphora, Caesura, Enjambment, Personification.

a)Alliteration :- In this poem the alliteration first reflects in the words of the last line of stanza 3, as, ‘shouts’, ‘shouts’, ‘Shepherd’,

and also, in the eleventh line of stanza 7 ,as, ‘hath’ and ‘heart.

b)Anaphora:- An Anaphora means, repetition of any word or phrase at the staring of successive lines.

for example, in this poem, anaphora has been used as,

In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of……..

In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

c)Caesura :- Caesura  Is a part of speech in which a line is being halved  by applying some punctuations or such. This creates a form of pause in the poem  while reading, in order to express the same emotions to describe the intension of the poet in a better way.

for example, in this poem, in the sixth-grade line of stanza 4, as,

The fullness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all.

Oh evil day! if I were sullen

ODE INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

d)Enjambment :- This sudden cutting of any line before it naturally comes to its ending point, commonly used in the poems,  is known as Enjambment. It pulls the reader quickly to the next line out of curiosity.

for example, in this poem, in stanza 1,there is a transition between the  3^rd and the 4^th line, as,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

BACKGROUND of the Poem:

The poem, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality “, which had been written by William Wordsworth, reflects about the generation’s growing up but forgetting the true nature and it’s beauty all around.

This poem begins with the words that the poet is continuously losing to see those love for the nature in these present generations, which he used to see in his childhood. He started the poem with a mourning tone which signifies the sorrow of losing his youth and his childhood and also his left over love for the natural beauty of this enchanting world.

Ode on Intimations of Immortality