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This is a slapdash edit of one of the great English poems of the 18th century. I like William Wordsworth a lot, but now I'm beginning to think he can be a bit verbose for what he wants to say. Nevertheless, this poem has elements of what I want to say, so I'm quickly cutting and pasting it here. There are so many beautiful parts to this poem, and less beautiful parts to it. Ah, I've had to take away the formatting, and a little piece of my soul just died. To bring back that part of my soul, read the whole thing here.


"Intimations of Immortality"

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell'd 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...
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 pass'd away a glory from the earth...
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…
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.