Salon

Rebirth

May 16, 2008

William Wordsworth wrote:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore--
Turn whereso'er I may, By night or day,
The things which I have seen I can see no more.
......Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
......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,
......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 power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;
......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......

"Ode, Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood"
 

Photos by Bruce Barone