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 coming day.
Had Wordsworth never written another line, that passage would have
placed him among the greatest. He follows the glorious burst with these
awful lines--
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized;
High instincts before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.
That is like some golden-tongued utterance of the gods; and thousands of
Englishmen, sceptics and believers, have held their breath, abashed, as
its full meaning struck home.
Yes; this mysterious thought that haunts our being as we gaze on the
saddened fields is not aroused by the immediate impression which the
sight gives us; it is too complex, too profound, too mature and
significant.
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