Ode; Intimations of Immortality

full name: Ode: Intimation of Immortality from Recollections of Early

Childhood (1815).

W.wordsworth first had a short versoin of this poem (four stanzas)

he finished it after coleridge read it

the ode is written in eleven variable stanzas and rhymes(iambic

line,couplet,single line...)

purpose of the change in rhyme is to match the emotions expressed in

the poem
he described nature common to the end of spring

he used imagination

He no longer feels the same way he did as a boy

this is an elegy because it mourns the loss of childhood vision

Analysis

About Wordsworth's connection to nature and his struggle to understand

humanity's failure, to recognize the value of the natural world.

The poem is elegiac, it is about the regret of loss.

Wordsworth is saddened by the fact that time has stripped away much of
nature's glory, depriving him of the wild spontaneity he exhibited as a
child.

As we grow up - more and more distanced from nature.

Duality - Even though the world around the speaker is beautiful and
peaceful, he is sad and angry because of what he (and humanity) has
lost.

Nature is a kind of religion to Wordsworth, he knows that it is wrong to

be depressed in nature's midst and pulls himself out of his depression for
as long as he can.

In the seventh stanza especially, Wordsworth examines the transitory state of

childhood. He is pained to see a child's close proximity to nature being
replaced by a foolish acting game in which the child pretends to be an
adult before he actually is. Instead, Wordsworth wants the child to hold
onto the glory of nature that only a person in the flush of youth can
appreciate.

In the ninth, tenth and eleventh stanzas Wordsworth manages to reconcile the
emotions and questions he has explored throughout the poem. He realizes that
even though he has lost his awareness of the glory of nature, he had it once, and
can still remember it. The memory of nature's glory will have to be enough
to sustain him, and he ultimately decides that it is. Anything that we
have, for however short a time, can never be taken away completely,
because it will forever be held in our memory.

The poem

First stanza: The speaker begins by declaring that there was a time when nature
seemed mystical to him, like a dream, "Apparelled in celestial light." But now all
of that is gone. No matter what he does, "The things which I have seen I now can
see no more."

In the second stanza the speaker says that even though he can still see the
rainbow, the rose, the moon, and the sun, and even though they are still
beautiful, something is different...something has been lost: "But yet I know,
where'er I go, / That there hath past away a glory from the earth."

Third stanza: The speaker is saddened by the birds singing and the lambs
jumping in the third stanza. Soon, however, he resolves not to be depressed,
because it will only put a damper on the beauty of the season. He declares that
all of the earth is happy, and exhorts the shepherd boy to shout.

In the fourth stanza the speaker continues to be a part of the joy of the season,
saying that it would be wrong to be "sullen / While Earth herself in adorning, /
And the Children are culling / On every side, / In a thousand valleys far and
wide." However, when he sees a tree, a field, and later a pansy at his feet, they
again give him a strong feeling that something is amiss. He asks, "Whither is fled
the visionary gleam? / Where is it now, the glory and the dream?"

The fifth stanza contains arguably the most famous line of the poem: "Our birth is
but a sleep and a forgetting." He goes on to say that as infants we have some
memory of heaven, but as we grow we lose that connection: "Heaven lies about
us in our infancy!" As children this connection with heaven causes us to
experience nature's glory more clearly. Once we are grown, the connection is lost.

In the sixth stanza, the speaker says that as soon as we get to earth, everything
conspires to help us forget the place we came from: heaven. "Forget the glories
he hath known, and that imperial palace whence he came."

In the seventh stanza the speaker sees (or imagines) a six-year-old boy, and
foresees the rest of his life. He says that the child will learn from his experiences,
but that he will spend most of his effort on imitation: "And with new joy and pride
/ The little Actor cons another part." It seems to the speaker that his whole life
will essentially be "endless imitation."

In the eighth stanza the speaker speaks directly to the child, calling him a
philosopher. The speaker cannot understand why the child, who is so close to
heaven in his youth, would rush to grow into an adult. He asks him, "Why with
such earnest pains dost thou provoke / The years to bring the inevitable yoke, /
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?"

In the ninth stanza (which is the longest at 38 lines) the speaker experiences a
flood of joy when he realizes that through memory he will always be able to
connect to his childhood, and through his childhood to nature.

In the tenth stanza the speaker harkens back to the beginning of the poem,
asking the same creatures that earlier made him sad with their sounds to sing
out: "Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!" Even though he admits that
he has lost some of the glory of nature as he has grown out of childhood, he is
comforted by the knowledge that he can rely on his memory.

In the final stanza the speaker says that nature is still the stem of everything is
his life, bringing him insight, fueling his memories and his belief that his soul is
immortal: "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do
often lie too deep for tears."