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!

IV.

Ye blessed 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 fulness of your bliss, I feel—­I feel it all. 
          O 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?

V.

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.

VI.

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.