Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Early Childhood 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.

The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose, The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare, Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair;

But now, I find, oft, as I roam, If I must sometimes be sad, I find, The echoes strike the boughs, And the dark leaves fall, And yet make of it all a home.

• William Wordsworth