Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Early Childhood There was a boy; when he had heard The laughter of the other boys, He ran away to work, his fate, To find a lily by the lake,

And so with strictness did he stand, Till he had drawn that flower, and thought It all the child might do.

And he that loved these childish ways Of being in the air to breathe, And seeing the sun to shine, Had learned to feel much more than praise.

• William Wordsworth