Anything goes Ode: Intimations of Mortality-William Wordsworth - Book Report/Review Example

Order 320419 Topic: Anything goes –“Ode: Intimations of Mortality-William Wordsworth: The other name for William Wordsworth’s poetry is Nature! Let it be a poem on any topic, the poet connects it ultimately to Nature! He sees the beneficial influence of Nature in each and every object. According to him, perfect evolution of the human being is possible by his dynamic surrender to the benevolent powers of Nature. Things all around, whether small or big, are of equal importance, if one understands the balancing factors in Nature, in their proper perspective. Nature is all-merciful. Only human beings need to live up to its expectations to deserve that grace. A role of a small, colorful butterfly is as important as that of a mighty mountain-range, in the scheme of things of Nature! Therefore, human beings need to learn the art of living in co-operation with the Nature and should not confront it, or do deeds to cause destruction of the various benevolent agencies of Nature. One who does wanton damage to the Nature can never be a moral or spiritual individual. Therefore, majority of the problems and unrest in the life of the human beings is in the crowded cities, are amongst the people who stay away from the natural surroundings. The rat race, cut-throat competition, absence of mutual respect, greed and aggrandizement for wealth—all these are anti-Nature qualities, that damage the inner peace of the human beings. Artificial social conventions are part of the city life. The life is mechanical and monotonous, devoid of intimate human relationships. In the rural areas, the layman spends a lot of time interacting with Nature, and they retain their internal purity and nobility and live a life of mutual trust and camaraderie. In the poem under discussion, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” (1807), William Wordsworth imagines Nature as the source of the invigorating material that nourishes the active, creative mind and replenishes its energies. Ode-Intimations of Immortality: THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelld in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. 5 It is not now as it hath been of yore;— Turn wheresoeer I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. The poet visualizes Nature in its purest form, unadulterated by the vagaries of humanity. He sees the “celestial light” in Nature and says that it is appareled in it. This revelation is the highest form of identification of Wordsworth with Nature. The hue and colors of Nature, its flowers and fauna, is never static and ever changing; ever inspiring! The poet, therefore, exclaims, “The things which I have seen I now can see no more.” There are no repetitive or monotonous activities in Nature; its moods and creativity are ever new and fresh! Wherever there is a soul to admire, the scenic beauty is available for the asking, in abundance and always to enjoy! One’s search will never prove fruitless if one trusts Nature and goes by the rules by which it governs itself to govern the humanity! The poet has complaints about the state of affairs, about the goings-on, on the Planet Earth. The rainbow comes and goes, 10 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; 15 The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, whereer I go, That there hath passd away a glory from the earth. He expects us to observe the gleeful agents of Nature performing their allotted duties with perfection and mirth, retaining their original charm. He quotes the example of the rainbow, the colors arraigned in it, its intrinsic charm, and each color adding to the beauty of the other and jointly producing a great effect on the human eyes! Even the small rose contributes to the overall beauty of the nature, its colors sanctifying the atmosphere around it by the lovely spread of natural fragrance. The moon shines with august, calm presence, and seems to have the entire sky under its domain, by emitting cool, consoling rays. The stars make merry twinkling everywhere in the sky and the matchless glory of the sunshine is great to comprehend. But the poet has complaints against the Planet Earth—it has betrayed Nature and its natural glory stands diminished on this Planet. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound 20 As to the tabors 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; 25 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 30 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 35 Shepherd-boy! Every creature understands the joy in the rhythms and moods of Nature like the birds that sing in chorus, the young dumb lambs know how to enjoy life as they leap playfully. They are one with the Nature in merriment and are the contributing factors for the overall joy the Nature generates in springtime. But the poet is stricken with grief, for the reasons which he can not precisely explain. However, Nature engages its various agencies to cheer him up and bolster the spirit. The waterfalls, the mountains, the powerful winds all seem to challenge him. He no more wishes to be the dark agent amidst the overall glee emanating from the Nature. He tells the shepherd boy to shout and give vocal support to the joyous stimulants around him and make optimum use of this appointment with spring and conduct the life’s normal activities with hope and happiness. Ye blessèd 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, 40 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, 45 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 mothers arm:— 50 I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! —But theres a tree, of many, one, A single field which I have lookd upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone: The pansy at my feet 55 Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream? The poet now makes a fervent appeal to the creatures of Nature and assures them that internally he is one with them to celebrate this great festival of Nature that beams joy all around, sparing none! Its mood is all-inclusive and all-pervasive. How one can remain sad on such a hopeful May morning, when happiness is advancing on all fronts unchallenged? The poet creates a hearty scene of the flowers and children laughing together! How the maker of the world, the master-artist, paints all these? Yet, amidst the happy scenes, the poet suffers a stroke of melancholy. He looks at a tree and a field and impulsively thinks about “something that is gone.” He suddenly feels that the glory and dreams are no more! Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our lifes Star, 60 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 65 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, 70 He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Natures priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; 75 At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day. Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a mothers mind, 80 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. From the point of great appreciation of the beauty of the various facets and creatures of Nature, the poet knocks at the portals of spirituality. He almost transcends the mind barrier to enter the realm of bliss. He has poor view of the life of human beings on Planet Earth and avers that they sleep and forget. Humans arrive here from a pure and glorious plane of the cosmos. He compares children to the heavenly angels because their heart is pure and the level of innocence is incomparable. A child is a magical creature, a perfect angel. As it grows, the power of that magical aura diminishes, various negativities creep in, and finally purity vanishes once for all. Eventually, the poet says that the glory has vanished and the man remains engulfed in emptiness of the heart and mind. He fails to realize where he is and the infinite extent of the relations of man with the Nature. Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years darling of a pigmy size! See, where mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mothers kisses, With light upon him from his fathers eyes! 90 See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art; A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral; 95 And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: Then will he fit his tongue To dialogues of business, love, or strife; But it will not be long 100 Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride The little actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his humorous stage With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, 105 That Life brings with her in her equipage; As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation. Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy souls immensity; 110 Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, readst the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,— Mighty prophet! Seer blest! 115 On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the Day, a master oer a slave, 120 A presence which is not to be put by; To whom the grave Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight Of day or the warm light, A place of thought where we in waiting lie; 125 Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy beings height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 130 Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! The poet gives a vivid description, how twice-blessed the childhood is! It is the life of bliss. A kid is the darling of its father and mother. Both of them love the child without conditions. The child is like the tender sapling. The inevitable growth occurs, just like the sapling becomes the tree, the child turns to be an adult and cultivates the smartness to challenge the difficult situations in life. He is confronted with issues like business, love and strife and to successfully meet them he is compelled to perfect the bifacial strategy. He cultivates the art of double dealings. Is this real progress of the child?-the poet questions. The later part of the question is why the child is in a hurry to grow and become the adult? The poet seems to emphasize that the progress from childhood to adulthood is no progress at all in the real sense of the term. He has lost the pure experiences of nature and the glories of origins. The actual loss is much greater than the insignificant materialistic gains secured as an adult. O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, 135 That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest— 140 Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:— Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; 145 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, 150 High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, 155 Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, 160 To perish never: Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy! 165 Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, 170 And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! And let the young lambs bound As to the tabors sound! 175 We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright 180 Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; 185 In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, 190 In years that bring the philosophic mind. And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquishd one delight 195 To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I trippd lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; 200 The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch oer mans mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 205 Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. The poet visualizes the great merit and joy of childhood. Recollection of that stage of life is always sweet. The carefree time spent and the world of innocence and wonder! Childhood is a great luxury granted to the human being by God. The maker of this world has employed great skills in chiseling childhood for each human being. It is the price-less asset of life. The memory of childhood bolsters up the spirit of the poet. He wishes to share his joy and appeals to the agents of nature like birds to sing and other creatures to participate in the joyous celebrations. There is nothing handsomer than the change of the season and the emergence of glory by the Nature through flowers and greenery. Great enthusiasm emerges through each and every part of Nature. Finally, the poet relents and does not totally regret the irreversible loss of childhood days. He now sees the new merit in human growth. He understands the newfound truth of mature consciousness in the progression of life. In the normal course a good human being veers round and tries to find the true philosophical merit of life. As he grows in age, does the human being become the child again and develop the sense of immortality? The fact remains that the sense of immortality experienced by the child through its innocence and such a feeling experienced as an adult are entirely different. The latter has emerged out of the hard experiences of life and the deep study and understanding. Beauty of sunrise and the beauty of sunset are entirely different experiences. They invoke different sets of feelings. As one grows, the poet feels, the smallest happenings in Nature will stir one intimately. Strange feelings will emerge from the heart. Even the simplest flower swaying in the wind can raise him “thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.” Conclusion: The poem “Intimations of Immortality” is a philosophical beauty. It is a poem and a painting and Nature is the vast canvas for William Wordsworth. He avers how unity with the Nature is inevitable for the human being and how it is in the best interest of humanity. Initially, the poet grieves over the loss of child hood; but he later realizes the meaning of growth, the journeying of the mind towards finding the inner beauty and the ultimate truth of life. His comparison of a six year old boy to a “Mighty Prophet,” indicates how he holds the childhood in great importance and reverence. The poet wonders at the infinite capacity of Nature to turn any gloomy situation into that of oases of happiness—and how silently and effortlessly Nature performs this function! In the motions everywhere in Nature William Wordsworth sees the handiwork of a great power that makes him wonder! He is awestruck at this un-relaxed, yet relaxed play of nature in the change of seasons and the child transforming into a mature adult. He laughs with the running stream, he halts to wonder at the waving tree, and he thanks the roving wind for the comfort that it brings. Wherever and whenever the poets connects the reader with the Nature—and this he does quite often in this poem—he does so with the telling effect and its imprint lasts for ever in the curtain of the mind of the reader! Works Cited: 536. Ode. Intimations of Immortality: William Wordsworth. 1770–1850; 536. www.bartleby.com/101/536.html - Cached -Retrieved on September 14, 2009 Read More