Essay On William Wordsworth’s Ode

In his “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” William Wordsworth laments the loss of youth. Like many people, when Wordsworth recollects how innocently children view the world, he longs for a time where life was so simple and pure. Descriptions of nature fill the ode with concrete visuals that readers appreciate and understand, but they also serve to show how differently one sees the world as an adult. To Wordsworth, the loss of childhood is more than the loss of an innocent, amazed view of the world. It is the loss of a pure, divine connection that people experience as they age; moreover, it gives way to a closer connection to the present world.
In the first stanza, Wordsworth touches on the idea of a heavenly connection: “The earth, and every common sight, / To me did seem / Apparell’d in celestial light” (“Ode: Intimations” 2-4). He goes on to state that although there is beauty all around, now he no longer sees as he did before as “there hath pass’d away a glory from the earth” (“Ode: Intimations” 18). This points to both a loss of an ethereal light on the entire world and the loss of a blossoming spring that, it its own way, reminds him of the joyous beauty seen through youthful eyes. The beauty, present and lost, causes grief over these absences.
The poem shows how Wordsworth sees the divine connection dimming as soon as lives begin. He states that “our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting” to symbolize how a person’s earthly presence begins a walk away from the presence of God (“Ode: Intimations” 59). In other words, we “forget” the warmth and divinity from whence we came when we begin to experience the world: “But trailing clouds of glory do we come / From God, who is our home” (“Ode: Intimations” 65-66). People have to work to stay aware of their creator and not get lost in the temporary hardships of the world; however, Wordsworth believes that human experiences should be cherished just the same.
In Wordsworth’s belief, “the philosophic mind” should open people to a different kind of beauty (“Ode: Intimations” 191). The human separation from the divine gives people the ability to understand the world in human terms rather than celestial. Though people “have relinquish’d one delight,” they can fully experience “the innocent brightness of a new-born Day” in a different way based on their human experiences (“Ode: Intimations” 195-199). Wordsworth believes this human experience should be cherished rather than lamented.
The poem shows Wordsworth come to terms with the human state and the importance of experiencing the world through unclouded eyes. Although he misses the times of his youth when the world was bathed in God’s presence naturally, he comes to find that he should appreciate the beauty of nature. Through his human experience, he sees the world differently and uses his own experiences of human suffering to shed new light on everything beautiful. In the eyes of Wordsworth, it makes every little thing in the world mean more.

Reference

Wordsworth, William. “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.” The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1900. Ed. Arthur Quiller-Couch. Oxford: Clarendon, 1919.