Poetry Sunday

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.

- William Wordsworth

I recently saw this segment of the ode Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood in the book You Are Your Child's First Teacher. With a child still so new in our home, this touched my heart in a special way. There is something about an infant that seems ethereal. He's not quite entirely there with us, sometimes, as though a part of his being is still mingling with God or some timeless force from where he came.

This is a seriously beautiful poem, and is quite a bit longer (this is only one small section). I would recommend reading the rest if you find your heart hungering for some meditation on the beauty of childhood. The rest of the poem can be found here.

Poetry Sunday is a day to find a piece of poetry that stirs your soul and makes your heart race in that oh-so pleasant way and share it with the rest of the world.