Read the poem.
excerpt from "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" by William Wordsworth
In this poem, Wordsworth conveys his belief that as people age, they lose sight of the joy and purity of life that they experienced as children.
V
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.
VI
Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mother's mind,
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.
How does describing all people as having come from an "imperial palace" affect the poem?
It demonstrates that human beings are not capable of understanding or imagining the beauty of God.
It conveys the speaker's belief that being born into wealth is not proof of one's decency or potential.
It helps reinforce the idea that human beings have divine or heavenly origins that extend beyond Earth.
It suggests the possibility that paradise can indeed be found and enjoyed on Earth.
