Ode: Intimations of Immortality
The meadow, grove and stream no longer appear apparelled in celestial light, and the speaker breaks off a May morning of birdsong, tabor and shepherd boys to ask where the visionary gleam has gone. His answer is that the soul arrives trailing clouds of glory from an immortal sea, that the child stands nearest that source and is therefore the best philosopher, and that shades of the prison house close as the boy grows toward the light of common day. Coleridge answered the first four stanzas with Dejection: An Ode, and the finished poem is the central English statement of what growing up removes.
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