Poetry About Childhood
...thou Eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read¡¦st the eternal deep, Haunted for every by the eternal mind, - Might Prophet! See blest! (109 ¡V 115) Thou Little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on they being¡¦s height¡K Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthy freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! (122 ¡V 129) Wordsworth felt that with the coming of adulthood, the child becomes ¡§blind¡¨ to imagination and become only able to philosophize and analyze everything rather than take it for what it is and create it into something more beautiful which happens when one is a child. Wordsworth uses various words and phrases that help emphasize the child that he misses so much. He uses words that are currently linked to many imaginations of children and nature. These words are seen in stanza two: Rainbow, Rose, Moon and Waters. Many children use these words in their imagination through stories told to them and during their play in the nature of the world. In stanza four we see the word Creature which as children, many creatures are made up in the imagination, whether they are pretend or a made up name for an actual animal that they do not understand. The most important imagery word is that of the word Nurse. Nurses were very crucial in childhood because they were the main support for the child as they grew up, almost a mother figure. All these words written in this poem are words that display how much Wordsworth misses his childhood and these reflect the imagination that he so misses too. By the end of the poem, Wordsworth discusses how he realizes that although he doesn¡¦t want to grow older, he must; it is part of the natural process of life. He wants the reader to know that as one grows older one loses the qualities and innocence of childhood and the experiences and the mystery of childhood is lost as well. ¡§Be now for ever taken from my sight, /Though nothing can bring back the hour /Of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower; /We will grieve not rather find /Strength in what remains behind; (177 ¡V 181). Wordsworth them goes on to imply that even though nature has kept a watch over man, he thanks nature for its ¡§tenderness, its joys, its fears,¡¨ that is gives the heart and that it will forever remain in his heart and the heart of others and remind them of what they once had in childhood. William Wordsworth had a very close friend who he wrote many poems with. These poems were called Lyrical Ballads and his friend¡¦s name was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Samuel Taylor Coleridge considered Williams Wordsworth to be a man of extreme intellect and he very often called him his teacher. One of the most important poems was written to Wordsworth nicely titled ¡§To Wordsworth¡¨. This poem was written in a book and is part of ¡§The Prelude¡¨ which was published around 1850. The poem starts out stating that Wordsworth is ¡§Friends of the wise! and Teacher of the Good! / Into my heart I received that Lay/ More than historic, that prophetic Lay /Wherein (high theme by three first sung aright) /Of the foundations and the building up /Of a Human Sprit thou hast dared to tell,¡¨ (1 ¡V 6). These beginning lines are important because it is the implication of Coleridge¡¦s feeling that he has also experienced the same things in life as did Wordsworth. Wordsworth was a great influential to Coleridge and he expresses this in the end of the first stanza of his poem. ¡§By vital breathings secret as the soul /Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart /Thoughts all too deep for words!¡¨ (9 ¡V 11). This line is important because it echoes William Wordsworth¡¦s ¡§Ode: Intimations of Immortality¡¨. Coleridge feels that what guides his thoughts can come from anywhere. Then throughout the rest of the poem, Coleridge discusses what he experienced in his younger years, the revolution in France and the aftermath of the Revolution. Coleridge in his poetry constantly talks about how the mind works from being a child through turning into an adult. ¡§Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, /And genius given, and knowledge won in vain, /And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild, /And all which patient toil had reared out ¡V but flowers /Strewed on my course, and born upon my bier, /In the same coffin, for the self-same strife,¡¨ (70 ¡V 75). Coleridge continues to refer to Wordsworth and how his experiences are similar and that he too is dwelling in a life that is lost of the youth that it once contained. In William Blake¡¦s poetry there is a similar theme of childhood, but the poems lean more towards the innocence of childhood rather than the loss of childhood. There is a very important poem that contains a very good example of Blake¡¦s feeling about children and childhood. In Blake¡¦s ¡§Song¡¦s of Innocence¡¨ the reader comes across one smaller poem included called ¡§The Lamb¡¨. The poem is an example of Blake¡¦s beliefs that children are born with a clean slate and not original sin. Theref...