ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS
OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

釋意paraphrase): VIII

原文與注釋(Text and Annotation)


Looking at your exterior, one would not guess at the greatness of your soul. You are the best philosopher because you still have your inheritance of insights. You are the only one who really sees. You cannot hear and you cannot communicate what you see of the eternal vision. You are visited constantly by the eternal mind. You are a mighty prophet and a blessed oracle. You have all of the truths which we are spending our lives trying to find, truths which have been lost in the darkness, the darkness of growing old. But over you, your immortality sits quietly like the day, or like a master standing over his slave. It is a presence which is not to be put away. Yet, why is it that you who have this glorious heaven-born freedom, work so earnestly to bring on the inescapable burdens of the years ? Why are you so blindly fighting against your hapiness? Only too soon your soul will have all of the human problems and you will be bound by custom which is cold and heavy and deep as life itself.