Wordsworth - Intimations of Immortality

• There was a time when he was a child that nature appeared dream like, but time has passed
• Nature is still beautiful, but its not the same as it used to appear
• While listening to the birds sing and the lambs play, he was struck with grief, but the sound of the mountains and wind brings him strength
• His grief shall no more spoil the reason, the entire world is happy
• He tells the earth's creatures that he celebrates with them at their festival in his heart
• It would be wrong to be so sad on such a May morning while the world celebrates
• He sees a tree in a field and a pansy that makes him wonder where the visionary gleam went, and where is glory and the dream now?
• Our birth is "but a sleep and a forgetting" -- our soul came from somewhere else before it arrived here
• We don't entirely forget where we came from, and not void of any lasting impressions from that place
• "We came from God who is our home" -- we see it when we're babies, and as we grow, we see it in our joy
• Earth does what she can to make us forget heaven, and instead, enjoy earth's pleasures
• He imagines a six year old excited to grow up and enjoy earthly experiences
• He imagines human life as "imitation"
• He acts like the child is a mighty prophet and keeper of unrightly truths - he asks him why he is in such a hurry to have the inevitable yoke of adulthood.
• The speaker receives a surge of joy for childhood memories of the "shadowy recollections" that allow him to access those memories of innocence and exploration
• They give him/his years the ability to feel like "moments in the being of the eternal silence"
• He calls the birds to sing and the lambs to dance, and we will join them in thought
• even though nothing can bring back his youth, we will not grieve, but find strength in the memories and knowledge of fate
• He loves nature even more because he can appreciate it with his mortal understanding
• even a flower can spur a memory "too deep for tears"