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.

William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850), Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, 1807.