Posted on by tthenrie

Trailing clouds of glory…

A close friend recently suffered the death of member of her family. It got me to thinking, once again, about life and death, where we come from, where we are going, and what is our purpose here.  I recalled the often-quoted verses of William Wordsworth:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,   60
        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   65
        From God, who is our home:

I had often heard and read this short stanza, but had never read the entire poem.  I took the opportunity this morning and was rewarded with a pleasant few minutes as I contemplated the words of  Ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. I copy/pasted it at the end of this post from the indicated source. If you have not before read the poem, I highly recommend it.

In my studies of religious doctrines regarding the nature of mortality, I find that anciently, the idea of the spirit of mankind existing before this life was not an unknown or strange doctrine. It was common belief in Judaism as well as spoken of in Greek philosophy.  It seems that Christianity, however, diverged from this view during the 6th century after Christ. During that same period came the rise of Islam, which teaches that the spirits of all mankind were created before mortality at the same time that Adam was created and was given life in the Garden of Eden.

Currently mainstream Christian doctrine teaches that the spirit is created by God at the same time the body is created in the womb and the two are joined by God as one. This doctrine is integral to what is commonly known as “Creationism.” I find it interesting, however, that many who profess belief in Creationism, when asked whether they believe they lived with God before this life, will respond in the affirmative, which was apparently the case with William Wordsworth.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS Church), also known as the Mormon Church, restored this doctrine of a pre-mortal life to Christianity in the early1800s when the Prophet Joseph Smith declared that man is as eternal as is God, his father. This doctrine was later further interpreted by the Prophet Brigham Young, who said that all men and women are literal offspring of a Heavenly Father and Mother, and that family relations created in this life after the pattern established in the eternal realms may also be eternal.

To be totally transparent, I will tell my readers that I am a member of the LDS Church. I am a Mormon. I believe the words of William Wordsworth in that single stanza quoted above were born of exactly the feelings he described in the poem. We, indeed, come to this life “trailing clouds of glory” as our Father in Heaven’s eternal children, and our birth includes a “forgetfulness,” by which we are able to develop faith in Him and in His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  When we die, we go “back to that God who gave [us] life,” (Alma 40:11) to account for what we have done here in mortality with the “talents,” (Matthew 25:14-30) or blessings and gifts, God gave us to work with, and, if we have done well, to live in joy and peace with Him forever.

That doctrine speaks peace to my heart. The Spirit tells me it is true. Were it not true, where would be the purpose in life? Simply to please God? For no other reason than “His good pleasure”? If I was created without a family, how could any relationship endure longer than “till death do us part”? Does it not lift the spirit to know that one literally is a child of God and not simply that in some ethereal sense? To know that there is also a concerned and loving, and eternal, Mother there in Heaven as well, awaiting our return? To then recognize the unavoidable logic that one may also become as they are? What could please God more than to have His children return to Him, to be with Him again and to live with Him throughout eternity, and to be able to inherit all that he has to give?

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (1 Cor. 15:55).

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
William Wordsworth. 1770–1850
536. Ode
Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
    The earth, and every common sight,
            To me did seem
    Apparell’d in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.          5
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
        Turn wheresoe’er I may,
            By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
        The rainbow comes and goes,   10
        And lovely is the rose;
        The moon doth with delight
    Look round her when the heavens are bare;
        Waters on a starry night
        Are beautiful and fair;   15
    The sunshine is a glorious birth;
    But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath pass’d away a glory from the earth.
Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
    And while the young lambs bound   20
        As to the tabor’s sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
        And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;   25
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng,
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
        And all the earth is gay;
            Land and sea   30
    Give themselves up to jollity,
      And with the heart of May
    Doth every beast keep holiday;—
          Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy   35
    Shepherd-boy!
Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call
    Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
    My heart is at your festival,   40
      My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all.
        O evil day! if I were sullen
        While Earth herself is adorning,
            This sweet May-morning,   45
        And the children are culling
            On every side,
        In a thousand valleys far and wide,
        Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the babe leaps up on his mother’s arm:—   50
        I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
        —But there’s a tree, of many, one,
A single field which I have look’d upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
          The pansy at my feet   55
          Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,   60
        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   65
        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,   70
        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;   75
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a mother’s mind,   80
        And no unworthy aim,
    The homely nurse doth all she can
To make her foster-child, her Inmate Man,
    Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.   85
Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years’ darling of a pigmy size!
See, where ‘mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses,
With light upon him from his father’s eyes!   90
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art;
    A wedding or a festival,
    A mourning or a funeral;   95
        And this hath now his heart,
    And unto this he frames his song:
        Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
        But it will not be long  100
        Ere this be thrown aside,
        And with new joy and pride
The little actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his ‘humorous stage’
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,  105
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
        As if his whole vocation
        Were endless imitation.
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
        Thy soul’s immensity;  110
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—
        Mighty prophet! Seer blest!  115
        On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a master o’er a slave,  120
A presence which is not to be put by;
          To whom the grave
Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight
        Of day or the warm light,
A place of thought where we in waiting lie;  125
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?  130
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
        O joy! that in our embers
        Is something that doth live,  135
        That nature yet remembers
        What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest—  140
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—
        Not for these I raise
        The song of thanks and praise;  145
    But for those obstinate questionings
    Of sense and outward things,
    Fallings from us, vanishings;
    Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,  150
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
        But for those first affections,
        Those shadowy recollections,
      Which, be they what they may,  155
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
  Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,  160
            To perish never:
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
            Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!  165
    Hence in a season of calm weather
        Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
        Which brought us hither,
    Can in a moment travel thither,  170
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
        And let the young lambs bound
        As to the tabor’s sound!  175
We in thought will join your throng,
      Ye that pipe and ye that play,
      Ye that through your hearts to-day
      Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright  180
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
    Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
      We will grieve not, rather find
      Strength in what remains behind;  185
      In the primal sympathy
      Which having been must ever be;
      In the soothing thoughts that spring
      Out of human suffering;
      In the faith that looks through death,  190
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquish’d one delight  195
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripp’d lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
            Is lovely yet;  200
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,  205
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: