Question

Read the poem.

excerpt from "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" by William Wordsworth

In this poem, Wordsworth conveys his belief that as people age, they lose sight of the joy and purity of life that they experienced as children.

V

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

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.

VI

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,

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.

How does the image of human beings "trailing clouds of glory" at birth affect the meaning of this poem?

A.) It suggests that, at birth, humans retain an imprint made by a divine creator.

B.) It demonstrates that, at birth, parents pass along to children their hopes and dreams.

C.) It asserts that, at birth, our memory of God is obscured or clouded.

D.) It conveys the idea that, at birth, people leave heaven behind to face the mortal world.

Answer 1

The image of human beings "trailing clouds of glory" at birth affects the meaning of this poem in the following way:

A) It suggests that, at birth, humans retain an imprint made by a divine creator.

The author states that the soul comes from somewhere else, not Earth. Unlike the English philosopher John Locke, who believed we got here as a blank slate or tabula rasa, William Wordsworth believed the soul did not get here "in entire forgetfulness" nor "in utter nakedness", but "trailing clouds of glory", that is, retaining a vivid impression of God and Heaven.

It is not until we start growing up that the "prison-house" (the mortal world) starts to make itself gradually present in our consciousness and the imprint made by our divine creator starts to die away.