From Childhood's Hour

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.

Prologue: Two households, both alike in dignity
Chapter 1: And all I loved, I loved alone
Chapter 2: Most eloquent of the descendants of Romulus
Chapter 3: But when the heart is full of din / And doubt beside the portal waits
Chapter 4: Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me / With stinted kindness
Chapter 5: At his call / Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all
Chapter 6: Summer’s lease hath all too short a date
Chapter 7: This is the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face
Chapter 8: Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems
Chapter 9: I feel now / The future in the instant
Chapter 10: The spirit of enjoyment and desire / Went circling, like a multitude of sounds
Chapter 11: Is all that we see or seem / But a dream within a dream?
Chapter 12: Whatever is done or said returns at last to me, / And whatever I do or say I also return
Chapter 13: Work he hath begun / Of fortitude, and piety, and love
Chapter 14: It is bound / Ere it has life: yea, all the chains are forged / Long ere its being
Chapter 15: Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance and Change / To these / All things are subject but eternal Love
Chapter 16: With an eye made quiet by the power / Of harmony . . . We see into the life of things
Chapter 17: Delight and liberty, the simple creed / Of Childhood
Chapter 18: I hear you whispering there, O stars of heaven
Chapter 19: I see / The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee
Chapter 20: Long and strong then strike the lyre, / . . . Bid the fire of freedom blaze
Notes

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