Page:The plastic age, (IA plasticage00mark).pdf/120

104 “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.”

There was a moment’s silence when he finished, and then Hugh said reverently: “That is beautiful, Read the last stanza, will you, Pudge?”

So Pudge read the last stanza, and then the boys got into an argument over the possible truth of the thesis of the poem. Freddy finally brought their back to the task in hand with his plaintive plea “We’ve gotta get going.” It was two o’clock ir the morning when the seminar broke up, Hugh ad mitting to Carl after their visitors departed thai