Ode: Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS IN THE IMMORTALITY ODE

Apart from its philosophical aspect, the great Ode on the Intimation of Immortality is also in the nature of a personal document. It was written on the eve of his happy marriage with Mary Hutchison, when he was still at the height of his powers. But the poet felt that a great change had come over his relations with nature. The familiar objects of the external world were still there as usual. He could still find joy in nature, but could no longer perceive her appareled in celestial light as before. The poet was terribly shaken by the loss of ‘vision’ and asks the poignant question:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is now, the glory and the dream.

The poem, in short, faithfully records a grave spiritual crisis and how it was overcome. The poet gradually realized that though he had lost one gift, “the divine vision”, other gifts had followed, which were sufficient compensation for the single loss. There was no cause for grieving, he could still live constantly in the company of nature; even the meanest flower could give him thoughts that lie too deep for tears. He had still the primary affections and faith in the future life of the soul in a blessed world, to console and strengthen him. In place of the earlier visions, he had the philosophic mind.
The ode also records how the boy Wordsworth was often haunted by a feeling that he was surrounded by unreality on all sides, and had sometimes to clutch at a wall or a tree to re-assure himself of the reality of things. He was thankful for those obstinate questionings:

Of sense and outward things
Fallings from us, Vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in world not realized.

For such questionings gave him “high instincts” – visions of an ideal world.
Thus, it becomes clear that Wordsworth’s poetry is a faithful record of his mind and soul. He was the most egoistical of English poets and he has used his poetry as an expression of his inner self. As an autobiographer, he is entirely faithful and sincere. No attempt is ever made to minimize his faults and weaknesses or to exaggerate his virtues.