First Affections

William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood:

         [...] 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
                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,
                    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! [...]
                    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;
                      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, [...]
                Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
                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.