"Happy those infant days, when I Shined in my angel-infancy! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy aught But a white, celestial thought; When yet I had not walked above A mile or two from my first Love, And looking back at that short space Could see a glimpse of his bright face." Shelley, in "A Lament," hints at the same thought: "O world! O life! O time! On whose last steps I climb, Trembling at that where I had stood before, When will return the glory of your prime? No more--oh, never more! "Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight; Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more--oh, never more!" 1. =The child is father, etc.= These lines are from a short poem by Wordsworth, entitled "My Heart leaps up": "My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky. So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The child is father of the man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety." Compare with Milton's lines in 'Paradise Regained,' Bk. IV: "The childhood shows the man As morning shows the day." 2. =apparelled.= From Fr. _pareil_, Lat. _parilis_. Other English words as _pair_, _compare_, etc., are similarly derived. To _apparel_ is strictly to pair, to suit, to put like to like. 3. =tabor.= From Old Fr. _tabour_, Fr. _tambour_. Compare Eng. _tambourine_. Originally from the root _tap_, Gr. _tup_, to strike lightly. An ancient musical instrument,--a small one-ended drum having a handle projecting from the frame, by which it was held in the left hand, while it was beaten with a stick held in the right hand. 4. =the cataracts.= The poet has probably in mind the "ghills" or falls of his own lake country. The metaphor which he uses is a bold one. 5. =the echoes.= Compare with a similar line by Shelley: "Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains." --_Adonais_, 127. 6. =the fields of sleep.= "The yet reposeful, slumbering country side."--_Hales._ "The fields that were dark during the hours of sleep."--_Knight._ 7. =jollity.= Merriment. From Lat. _jovialis_. See Milton's 'L'Allegro,' 26: "Haste thee nymph and bring with thee Jest and youthful jollity." 8. =May.= May, with the poets, is the month of gayety. The older poetry especially is full of May raptures. Chaucer says: "For May will have no sluggardy a-night: The season pricketh every gentle heart, And maketh him out of his sleep to start."