Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality:

The Fountain of Youth, the iconic object of all who seek immortality has left many disappointed. This natural wellspring of life, never to be found, leaves humanity questioning its existence. Could these waters be just a symbol of something that already exists? As with all wellsprings, the source is very deep and often difficult to pinpoint. The source of youth and immortality can be found within us. A seed or speck of the divine yet to be discovered or nurtured and matured through this life and all that we experience.

Romantic poets, such as William Wordsworth and John Keats touched on immortality; suggesting that we are immortal through the divine plan set in motion by God. These concepts, rejected by the Christian community of the time have since been embraced by many philosophers and theologians. Although the idea of pre-existence and immortality is not a doctrine that was preached at the pulpit, Romantic poets expressed these ideas often. In Keats' letter to his brother and sister-in-law subtitled: "Vale of Soul-making", he presents a theology that questions the Christian concepts of life and death. The ideas of the pre-existence and immortality created distress in the Christian community. In his essay on "Soul-Making", Walter L. Reed states:

Christian theology has not been much impressed with Keat's scheme...

In contrast to this sentiment, Sir Leslie Stephen states that Wordsworth was not

...merely a melodious writer, or a powerful utterer of deep emotion, but a true philospher.

Wordsworth shares the concept of the pre-existence and immortality clearly in, the often quoted, stanza five of "Intimations of Immortality":

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soule 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:

Our birth is a transition from a pre-existent state. With this transition, we bring with us the source of our existence, which is God. We have left our home with him for a short period of time to grow from child to man on this mortal plane. We don't remember this pre-existence but its realm is not far from us. In his letter to his brother and sister-in-law, John Keats shares a similar opinion about our origins:

There may be intelligences or sparks of the divinity in millions -- but they are not Souls till they acquire identities, till each one is personally itself. Intelligences are atoms of perception -- they know and they see and they are pure, in short, they are God.

The light and innocence reflected in the eyes of children reflect these sparks of the divine. Their pureness testifies that we are children of the Divine. Children seem to know that heaven exists without explanation from parents or guardians; they just know. At some point, this knowledge begins to fade away into forgetfulness. When we cross the threshold from childhood to adulthood and begin to traverse through life upon paths far from celestial light our recollections fade:

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.

Speaking on Wordsworth's Ode: "Intimations of Immortality", Leslie Stephen touches on doctrines advocated by Wordsworth to include "Divine order" and the pre-existence. Reinforcing these concepts of life before earth; our waning memory of it; and the exhibition of its existence through childhood, he states:

The most characteristic of all his doctrines is that which is embodied in the great ode upon the "Intimation of Immortality." The doctrine: "the theory that the instincts of childhood testify to the pre-existence of the soul -" the glory and freshness of our childish instincts - is equally noteworthy, what its cause.

Stephen does not expressly agree with Wordsworth, yet he concludes that there is merit to this concept. Wordsworth even felt compelled to defend his work, stating:

To that dreamlike vividness and splendor which invest objects of sight in childhood, everyone, I believe, if he would look back, could bear testimony...

Knowing that we existed before this earthly life and have been placed upon this mortal earth, we must ask the question: Why are we here?

Life would seem meaningless without a purpose or a Divine Plan. When Wordsworth expresses the transition from child to man, there are experiences that move us and shape us. These shapings must have a purpose. John Keats suggests that this life is for us to gain experience:

Then you will find out the use of the world (I am speaking now in the highest terms for human nature admitting it to be immortal which I will here take for granted for the purpose of showing a thought which has struck me concerning it: I say 'soul making' Soul s distinguished from an Intelligence.

These experiences will help create our soul; rather, nurture and mature our soul to an individual identity. Naming this world "the vale of Soul-making", he states that there is a process in which our Soul is formed. This process, "a system of Spirit-creation" has three components or ingredients: Intelligence, Human Heart, and the World. He states:

These three Materials are the Intelligence - the human heart (as distinguished from intelligence or Mind) and the World or Elemental space suited for the proper action of Mind and Heart on each other for the purpose of forming the Soul or Intelligence destined to possess the sense of Identity.

These three elements allow us to move through this life and experience sorrow and joy and moments of pleasure and pain. Because we have been endowed with Intelligence or the spark of the divine we are equipped with the capacity to look upon these events and improve ourselves. Even mold ourselves into worthy candidates for acceptance into the Divine's Realm upon the passing from this life into the next. The transitions of birth and death only move us forward through our existence. We continue, making us immortal.

Our desires through this life to retain youth and extend life is merely a reflection of eternal truth. We can't see our immortality through mortal eyes. We experience the end of all things during our existence here. Yet, we still reach for immortality. This desire stems from the spark of divinity that has been embedded within our hearts. John K. Mathison, in his essay, "Wordsworth's Ode, states:

The Ode may be considered the representation of the condition of the mind of the poet in a particular reverie on a particular May morning, the reverie being introduced by certain memories stimulated by the beauty of the morning and the realization of a difference between his present and past reaction to nature.

I choose to believe that it is more than just emotion expresses; that Wordsworth connected with the divine on a spring morning and saw the plan more clearly. He glimpsed the source of our immortal existence in the creations all around him. Soul communing with Soul; spirit to spirit; heart to heart - knowledge given, that we are offspring of the Divine - we are divine - we are immortal. The Fountain of Youth and the Fountain of Immortality are within our reach. It is found within.

References:

Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: the Major Authors. 9th ed., vol. 2, Norton, 2013.

Mathison, John K. "Wordsworth's Ode: 'Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.'" Studies in Philology. vol. 46. no. 3, 1949. pp. 419-439.

Reed, Walter L. "Soul-Making: Art, Therapy and Theology in Keats, Hillman and Bakhtin." Religion & Literature, vol. 29, n0. 1, 1997, pp. 1-15.

Stephen, Leslie. "Poetry Criticism." Poetry Criticism, vol. 4. p. 390.