The Wordsworth Quote
02 July 2015 - Copied from previous blog
I can't quite remember how I found the quote I have added to the page on my Philosophy of Music Education, though it was during my undergraduate studies. Perhaps it was as I was looking for inspiration as I was developing a statement for my educational philosophy. That single phrase from William Wordsworth's poem (The Prelude; Book Fourteenth; Conclusion) summarizes the whole of human social cognizance. Our languages, rituals, and art forms beg posterity to listen to and learn from them, to share in the love that inspired them, and to carry it forward to new horizons. Below, I have copied a transcription of the stanza of Wordsworth's poem with the quote. You can find a full transcription of the conclusion here.
Oh! yet a few short years of useful life,
William Wordsworth, 1770-1850
And all will be complete, thy race be run,
Thy monument of glory will be raised;
Then, though (too weak to tread the ways of truth)
This age fall back to old idolatry,
Though men return to servitude as fast
As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame,
By nations, sink together, we shall still
Find solace--knowing what we have learnt to know,
Rich in true happiness if allowed to be
Faithful alike in forwarding a day
Of firmer trust, joint labourers in the work
(Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe)
Of their deliverance, surely yet to come.
Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak
A lasting inspiration, sanctified
By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved,
Others will love, and we will teach them how;
Instruct them how the mind of man becomes
A thousand times more beautiful than the earth
On which he dwells, above this frame of things
(Which, 'mid all revolution in the hopes
And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged)
In beauty exalted, as it is itself
Of quality and fabric more divine.