Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting / The Soul 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.
— William Wordsworth, “Ode: Intimations on Immortality”
When I first read this poem in 11th grade, I was profoundly touched by the imagery it evoked.
I…