Ans: William Wordsworth is one of the formidable figures in the galaxy of romantic poetry. In many of his poems, he has treated the theme of childhood very skillfully. His attitude to childhood is often portrayed through mystical elements. In his poems, this attitude is noticeable when we go through the poems. In this regard, we can cite his two famous poems dealing with the theme of childhood —

“Ode on Intimations of Immortality”, “It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free.”

The poem “Ode on Intimations of Immorality” is the high watermark of poetry in which the poet has glorified childhood. When the poet was a child, he saw all the objects of nature clothed in celestial light. He used to enjoy the objects of Nature through his senses in his childhood. The most commonplace objects of Nature such as meadow, grove, and stream appeared to him having a visionary celestial gleam upon them.

In this poem, the poet glorifies childhood and the child because he believes that “Heaven lies about us in our infancy”. He believes that the human soul lives in heaven before it comes to earth. The child brings along with it heavenly glory when it is born into this world. This heavenly glory gradually becomes fainter and fainter as the child grows into the boy, the boy into the youth, and the youth into a man. The poet says —

“At length the man perceives it die away
And fade into the light of common day.”

In it, Wordsworth places the child in a very high position saying that he is the best philosopher. The child is closer to God who holds the divine heritage and is able to understand those spiritual truths that the grown-up man cannot understand. To him the child is greater than man or the child is a blessed seer, mighty prophet, etc. For this reason, he calls the child:

“Eye, among the blind…….
Haunted forever by the eternal mind
Mighty prophet! Seer blest!”

“It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” is a wonderful poem written by William Wordsworth. In this very poem, the poet has glorified the divinity of childhood. It is written in the tradition of the sonnet and in the sestet of this sonnet, Wordsworth focuses on the divinity of childhood. Wordsworth here specifically addresses his daughter Caroline but his view of her as divine can be applied to all children. According to him, Caroline is ‘untouched by solemn thought’ but she is not less divine. She is portrayed as lying ‘in Abraham’s bosom all the year’ suggesting her trust and innocence. She is close to divinity just like the Holy priest of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. Caroline is in the ‘inner shrine’ of the temple. As she is allowed to the inner shrine, her soul is blessed by God. In fact, this union is so special that Wordsworth admits that God is with the child even when he knows it is not. Purity could only be truly maintained in childhood because of a child’s innocence. It is for this reason, Wordsworth revered childhood as divine. In this regard, the poet says—

“Thy nature is not therefore less divine …
God being with thee when we know it not.”

To sum up, we can say that William Wordsworth has treated the theme of childhood in his poems in a wonderful way to show the divine power of a child.