“The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.”
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
William Wordsworth
“Ode: Intimations of Immortality” (1807)
Those immortal lines above by Wordsworth come to mind when confronting the overwhelming volume of verse that comprises Ian McDonald’s New and Collected Poems. This publication draws from several books and puts together in one collection the complete poetical works of this Guyanese (Trinidadian/Caribbean) writer.
They are varied, deep, with a wide reach of interests and interrogations. There is also an overall preoccupation by McDonald with mortality. Therefore, when we remember Wordsworth’s famous lines, we may call McDonald’s collected poems “An Ode on Intimations of Mortality”.