Years that bring the philosophic mind

When I was a high school senior, I saw a movie titled "Splendor in the Grass," starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood. You can probably Netflix it. It was a beautiful and sad love story, the more so because it reflected some things that were going on in my life at the time. But its lasting significance was that it introduced me to the poetry of the British poet William Wordsworth, and the remarkable poem "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." Toward the beginning of the poem are the famous lines reflecting Wordsworth's notion of pre-existence:

"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
From God, who is our home. . . "

Even as a teen, I had heard those words quoted from LDS pulpits, and they rang true. But then, and now, the lines I have returned to for the rest of my life are these:

"What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind."

Nearly half a century has passed since I first heard those words. In all honesty, I have not always found strength in what remained behind, nor have I allowed myself only soothing thoughts. I have grieved far too much over far too many things not worth either the time or the effort. From this point on, I'm concentrating on the philosophic mind.