"...trailing clouds of glory do we come..."

At Better Living Through Beowulf, Robin Bates writes a lovely reflection on childhood and his grandchildren, within the context of Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood."

But I also think of them differently than Wordsworth. It’s as though the poet cares more about himself than about the children he is watching. When he laments that they will grow up as he did, it is William that he mourns for.

Whereas when I am watching Esmé and Alban, I don’t see a loss but a building towards something. They are learning machines, absorbing everything around them, and I imagine what they might do with that knowledge, just as I remain excited by what their fathers are doing with their knowledge.

Those, I suspect, are some very lucky grandkids.