The Ode

Connotation

It is difficult to make an analysis of the different levels of connotation since this is only an extract from the Ode.

The musicality of the Ode affects the reader with his sonorous rhythm. The musicality is given from the alternate rhyme generally used in the poem. Also alliterations contribute to the effect like "was" "when" "meadow" at line one, "Apparell'd" "celestial" "light" at line four, the repetition of the "s" sound at line eleven. Emphatic use of rhythm is used to involve the reader in the poem, like at line thirteen and fifteen "And come cometh from afar" "an not in utter nakedness".
Syntax is more complicated than one in the poem we have read so far also accumulative effect creates emphasis.
The poet chose the form of an ode, so words choice is not than simple: the language is more poetical than every day language since divinity in nature requires such language.
The extract presents a climatic effect which comes from:
-soul
-God
-youth
-nature youth
-nature's priest
-man
The climax is used to explain the Wordsworth's philosophy of childhood: the gradual process that our soul makes with our growth that entails the weakening of the emotional memory of God.

Rhetorical devices

Metaphors are employed:
"Our birth is a sleep"
"Our birth is a forgetting"
"The soul... our life's Star"
"God is our home"
"Shades of the prison-house"
"The Youth... Nature's priest"
The function of these metaphors is to convey the idea that men have to be aware of human kind and to follow "the light" that behold in the step of their growth.