Selected Poems of William Wordsworth
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Poetry; Year 4

Selected Poems
of

William Wordsworth

1770-1850

1
Lines Written in Early Spring

Actually composed while I was sitting by the side of the brook that runs down from the Comb, in which stands the village of Alford, through the grounds of Alfoxden. It was a chosen resort of mine. The brook fell down a sloping rock so as to make a waterfall considerable for that country, and across the pool below had fallen a tree, an ash if I rightly remember, from which rose perpendicularly, boughs in search of the light intercepted by the deep shade above. The boughs bore leaves of green that for want of sunshine had faded into almost lily-white; and from the underside of this natural sylvan bridge depended long and beautiful tresses of ivy which waved gently in the breeze that might poetically speaking be called the breath of the waterfall. This motion varied of course in proportion to the power of water in the brook. When, with dear friends, I revisited this spot, after an interval of more than forty years, this interesting feature of the scene was gone. To the owner of the place I could not but regret that the beauty of this retired part of the grounds had not tempted him to make it more accessible by a path, not broad or obtrusive, but sufficient for persons who love such scenes to creep along without difficulty.

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And ’tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,

Their thoughts I cannot measure:—

But the least motion which they made

It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature’s holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

2
Written in March While Resting on the Bridge at the Foot of Brother’s Water

Extempore. This little poem was a favourite with Joanna Baillie.

The Cock is crowing,

The stream is flowing,

The small birds twitter,

The lake doth glitter,

The green field sleeps in the sun;

The oldest and youngest

Are at work with the strongest;

The cattle are grazing,

Their heads never raising;

There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated

The snow hath retreated,

And now doth fare ill

On the top of the bare hill;

The ploughboy is whooping—anon—anon:

There’s joy in the mountains;

There’s life in the fountains;

Small clouds are sailing,

Blue sky prevailing;

The rain is over and gone!

3
The Kitten and the Falling Leaves

Seen at Town-end, Grasmere. The elder-bush has long since disappeared: it hung over the wall near the Cottage, and the Kitten continued to leap up, catching the leaves as here described. The infant was Dora.

That way look, my Infant, lo!

What a pretty baby-show!

See the Kitten on the wall,

Sporting with the leaves that fall,

Withered leaves—one—two—and three—

From the lofty elder-tree!

Through the calm and frosty air

Of this morning bright and fair,

Eddying round and round they sink

Softly, slowly: one might think,

From the motions that are made,

Every little leaf conveyed

Sylph or Faery hither tending,—

To this lower world descending,

Each invisible and mute,

In his wavering parachute.

—But the Kitten, how she starts,

Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!

First at one, and then its fellow

Just as light and just as yellow;

There are many now—now one—

Now they stop and there are none.

What intenseness of desire

In her upward eye of fire!

With a tiger-leap half-way

Now she meets the coming prey,

Lets it go as fast, and then

Has it in her power again:

Now she works with three or four,

Like an Indian conjurer;

Quick as he in feats of art,

Far beyond in joy of heart.

Were her antics played in the eye

Of a thousand standers-by,

Clapping hands with shout and stare,

What would little Tabby care

For the plaudits of the crowd?

Over happy to be proud,

Over wealthy in the treasure

Of her own exceeding pleasure!

’Tis a pretty baby-treat;

Nor, I deem, for me unmeet;

Here, for neither Babe nor me,

Other play-mate can I see.

Of the countless living things,

That with stir of feet and wings

(In the sun or under shade,

Upon bough or grassy blade)

And with busy revellings,

Chirp and song, and murmurings,

Made this orchard’s narrow space,

And this vale so blithe a place;

Multitudes are swept away

Never more to breathe the day:

Some are sleeping; some in bands

Travelled into distant lands;

Others slunk to moor and wood,

Far from human neighbourhood;

And, among the Kinds that keep

With us closer fellowship,

With us openly abide,

All have laid their mirth aside.

Where is he that giddy Sprite,

Blue-cap, with his colours bright,

Who was blest as bird could be,

Feeding in the apple-tree;

Made such wanton spoil and rout,

Turning blossoms inside out;

Hung-head pointing towards the ground—

Fluttered, perched, into a round

Bound himself, and then unbound;

Lithest, gaudiest Harlequin!

Prettiest Tumbler ever seen!

Light of heart and light of limb;

What is now become of Him?

Lambs, that through the mountains went

Frisking, bleating merriment,

When the year was in its prime,

They are sobered by this time.

If you look to vale or hill,

If you listen, all is still,

Save a little neighbouring rill,

That from out the rocky ground

Strikes a solitary sound.

Vainly glitter hill and plain,

And the air is calm in vain;

Vainly Morning spreads the lure

Of a sky serene and pure;

Creature none can she decoy

Into open sign of joy:

Is it that they have a fear

Of the dreary season near?

Or that other pleasures be

Sweeter even than gaiety?

Yet, whate’er enjoyments dwell

In the impenetrable cell

Of the silent heart which Nature

Furnishes to every creature;

Whatsoe’er we feel and know

Too sedate for outward show,

Such a light of gladness breaks,

Pretty Kitten! from thy freaks,—

Spreads with such a living grace

O’er my little Dora’s face;

Yes, the sight so stirs and charms

Thee, Baby, laughing in my arms,

That almost I could repine

That your transports are not mine,

That I do not wholly fare

Even as ye do, thoughtless pair!

And I will have my careless season

Spite of melancholy reason,

Will walk through life in such a way

That, when time brings on decay,

Now and then I may possess

Hours of perfect gladsomeness.

—Pleased by any random toy;

By a kitten’s busy joy,

Or an infant’s laughing eye

Sharing in the ecstasy;

I would fare like that or this,

Find my wisdom in my bliss;

Keep the sprightly soul awake,

And have faculties to take,

Even from things by sorrow wrought,

Matter for a jocund thought,

Spite of care, and spite of grief,

To gambol with Life’s falling Leaf.

4
Lucy Gray

Oft had I heard of Lucy Gray,

And when I crossed the Wild,

I chanced to see at break of day

The solitary Child.

No Mate, no comrade Lucy knew;

She dwelt on a wide Moor,

The sweetest Thing that ever grew

Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the Fawn at play,

The Hare upon the Green;

But the sweet face of Lucy Gray

Will never more be seen.

‘To-night will be a stormy night,

You to the Town must go,

And take a lantern, Child, to light

Your Mother thro’ the snow.’

‘That, Father! will I gladly do;

’Tis scarcely afternoon—

The Minster-clock has just struck two,

And yonder is the Moon.’

At this the Father raised his hook

And snapped a faggot-band;

He plied his work, and Lucy took

The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe,

With many a wanton stroke

Her feet disperse the powd’ry snow

That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time,

She wandered up and down,

And many a hill did Lucy climb

But never reached the Town.

The wretched Parents all that night

Went shouting far and wide;

But there was neither sound nor sight

To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood

That overlooked the Moor;

And thence they saw the Bridge of Wood

A furlong from their door.

And now they homeward turned, and cried

‘In Heaven we all shall meet!’

When in the snow the Mother spied

The print of Lucy’s feet.

Then downward from the steep hill’s edge

They tracked the footmarks small;

And through the broken hawthorn-hedge,

And by the long stone-wall;

And then an open field they crossed,

The marks were still the same;

They tracked them on, nor ever lost,

And to the Bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank

The footmarks, one by one,

Into the middle of the plank,

And further there were none.

Yet some maintain that to this day

She is a living Child,

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray

Upon the lonesome Wild.

O’er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

5
Expostulation and Reply

This poem is a favourite among the Quakers, as I have learnt on many occasions. It was composed in front of the house at Alfoxden, in the spring of 1798.

“Why, William, on that old grey stone,

Thus for the length of half a day,

Why, William, sit you thus alone,

And dream your time away?

“Where are your books?—that light bequeathed

To Beings else forlorn and blind!

Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed

From dead men to their kind.

“You look round on your Mother Earth,

As if she for no purpose bore you;

As if you were her first-born birth,

And none had lived before you!”

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,

When life was sweet, I knew not why,

To me my good friend Matthew spake,

And thus I made reply:

“The eye—it cannot choose but see;

We cannot bid the ear be still;

Our bodies feel, where’er they be,

Against or with our will.

“Nor less I deem that there are Powers

Which of themselves our minds impress;

That we can feed this mind of ours

In a wise passiveness.

“Think you, ’mid all this mighty sum

Of things for ever speaking,

That nothing of itself will come,

But we must still be seeking?

“—Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,

Conversing as I may,

I sit upon this old grey stone,

And dream my time away,”

6
The Tables Turned
(An Evening Scene on the Same Subject)

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you’ll grow double:

Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain’s head,

A freshening lustre mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There’s more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,

Our minds and hearts to bless—

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,

Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—

We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.

7
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!

—Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

8
To a Child.
Written in Her Album

Small service is true service while it lasts:

Of humblest Friends, bright Creature! scorn not one:

The Daisy, by the shadow that it casts,

Protects the lingering dew-drop from the Sun.

9
I Travelled Among Unknown Men

I travelled among unknown men,

In lands beyond the sea;

Nor, England! did I know till then

What love I bore to thee.

’Tis past, that melancholy dream!

Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem

To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel

The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel

Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed

The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine too is the last green field

That Lucy’s eyes surveyed.

10
She Was a Phantom of Delight

Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The germ of this poem was four lines composed as a part of the verses on the Highland Girl. Though beginning in this way, it was written from my heart, as is sufficiently obvious.

She was a Phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight;

A lovely Apparition, sent

To be a moment’s ornament;

Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;

Like Twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;

A dancing Shape, an Image gay,

To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

I saw her upon nearer view,

A Spirit, yet a Woman too!

Her household motions light and free,

And steps of virgin-liberty;

A countenance in which did meet

Sweet records, promises as sweet;

A Creature not too bright or good

For human nature’s daily food;

For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene

The very pulse of the machine;

A Being breathing thoughtful breath,

A Traveller between life and death;

The reason firm, the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;

A perfect Woman, nobly planned,

To warn, to comfort, and command;

And yet a Spirit still, and bright

With something of angelic light.

11
The Rainbow

Written at Town-end, Grasmere.

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

12
To the Cuckoo

Composed in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere.

O Blithe New-comer! I have heard,

I hear thee and rejoice.

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,

Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass

Thy twofold shout I hear,

From hill to hill it seems to pass,

At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale,

Of sunshine and of flowers,

Thou bringest unto me a tale

Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!

Even yet thou art to me

No bird, but an invisible thing,

A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days

I listened to; that Cry

Which made me look a thousand ways

In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove

Through woods and on the green;

And thou wert still a hope, a love;

Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;

Can lie upon the plain

And listen, till I do beget

That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace

Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place;

That is fit home for Thee!

13
The Green Linnet

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed

Their snow-white blossoms on my head,

With brightest sunshine round me spread

Of spring’s unclouded weather,

In this sequestered nook how sweet

To sit upon my orchard-seat!

And birds and flowers once more to greet,

My last year’s friends together.

One have I marked, the happiest guest

In all this covert of the blest:

Hail to Thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion!

Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,

Presiding Spirit here to-day,

Dost lead the revels of the May;

And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,

Make all one band of paramours,

Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,

Art sole in thy employment:

A Life, a Presence like the Air,

Scattering thy gladness without care,

Too blest with any one to pair;

Thyself thy own enjoyment.

Amid yon tuft of hazel trees,

That twinkle to the gusty breeze,

Behold him perched in ecstasies,

Yet seeming still to hover;

There! where the flutter of his wings

Upon his back and body flings

Shadows and sunny glimmerings,

That cover him all over.

My dazzled sight he oft deceives,

A Brother of the dancing leaves;

Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves

Pours forth his song in gushes;

As if by that exulting strain

He mocked and treated with disdain

The voiceless Form he chose to feign,

While fluttering in the bushes.

14
To the Small Celandine

Written at Town-end, Grasmere. It is remarkable that this flower, coming out so early in the spring as it does, and so bright and beautiful, and in such profusion, should not have been noticed earlier in English verse. What adds much to the interest that attends it is its habit of shutting itself up and opening out according to the degree of light and temperature of the air.

Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies,

Let them live upon their praises;

Long as there’s a sun that sets,

Primroses will have their glory;

Long as there are violets,

They will have a place in story:

There’s a flower that shall be mine,

’Tis the little Celandine.

Eyes of some men travel far

For the finding of a star;

Up and down the heavens they go,

Men that keep a mighty rout!

I’m as great as they, I trow,

Since the day I found thee out,

Little Flower!—I’ll make a stir,

Like a sage astronomer.

Modest, yet withal an Elf

Bold, and lavish of thyself;

Since we needs must first have met

I have seen thee, high and low,

Thirty years or more, and yet

’Twas a face I did not know;

Thou hast now, go where I may,

Fifty greetings in a day.

Ere a leaf is on a bush,

In the time before the thrush

Has a thought about her nest,

Thou wilt come with half a call,

Spreading out thy glossy breast

Like a careless Prodigal;

Telling tales about the sun,

When we’ve little warmth, or none.

Poets, vain men in their mood!

Travel with the multitude:

Never heed them; I aver

That they all are wanton wooers;

But the thrifty cottager,

Who stirs little out of doors,

Joys to spy thee near her home;

Spring is coming, Thou art come!

Comfort have thou of thy merit,

Kindly, unassuming Spirit!

Careless of thy neighbourhood,

Thou dost show thy pleasant face

On the moor, and in the wood,

In the lane;—there’s not a place,

Howsoever mean it be,

But ’tis good enough for thee.

Ill befall the yellow flowers,

Children of the flaring hours!

Buttercups, that will be seen,

Whether we will see or no;

Others, too, of lofty mien;

They have done as worldlings do,

Taken praise that should be thine,

Little, humble Celandine!

Prophet of delight and mirth,

Ill-requited upon earth;

Herald of a mighty band,

Of a joyous train ensuing,

Serving at my heart’s command,

Tasks that are no tasks renewing,

I will sing, as doth behove,

Hymns in praise of what I love!

15
To the Same Flower

Pleasures newly found are sweet

When they lie about our feet:

February last, my heart

First at sight of thee was glad;

All unheard of as thou art,

Thou must needs, I think, have had,

Celandine! and long ago,

Praise of which I nothing know.

I have not a doubt but he,

Whosoe’er the man might be,

Who the first with pointed rays

(Workman worthy to be sainted)

Set the sign-board in a blaze,

When the rising sun he painted,

Took the fancy from a glance

At thy glittering countenance.

Soon as gentle breezes bring

News of winter’s vanishing,

And the children build their bowers,

Sticking ’kerchief-plots of mould

All about with full-blown flowers,

Thick as sheep in shepherd’s fold!

With the proudest thou art there,

Mantling in the tiny square.

Often have I sighed to measure

By myself a lonely pleasure,

Sighed to think, I read a book

Only read, perhaps, by me;

Yet I long could overlook

Thy bright coronet and Thee,

And thy arch and wily ways,

And thy store of other praise.

Blithe of heart, from week to week

Thou dost play at hide-and-seek;

While the patient primrose sits

Like a beggar in the cold,

Thou, a flower of wiser wits,

Slipp’st into thy sheltering hold;

Liveliest of the vernal train

When ye all are out again.

Drawn by what peculiar spell,

By what charm of sight or smell,

Does the dim-eyed curious Bee,

Labouring for her waxen cells,

Fondly settle upon Thee

Prized above all buds and bells

Opening daily at thy side,

By the season multiplied?

Thou art not beyond the moon,

But a thing “beneath our shoon:”

Let the bold Discoverer thrid

In his bark the polar sea;

Rear who will a pyramid;

Praise it is enough for me,

If there be but three or four

Who will love my little Flower.

16
To the Daisy

This and the other Poems addressed to the same flower were composed at Town-end, Grasmere, during the earlier part of my residence there. I have been censured for the last line but one—“thy function apostolical”—as being little less than profane. How could it be thought so? The word is adopted with reference to its derivation, implying something sent on a mission; and assuredly this little flower, especially when the subject of verse, may be regarded, in its humble degree, as administering both to moral and to spiritual purposes.

Bright Flower! whose home is everywhere,

Bold in maternal Nature’s care,

And all the long year through the heir

Of joy or sorrow;

Methinks that there abides in thee

Some concord with humanity,

Given to no other flower I see

The forest thorough!

Is it that Man is soon deprest?

A thoughtless Thing! who, once unblest,

Does little on his memory rest,

Or on his reason,

And Thou would’st teach him how to find

A shelter under every wind,

A hope for times that are unkind

And every season?

Thou wander’st the wide world about,

Unchecked by pride or scrupulous doubt,

With friends to greet thee, or without,

Yet pleased and willing;

Meek, yielding to the occasion’s call,

And all things suffering from all

Thy function apostolical

In peace fulfilling.

17
To The Same Flower

With little here to do or see

Of things that in the great world be,

Daisy! again I talk to thee,

For thou art worthy,

Thou unassuming Common-place

Of Nature, with that homely face,

And yet with something of a grace,

Which Love makes for thee!

Oft on the dappled turf at ease

I sit, and play with similies,

Loose types of things through all degrees,

Thoughts of thy raising:

And many a fond and idle name

I give to thee, for praise or blame,

As is the humour of the game,

While I am gazing.

A nun demure of lowly port;

Or sprightly maiden, of Love’s court,

In thy simplicity the sport

Of all temptations;

A queen in crown of rubies drest;

A starveling in a scanty vest;

Are all, as seems to suit thee best,

Thy appellations.

A little cyclops, with one eye

Staring to threaten and defy,

That thought comes next—and instantly

The freak is over,

The shape will vanish—and behold

A silver shield with boss of gold,

That spreads itself, some faery bold

In fight to cover!

I see thee glittering from afar—

And then thou art a pretty star;

Not quite so fair as many are

In heaven above thee!

Yet like a star, with glittering crest,

Self-poised in air thou seem’st to rest;—

May peace come never to his nest,

Who shall reprove thee!

Bright ‘Flower’! for by that name at last,

When all my reveries are past,

I call thee, and to that cleave fast,

Sweet silent creature!

That breath’st with me in sun and air,

Do thou, as thou art wont, repair

My heart with gladness, and a share

Of thy meek nature!

18
The World is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

19
The Redbreast Chasing the Butterfly

Observed, as described, in the then beautiful orchard, Town-end, Grasmere.

Art thou the bird whom Man loves best,

The pious bird with the scarlet breast,

Our little English Robin;

The bird that comes about our doors

When Autumn-winds are sobbing?

Art thou the Peter of Norway Boors?

Their Thomas in Finland,

And Russia far inland?

The bird, that by some name or other

All men who know thee call their brother,

The darling of children and men?

Could Father Adam open his eyes

And see this sight beneath the skies,

He’d wish to close them again.

—If the Butterfly knew but his friend,

Hither his flight he would bend;

And find his way to me,

Under the branches of the tree:

In and out, he darts about;

Can this be the bird, to man so good,

That, after their bewildering,

Covered with leaves the little children,

So painfully in the wood?

What ailed thee, Robin, that thou could’st pursue

A beautiful creature,

That is gentle by nature?

Beneath the summer sky

From flower to flower let him fly;

’Tis all that he wishes to do.

The cheerer Thou of our in-door sadness,

He is the friend of our summer gladness:

What hinders, then, that ye should be

Playmates in the sunny weather,

And fly about in the air together!

His beautiful wings in crimson are drest,

A crimson as bright as thine own:

Would’st thou be happy in thy nest,

O pious Bird! whom man loves best,

Love him, or leave him alone!

20
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The Daffodils grew and still grow on the margin of Ullswater and probably may be seen to this day as beautiful in the month of March, nodding their golden heads beside the dancing and foaming waves.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

21
Personal Talk

Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The last line but two stood, at first, better and more characteristically, thus:

“By my half-kitchen and half-parlour fire.”

My Sister and I were in the habit of having the tea-kettle in our little sitting-room; and we toasted the bread ourselves, which reminds me of a little circumstance not unworthy of being set down among these minutiae. Happening both of us to be engaged a few minutes one morning when we had a young prig of a Scotch lawyer to breakfast with us, my dear Sister, with her usual simplicity, put the toasting-fork with a slice of bread into the hands of this Edinburgh genius. Our little book-case stood on one side of the fire. To prevent loss of time, he took down a book, and fell to reading, to the neglect of the toast, which was burnt to a cinder. Many a time have we laughed at this circumstance, and other cottage simplicities of that day. By the bye, I have a spite at one of this series of Sonnets (I will leave the reader to discover which) as having been the means of nearly putting off for ever our acquaintance with dear Miss Fenwick, who has always stigmatised one line of it as vulgar, and worthy only of having been composed by a country squire.

I

I am not One who much or oft delight

To season my fireside with personal talk.—

Of friends, who live within an easy walk,

Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight:

And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright,

Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk,

These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk

Painted on rich men’s floors, for one feast-night.

Better than such discourse doth silence long,

Long, barren silence, square with my desire;

To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,

In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,

And listen to the flapping of the flame,

Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.

II

“Yet life,” you say, “is life; we have seen and see,

And with a living pleasure we describe;

And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe

The languid mind into activity.

Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee

Are fostered by the comment and the gibe.”

Even be it so; yet still among your tribe,

Our daily world’s true Worldlings, rank not me!

Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies

More justly balanced; partly at their feet,

And part far from them: sweetest melodies

Are those that are by distance made more sweet;

Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes,

He is a Slave; the meanest we can meet!

III

Wings have we,—and as far as we can go,

We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,

Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood

Which with the lofty sanctifies the low.

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,

Are a substantial world, both pure and good:

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,

Matter wherein right voluble I am,

To which I listen with a ready ear;

Two shall be named, pre-eminently dear,—

The gentle Lady married to the Moor;

And heavenly Una with her milk-white Lamb.

IV

Nor can I not believe but that hereby

Great gains are mine; for thus I live remote

From evil-speaking; rancour, never sought,

Comes to me not; malignant truth, or lie.

Hence have I genial seasons, hence have I

Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and joyous thought:

And thus from day to day my little boat

Rocks in its harbour, lodging peaceably.

Blessings be with them—and eternal praise,

Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares—

The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs

Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!

Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs,

Then gladly would I end my mortal days.

22
Ode to Duty

This ode is on the model of Gray’s Ode to Adversity, which is copied from Horace’s Ode to Fortune. Many and many a time have I been twitted by my wife and sister for having forgotten this dedication of myself to the stern lawgiver. Transgressor indeed I have been, from hour to hour, from day to day: I would fain hope, however, not more flagrantly or in a worse way than most of my tuneful brethren. But these last words are in a wrong strain. We should be rigorous to ourselves and forbearing, if not indulgent, to others, and, if we make comparisons at all, it ought to be with those who have morally excelled us.

“Iam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non tantum recte facere possim, sed nisi recte facere non possim.”

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!

O Duty! if that name thou love

Who art a light to guide, a rod

To check the erring, and reprove;

Thou, who art victory and law

When empty terrors overawe;

From vain temptations dost set free;

And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye

Be on them; who, in love and truth,

Where no misgiving is, rely

Upon the genial sense of youth:

Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot

Who do thy work, and know it not:

Oh! if through confidence misplaced

They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.

Serene will be our days and bright,

And happy will our nature be,

When love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security.

And they a blissful course may hold

Even now, who, not unwisely bold,

Live in the spirit of this creed;

Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried;

No sport of every random gust,

Yet being to myself a guide,

Too blindly have reposed my trust:

And oft, when in my heart was heard

Thy timely mandate, I deferred

The task, in smoother walks to stray;

But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,

Or strong compunction in me wrought,

I supplicate for thy control;

But in the quietness of thought:

Me this unchartered freedom tires;

I feel the weight of chance-desires:

My hopes no more must change their name,

I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear

The Godhead’s most benignant grace;

Nor know we anything so fair

As is the smile upon thy face:

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds

And fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;

And the most ancient heavens, through

Thee, are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!

I call thee: I myself commend

Unto thy guidance from this hour;

Oh, let my weakness have an end!

Give unto me, made lowly wise,

The spirit of self-sacrifice;

The confidence of reason give;

And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!

23
The Solitary Reaper

Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

And o’er the sickle bending;—

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

24
To A Sky-Lark

Up with me! up with me into the clouds!

For thy song, Lark, is strong;

Up with me, up with me into the clouds!

Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky about thee ringing,

Lift me, guide me till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary

And to-day my heart is weary;

Had I now the wings of a Faery,

Up to thee would I fly.

There is madness about thee, and joy divine

In that song of thine;

Lift me, guide me high and high

To thy banqueting-place in the sky.

Joyous as morning

Thou art laughing and scorning;

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,

And, though little troubled with sloth,

Drunken Lark! thou would’st be loth

To be such a traveller as I.

Happy, happy Liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain river

Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,

Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,

Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;

But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,

As full of gladness and as free of heaven,

I, with my fate contented, will plod on,

And hope for higher raptures, when life’s day is done.

25
To The Skylark

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!

Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?

Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye

Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?

Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,

Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;

A privacy of glorious light is thine;

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood

Of harmony, with instinct more divine;

Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;

True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

26
London, 1802

Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,

Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;

Oh! raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

So didst thou travel on life’s common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

27
Alice Fell; or, Poverty

Written to gratify Mr. Graham of Glasgow, brother of the Author of “The Sabbath.” He was a zealous coadjutor of Mr. Clarkson, and a man of ardent humanity. The incident had happened to himself, and he urged me to put it into verse, for humanity’s sake. The humbleness, meanness if you like, of the subject, together with the homely mode of treating it, brought upon me a world of ridicule by the small critics, so that in policy I excluded it from many editions of my Poems, till it was restored at the request of some of my friends, in particular my son-in-law, Edward Quillinan.

The post-boy drove with fierce career,

For threatening clouds the moon had drowned;

When, as we hurried on, my ear

Was smitten with a startling sound.

As if the wind blew many ways,

I heard the sound,—and more and more;

It seemed to follow with the chaise,

And still I heard it as before.

At length I to the boy called out;

He stopped his horses at the word,

But neither cry, nor voice, nor shout,

Nor aught else like it, could be heard.

The boy then smacked his whip, and fast

The horses scampered through the rain;

But, hearing soon upon the blast

The cry, I bade him halt again.

Forthwith alighting on the ground,

“Whence comes,” said I, “this piteous moan?”

And there a little Girl I found,

Sitting behind the chaise, alone.

“My cloak!” no other word she spake,

But loud and bitterly she wept,

As if her innocent heart would break;

And down from off her seat she leapt.

“What ails you, child?”—she sobbed “Look here!”

I saw it in the wheel entangled,

A weather-beaten rag as e’er

From any garden scare-crow dangled.

There, twisted between nave and spoke,

It hung, nor could at once be freed;

But our joint pains unloosed the cloak,

A miserable rag indeed!

“And whither are you going, child,

To-night alone these lonesome ways?”

“To Durham,” answered she, half wild—

“Then come with me into the chaise.”

Insensible to all relief

Sat the poor girl, and forth did send

Sob after sob, as if her grief

Could never, never have an end.

“My child, in Durham do you dwell?”

She checked herself in her distress,

And said, “My name is Alice Fell;

I’m fatherless and motherless.

“And I to Durham, Sir, belong.”

Again, as if the thought would choke

Her very heart, her grief grew strong;

And all was for her tattered cloak!

The chaise drove on; our journey’s end

Was nigh; and, sitting by my side,

As if she had lost her only friend

She wept, nor would be pacified.

Up to the tavern-door we post;

Of Alice and her grief I told;

And I gave money to the host,

To buy a new cloak for the old.

“And let it be of duffil grey,

As warm a cloak as man can sell!”

Proud creature was she the next day,

The little orphan, Alice Fell!

28
Characteristics of a Child Three Years Old

Loving she is, and tractable, though wild;

And Innocence hath privilege in her

To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes;

And feats of cunning; and the pretty round

Of trespasses, affected to provoke

Mock-chastisement and partnership in play.

And, as a faggot sparkles on the hearth,

Not less if unattended and alone

Than when both young and old sit gathered round

And take delight in its activity;

Even so this happy Creature of herself

Is all-sufficient, solitude to her

Is blithe society, who fills the air

With gladness and involuntary songs.

Light are her sallies as the tripping fawn’s

Forth-startled from the fern where she lay couched;

Unthought-of, unexpected, as the stir

Of the soft breeze ruffling the meadow-flowers,

Or from before it chasing wantonly

The many-coloured images imprest

Upon the bosom of a placid lake.

29
To The Supreme Being

From the Italian of Michael Angelo

The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed

If Thou the spirit give by which I pray:

My unassisted heart is barren clay,

That of its native self can nothing feed:

Of good and pious works thou art the seed,

That quickens only where thou say’st it may:

Unless Thou show to us thine own true way

No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.

Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind

By which such virtue may in me be bred

That in thy holy footsteps I may tread;

The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind,

That I may have the power to sing of thee,

And sound thy praises everlastingly.

30
To A Butterfly (first poem)

Stay near me—do not take thy flight!

A little longer stay in sight!

Much converse do I find in thee,

Historian of my infancy!

Float near me; do not yet depart!

Dead times revive in thee:

Thou bring’st, gay creature as thou art!

A solemn image to my heart,

My father’s family!

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,

The time, when, in our childish plays,

My sister Emmeline and I

Together chased the butterfly!

A very hunter did I rush

Upon the prey:—with leaps and springs

I followed on from brake to bush;

But she, God love her, feared to brush

The dust from off its wings.

31
To a Butterfly (second poem)

Written in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere.

I’ve watched you now a full half-hour;

Self-poised upon that yellow flower

And, little Butterfly! indeed

I know not if you sleep or feed.

How motionless!—not frozen seas

More motionless! and then

What joy awaits you, when the breeze

Hath found you out among the trees,

And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;

My trees they are, my Sister’s flowers;

Here rest your wings when they are weary;

Here lodge as in a sanctuary!

Come often to us, fear no wrong;

Sit near us on the bough!

We’ll talk of sunshine and of song,

And summer days, when we were young;

Sweet childish days, that were as long

As twenty days are now.

32
The Reverie of Poor Susan

This arose out of my observation of the affecting music of these birds hanging in this way in the London streets during the freshness and stillness of the Spring morning.

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,

Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:

Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard

In the silence of morning the song of the Bird.

Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees

A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;

Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,

And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,

Down which she so often has tripped with her pail;

And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s,

The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,

The mist and the river, the hill and the shade:

The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,

And the colours have all passed away from her eyes!

33
A Character

I marvel how Nature could ever find space

For so many strange contrasts in one human face:

There’s thought and no thought, and there’s paleness and bloom

And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.

There’s weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;

Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain

Could pierce through a temper that’s soft to disease,

Would be rational peace—a philosopher’s ease.

There’s indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds,

And attention full ten times as much as there needs;

Pride where there’s no envy, there’s so much of joy;

And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.

There’s freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare

Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she’s there,

There’s virtue, the title it surely may claim,

Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the name.

This picture from nature may seem to depart,

Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart;

And I for five centuries right gladly would be

Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he.

34
They Called Thee Merry England
from Poems Composed or Suggested During a Tour in the Summer of 1833

They called Thee Merry England, in old time;

A happy people won for thee that name

With envy heard in many a distant clime;

And, spite of change, for me thou keep’st the same

Endearing title, a responsive chime

To the heart’s fond belief; though some there are

Whose sterner judgments deem that word a snare

For inattentive Fancy, like the lime

Which foolish birds are caught with. Can, I ask,

This face of rural beauty be a mask

For discontent, and poverty, and crime;

These spreading towns a cloak for lawless will?

Forbid it, Heaven!—and Merry England still

Shall be thy rightful name, in prose and rhyme!

35
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland

This was composed while pacing to and fro between the Hall of Coleorton, then rebuilding, and the principal Farm-house of the Estate, in which we lived for nine or ten months. I will here mention that the Song on the Restoration of Lord Clifford, as well as that on the feast of Brougham Castle, were produced on the same ground.

Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,

One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice:

In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,

They were thy chosen music, Liberty!

There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee

Thou fought’st against him; but hast vainly striven:

Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven,

Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.

Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft:

Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left;

For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be

That Mountain floods should thunder as before,

And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore,

And neither awful Voice be heard by thee!

36
To H. C. Six Years Old

O thou! whose fancies from afar are brought;

Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,

And fittest to unutterable thought

The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;

Thou faery voyager! that dost float

In such clear water, that thy boat

May rather seem

To brood on air than on an earthly stream;

Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,

Where earth and heaven do make one imagery;

O blessed vision! happy child!

Thou art so exquisitely wild,

I think of thee with many fears

For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest,

Lord of thy house and hospitality;

And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest

But when she sate within the touch of thee.

O too industrious folly!

O vain and causeless melancholy!

Nature will either end thee quite;

Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,

Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young lamb’s heart among the full-grown flocks.

What hast thou to do with sorrow,

Or the injuries of to-morrow?

Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth,

Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,

Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;

A gem that glitters while it lives,

And no forewarning gives;

But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife

Slips in a moment out of life.

37
Written in Very Early Youth

Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.

The kine are couched upon the dewy grass;

The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,

Is cropping audibly his later meal:

Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal

O’er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky.

Now, in this blank of things, a harmony,

Home-felt, and home-created, comes to heal

That grief for which the senses still supply

Fresh food; for only then, when memory

Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends! restrain

Those busy cares that would allay my pain;

Oh! leave me to myself, nor let me feel

The officious touch that makes me droop again.

38
Lines Written While Sailing in a Boat at Evening

How richly glows the water’s breast

Before us, tinged with evening hues,

While, facing thus the crimson west,

The boat her silent course pursues!

And see how dark the backward stream!

A little moment past so smiling!

And still, perhaps, with faithless gleam,

Some other loiterers beguiling.

Such views the youthful Bard allure;

But, heedless of the following gloom,

He deems their colours shall endure

Till peace go with him to the tomb.

—And let him nurse his fond deceit,

And what if he must die in sorrow!

Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,

Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?

39
The Eagle and the Dove

Shade of Caractacus, if spirits love

The cause they fought for in their earthly home

To see the Eagle ruffled by the Dove

May soothe thy memory of the chains of Rome.

These children claim thee for their sire; the breath

Of thy renown, from Cambrian mountains, fans

A flame within them that despises death

And glorifies the truant youth of Vannes.

With thy own scorn of tyrants they advance,

But truth divine has sanctified their rage,

A silver cross enchased with flowers of France

Their badge, attests the holy fight they wage.

The shrill defiance of the young crusade

Their veteran foes mock as an idle noise;

But unto Faith and Loyalty comes aid

From Heaven, gigantic force to beardless boys.

40
Ode

While Earth herself is adorning

This sweet May morning,

And the children are culling on every side

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm

And the Babe leaps up on its mother’s arm—

Then sing ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song

And let the young lambs bound as to the tabor’s sound

We in thought will join your throng

Ye that pipe and ye that play

Ye that through your hearts today

Feel the gladness of the May.

41
Tintern Abbey

Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour. July 13, 1798

No poem of mine was composed under circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began it upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was entering Bristol in the evening, after a ramble of four or five days, with my Sister. Not a line of it was altered, and not any part of it written down till I reached Bristol. It was published almost immediately after in the little volume of which so much has been said in these Notes.—(The Lyrical Ballads, as first published at Bristol by Cottle.)

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.—Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

’Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration:—feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man’s life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on,—

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul:

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things.

If this

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—

In darkness and amid the many shapes

Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods,

How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

With many recognitions dim and faint,

And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

The picture of the mind revives again:

While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years. And so I dare to hope,

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,

Wherever nature led: more like a man

Flying from something that he dreads, than one

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,

And their glad animal movements all gone by)

To me was all in all.—I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me

An appetite, a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, nor any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

Abundant recompence. For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods,

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

In nature and the language of the sense,

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.

Nor perchance,

If I were not thus taught, should I the more

Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

For thou art with me here upon the banks

Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,

My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch

The language of my former heart, and read

My former pleasures in the shooting lights

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while

May I behold in thee what I was once,

My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead

From joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb

Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

And let the misty mountain-winds be free

To blow against thee: and, in after years,

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance—

If I should be where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence—wilt thou then forget

That on the banks of this delightful stream

We stood together; and that I, so long

A worshipper of Nature, hither came

Unwearied in that service: rather say

With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,

That after many wanderings, many years

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me

More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

Table of Contents

- 1 - Lines Written in Early Spring

- 2 - Written in March While Resting on the Bridge at the Foot of Brother's Water

- 3 - The Kitten and the Falling Leaves
- 4 - Lucy Gray
- 5 - Expostulation and Reply

- 6 - The Tables Turned (An Evening Scene on the Same Subject)

- 7 - She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
- 8 - To a Child. Written in Her Album
- 9 - I Travelled Among Unknown Men
- 10 - She Was a Phantom of Delight
- 11 - The Rainbow
- 12 - To the Cuckoo
- 13 - The Green Linnet
- 14 - To the Small Celandine
- 15 - To the Same Flower
- 16 - To the Daisy
- 17 - To The Same Flower

- 18 - The World is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon

- 19 - The Redbreast Chasing the Butterfly
- 20 - I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
- 21 - Personal Talk
- 22 - Ode to Duty
- 23 - The Solitary Reaper
- 24 - To A Sky-Lark
- 25 - To The Skylark
- 26 - London, 1802
- 27 - Alice Fell; or, Poverty

- 28 - Characteristics of a Child Three Years Old

- 29 - To The Supreme Being
- 30 - To A Butterfly (first poem)
- 31 - To a Butterfly (second poem)
- 32 - The Reverie of Poor Susan
- 33 - A Character
- 34 - They Called Thee Merry England

- 35 - Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland

- 36 - To H. C. Six Years Old

- 37 - Written in Very Early Youth

- 38 - Lines Written While Sailing in a Boat at Evening

- 39 - The Eagle and the Dove
- 40 - Ode
- 41 - Tintern Abbey