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WORDSWORTH, William


The World Is Too Much with Us


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!

This 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 wreathèd horn.



A Slumber did my Spirit Seal


A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel

The touch of earthly years.


No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.



Intimations of Immortality X .


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 to-day

Feel the gladness of the May!

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.


Resolution and Independence
…..
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,

The sleepless Soul that perish'd in its pride; . . .

By our own spirits are we deified;

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;

But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.
…..


I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

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.


She Was a Phantom of Delight


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.


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!


Composed Upon Westminster Bridge

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!


My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold

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.


The Prelude
…..
Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!

Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought!

That giv’st to forms and images a breath

And everlasting motion! not in vain,

By day or star-light thus from my first dawn

Of Childhood didst Thou intertwine for me

The passions that build up our human Soul,

Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man,

But with high objects, with enduring things,

With life and nature, purifying thus

The elements of feeling and of thought,

And sanctifying, by such discipline,

Both pain and fear, until we recognize

A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.


Nor was this fellowship vouchsaf’d to me

With stinted kindness. In November days,

When vapours, rolling down the valleys, made

A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods

At noon, and ‘mid the calm of summer nights,

When, by the margin of the trembling Lake,

Beneath the gloomy hills I homeward went

In solitude, such intercourse was mine;

‘Twas mine among the fields both day and night,

And by the waters all the summer long.

…..
Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze

That blows from the green fields and from the clouds

And from the sky: it beats against my cheek,

And seems half-conscious of the joy it gives.

O welcome Messenger! O welcome Friend!

A captive greets thee, coming from a house

Of bondage, from yon City’s walls set free,

A prison where he hath been long immured.

Now I am free, enfranchised and at large,

May fix my habitation where I will.

What dwelling shall receive me? in what Vale

Shall be my harbour? Underneath what grove

Shall I take up my home, and what sweet stream

Shall with its murmurs lull me to my rest?

The earth is all before me: with a heart

Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,

I look about, and should the guide I chuse

Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,

I cannot miss my way.

…..
Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!

For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood

Upon our side, we who were strong in love!

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven!--Oh! times,

In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways

Of custom, law, and statute, took at once

The attraction of a country in romance!

…..
Here must thou be, O man,
Strength to thyself — no helper hast thou here —
Here keepest thou thy individual state:
No other can divide with thee this work,
No secondary hand can intervene
To fashion this ability. 'Tis thine,
The prime and vital principle is thine
In the recesses of thy nature, far
From any reach of outward fellowship,
Else 'tis not thine at all.

…..
There are in our existence spots of time,

Which with distinct pre-eminence retain

A vivifying Virtue, whence, depress’d

By false opinion and contentious thought

Or aught of heavier and more deadly weight

In trivial occupations, and the round

Of ordinary intercourse, our minds

Are nourish’d and invisibly repair’d,

A virtue by which pleasure is enhanced

That penetrates, enables us to mount

When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.

This efficacious spirit chiefly lurks

Among those passages of life in which

We have had deepest feeling that the mind

Is lord and master, and that outward sense

Is but the obedient servant of her will.

Such moments worthy of all gratitude,

Are scatter’d everywhere, taking their date

From our first childhood: in our childhood even

perhaps are most conspicuous. Life with me,

As far as memory can look back, is full

Of this beneficent influence
…..
One Christmas-time,

The day before the Holidays began,

Feverish and tired, and restless I went forth

Into the fields, impatient for the sight

Of those two Horses which should bear us home

My Brothers and myself. There was a crag,

An Eminence, which from the meeting-point

Of two highways ascending, overlook’d

At least a long half-mile of those two roads,

By each of which the unexpected Steeds might come,

The choice uncertain. Thither I repair’d

Up to the highest summit; ’twas a day

Stormy, and rough, and wild, and on the grass

I sate, half-shelter’d by a naked wall;

Upon my right hand was a single sheep,

A whistling hawthorn on my left, and there,

With those companions at my side, I watch’d,

Straining my eyes intensely, as the mist

Gave intermitting prospect of the wood

And plain beneath. Ere I to School return’d

That dreary time, ere I had been ten days

A dweller in my father’s House, he died,

And I and my two Brothers, Orphans then,

Followed his Body to the Grave. The event

With all the sorrow which it brought appear’d

A chastisement; and when I call’d to mind

That day so lately pass’d, when from the crag

I look’d in such anxiety of hope,

With trite reflections of mortality,

Yet in the deepest passion, I bow’d low

To God, who thus corrected my desires;

And afterwards, the wind and sleety rain

And all the business of the elements,

The single sheep, and the one blasted tree,

And the bleak music from that old stone wall,

The noise of wood and water, and the mist

That on the line of each of those two roads

Advanced in such indisputable shapes;
…..


It Is A Beauteous Evening, Calm And Free

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,

The holy time is quiet as a Nun

Breathless with adoration; the broad sun

Is sinking down in its tranquillity;

The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea:

Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

And doth with his eternal motion make

A sound like thunder--everlastingly.

Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,

If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,

Thy nature is not therefore less divine:

Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;

And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,

God being with thee when we know it not.


Old Man Traveling

The little hedge-row birds,

That peck along the road, regard him not.

He travels on, and in his face, his step,

His gait, is one expression; every limb,

His look and bending figure, all bespeak

A man who does not move with pain, but moves

With thought—He is insensibly subdued

To settled quiet: he is one by whom

All effort seems forgotten, one to whom

Long patience has such mild composure given,

That patience now doth seem a thing, of which

He hath no need. He is by nature led

To peace so perfect, that the young behold

With envy, what the old man hardly feels.

—I asked him whither he was bound, and what

The object of his journey; he replied

"Sir! I am going many miles to take

A last leave of my son, a mariner,

Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth,

And there is dying in an hospital."


Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

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.
…..
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 recognize

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.

…..
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.

…..


Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
…..
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:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.
…..


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.


Lines Written In Early Spring

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?


A Night Thought

Lo! where the Moon along the sky

Sails with her happy destiny;

Oft is she hid from mortal eye

Or dimly seen,

But when the clouds asunder fly

How bright her mien!


Far different we--a froward race,

Thousands though rich in Fortune's grace

With cherished sullenness of pace

Their way pursue,

Ingrates who wear a smileless face

The whole year through.


If kindred humours e'er would make

My spirit droop for drooping's sake,

From Fancy following in thy wake,

Bright ship of heaven!

A counter impulse let me take

And be forgiven.



We Are Seven


———A simple Child,

That lightly draws its breath,

And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death?


I met a little cottage Girl:

She was eight years old, she said;

Her hair was thick with many a curl

That clustered round her head.


She had a rustic, woodland air,

And she was wildly clad:

Her eyes were fair, and very fair;

—Her beauty made me glad.


“Sisters and brothers, little Maid,

How many may you be?”

“How many? Seven in all,” she said,

And wondering looked at me.


“And where are they? I pray you tell.”

She answered, “Seven are we;

And two of us at Conway dwell,

And two are gone to sea.


“Two of us in the church-yard lie,

My sister and my brother;

And, in the church-yard cottage, I

Dwell near them with my mother.”


“You say that two at Conway dwell,

And two are gone to sea,

Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell,

Sweet Maid, how this may be.”


Then did the little Maid reply,

“Seven boys and girls are we;

Two of us in the church-yard lie,

Beneath the church-yard tree.”


“You run about, my little Maid,

Your limbs they are alive;

If two are in the church-yard laid,

Then ye are only five.”


“Their graves are green, they may be seen,”

The little Maid replied,

“Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,

And they are side by side.


“My stockings there I often knit,

My kerchief there I hem;

And there upon the ground I sit,

And sing a song to them.


“And often after sun-set, Sir,

When it is light and fair,

I take my little porringer,

And eat my supper there.


“The first that died was sister Jane;

In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her of her pain;

And then she went away.


“So in the church-yard she was laid;

And, when the grass was dry,

Together round her grave we played,

My brother John and I.


“And when the ground was white with snow,

And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go,

And he lies by her side.”


“How many are you, then,” said I,

“If they two are in heaven?”

Quick was the little Maid’s reply,

“O Master! we are seven.”


“But they are dead; those two are dead!

Their spirits are in heaven!”

’Twas throwing words away; for still

The little Maid would have her will,

And said, “Nay, we are seven!”