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1.7: William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

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    Unlike Blake, William Wordsworth was born into the upper middle to upper class. When he was orphaned in 1778, he was cared for by his aunt and uncle. He studied at Hawkshead Grammar School, near Windermere in the Lake District. His formal education ended with a short term at St. John’s College, Cambridge. But from his early childhood, Nature was his teacher; human nature was his subject.

    In 1791, Wordsworth traveled to France to learn the French language, with an eye to making a living as a tutor in French. He became caught up in the French Revolution and had an affair with Annette Vallon, who bore him a daughter, Caroline, in 1792. His personal relationship with Annette Vallon turned just as the revolution did, in that Annette was a monarchist. Pro-revolutionary as he was, Wordsworth became afraid for his life, and as he could not make a living in France, he returned to England, effectively abandoning Annette Vallon and their daughter.

    The Reign of Terror made it impossible for him to return to them until 1802, at which time he reached an agreement with Annette Vallon before marrying Mary Hutchinson. An inheritance made him financially independent, and he set up house in his beloved Lake District with his wife, his sister Dorothy, and his growing family. This contentment was earned at great emotional price, though. After leaving France and Annette Vallon, Wordsworth suffered a sort of nervous or emotional breakdown. And the crisis of that time—and indeed for the rest of his life—was his desire to recover his original self, to let “the child be father to the man” (“My Heart Leaps Up”).

    clipboard_e3081040e6f59e88fa48b01bbb9164ee7.pngIn his poetry, Wordsworth tries to understand the human mind, especially during intense moments or states of excitement. All humans, regardless of class, experience emotions; and Wordsworth believed that in states of excitement, humans reach a level of dignity, power, and authenticity that is poetic. He described this revolutionary view not only of poetry but also of humanity in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, a collection of poems co-authored with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

    This Preface declared a revolt against the poetry that went before. Wordsworth’s poetry would use the real language spoken by real men. He defines good poetry as the “spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility.” Spontaneity secures sincerity, transparency, and naturalness. Overflow secures power and strength of emotion. Recollection in tranquility secures truth and authenticity. The subject of his poetry was incidents and situations from common life. The language of his poetry was that which was really used by men. Over both this language and these incidents, Wordsworth throws the coloring of the imagination which makes common things uncommon, makes natural things seem supernatural. He thereby highlights the power of the imagination—that all humans possess and share equally.

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    1.7.1: “We Are Seven”

    A simple child, dear brother Jim,

    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 cluster’d 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 you 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 mothers 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—

    “I sit and sing to them.

    “And often after sunset, Sir,

    “When it is light and fair,

    “I take my little porringer,

    “And eat my supper there.

    “The first that died was little 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 all the summer 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?”

    The little Maiden did 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!”

    1.7.2: “Expostulation and Reply”

    “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 bequeath’d

    “To beings else forlorn and blind!

    “Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath’d

    “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 chuse 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.”

    1.7.3: “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”

    Five years have passed; 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 affectations 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.

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    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 oft 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 recompense. 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!

    1.7.4: Preface to Lyrical Ballads

    The First Volume of these Poems has already been submitted to general perusal. It was published, as an experiment which, I hoped, might be of some use to ascertain, how far, by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be imparted, which a Poet may rationally endeavour to impart.

    I had formed no very inaccurate estimate of the probable effect of those Poems: I flattered myself that they who should be pleased with them would read them with more than common pleasure: and on the other hand I was well aware that by those who should dislike them they would be read with more than common dislike. The result has differed from my expectation in this only, that I have pleased a greater number, than I ventured to hope I should please.

    For the sake of variety and from a consciousness of my own weakness I was induced to request the assistance of a Friend, who furnished me with the Poems of the ANCIENT MARINER, the FOSTER-MOTHER’S TALE, the NIGHTINGALE, the DUNGEON, and the Poem entitled LOVE. I should not, however, have requested this assistance, had I not believed that the poems of my Friend would in a great measure have the same tendency as my own, and that, though there would be found a difference, there would be found no discordance in the colours of our style; as our opinions on the subject of poetry do almost entirely coincide.

    clipboard_ed1429006bbbd86119ac3df932fb24cd0.pngSeveral of my Friends are anxious for the success of these Poems from a belief, that if the views, with which they were composed, were indeed realized, a class of Poetry would be produced, well adapted to interest mankind permanently, and not unimportant in the multiplicity and in the quality of its moral relations: and on this account they have advised me to prefix a systematic defence of the theory, upon which the poems were written. But I was unwilling to undertake the task, because I knew that on this occasion the Reader would look coldly upon my arguments, since I might be suspected of having been principally influenced by the selfish and foolish hope of reasoning him into an approbation of these particular Poems: and I was still more unwilling to undertake the task, because adequately to display my opinions and fully to enforce my arguments would require a space wholly disproportionate to the nature of a preface. For to treat the subject with the clearness and coherence, of which I believe it susceptible, it would be necessary to give a full account of the present state of the public taste in this country, and to determine how far this taste is healthy or depraved; which again could not be determined, without pointing out, in what manner language and the human mind act and react on each other, and without retracing the revolutions not of literature alone but likewise of society itself. I have therefore altogether declined to enter regularly upon this defence; yet I am sensible, that there would be some impropriety in abruptly obtruding upon the Public, without a few words of introduction, Poems so materially different from those, upon which general approbation is at present bestowed.

    It is supposed, that by the act of writing in verse an Author makes a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of association, that he not only thus apprizes the Reader that certain classes of ideas and expressions will be found in his book, but that others will be carefully excluded. This exponent or symbol held forth by metrical language must in different aeras of literature have excited very different expectations: for example, in the age of Catullus Terence and Lucretius, and that of Statius or Claudian, and in our own country, in the age of Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher, and that of Donne and Cowley, or Dryden, or Pope. I will not take upon me to determine the exact import of the promise which by the act of writing in verse an Author in the present day makes to his Reader; but I am certain it will appear to many persons that I have not fulfilled the terms of an engagement thus voluntarily contracted. I hope therefore the Reader will not censure me, if I attempt to state what I have proposed to myself to perform, and also, (as far as the limits of a preface will permit) to explain some of the chief reasons which have determined me in the choice of my purpose: that at least he may be spared any unpleasant feeling of disappointment, and that I myself may be protected from the most dishonorable accusation which can be brought against an Author, namely, that of an indolence which prevents him from endeavouring to ascertain what is his duty, or, when his duty is ascertained prevents him from performing it.

    The principal object then which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to make the incidents of common life interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen because in that situation the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that situation our elementary feelings exist in a state of greater simplicity and consequently may be more accurately contemplated and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and from the necessary character of rural occupations are more easily comprehended; and are more durable; and lastly, because in that situation the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. The language too of these men is adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and because, from their rank in society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, being less under the action of social vanity they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly such a language arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings is a more permanent and a far more philosophical language than that which is frequently substituted for it by Poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression in order to furnish food for fickle tastes and fickle appetites of their own creation (1).

    I cannot be insensible of the present outcry against the triviality and meanness both of thought and language, which some of my contemporaries have occasionally introduced into their metrical compositions; and I acknowledge that this defect where it exists, is more dishonorable to the Writer’s own character than false refinement or arbitrary innovation, though I should contend at the same time that it is far less pernicious in the sum of its consequences. From such verses the Poems in these volumes will be found distinguished at least by one mark of difference, that each of them has a worthy purpose. Not that I mean to say, that I always began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceived; but I believe that my habits of meditation have so formed my feelings, as that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to carry along with them a purpose. If in this opinion I am mistaken I can have little right to the name of a Poet. For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; but though this be true, Poems to which any value can be attached, were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility had also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings; and as by contemplating the relation of these general representatives to each other, we discover what is really important to men, so by the repetition and continuance of this act feelings connected with important subjects will be nourished, till at length, if we be originally possessed of much organic sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced that by obeying blindly and mechanically the impulses of those habits we shall describe objects and utter sentiments of such a nature and in such connection with each other, that the understanding of the being to whom we address ourselves, if he be in a healthful state of association, must necessarily be in some degree enlightened, his taste exalted, and his affections ameliorated.

    I have said that each of these poems has a purpose. I have also informed my Reader what this purpose will be found principally to be: namely to illustrate the manner in which our feelings and ideas are associated in a state of excitement. But speaking in less general language, it is to follow the fluxes and refluxes of the mind when agitated by the great and simple affections of our nature. This object I have endeavoured in these short essays to attain by various means; by tracing the maternal passion through many of its more subtle windings, as in the poems of the IDIOT BOY and the MAD MOTHER; by accompanying the last struggles of a human being at the approach of death, cleaving in solitude to life and society, as in the Poem of the FORSAKEN INDIAN; by shewing, as in the Stanzas entitled WE ARE SEVEN, the perplexity and obscurity which in childhood attend our notion of death, or rather our utter inability to admit that notion; or by displaying the strength of fraternal, or to speak more philosophically, of moral attachment when early associated with the great and beautiful objects of nature, as in THE BROTHERS; or, as in the Incident of SIMON LEE, by placing my Reader in the way of receiving from ordinary moral sensations another and more salutary impression than we are accustomed to receive from them. It has also been part of my general purpose to attempt to sketch characters under the influence of less impassioned feelings, as in the OLD MAN TRAVELLING, THE TWO THIEVES, &c. characters of which the elements are simple, belonging rather to nature than to manners, such as exist now and will probably always exist, and which from their constitution may be distinctly and profitably contemplated. I will not abuse the indulgence of my Reader by dwelling longer upon this subject; but it is proper that I should mention one other circumstance which distinguishes these Poems from the popular Poetry of the day; it is this, that the feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation and not the action and situation to the feeling. My meaning will be rendered perfectly intelligible by referring my Reader to the Poems entitled POOR SUSAN and the CHILDLESS FATHER, particularly to the last Stanza of the latter Poem.

    I will not suffer a sense of false modesty to prevent me from asserting, that I point my Reader’s attention to this mark of distinction far less for the sake of these particular Poems than from the general importance of the subject. The subject is indeed important! For the human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this, and who does not further know that one being is elevated above another in proportion as he possesses this capability. It has therefore appeared to me that to endeavour to produce or enlarge this capability is one of the best services in which, at any period, a Writer can be engaged; but this service, excellent at all times, is especially so at the present day. For a multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the encreasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves. The invaluable works of our elder writers, I had almost said the works of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German Tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse.—When I think upon this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation I am almost ashamed to have spoken of the feeble effort with which I have endeavoured to counteract it; and reflecting upon the magnitude of the general evil, I should be oppressed with no dishonorable melancholy, had I not a deep impression of certain inherent and indestructible qualities of the human mind, and likewise of certain powers in the great and permanent objects that act upon it which are equally inherent and indestructible; and did I not further add to this impression a belief that the time is approaching when the evil will be systematically opposed by men of greater powers and with far more distinguished success.

    Having dwelt thus long on the subjects and aim of these Poems, I shall request the Reader’s permission to apprize him of a few circumstances relating to their style, in order, among other reasons, that I may not be censured for not having performed what I never attempted. Except in a very few instances the Reader will find no personifications of abstract ideas in these volumes, not that I mean to censure such personifications: they may be well fitted for certain sorts of composition, but in these Poems I propose to myself to imitate, and, as far as possible, to adopt the very language of men, and I do not find that such personifications make any regular or natural part of that language. I wish to keep my Reader in the company of flesh and blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall interest him. Not but that I believe that others who pursue a different track may interest him likewise: I do not interfere with their claim, I only wish to prefer a different claim of my own. There will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually called poetic diction; I have taken as much pains to avoid it as others ordinarily take to produce it; this I have done for the reason already alleged, to bring my language near to the language of men, and further, because the pleasure which I have proposed to myself to impart is of a kind very different from that which is supposed by many persons to be the proper object of poetry. I do not know how without being culpably particular I can give my Reader a more exact notion of the style in which I wished these poems to be written than by informing him that I have at all times endeavoured to look steadily at my subject, consequently I hope it will be found that there is in these Poems little falsehood of description, and that my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective importance. Something I must have gained by this practice, as it is friendly to one property of all good poetry, namely good sense; but it has necessarily cut me off from a large portion of phrases and figures of speech which from father to son have long been regarded as the common inheritance of Poets. I have also thought it expedient to restrict myself still further, having abstained from the use of many expressions, in themselves proper and beautiful, but which have been foolishly repeated by bad Poets till such feelings of disgust are connected with them as it is scarcely possible by any art of association to overpower.

    If in a Poem there should be found a series of lines, or even a single line, in which the language, though naturally arranged and according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of prose, there is a numerous class of critics who, when they stumble upon these prosaisms as they call them, imagine that they have made a notable discovery, and exult over the Poet as over a man ignorant of his own profession. Now these men would establish a canon of criticism which the Reader will conclude he must utterly reject if he wishes to be pleased with these volumes. And it would be a most easy task to prove to him that not only the language of a large portion of every good poem, even of the most elevated character, must necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no respect differ from that of good prose, but likewise that some of the most interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly the language of prose when prose is well written. The truth of this assertion might be demonstrated by innumerable passages from almost all the poetical writings, even of Milton himself. I have not space for much quotation; but, to illustrate the subject in a general manner, I will here adduce a short composition of Gray, who was at the head of those who by their reasonings have attempted to widen the space of separation betwixt Prose and Metrical composition, and was more than any other man curiously elaborate in the structure of his own poetic diction.

    In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,

    And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire:

    The birds in vain their amorous descant join,

    Or chearful fields resume their green attire:

    These ears alas! for other notes repine;

    A different object do these eyes require;

    My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;

    And in my breast the imperfect joys expire;

    Yet Morning smiles the busy race to cheer,

    And new-born pleasure brings to happier men;

    The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;

    To warm their little loves the birds complain.

    I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear

    And weep the more because I weep in vain.

    It will easily be perceived that the only part of this Sonnet which is of any value is the lines printed in Italics: it is equally obvious that except in the rhyme, and in the use of the single word “fruitless” for fruitlessly, which is so far a defect, the language of these lines does in no respect differ from that of prose.

    Is there then, it will be asked, no essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition? I answer that there neither is nor can be any essential difference. We are fond of tracing the resemblance between Poetry and Painting, and, accordingly, we call them Sisters: but where shall we find bonds of connection sufficiently strict to typify the affinity betwixt metrical and prose composition? They both speak by and to the same organs; the bodies in which both of them are clothed may be said to be of the same substance, their affections are kindred and almost identical, not necessarily differing even in degree; Poetry (2) sheds no tears “such as Angels weep,” but natural and human tears; she can boast of no celestial Ichor that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose; the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both.

    If it be affirmed that rhyme and metrical arrangement of themselves constitute a distinction which overturns what I have been saying on the strict affinity of metrical language with that of prose, and paves the way for other distinctions which the mind voluntarily admits, I answer that the distinction of rhyme and metre is regular and uniform, and not, like that which is produced by what is usually called poetic diction, arbitrary and subject to infinite caprices upon which no calculation whatever can be made. In the one case, the Reader is utterly at the mercy of the Poet respecting what imagery or diction he may choose to connect with the passion, whereas in the other the metre obeys certain laws, to which the Poet and Reader both willingly submit because they are certain, and because no interference is made by them with the passion but such as the concurring testimony of ages has shewn to heighten and improve the pleasure which co-exists with it. It will now be proper to answer an obvious question, namely, why, professing these opinions have I written in verse? To this in the first place I reply, because, however I may have restricted myself, there is still left open to me what confessedly constitutes the most valuable object of all writing whether in prose or verse, the great and universal passions of men, the most general and interesting of their occupations, and the entire world of nature, from which I am at liberty to supply myself with endless combinations of forms and imagery. Now, granting for a moment that whatever is interesting in these objects may be as vividly described in prose, why am I to be condemned if to such description I have endeavoured to superadd the charm which by the consent of all nations is acknowledged to exist in metrical language? To this it will be answered, that a very small part of the pleasure given by Poetry depends upon the metre, and that it is injudicious to write in metre unless it be accompanied with the other artificial distinctions of style with which metre is usually accompanied, and that by such deviation more will be lost from the shock which will be thereby given to the Reader’s associations than will be counterbalanced by any pleasure which he can derive from the general power of numbers. In answer to those who thus contend for the necessity of accompanying metre with certain appropriate colours of style in order to the accomplishment of its appropriate end, and who also, in my opinion, greatly under-rate the power of metre in itself, it might perhaps be almost sufficient to observe that poems are extant, written upon more humble subjects, and in a more naked and simple style than what I have aimed at, which poems have continued to give pleasure from generation to generation. Now, if nakedness and simplicity be a defect, the fact here mentioned affords a strong presumption that poems somewhat less naked and simple are capable of affording pleasure at the present day; and all that I am now attempting is to justify myself for having written under the impression of this belief.

    But I might point out various causes why, when the style is manly, and the subject of some importance, words metrically arranged will long continue to impart such a pleasure to mankind as he who is sensible of the extent of that pleasure will be desirous to impart. The end of Poetry is to produce excitement in coexistence with an overbalance of pleasure. Now, by the supposition, excitement is an unusual and irregular state of the mind; ideas and feelings do not in that state succeed each other in accustomed order. But if the words by which this excitement is produced are in themselves powerful, or the images and feelings have an undue proportion of pain connected with them, there is some danger that the excitement may be carried beyond its proper bounds. Now the co-presence of something regular, something to which the mind has been accustomed when in an unexcited or a less excited state, cannot but have great efficacy in tempering and restraining the passion by an intertexture of ordinary feeling. This may be illustrated by appealing to the Reader’s own experience of the reluctance with which he comes to the re-perusal of the distressful parts of Clarissa Harlowe, or the Gamester. While Shakespeare’s writings, in the most pathetic scenes, never act upon us as pathetic beyond the bounds of pleasure—an effect which is in a great degree to be ascribed to small, but continual and regular impulses of pleasurable surprise from the metrical arrangement.—On the other hand (what it must be allowed will much more frequently happen) if the Poet’s words should be incommensurate with the passion, and inadequate to raise the Reader to a height of desirable excitement, then, (unless the Poet’s choice of his metre has been grossly injudicious) in the feelings of pleasure which the Reader has been accustomed to connect with metre in general, and in the feeling, whether chearful or melancholy, which he has been accustomed to connect with that particular movement of metre, there will be found something which will greatly contribute to impart passion to the words, and to effect the complex end which the Poet proposes to himself.

    If I had undertaken a systematic defence of the theory upon which these poems are written, it would have been my duty to develope the various causes upon which the pleasure received from metrical language depends. Among the chief of these causes is to be reckoned a principle which must be well known to those who have made any of the Arts the object of accurate reflection; I mean the pleasure which the mind derives from the perception of similitude in dissimilitude. This principle is the great spring of the activity of our minds and their chief feeder. From this principle the direction of the sexual appetite, and all the passions connected with it take their origin: It is the life of our ordinary conversation; and upon the accuracy with which similitude in dissimilitude, and dissimilitude in similitude are perceived, depend our taste and our moral feelings. It would not have been a useless employment to have applied this principle to the consideration of metre, and to have shewn that metre is hence enabled to afford much pleasure, and to have pointed out in what manner that pleasure is produced. But my limits will not permit me to enter upon this subject, and I must content myself with a general summary.

    I have said that Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, similar to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on; but the emotion, of whatever kind and in whatever degree, from various causes is qualified by various pleasures, so that in describing any passions whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the mind will upon the whole be in a state of enjoyment. Now if Nature be thus cautious in preserving in a state of enjoyment a being thus employed, the Poet ought to profit by the lesson thus held forth to him, and ought especially to take care, that whatever passions he communicates to his Reader, those passions, if his Reader’s mind be sound and vigorous, should always be accompanied with an overbalance of pleasure. Now the music of harmonious metrical language, the sense of difficulty overcome, and the blind association of pleasure which has been previously received from works of rhyme or metre of the same or similar construction, all these imperceptibly make up a complex feeling of delight, which is of the most important use in tempering the painful feeling which will always be found intermingled with powerful descriptions of the deeper passions. This effect is always produced in pathetic and impassioned poetry; while in lighter compositions the ease and gracefulness with which the Poet manages his numbers are themselves confessedly a principal source of the gratification of the Reader. I might perhaps include all which it is necessary to say upon this subject by affirming what few persons will deny, that of two descriptions either of passions, manners, or characters, each of them equally well-executed, the one in prose and the other in verse, the verse will be read a hundred times where the prose is read once. We see that Pope by the power of verse alone, has contrived to render the plainest common sense interesting, and even frequently to invest it with the appearance of passion. In consequence of these convictions I related in metre the Tale of GOODY BLAKE and HARRY GILL, which is one of the rudest of this collection. I wished to draw attention to the truth that the power of the human imagination is sufficient to produce such changes even in our physical nature as might almost appear miraculous. The truth is an important one; the fact (for it is a fact) is a valuable illustration of it. And I have the satisfaction of knowing that it has been communicated to many hundreds of people who would never have heard of it, had it not been narrated as a Ballad, and in a more impressive metre than is usual in Ballads.

    Having thus adverted to a few of the reasons why I have written in verse, and why I have chosen subjects from common life, and endeavoured to bring my language near to the real language of men, if I have been too minute in pleading my own cause, I have at the same time been treating a subject of general interest; and it is for this reason that I request the Reader’s permission to add a few words with reference solely to these particular poems, and to some defects which will probably be found in them. I am sensible that my associations must have sometimes been particular instead of general, and that, consequently, giving to things a false importance, sometimes from diseased impulses I may have written upon unworthy subject; but I am less apprehensive on this account, than that my language may frequently have suffered from those arbitrary connections of feelings and ideas with particular words, from which no man can altogether protect himself. Hence I have no doubt that in some instances feelings even of the ludicrous may be given to my Readers by expressions which appeared to me tender and pathetic. Such faulty expressions, were I convinced they were faulty at present, and that they must necessarily continue to be so, I would willingly take all reasonable pains to correct. But it is dangerous to make these alterations on the simple authority of a few individuals, or even of certain classes of men; for where the understanding of an Author is not convinced, or his feelings altered, this cannot be done without great injury to himself: for his own feelings are his stay and support, and if he sets them aside in one instance, he may be induced to repeat this act till his mind loses all confidence in itself and becomes utterly debilitated. To this it may be added, that the Reader ought never to forget that he is himself exposed to the same errors as the Poet, and perhaps in a much greater degree: for there can be no presumption in saying that it is not probable he will be so well acquainted with the various stages of meaning through which words have passed, or with the fickleness or stability of the relations of particular ideas to each other; and above all, since he is so much less interested in the subject, he may decide lightly and carelessly.

    Long as I have detained my Reader, I hope he will permit me to caution him against a mode of false criticism which has been applied to Poetry in which the language closely resembles that of life and nature. Such verses have been triumphed over in parodies of which Dr. Johnson’s Stanza is a fair specimen.

    “I put my hat upon my head,

    And walk’d into the Strand,

    And there I met another man

    Whose hat was in his hand.”

    Immediately under these lines I will place one of the most justly admired stanzas of the “Babes in the Wood.”

    “These pretty Babes with hand in hand

    Went wandering up and down;

    But never more they saw the Man

    Approaching from the Town.”

    In both of these stanzas the words, and the order of the words, in no respect differ from the most unimpassioned conversation. There are words in both, for example, “the Strand,” and “the Town,” connected with none but the most familiar ideas; yet the one stanza we admit as admirable, and the other as a fair example of the superlatively contemptible. Whence arises this difference? Not from the metre, not from the language, not from the order of the words; but the matter expressed in Dr. Johnson’s stanza is contemptible. The proper method of treating trivial and simple verses to which Dr. Johnson’s stanza would be a fair parallelism is not to say this is a bad kind of poetry, or this is not poetry, but this wants sense; it is neither interesting in itself, nor can lead to any thing interesting; the images neither originate in that sane state of feeling which arises out of thought, nor can excite thought or feeling in the Reader. This is the only sensible manner of dealing with such verses: Why trouble yourself about the species till you have previously decided upon the genus? Why take pains to prove that an Ape is not a Newton when it is self-evident that he is not a man.

    I have one request to make of my Reader, which is, that in judging these Poems he would decide by his own feelings genuinely, and not by reflection upon what will probably be the judgment of others. How common is it to hear a person say, “I myself do not object to this style of composition or this or that expression, but to such and such classes of people it will appear mean or ludicrous.” This mode of criticism so destructive of all sound unadulterated judgment is almost universal: I have therefore to request that the Reader would abide independently by his own feelings, and that if he finds himself affected he would not suffer such conjectures to interfere with his pleasure.

    If an Author by any single composition has impressed us with respect for his talents, it is useful to consider this as affording a presumption, that, on other occasions where we have been displeased, he nevertheless may not have written ill or absurdly; and, further, to give him so much credit for this one composition as may induce us to review what has displeased us with more care than we should otherwise have bestowed upon it. This is not only an act of justice, but in our decisions upon poetry especially, may conduce in a high degree to the improvement of our own taste: for an accurate taste in Poetry and in all the other arts, as Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed, is an acquired talent, which can only be produced by thought and a long continued intercourse with the best models of composition. This is mentioned not with so ridiculous a purpose as to prevent the most inexperienced Reader from judging for himself, (I have already said that I wish him to judge for himself;) but merely to temper the rashness of decision, and to suggest that if Poetry be a subject on which much time has not been bestowed, the judgment may be erroneous, and that in many cases it necessarily will be so.

    I know that nothing would have so effectually contributed to further the end which I have in view as to have shewn of what kind the pleasure is, and how the pleasure is produced which is confessedly produced by metrical composition essentially different from what I have here endeavoured to recommend; for the Reader will say that he has been pleased by such composition and what can I do more for him? The power of any art is limited and he will suspect that if I propose to furnish him with new friends it is only upon condition of his abandoning his old friends. Besides, as I have said, the Reader is himself conscious of the pleasure which he has received from such composition, composition to which he has peculiarly attached the endearing name of Poetry; and all men feel an habitual gratitude, and something of an honorable bigotry for the objects which have long continued to please them: we not only wish to be pleased, but to be pleased in that particular way in which we have been accustomed to be pleased. There is a host of arguments in these feelings; and I should be the less able to combat them successfully, as I am willing to allow, that, in order entirely to enjoy the Poetry which I am recommending, it would be necessary to give up much of what is ordinarily enjoyed. But would my limits have permitted me to point out how this pleasure is produced, I might have removed many obstacles, and assisted my Reader in perceiving that the powers of language are not so limited as he may suppose; and that it is possible that poetry may give other enjoyments, of a purer, more lasting, and more exquisite nature. But this part of my subject I have been obliged altogether to omit: as it has been less my present aim to prove that the interest excited by some other kinds of poetry is less vivid, and less worthy of the nobler powers of the mind, than to offer reasons for presuming, that, if the object which I have proposed to myself were adequately attained, a species of poetry would be produced, which is genuine poetry; in its nature well adapted to interest mankind permanently, and likewise important in the multiplicity and quality of its moral relations. From what has been said, and from a perusal of the Poems, the Reader will be able clearly to perceive the object which I have proposed to myself: he will determine how far I have attained this object; and, what is a much more important question, whether it be worth attaining; and upon the decision of these two questions will rest my claim to the approbation of the public.

    1.7.5: “Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known”

    Strange fits of passion I have known,

    And I will dare to tell,

    But in the lover’s ear alone,

    What once to me befel.

    When she I lov’d, was strong and gay

    And like a rose in June,

    I to her cottage bent my way,

    Beneath the evening moon.

    Upon the moon I fix’d my eye,

    All over the wide lea;

    My horse trudg’d on, and we drew nigh

    Those paths so dear to me.

    And now we reach’d the orchard plot,

    And, as we climb’d the hill,

    Towards the roof of Lucy’s cot

    The moon descended still.

    In one of those sweet dreams I slept,

    Kind Nature’s gentlest boon!

    And, all the while, my eyes I kept

    On the descending moon.

    My horse mov’d on; hoof after hoof

    He rais’d and never stopp’d:

    When down behind the cottage roof

    At once the planet dropp’d.

    What fond and wayward thoughts will slide

    Into a Lover’s head—

    “O mercy!” to myself I cried,

    “If Lucy should be dead!”

    1.7.6: “She Dwelt Among 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!

    1.7.7: “Lucy Gray”

    Oft had I heard of Lucy Gray,

    And when I cross’d the Wild,

    I chanc’d 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 rais’d his hook

    And snapp’d 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 wander’d up and down,

    And many a hill did Lucy climb

    But never reach’d 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 overlook’d the Moor;

    And thence they saw the Bridge of Wood

    A furlong from their door.

    And now they homeward turn’d, and cry’d

    “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 track’d the footmarks small;

    And through the broken hawthorn-hedge,

    And by the long stone-wall;

    And then an open field they cross’d,

    The marks were still the same;

    They track’d them on, nor ever lost,

    And to the Bridge they came.

    They follow’d 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.

    1.7.8: “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

    So sweetly to reposing bands

    Of Travellers in some shady haunt,

    Among Arabian Sands:

    No sweeter voice was ever 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 till I had my fill;

    And, as I mounted up the hill,

    The music in my heart I bore,

    Long after it was heard no more.

    1.7.9: “Resolution and Independence”

    There was a roaring in the wind all night;

    The rain came heavily and fell in floods;

    But now the sun is rising calm and bright;

    The birds are singing in the distant woods;

    Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;

    The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;

    And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

    All things that love the sun are out of doors;

    The sky rejoices in the morning’s birth;

    The grass is bright with rain-drops;—on the moors

    The Hare is running races in her mirth;

    And with her feet she from the plashy earth

    Raises a mist; which, glittering in the sun,

    Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

    I was a Traveller then upon the moor;

    I saw the Hare that raced about with joy;

    I heard the woods, and distant waters, roar;

    Or heard them not, as happy as a Boy:

    The pleasant season did my heart employ:

    My old remembrances went from me wholly;

    And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

    But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might

    Of joy in minds that can no farther go,

    As high as we have mounted in delight

    In our dejection do we sink as low,

    To me that morning did it happen so;

    And fears, and fancies, thick upon me came;

    Dim sadness, and blind thoughts

    I knew not nor could name.

    I heard the Sky-lark singing in the sky;

    And I bethought me of the playful Hare:

    Even such a happy Child of earth am I;

    Even as these blissful Creatures do I fare;

    Far from the world I walk, and from all care;

    But there may come another day to me—

    Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

    My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,

    As if life’s business were a summer mood;

    As if all needful things would come unsought

    To genial faith, still rich in genial good;

    But how can He expect that others should

    Build for him, sow for him, and at his call

    Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

    I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,

    The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride;

    Of Him who walked in glory and in joy

    Behind his plough, upon the mountain-side:

    By our own spirits are we deified;

    We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;

    But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.

    Now whether it were by peculiar grace,

    A leading from above, a something given,

    Yet it befel, that, in this lonely place,

    When up and down my fancy thus was driven,

    And I with these untoward thoughts had striven,

    I saw a Man before me unawares:

    The oldest Man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.

    My course I stopped as soon as I espied

    The Old Man in that naked wilderness:

    Close by a Pond, upon the further side,

    He stood alone: a minute’s space I guess

    I watched him, he continuing motionless:

    To the Pool’s further margin then I drew;

    He being all the while before me full in view.

    As a huge Stone is sometimes seen to lie

    Couched on the bald top of an eminence;

    Wonder to all who do the same espy

    By what means it could thither come, and whence;

    So that it seems a thing endued with sense:

    Like a Sea-beast crawled forth, which on a shelf

    Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself.

    Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead,

    Nor all asleep; in his extreme old age:

    His body was bent double, feet and head

    Coming together in their pilgrimage;

    As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage

    Of sickness felt by him in times long past,

    A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.

    Himself he propped, his body, limbs, and face,

    Upon a long grey Staff of shaven wood:

    And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,

    Beside the little pond or moorish flood

    Motionless as a Cloud the Old Man stood;

    That heareth not the loud winds when they call;

    And moveth altogether, if it move at all.

    At length, himself unsettling, he the

    Pond Stirred with his Staff, and fixedly did look

    Upon the muddy water, which he conn’d,

    As if he had been reading in a book:

    And now such freedom as I could I took;

    And, drawing to his side, to him did say,

    “This morning gives us promise of a glorious day.”

    A gentle answer did the Old Man make,

    In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew:

    And him with further words I thus bespake,

    “What kind of work is that which you pursue?

    This is a lonesome place for one like you.”

    He answered me with pleasure and surprise;

    And there was, while he spake, a fire about his eyes.

    His words came feebly, from a feeble chest,

    Yet each in solemn order followed each,

    With something of a lofty utterance drest;

    Choice word, and measured phrase; above the reach

    Of ordinary men; a stately speech;

    Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use,

    Religious men, who give to God and Man their dues.

    He told me that he to this pond had come

    To gather Leeches, being old and poor:

    Employment hazardous and wearisome!

    And he had many hardships to endure:

    From Pond to Pond he roamed, from moor to moor;

    Housing, with God’s good help, by choice or chance:

    And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.

    The Old Man still stood talking by my side;

    But now his voice to me was like a stream

    Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide;

    And the whole Body of the man did seem

    Like one whom I had met with in a dream;

    Or like a Man from some far region sent,

    To give me human strength, and strong admonishment.

    My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills;

    And hope that is unwilling to be fed;

    Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills;

    And mighty Poets in their misery dead.

    But now, perplex’d by what the Old Man had said,

    My question eagerly did I renew,

    “How is it that you live, and what is it you do?”

    He with a smile did then his words repeat;

    And said, that, gathering Leeches, far and wide

    He travelled; stirring thus about his feet

    The waters of the Ponds where they abide.

    “Once I could meet with them on every side;

    But they have dwindled long by slow decay;

    Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may.”

    While he was talking thus, the lonely place,

    The Old Man’s shape, and speech, all troubled me:

    In my mind’s eye I seemed to see him pace

    About the weary moors continually,

    Wandering about alone and silently.

    While I these thoughts within myself pursued,

    He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed.

    And soon with this he other matter blended,

    Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind,

    But stately in the main; and, when he ended,

    I could have laughed myself to scorn, to find

    In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.

    “God,” said I, “be my help and stay secure;

    I’ll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor.”

    1.7.10: “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

    Outdid 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.

    1.7.11: “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Immortality”

    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.

    Wordsworth, “My Heart Leaps Up”

    I

    There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

    The earth, and every common sight,

    To me did seem

    Apparelled in celestial light,

    The glory and the freshness of a dream.

    It is not now as it hath been of yore;—

    Turn wheresoe’er I may,

    By night or day,

    The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

    II

    The Rainbow comes and goes,

    And lovely is the Rose,

    The Moon doth with delight

    Look round her when the heavens are bare;

    Waters on a starry night

    Are beautiful and fair;

    The sunshine is a glorious birth;

    But yet I know, where’er I go,

    That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

    III

    Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,

    And while the young lambs bound

    As to the tabor’s sound,

    To me alone there came a thought of grief:

    A timely utterance gave that thought relief,

    And I again am strong:

    The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;

    No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; I hear the

    Echoes through the mountains throng,

    The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,

    And all the earth is gay;

    Land and sea

    Give themselves up to jollity,

    And with the heart of May

    Doth every Beast keep holiday;—

    Thou Child of Joy,

    Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy

    Shepherd-boy!

    IV

    Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call

    Ye to each other make; I see

    The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

    My heart is at your festival,

    My head hath its coronal,

    The fulness of your bliss, I feel— I feel it all.

    Oh evil day! if I were sullen

    While the 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 his Mother’s arm:—

    I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

    — But there’s a Tree, of many, one,

    A single Field which I have looked upon,

    Both of them speak of something that is gone:

    The Pansy at my feet

    Doth the same tale repeat:

    Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

    Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

    V

    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.

    VI

    Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;

    Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,

    And, even with something of a Mother’s mind,

    And no unworthy aim,

    The homely Nurse doth all she can

    To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,

    Forget the glories he hath known,

    And that imperial palace whence he came.

    VII

    Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years’

    Darling of a pigmy size!

    See, where ‘mid work of his own hand he lies,

    Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses,

    With light upon him from his father’s eyes!

    See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,

    Some fragment from his dream of human life,

    Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;

    A wedding or a festival,

    A mourning or a funeral;

    And this hath now his heart,

    And unto this he frames his song:

    Then will he fit his tongue

    To dialogues of business, love, or strife;

    But it will not be long

    Ere this be thrown aside,

    And with new joy and pride

    The little Actor cons another part;

    Filling from time to time his “humorous stage”

    With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

    That Life brings with her in her equipage;

    As if his whole vocation

    Were endless imitation.

    VIII

    Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

    Thy Soul’s immensity;

    Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep

    Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,

    That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,

    Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, —

    Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

    On whom those truths do rest,

    Which we are toiling all our lives to find,

    In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;

    Thou, over whom thy Immortality

    Broods like the Day, a Master o’er a Slave,

    A Presence which is not to be put by;

    To whom the grave

    Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight

    Of day or the warm light,

    A place of thought where we in waiting lie;

    Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might

    Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,

    Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

    The years to bring the inevitable yoke,

    Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?

    Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,

    And custom lie upon thee with a weight,

    Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

    IX

    O joy! that in our embers

    Is something that doth live,

    That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive!

    The thought of our past years in me doth breed

    Perpetual benediction: not indeed

    For that which is most worthy to be blest;

    Delight and liberty, the simple creed

    Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,

    With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: —

    Not for these I raise

    The song of thanks and praise;

    But for those obstinate questionings

    Of sense and outward things,

    Fallings from us, vanishings;

    Blank misgivings of a Creature

    Moving about in worlds not realised,

    High instincts before which our mortal Nature

    Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:

    But for those first affections,

    Those shadowy recollections,

    Which, be they what they may,

    Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,

    Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;

    Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

    Our noisy years seem moments in the being

    Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

    To perish never;

    Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,

    Nor Man nor Boy,

    Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

    Can utterly abolish or destroy!

    Hence in a season of calm weather

    Though inland far we be,

    Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea

    Which brought us hither,

    Can in a moment travel thither,

    And see the Children sport upon the shore,

    And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

    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 today

    Feel the gladness of the May!

    What though the radiance which was once so bright

    Be now for ever taken from my sight,

    Though nothing can bring back the hour

    Of splendour 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.

    XI

    And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

    Forebode not any severing of our loves!

    Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

    I only have relinquished one delight

    To live beneath your more habitual sway.

    I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,

    Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;

    The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

    Is lovely yet;

    The Clouds that gather round the setting sun

    Do take a sober colouring from an eye

    That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;

    Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

    Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

    Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

    To me the meanest flower that blows can give

    Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

    1.7.12: “Elegiac Stanzas”

    I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!

    Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:

    I saw thee every day; and all the while

    Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

    So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!

    So like, so very like, was day to day!

    Whene’er I looked, thy Image still was there;

    It trembled, but it never passed away.

    How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;

    No mood, which season takes away, or brings:

    I could have fancied that the mighty Deep

    Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things.

    Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter’s hand,

    To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,

    The light that never was, on sea or land,

    The consecration, and the Poet’s dream;

    I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile

    Amid a world how different from this!

    Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;

    On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.

    Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine

    Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;—

    Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine

    The very sweetest had to thee been given.

    A Picture had it been of lasting ease,

    Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;

    No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,

    Or merely silent Nature’s breathing life.

    Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,

    Such Picture would I at that time have made:

    And seen the soul of truth in every part,

    A stedfast peace that might not be betrayed.

    So once it would have been,—’tis so no more;

    I have submitted to a new control:

    A power is gone, which nothing can restore;

    A deep distress hath humanised my Soul.

    Not for a moment could I now behold

    A smiling sea, and be what I have been:

    The feeling of my loss will ne’er be old;

    This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.

    Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend,

    If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore,

    This work of thine I blame not, but commend;

    This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

    O ‘tis a passionate Work!—yet wise and well,

    Well chosen is the spirit that is here;

    That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell,

    This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

    And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,

    I love to see the look with which it braves,

    Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time,

    The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

    Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,

    Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!

    Such happiness, wherever it be known,

    Is to be pitied; for ‘tis surely blind.

    But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,

    And frequent sights of what is to be borne!

    Such sights, or worse, as are before me here.—

    Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

    1.7.13: Reading and Review Questions

    1. Why does the speaker in We Are Seven become so frustrated with the “little cottage Girl?” What is at stake in his argument with her?
    2. What, if anything, is significant about the site of Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey? Because of the Protestant Reformation in England, Abbeys there generally were ruins. How might the ruined Abbey frame the source(s) of consolation Wordsworth describes in this poem?
    3. Why are children closer to heaven than are adults? What’s the effect of that closeness? What causes the distancing from heaven that adults endure?
    4. What does Wordsworth mean when he talks about, and writes with, the common language of man? What, if anything, makes the language he uses in his poetry poetic?

    This page titled 1.7: William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Bonnie J. Robinson (University of North Georgia Press) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.