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William Wordsworth
- poems -
Publication Date:
2004
Publisher:
PoemHunter.Com - The World's Poetry Archive
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Wordsworth, born in his beloved Lake District, was the son of an attorney.
He went to school first at Penrith and then at Hawkshead Grammar school
before studying, from 1787, at St John's College, Cambridge - all of which
periods were later to be described vividly in The Prelude. In 1790 he went
with friends on a walking tour to France, the Alps and Italy, before arriving in
France where Wordsworth was to spend the next year.
Whilst in France he fell in love twice over: once with a young French woman,
Annette Vallon, who subsequently bore him a daughter, and then, once
more, with the French Revolution. Returning to England he wrote, and left
unpublished, his Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff - a tract in support of the
French Revolutionary cause. In 1795, after receiving a legacy, Wordsworth
lived with his sister Dorothy first in Dorset and then at Alfoxden, Dorset,
close to Coleridge.
In these years he wrote many of his greatest poems and also travelled with
Coleridge and Dorothy, in the winter of 1798-79, to Germany. Two years
later the second and enlarged edition of the Lyrical Ballads appeared in 1801,
just one year before Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson. This was
followed, in 1807, by the publication of Poems in Two Volumes, which
included the poems 'Resolution and Independence' and 'Intimations of
Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood'.
During this period he also made new friendships with Walter Scott, Sir G.
Beaumont and De Quincy, wrote such poems as 'Elegaic Stanzas suggested
by a Picture of Peele Castle' (1807), and fathered five children. He received a
civil list pension in 1842 and was made poet-laureate just one year later.
Today Wordsworth's poetry remains widely read. Its almost universal appeal
is perhaps best explained by Wordsworth's own words on the role, for him, of
poetry; what he called "the most philosophical of all writing" whose object is
"truth...carried alive into the heart by passion".
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DIRGE
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The young Lady to whom this was addressed was my Sister. It was
composed at school, and during my two first College vacations.
There is not an image in it which I have not observed; and now, in
my seventy-third year, I recollect the time and place where most
of them were noticed. I will confine myself to one instance:
I was an eye-witness of this for the first time while crossing the
Pass of Dunmail Raise. Upon second thought, I will mention another
image:
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Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray,
The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark away!
Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut
With a leisurely motion the door of his hut.
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. See Plutarch.
Serene, and fitted to embrace,
Where'er he turned, a swan-like grace
Of haughtiness without pretence,
And to unfold a still magnificence,
Was princely Dion, in the power
And beauty of his happier hour.
And what pure homage then did wait
On Dion's virtues, while the lunar beam
Of Plato's genius, from its lofty sphere,
Fell round him in the grove of Academe,
Softening their inbred dignity austere--
That he, not too elate
With self-sufficing solitude,
But with majestic lowliness endued,
Might in the universal bosom reign,
And from affectionate observance gain
Help, under every change of adverse fate.
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PART SECOND
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THE LARGEST OF A HEAP LYING NEAR A DESERTED QUARRY, UPON ONE OF THE
ISLANDS AT RYDAL
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www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 213
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.
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Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
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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.
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PROLOGUE
PART FIRST
PART SECOND
PART THIRD
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Nor sheep nor kine were near; the lamb was all alone,
And by a slender cord was tethered to a stone;
With one knee on the grass did the little Maiden kneel,
While to that mountain-lamb she gave its evening meal.
The lamb, while from her hand he thus his supper took,
Seemed to feast with head and ears; and his tail with pleasure
shook.
"Drink, pretty creature, drink," she said in such a tone
That I almost received her heart into my own.
Right towards the lamb she looked; and from a shady place
I unobserved could see the workings of her face:
If Nature to her tongue could measured numbers bring,
Thus, thought I, to her lamb that little Maid might sing:
"What ails thee, young One? what? Why pull so at thy cord?
Is it not well with thee? well both for bed and board?
Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can be;
Rest, little young One, rest; what is't that aileth thee?
"If the sun be shining hot, do but stretch thy woollen chain,
This beech is standing by, its covert thou canst gain;
For rain and mountain-storms! the like thou need'st not fear,
The rain and storm are things that scarcely can come here.
"Rest, little young One, rest; thou hast forgot the day
When my father found thee first in places far away;
Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wert owned by none,
And thy mother from thy side for evermore was gone.
"He took thee in his arms, and in pity brought thee home:
A blessed day for thee! then whither wouldst thou roam?
A faithful nurse thou hast; the dam that did thee yean
Upon the mountain-tops no kinder could have been.
"Thou know'st that twice a day I have brought thee in this can
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Fresh water from the brook, as clear as ever ran;
And twice in the day, when the ground is wet with dew,
I bring thee draughts of milk, warm milk it is and new.
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THE dwelling of this faithful pair
In a straggling village stood,
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For One who breathed unquiet air
A dangerous neighbourhood;
But wide around lay forest ground
With thickets rough and blind;
And pine-trees made a heavy shade
Impervious to the wind.
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'TIS sung in ancient minstrelsy
That Phoebus wont to wear
The leaves of any pleasant tree
Around his golden hair;
Till Daphne, desperate with pursuit
Of his imperious love,
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At her own prayer transformed, took root,
A laurel in the grove.
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THE ever-changing Moon had traced
Twelve times her monthly round,
When through the unfrequented Waste
Was heard a startling sound;
A shout thrice sent from one who chased
At speed a wounded deer,
Bounding through branches interlaced,
And where the wood was clear.
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He to a fellow-lodger's care
Had left it, to be watched and fed,
And pipe its song in safety;---there
I found it when my Son was dead;
And now, God help me for my little wit!
I bear it with me, Sir;---he took so much delight in it."
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Surprised By Joy
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<i>A Conversation</i>
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THE dwelling of this faithful pair
In a straggling village stood,
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 392
For One who breathed unquiet air
A dangerous neighbourhood;
But wide around lay forest ground
With thickets rough and blind;
And pine-trees made a heavy shade
Impervious to the wind.
III
'TIS sung in ancient minstrelsy
That Phoebus wont to wear
The leaves of any pleasant tree
Around his golden hair;
Till Daphne, desperate with pursuit
Of his imperious love,
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At her own prayer transformed, took root,
A laurel in the grove.
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THE ever-changing Moon had traced
Twelve times her monthly round,
When through the unfrequented Waste
Was heard a startling sound;
A shout thrice sent from one who chased
At speed a wounded deer,
Bounding through branches interlaced,
And where the wood was clear.
William Wordsworth
He to a fellow-lodger's care
Had left it, to be watched and fed,
And pipe its song in safety;---there
I found it when my Son was dead;
And now, God help me for my little wit!
I bear it with me, Sir;---he took so much delight in it.'
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Joyous as morning
Thou art laughing and scorning;
Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth
To be such a traveller as I.
Happy, happy Liver,
With a soul as strong as a mountain river
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both!
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<i>September, 1814</i>
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